Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 43 120909
Good evenin-er, morning! This week we're joined by Area5's Matt Chandronait and Bitmob's Dan Hsu to talk about Dante's Inferno, Pixeljunk Shooter, Qix++ and a lot more, then talk to Dan and Matt about the just-announced EGM Now partnership with Area5 and Bitmob. Then we close out with letters. Reborn Penis!This week's music, in order of appearance: Them Crooked Vultures - Caligulove; The Big Pink - At War With the Sun; Jesper Kyd - Ezio's Family
[MUSIC] Welcome to episode 43 of Rebel FM, it is 43, right? >> Yes. >> Okay. >> Which coincidentally might be just above what the temperature is outside. My name is Anthony Gaigos. >> My apartment. >> With me is Arthur Geese. >> Hi. >> Tyler Barber. >> Hey, what's going on? >> Area 5 is Matt Shandranet. >> Hello. >> And special guest Dan Shoe. >> Hey, what's coming up? >> So yeah, the format of the show is going to go a little bit something like where we're going to talk about the games we put and play in. And then we're going to talk about the transition that you guys are doing, moving to doing content for the new EGM. And we're going to field some user questions that you may or may not be able to answer. >> All right. >> Ideally, we'll give you as many as that you can't answer as possible, I think. >> Right, because nothing makes good radio like people going, I can't talk about that. >> Yeah. >> I was going to say awkward silence, but that's also good, but I'm pointing, we need to point out. >> And then beyond that, we'll take a few of our listener letters that have come in, probably all relationship ones, just to annoy the shit out of people that complain. >> We have one about personal grooming at least. >> Yeah. >> Awesome. >> So yeah, who wants to kick it off about games that they've been getting up? >> Well, how about we violate shoe, I mean, indoctrinate shoe. She would be the first, what have you been playing? >> Well, modern warfare too, it's kind of almost like an easy answer. >> Why, nobody's playing. >> What have you been playing? >> Yeah, I know. >> Modern warfare too. [LAUGH] My problem is I'm quite addicted to all facets of the game. I just got 100% beat it through on veteran. Wow. >> Why would you do that to yourself? >> I know, I just tortured myself for however many hours that took, but. >> How about that favela? >> Well, that sucks, and it very much sucks, in so many different parts. But achievements, that's all I can say. So I got 100% there, and then I started on spec ops by myself because I didn't have any friends. I don't have any friends. And I thought it was awesome, it was cooler than horde mode or firefight from Gears of War and Halo 3. So I thought that was really awesome, and also going after achievements there. But it's multiplayer, that's where I'm spending most of my time. It's like, I wrote about this, it's kind of hard to go back to playing games like Gears of War or Halo 3, because now that you have this metagame thing, you have progress, this progression system, and you know other people, your friends are playing and leveling up and getting better and getting cooler shit in the game, it's really hard to not want to play all the time, to kind of keep up. And a game is set up beautifully where, I'm sure everyone's talked about this a million times, but even if you're not the greatest player in the world, which I'm not, you're always earning points for something, like crouching the longest or running a lot or shooting people, like die, you know, if you die a lot. >> It's like the multiplayer shooter special Olympics. >> Yeah, so it's like you're constantly being rewarded little things all the time, emblems, titles, gear, and so it's just really addicting, because you could play for 45 minutes, get a few experience points, level up your guy, and it's still a lot of fun to me. >> What level are you currently in multiplayer? >> I'm in the 30s somewhere, so not terribly high. I haven't prestige over anything like that, but. >> Okay, so you can't quite javelin glitch just yet? >> No. >> You haven't tuddled it? >> I don't even know how to do the javelin glitch. Like, I know I've heard about it and I've heard about it, but I haven't done it. >> This is news to me. >> The javelin glitch is where, too. >> It involves a javelin or grenade and you basically trick the game into where it has a javelin armed and you run around with it out. And any time you get shot, you just blow up in like the same area of effect as a predator missile. And so people just take that with the infinite sprint perk, and they just sprint around the whole map the whole time just blowing up on people. And eventually the other team gets like terrified to shoot them, because they know that this guy sprinting at them is just like this walking, large area moment. >> That's hilarious. >> You can be banned for that. >> Well, good, I hope so, but it's still hilarious. >> Technically, they're suspending people, nothing. >> They consider those bans, they're not permanent. >> Temporary bans, yeah, temporary. It's like 24 or 48 dollars. >> For the first offense? >> I know since like the glitch, you know, gained popularity. I've seen it just about in every match I've played. >> Really? >> Every night, yeah. >> Man, I'm glad I haven't had time to play Modern Warfare 2 for a while. >> Yeah, I definitely report everyone on it. >> I mean, I play some iPhone games, you know, like just, like it's because it's so easy, it's so convenient to be playing your iPhone. >> That's okay, I like iPhone games. >> Yeah, like I'm playing this tower defense game called, I think it's called Dark Side Chronicles. I'm just grinding my guide and leveling it up. But yeah, console-wise, it's mainly Modern Warfare 2. I guess I play the Zombie Island DLC for Borderlands. >> How is that? >> It's pretty cool because it's aesthetically looks different from the rest of the game. Different enemies, so you have different enemy types and actions. And it's a little bit left for dead to-ish in terms of, you might be thinking, you're kind of used to all your enemies in on one side of you. You're like, you're facing them and then all of a sudden a zombie appears behind you and starts attacking you from behind. So it's kind of like that left for dead to where you'd never really feel safe. It's not traditional shooters where you always know your enemies are in front of you. So that was kind of cool and there's more gear there. There's like a special vending machine that you can only use once, but it has super high level stuff in there. >> And the DLC added achievements. >> Yeah, yeah, it has achievements. So that was pretty cool. And then it's weird too, I was really excited about Left 4 Dead 2, but because of Borderlands and Modern Warfare 2 specifically, I'm like, Left 4 Dead 2 can wait. >> Honestly, Left 4 Dead 2 on 360 is still a little bit broken. >> Yeah, it's not getting patched till later this month, I think. >> Yeah, like the netcode or their servers are fucked up and there's a ton of lag all the time. >> I played a little bit, it wasn't too bad, but now that I'm playing like kind of RPG elements in my shooters, it's hard to just go back to regular shooters now for me. >> Yeah. >> It's just a different role that you're playing. You're playing the role of the dude who's shooting his pants because there are too many zombies around. >> So being an achievement whore and being this susceptible to Modern Warfare 2's object lust, you've probably never played an MMO at the year. >> I played, this is going to be funny. >> I'm just saying that because I assume if you'd started playing one, you would be dead by now from lack of nourishment. >> Because I acknowledged that, that I actually purposely never touched wow. >> Got you. >> Like I know what it would do to me, so I kind of have to, because I'm like, it's not just achievements, but like I'll play Advance Wars or even Resistance, you know, like games, like if they have in-game achievements or something to collect, I have to have more, like I'll print out facts of like, start checking them off and all this kind of nonsense. So I purposely stay away from it. I tried Galaxy's and I tried, I think it's auto assault. >> Okay. You got no chance of getting hooked up. >> Yeah. >> That was like the best ones for you to try, really. >> So I knew, I'm like, okay, I won't try well because I know the problem there. >> Yeah. So if you play MMOs, you just try to go for the ones that aren't good. >> Yeah. >> Okay. >> Then I know I don't have to play for very long. >> That's wisdom right there. >> That's an excellent demonstration of self-preservation. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. >> You don't even know, like Fallout 3 was a lot of trouble for me. Like I found every bobblehead, I found weapons that most people don't know about. >> You have the Alien Blaster. >> The Alien Blaster, the experimental MIRV, or yeah, MIRV, it's just like eight mini nukes at once. >> I think I found that one, actually. >> It's pointless, it's ridiculous, but I had to get it. >> It's no hunting rifle. >> Yeah. The worst was I made a printout of every schematic weapon. And again, before I even got those plans to build those weapons, and every possible ingredient to build those weapons, I spent the whole game collecting every place I went. I searched every box, every cabinet, everything throughout the whole level. And then if I'm like, oh, a can of turpentine, I'll keep it in my thing. And when I'm like, I got over encumbered. I go back to town, dump it off in my apartment, and then go back out to continue. >> So Anthony, you hear this? You never get to give me shit about achievements again? >> No, I can. It's just you're a milder version. >> I still give you shit. >> I don't know. What's your gamer score, Chew? >> I think it's like 30,000 or so. >> Really? >> That's it? >> So I'm not like guys like Will Tuttle, for example. >> Okay, that's the comparison I was going to try to make, was if you were. >> You don't play shitty games for achievements. >> I've done that once or twice. Like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and that avatar or whatever crap. >> Last Airbender. >> But in general, I'll commit, I might spend 10 hours going after one achievement versus spending that 10 hours to play as many games as possible to raise my score. It's still achieving, but it's a different category. >> Yeah, you're more of a super completionist than quite achievement-horring. >> Yeah, so what have you been playing? >> Longing lustful looks also don't translate well over radio. >> I've been, well, I actually have been playing some Left 4 Dead 2 on PC and I freaking love it. It's so good. It's so much better than Left 4 Dead 1 that it absolutely is deserving of a sequel, I think. So the whole thing back when it was announced and they haven't done enough with Left 4 Dead 1 yet, I don't buy that anymore. I think Left 4 Dead 2 is the reason why I saw it. >> See, that's how I did the review for it. >> Were you part of that sort of the no brigade when that was announced? >> No brigade. >> Like the people that are like, "No, it's too soon, give us DLC." >> No, I mean, I kind of understood what they were saying because Valve has demonstrated, at least through Team Fortress 2, that they can do really interesting things and really give their games a long tail when they apply themselves through the DLC. So, I mean, I could understand where people were coming from, but seeing Left 4 Dead 2 at E3 and now seeing it at retail, I feel it's fully deserving of the number two behind its name. >> Yeah, you know, I was talking with my friends today about the sequels of our favorite games and just a phenomenon of a bunch of my buddies back home in Houston. Like, they're not hardcore gamers, but they definitely get a game and we'll stick with it. Like, we all played Modern Warfare Call of Duty 4, the previous one, but one of my friends in particular didn't pick it up and a bunch of others that did didn't really, it didn't stick with them. They felt like there was too much new stuff, they added too much, and they felt the same way with Halo 2, like with the dual wielding and all that stuff. And I almost feel like Left 4 Dead 2 is like the perfect amount of not too much extra, you know, staying close to the original formula without overloading it, because even though I'm loving Modern Warfare 2, you know, I feel like things like Killstreaks and these have replaced like grenade spamming. >> Right, it's like ice cream with ice cream on top. >> Yes, but I love it. Some kids like ice cream and bacon. >> And I still haven't had a chance to play Modern Warfare 2, I really want to, but I don't know the games for co-op. No, not at all, I haven't even touched it. >> See now, what I tell people in your shoes, I'm like, play Modern Warfare 2 now, because you have a lot of friends playing it, and before they're all prestige, and you know, this cool stuff. Like, you should play it now, because Left 4 Dead 2, for me, this is my opinion, but it won't really matter if I wait till January. >> It really will, if you want to play multiplayer, actually. >> But I see it, but you know, I'm playing it on PC. And on PC, I don't mind hopping into a Left 4 Dead 2 match with any random player, because the people that I find on servers are generally much better behaved than Xbox. >> It's true, and they actually listen to me when I start, when I'm the only person using voice chat, they're like, "Oh, someone is speaking." We should listen. >> And in Left 4, you know, like, I'll hop into any random Left 4 Dead 2 game, and I'll just start talking to the people right away, and we start working together as a team, and it's really cool. But I have been playing Left 4 Dead 2, because we're going to cover it on the show, and we have other guys that are playing Modern Warfare 2, because we're going to cover the multiplayer for later on our show as well. So it's kind of, you know, we have to divide and conquer with the resources given to us, so I just don't have the ability to play Modern Warfare 2 right now. The other game, I started playing again and had to stop myself as Dragon Age, because I've already beaten it, and I've played through most of the origin stories, and I hopped back in, and I started to play it, and before I knew it was a four and a half hours was going on. >> What were you playing? >> I was playing a human noble, and I had already gotten, like, way past where you become a Grey Warden, and was, like, going out into the world, just trying to do things in a different order just to see what would happen, and trying to befriend different NPCs, and stuff like that to see what would happen. >> What did you play as your first time? >> I played a Delish Rogue. Daily Shelf Rogue. >> Oh, The City Hills? >> The Incorrect Answer. >> And then, but-- >> I thought he was looking for Dwarven Fighter. >> I played the Dwarven Origin story, the Dwarven Commoner Origin story. >> Oh, I played the Noble. >> The Dwarven Noble is the only origin story I haven't played yet, but the Dwarven Commoner one is super cool. >> The Dwarven Noble one's pretty rad, too, only because you're just, like, it gives you the most-- I mean, I don't do it, but it does give you huge opportunities to be a dick, and, like, because, like, Dwarves have such a hierarchical society that anytime someone comes up and speaks to you, if they speak directly to you, not to, like, your second, which is, like, the guy they're supposed to talk to, not directly at you. >> Right. >> Your guy would be like, "Should I kill him?" You'd be like, "Yes, you should." >> So, man, wow, I didn't even know that-- I was playing the Dwarven Commoner. Yeah, I didn't even know that that. >> Yeah, the Dwarven Commoner one is because, you know, you are a member of, like, their cash flows, you know, so it's, like, you're the lowest of the low, and you start out, like, working for a crime lord, basically, and so it's a really compelling sequence of events, and, yeah, Dragon Age, it's, you know, after playing that game for 80 hours, I want to go back and I want to play it again. >> Do all the origins in that game culminate in some, like, giant bloodbath? >> No. >> Okay. >> Well, more or less, yeah. >> Oh, okay. >> I mean, it's Dragon Age. That game is all about, like, blood. >> Dragon's age is in blood, yeah. >> Lots of blood. >> Yep. And, yeah, that's pretty much all I've been playing currently. >> Tyler, what have you been playing? >> I've been playing layout magazines. Yeah, this is like, you know, I do one magazine a month, and then there's another magazine I do that's, like, every other month. So, every other month, I'm hit with, like, two deadlines at the end of the month, and this was one of those. So, the only game I really played during my breaks was Modern Warfare 2, because I'm loving it. Like, what I'm getting out of Modern Warfare 2 that I didn't get out of the first one is, I'm really trying to go in and just be as efficient as possible with leveling up. Like, I'm getting every gun and, like, getting up to, like, the 300-kill count, and then moving on to the next one, and it's being, like, real methodical about it, but what I'm enjoying about it is my first time through Modern Warfare, you know, Modern Warfare, you know, I would mostly use, like, the M16, you know, the standbys, but, like, now, like, I'm, you know, I'm trying light machine guns, and I'm even trying to sniper rifle for my first time, and, oh, my God, dude, when you get a headshot in that game with a sniper rifle, and I'm, I feel like I'm sort of a natural, like, I'm getting a lot. Dude, it's, oh, man, it's almost, like, orgasmic. It's, like, oh, yes. It feels so fucking good. I don't know, but, um, yeah, so I'm just loving that, and, um, yeah, it's, like, you're saying, Dan, the whole, the whole thing, because, like, all my friends, a lot of my friends are playing Modern Warfare 2 as well, and, and the whole, like, just comparing your, your gear and stuff, like, you know, they're, they're, they're much higher level than me because, you know, they're not, they don't have to play a bunch of different games a week, so they're, you know, I'm always basically, like, you know, they're, I hear them talking about, like, oh, man, I got this badass gun, or I got this badass perk, and then, so, just gets me thinking, like, oh, I can't wait till I get there, and then, I'm gonna make this class. I just like, to pause this and rewind it a second to where you said they don't have to play a bunch of different games in a week. And then we can roll back forward again. Right. Well, I mean, uh, you know, like, they're, they are not in game journalism. What's what? Games writing, any sort of capacity. I just hope this being a game is enjoying, you know. Yeah. I just hope they need to point that out, because I know that invariably someone in the comments will be a douchebag about it, so I will be the douchebag about it first. Well, I don't understand what's the douche thing, because it, because it sounds like you're whining that you have to play a bunch of games. Oh, no, no, not at all. I'm just saying, um, you know, I'm not whining. You're just sound, you just sound wistful. Well, it is. I fully understand that because I remember back before I was in games media, you know, I would, I'd hop on a game, a multiplayer game, and that'd be the only game I would play for like three months. Right. I understand. I just, no matter how much I might want to do that, no matter how much I might want to play dragon age again, or, you know, how much I might want to just keep playing TF2 every single day, I can't do it because I have all these other ones that I have to play. Those, those people out there have no idea how bad we've got it. Like all my entire Thanksgiving break, all I wanted to do is play dragon age instead of playing fucking saboteur. Yeah. Um, the, oh, I actually forgot one of those, uh, pixel junk shooter. Oh, yeah. That game is so good. Yeah, it's, uh, it's very, very short, but it has a ton of replay value because you're constantly going back, trying to save all the guys, and you're trying to like get all of these diamonds, you know, like the little collectible items. But just the game itself is great. It's, it's, it's totally worth the 10 bucks. Isn't that the MO for pixel junk games? Like for them to be short with a lot of replay value? Not really no. Like pixel junk, well, with racers kind of, but, uh, that game just took a long, long, long time to master. But with monsters and Eden, those games are just really long. I mean, I, I have not played any pixel junk games this year. Well, Eden, they did design for you to go back, like you play through it once. And then, you know, I mean, that they sort of make you do that. Right. But each time you go back, like you're, you're going further into the stage. Yes. The stage is gigantic. Yeah. And then they had the, the expansion on top of it as well. And, and then of course with, uh, uh, with monsters, you know, it's a tower defense game and tower defense games always take a million years to get through. One of the best ever. Yeah. I love the tower defense genre, but I've never played pixel junk monsters. I feel like I need to. Like got to. I love that genre and I'm telling you, you need to play that game. Oh man. And I love pixel junk games too, man. Oh, it's so good. So, so Matt, I got a question for you about the pixel junk shooter. Yeah. Is the world, is it one seamless world or is it broken up into stages? Broken up into stages. Okay. I was thinking for some reason it might have been like shadow complex where it's one giant map and you explore it through. That might have been really cool, but no. Okay. That was just in my, my magic. That was wistful thinking. Yes. Really just about the fluid dynamics. It's so cool because, you know, how we've all played, uh, games that have physics puzzles in them, you know, but, but the, the puzzle solving that you do in this game is based off all the fluid dynamics. It's so cool. Cause it's, you got like water and lava and this sort of viscous oil like substance. It's magnetic that come that like kind of moves toward your ship as you fly by it. Um, but if it touches water, it sublimates instantly into explosive gas that if the gas gets hit by lava, then the gas explodes kind of in sequence. What is this game exactly? Like, I, when I picture it, the way you're describing it sounds like, are you like a little guy or is it like your ship? Yeah, your, your little, it's pixel junk shooter, you know, like a ships on like a 2D shooter on a screen. And yeah, you're just little ships and you're rescuing little, little guys in like environmental suits, as well as like fighting bosses and enemies and using the liquids to your advantage. And you also, of course, uh, you can get, well, maybe not of course, but you get suits. Like, you get the, the lava suit or the water suit so that you're actually shooting out the liquids as well. And to interact with each other. It's really cool. The game is, you know, just like every other pixel junk game is totally awesome. Man, I can't wait to try it. No, he shouldn't. It's like a good European Mega Man. My cat is actually, uh, the cat that we just paused to go save. She was going to the bathroom now because she didn't have the decency to do that outside during her adventures. Right. Pixel Dark Shooter sounds kind of like some weird European Mega Man revival or something. Not really. It's, it's just like everything else that, uh, Q Games does in their pixel drink series is that it's reminiscent of so many other things, but it's a total unique experience. Anyway, um, so sorry to derail Tyler's what I've been playing. Oh, no, Tyler hasn't been playing a whole lot though. That's the thing. Right. Yeah. So now it's game was boring. His selection. Um, what about, was there anything else you're playing, Tyler? Uh, I finished Wired, the Wired last night. The Wire, the show, the Wire. Because I'm doing here. Who is it? I don't understand. This is a gaming podcast. You might be at the wrong place. But this is a big thing for me. Let's not talk. Let's not talk too much about it. All I can say about the season finale of the Wire is full circle. Full circle is all you need to say. And it just makes me hopeful that loss can patched up as nicely. It's just nice because season five. I doubt it. Season five of the Wire spends so much time breaking your heart. Yes. And then it finally, it's like it tries to kiss and make up. It brings you a box of chocolates at the very end. Yeah. So, uh, I don't know. Am I the only one here who likes silent Hill Games? No, I love them. Really? I don't think they're that good, but I, well, I have you. That's a complicated relationship. Have you checked out the one that just came out for we, the one that's like the reimagining of the first one? No, I haven't. A lot of people don't like it. Wait, is Shatter Memories is a reimagining of the first Silent Hill? Yeah. I don't know it. You play as Harry Mason looking for your daughter after a car accident. See, I don't blame anyone for not getting that because it's confusing with origins and, you know, there's just so many Silent Hills recently. They're kind of like, yeah, this is a remake of some other game. So, so all of them have been their own game, except for like this one is technically a reimagining, though it's like completely different. Like, you're still Harry Mason looking for your daughter, except in this one, there's no cult of Silent Hill or anything like that. The story has nothing to do with weird gods or anything like that. They actually explain the whole why the world changes in a totally different way. Wow. So beyond it, just having like a few characters that you'll recognize by name, like they're still cop named Sibyl, stuff like that, but it's a completely different game. Like, there's actually no combat in it whatsoever. You can never defend yourself. Anytime there's monsters, you run from them. And there's no loading between doors. So during the parts where there are monsters, you can't like run through a door to save yourself. They come through right through the doors too. So they're always just running. I did see a lot of hiding under a bed. Yeah, you can hide from them and stuff, but only for like short periods of time, because they'll smell you out. It's kind of like that Capcom game, uh, haunting ground, I think it's called. You don't think they're all in the dog and the monster. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I mean, uh, that that PS3 siren blood curse was a lot like that too, where a lot of times you usually just ran for monsters. But, uh, so it doesn't even take place in Simon Hill? It does. It takes place in the town of Silent Hill. That's pretty much the only reason it's a Silent Hill game in a lot of ways and that they do the world changing thing, except when the world changes and this one, it doesn't like it changes to like this crazy, you know, like weird S&M sort of world as much as it changes into a world filled with ice, like everything freezes and the road breaks as ice comes up out of the road and stuff. And for a Wii game, it actually looks really cool. And it has some of like the best Wii specific controls I've ever seen, like in a game, like where they don't feel like tacked on and annoying, like, uh, the way that you interact with the world is no longer going around mashing like X, X, X, X, X to see if there's something you can pick up or waggling your remote all the time. Exactly. So in this, the way it is is that, uh, anything that you can interact with will have like an arrow above it to show you. And, uh, in the way that you interact with the world is like, in a very, our generations or ways you use your cell phone all the time, which is mapped to the Wii remote really well. So like, like you'll pull up a cell phone, you'll like be like, go to camera function, you'll like take a picture of it and it might reveal something as you take a picture of it, or you might take a picture of it so you can remember it later. But like using your GPS, everything on your map is all done through your cell phone. You'll see things like through the environment, like, uh, where he'll, where you'll see a note that's like, uh, hey, I know you can't, you have a hard time remembering the combination to the safe. So you can call my voicemail and I'll leave the combination there. And so you'll actually have to put your cell phone call up the dude's voicemail to hear it, stuff like that. Like, uh, and, uh, the mapping the flashlight, which is like, it's super dark world. So mapping the flashlight to the pointer actually works really well. And since, uh, there's no loading in between doors, when you open a door, you can open the door at the speed you want. So you can like lean through and poke your flashlight through and like look before you go to see if it's okay or not. Oh, that's scary. Yeah. Um, it's not as scary as you would think though, because like in the normal world when it's, there's never monsters in it, there's only monsters in like the fucked up world. And in those sequences, you're pretty much always running. Like it should have been like a, a two hour game with the concepts they had, but they make it like a six hour game. So it does get a little repetitious, but they have like some really awesome ideas that if they had someone that wrote a really excellent story, like the story's still in satisfyingly, but, uh, if the, if they had someone that wrote like a really awesome Silent Hill story, it could be like an excellent game rather than just a good game. Like the coolest part they do is they, in between sections of the game, they do these, uh, first-person therapy sessions with a therapist, and he asks you a bunch of questions and they all have tangible effects in the game. So like, uh, when he asks you about what you were like in high school and stuff, if you answer with all these like sexually charged answers, then like the monsters you face will have like penis looking things hanging off them. And like the cop sibble will be like a sexy cop, like Halloween, rather than like when the way I answered, I got like a cop that looked like she's just like a nun. CSI or something. Right. And there's like more specific ones, like there's like a part where you have to like pick what your ideal house would look like and how you would paint it and you paint it and stuff. And then when you see your house where you lived at in Silent Hill, that's like what it looks like. So just little questions like that. And then at the very end during the ending credit sequence, it has like the doctor doing his notes after the therapy sessions over and typing out what your personality's like. And it was actually strikingly accurate of what type of person I am. It was kind of under thing. So yeah, they just do a lot of really cool things with psychology. But was it strikingly accurate in that kind of, it wasn't striking accurate in like the ghost show where he's like a four mom's trying to talk to you. Right. No, no, no, actually it was some of it was super specific because it is kind of like filling out a personality test throughout the duration of the whole game. That's actually really a lot of weird many games like pick which of these people are sleeping and which ones are dead in pictures and then you have to sort it out and then he'll tell you like, oh, actually they're all dead. And well, that's that's a really interesting thing about, you know, our the medium that we love so much is interactive and yet they never really try to bring the player into the world as other than, you know, some kind of third person representation of you. It's like, you know, to place parts of your own psyche into the game world is something that I don't think I've ever heard of a game doing before. Yeah. And that's why it was like such a refreshing, like welcome thing to like Silent Hill because the Silent Hill games is like one was cool, two was amazing, three was still pretty good. And then after that, they've been getting like just kind of, it's kind of the idea of what they do is kind of getting tired, even though I like them. But this one, it's like, yeah, if they could just let that team like get tacked on to like a really awesome story, like everything else was there because it's still has like the music from the guy that's been doing all the other Silent Hill games that can't remember his name, you know, something or other. Yeah, I mean, I thought it was I thought it was pretty decent. So awesome. I mean, especially for, you know, developer that that's not like they're not the Silent Hill developer, you know, climax. How do you feel about the Silent Hill composer waving at me? I mean, in theory, like someone else could do equally ominous, crazy music. I mean, that is a little disappointing, but you know, I don't feel that it ultimately makes that big of a difference if they can get someone that can still do scary music in the future. He's now sitting in the chair and crying because of you. But I do think that that game will probably do terribly. Like, I don't think that a lot of people want that sort of experience on Wii, which is too bad because it's also coming out for PS2 and PSP. And I guarantee you neither of those ones will be as good because a lot of what made it so cool for me was the Wii specific controls, even though there are some dumb controls to it too. Like, like, are there somebody doing like the most ridiculous one? Like, there's a part where you're trying to get away from monsters and you and you just like woke up from really bad accident. Someone took you to the hospital. So you're actually doing wheelchair motions. So you're sitting there, like making the motion like you're in a way and I was sitting down when I was doing it. And one of our coworkers walked by and he's like, are you in a wheelchair in the game? Like, without actually seeing the screen. And I was like, yes, I am. And then not a day later, we were at the grocery store and wait, there's this lady in a wheelchair wheeling herself out of the grocery store and we both look and then we both say how we're not going to make the same joke. But it was the Wii controls were strangely accurate to the motion of, but you know, that being said, they're kind of annoying doing that. That's not the type of thing I want to do. But doing things like receiving a phone call with the speaker up to my ear because that's how all the phones, like messages are played. It doesn't come through the TV speakers. All that actually those little things did add a lot of immersive stuff that I, a lot of times in other games, they just do it in such a way that it feels like tacked on or annoying. But in this one, it totally was not like that at all. So I liked, I liked that game overall. And what's cool about that to me is, you know, I was a psychology major in college, you know, it's what my degree is in. And, you know, like when I was, when I was checking out like heavy rain and, oh man, some other actually, some other thriller game at E3, you know, I sat down and I asked him, I was like, you know, can you cite any like studies or any, you know, anything that really pulls from psychology that you're sort of implementing into the game. And they're like, oh, no, we're just kind of just doing like psychological thriller stuff. But it, the way the sign hill, the whole personality test man, that's, that sounds awesome. It sounds like they looked a lot at like, what's that the personality test called? War shark test? Yeah, it sounds like they looked a lot in that. And then they combined that with some basic ideas of like, Oh, no, I was just thinking of the ink bot test. But you mean like, the personality test that gives you like, you know, the one that where you're like, Myers brig, the Myers brig. So it sounds like they, it looks like they combine. Is that what I said? Yeah, TJ out. So it's not so much of the ps3. So it's like they combined Myers brig with like stuff like ink bot test and stuff, because there are ink bot tests, like they combined it with like someone went through and read like some studies they used to do to profile people. It looks like they combined that with the Myers brig and then made this game. I mean, it's something like they threw in some Freudian psychoanalysis. Oh, there's definitely some Freudian stuff, because sex is a big deal. But it's, it's like, I just thought that that was like the coolest part of that game. Like a call, like, you know, in my review, I said that calling it a silent hill game is almost like a little disingenuous in a way that it's like, it takes place inside hill, but it's more just like an awesome, or at least a good mystery adventure game, like just a good adventure game that has some scary parts to it. So no pyramid head. There's no pyramid head. No, there's only one type of monster ever. Yeah. But I also played been playing my DS a little bit since I got a DS high, and I checked out that the Mario mini's game, the mini's March again, where it's, it's like one of the first DSi where games that came out, and it's actually really good. It's basically a little puzzle game where you have to activate these little mechanical marios, and they're a lot like lemmings where they just go forward and jump if there's like something to jump. And it's a really basic, super basic concept, but they do a lot of really cool things with the levels, like the way you have to change them because they can't ever stop. You know, he basically, it's kind of like a, it's more like a, a really, really, really simple, not beautiful version of that LucasArts game you liked. Lucidity. Lucidity. Yeah, where it's like you just have to change things in the level to make sure they reach the end. Don't you dare compare Mario to Lucidity. Hey, that's why I said a really, really basic and not beautiful version. Don't you dare. So yeah, and beyond that, I've also been playing Bookworm, which maybe people played like years ago, but I've never played it until I played the pop-cap version. Yeah, I haven't played it either, but like. And it's awesome. Yeah, of course. Of course, because pop-cap made it. Yep. Yeah, I mean, uh, you know, it's basically heavier. Listen to you, of course. I know I haven't, but I'm, I'm familiar with the mascot. You know, it's basically like a, a crossword game where you, if the letters are connected, you can draw words. Ah. And then when you draw them, they just peer new letters dropping. Okay. And there are certain blocks letters, you know, that if they reach the bottom, it's game over. So it's just a really slow pace game that like, works your vocabulary. It's very much edutainment, but it's a lot of fun. It's like five bucks on the DSI word thing. It's educational heroin. Yeah. Well, yeah, I mean, it's a pop-cap game, so they really do know how to take like a stupid idea. And like, when you do a word, sometimes it'll like tell you the definition on the other screen, just in case you were wondering. So I find all that quite thrilling in a, that's cool. And I'm not so exciting sort of way for word nerds. Yeah. You also continue to poop sock fall out three. Yeah, I've been a, I have not actually, I'm like currently in the main quest, I'm supposed to, my, like, I'm just at the part where your dad spoilers, where your dad dies in it. And you know, as the Enclave comes and takes it, the facility. So beyond that, that's where I stopped the main quest. And since then I've just been doing the DLC. So like last week, you know, I told you, I'd done Mothership Zeta and... Mothership Zeta's great. Anchorage. You've been Anchorage. And since then I've now done The Pit, and I am working on completing Point Lookout. Which is the best one. I mean, did you play The Pit, Arthur? I didn't play The Pit, because honestly everything I heard from everyone was that The Pit was just so, so, and it was also super important. I think the Pit is like a... I thought The Pit was better than Anchorage. The Pit is a lot more like, similar to other parts of Fallout as far as like thematically, but like the atmosphere of The Pit and stuff, they did like such a good job of like creating this, this other world, where it's like here how, here are how these other people are surviving in the apocalypse. They aren't living in a wasteland, they live in like a ruined city, and it's all industrial, and so yeah, they like collect steel. It looked unstable as hell while you were playing it though. Yeah, I did have some really bad stability problems. I don't know if that's just me or what. Yeah, it was pretty... I haven't had any problem with the Fallout DLC, but yeah. I'm curious, you played The Pit? Matt, how did, and you probably did choose you? I don't, I downloaded the one that lets me go to level 30. Okay, yeah, that's the only way he just begins to level 30, yeah. Okay, yeah, so The Pit is like the Pittsburgh, and there's like this guy that rules it with like an iron fist, and he insulates the populace, and he has a child that you find out, I'm gonna spoil some stuff for people, I don't really care. I think it's far enough past the, you know, the statute of limitations. Yeah, he has a child that basically you find out is the cure for like all this radiation sickness that everyone's getting, she's like completely immune to radiation sickness, so you're gonna, so you're working with a guy to help them take the kid, and so at some point you find out it's a child though, because you don't know, and you have to make the choice, like am I gonna kidnap this baby, and like, so I kidnap the baby. Of course Anthony made the choice to kidnap the baby. I generally play the game good, this is one of those quests where I was hard to tell like what is the good choice. Well that's The Pit in general, who's like that the whole way through it. Yeah, because I was like, is this guy really a bad guy, or is he really trying to help them, and he's just like enslaving them because that's the only way he can, but like uh, and so yeah you take the baby and then like you have the choice of like giving it back at one point or killing him, because you have to like unleash these monsters into the town and just let them kill him and his wife and everyone, which I did, and I gave him the baby, and they're like don't worry we're not gonna hurt it that much, or something like that. I was like what have I done? Yeah that was like, I was like the most like conflicted I've ever had like a moral decision in that game where I didn't know what was good. I think ultimately I picked the good choice, I'm still not sure. I don't know if I did either, because I picked the other choice, and then like the the town went crazy and all the slaves rose up, you know. Yeah that's the one I did too. Yeah and you had to kill the slaves? No I fought with the slaves. Okay yeah that's what I did too. Yeah I took the baby. Oh is that what that one ended up doing? I took the baby, and then the slaves revolted and then I fought with him. Yeah see I didn't know if that was the right choice either, but that's the way the pit is the pit it doesn't have near the same black and white as the rest of the game does, and the rest of the deals. Right and I love the way that in the pit they take away all your weapons and gear, and they really do make it feel like like like the pit is like the closest the game feels like Mad Max or something like that. For sure. Because you're like with all these guys that are ruling by guns and then there's all and then everyone's fighting with like these converted power tools and stuff like that, and there's like... Which are awesome weapons too. Yeah they are that was like my favorite weapon especially you just roll up someone like completely, that one felt the most satisfying to like pet someone apart. They're special team to turn her appearance anywhere. It might evolve then. But yeah it was I thought the pit was a really cool piece of DLC. Like the DLC in that game has actually been pretty exceptional in general. That being said I will say I've only ever found three bobbleheads the whole time I've played that game, and I am... They're impossible to do without a fact. And I am like 40 hours in, and I'm only and I'm level only. I'm level 24. They're not impossible if you take the level 20 perk, the thing that reveals everything on the map, because then basically you go everywhere. Well but even going everywhere I guarantee you I've probably not seen some like I by chance saw the one that's in the one vault full of all the garys. Oh yeah yeah. Because like that one I didn't have a quest to go there anything. I just don't want it. Well no you have to find a specific vault like in the main quest line. You have to find a particular vault. So you would have gone to those anyway. There are some that are like in optional areas that even if you know it's on a map there's no real motivation for you to ever visit it. Yeah like there's some that are closed off to you if you progress far enough in the main mission. Oh really? You can never there's like three out of the 20 that you can never go back. Well I think it's two there's the one that's in vault 101 and then there's the one in the the enclave stronghold. One or one I think you could go back to. You can go back once. And then you have to do it. Yeah you just have a window. Yeah you you can either do it when you're in there the first time or the one time you go back. Otherwise you're always sealed out. Or you're on the PC version you just bring up the console and do create items. Yeah if you're you're a bastard. I don't know if you can uh can get the hand-to-hand bobblehead if you kill everyone in ten penny tower without a talking to daring dashwood. But yeah oh yeah daring dashwood yeah yeah because if you talk to him he sends you to go find the body of his school companion. Oh well he told me to let he never gave me a quest he just told me like let me know if you find them. Yeah that's all he ever told me. I think you if you do that then you can find that bobblehead. Um and yeah and then point look out that's another weird one because that's actually one where I'm not currently sure like what the moral morally correct decision is in that one so I don't want you to tell me because I haven't done it. The morally correct decision in that one is just to kill all hillbillies. That's that's what I'm gonna do. And that's actually the first area where I've been having a lot of trouble actually. I think that's actually just a good rule rule of thumb for life. Let's kill all the hillbillies. I also drink it. I also drink a ton of moonshine. Yeah you don't get addicted to it. Right. And it gives you like like plus two strength which gives you like the ability to carry like 50 more pounds because I'm just constantly downing moonshine so I can keep carrying way too much shit. I mean this is like totally worthwhile. Well I like that that one actually had its own like mini wasteland. Yeah that made it a lot more. Yeah I was actually surprised at the the scale of it to be honest. Yeah it looks like it's about the quarter of the size of the capital wasteland probably. It also has the uh the most fucked up visual sequence in the entire game. Easily. Which one? Uh by not saying that yet though. The hallucination sequence. Oh okay so I did I did do the hallucination part. I missed out on this. Oh man the hallucination sequence is fucked. Yeah like I like you start seeing all these things like giant bobbleheads and I started grabbing them and I was like awesome. That's a real bobbleheads. Like how did I miss this on the way and then I see that you keep going they're misspelled and they're always talking about like weird things in your fucked up life about how you like killed your mom and stuff. I'm like what? Yeah and then you see like a gurney with a with the skeleton of your mom and a birthday cake or whatever yeah on it. So yeah it is a you should you if there's like one piece of DLC you should get it so far. Like other than operate other than a point no. Other than broken steel broken steel. So obviously rather than do do do do do so. Broken steel is the the number one most but yeah I know I'm like stuck in 2008 right now but like but like Fallout 3 is definitely like the best game that I've played this year just because I never got around to it until I bought the game in the audition. I feel like now DLC for Fallout 3 came out this year that that is like a whole on its own. I mean yeah I've probably put over 20 hours in just the DLC. Usually and you know I mean the game of the year edition is like like such a value proposition like that it comes with that whole game and all the DLC. Because some of those poor suckers buffed through last year. And then paid like $40 for all the DLC as well. More than that right? Yeah. The DLC is a pop right? No it's like $10. What? $10 each $10 per DLC thing and there were five. Yeah. Anyway yeah beyond that I haven't been playing a ton of other games. Just a lot of my old standbys company heroes you know. And you've been playing that for like 10 years now. I know. Are you at the pro level yet? Well I think I'm pretty good but the thing is is that amongst the people I play with I'm like the like weight on the team. The other one that they have to protect. Yeah or like well most of the time they don't have to protect me but I'm always like the person they bring in and they realize that like like I'm never doing quite as well as them usually. You're the leg that drags behind the dog. Just because like you know I've played some company heroes with you online and like and like it's just complete role reversal. Like you know you're babysitting me. Like how many people I play with play even more than I do and I'd probably play like you know five or six times a week if not more. So but lately we don't play that quite as much. So yeah I mean you know I still think that that game is great. It has problems of course but like I love it and it seems like every week that I play with Sean and Rory and all those guys they found some new exploit that we pull on people. And if you're ever on company heroes and you're always wondering like what games are they making? Always look for the ones that are called like like something to do with fun. Like the funnest game you'll play or like here comes the fun. Stuff like that four before fun times. That's always us. Like it's always us like luring people in art. They're said at best when he said we're like ant lions. We're like put our whole over like something looks really tantalizing and then we just bring them in and destroy them. And but occasionally that's only like like we do try and like that's only 90% of the player base everybody. No we do purposely try and grab games sometimes that are going to be like super challenging. And actually those are the ones I like the most. I don't really enjoy the games where we stomp on people. I like the games the best where it's like your god. I can't believe we won. Yeah I mean now that they added that co replay analyzer it's very common for us to go back into our replays and just watch the people like the one that we did yesterday where it was like a total slaughter like one minute and 30 seconds and they were already saying like we lost. Like you know because before with the actual relic replay where you can't see what the other team was chatting. But with this one that's a third party one you can actually see every command they did when they did it and what they said when they were doing it to each other. Oh that's awesome. So yeah it's just funny hilarious to see the reaction when we pull some gimmick on them and they're like what? Like that like I said the map where we have the five minute tanks which I've told relic about at this point. So that could very well get it. You should just send relic every replay of every game you play and say all of this shit they're doing should be fixed. It's true. They are. Look at what you allow. Look at it. So yeah I'm I'm stuck in many years ago with most of my games that I play lately. Oh I did play one other new game that I'll talk about. It's called Altitude. It's a cool steam game. You should check it out because I know you have a press count man. It's like 160 megs. I think it's only like a ten dollar game and it's kind of like what was that ex-BLA game with the divers you know that was done under toe under toe. It's like that you know where it's like sure it's like it's like a it's like a it's kind of like it's not a twin stick shooter though because you cannot you know you're in a plane so you just shoot forward. But it is played like in a side scrolling thing. So you either do like dog fights like that or there's like games where you have like a bomb and you can it's like basketball. You can shoot the bomb to each other and try and shoot it in each other's goals. And it's it's actually just really addictive and it totally like bites off of like modern warfare in the sense that there are perks that you unlock so you can customize the load out of your plane and there's achievements that you're constantly unlocking. It's like this really really basic arcade game for steam that took like all these really great ideas about a meta game and applied them into like this really. I mean in a lot of ways it reminds me of a game that like 12 years ago Sierra would have done. It was like they're like an early online multiplayer game and it's just like such a cool clever little game for like you know 10 bucks and like 150 megs of room under hard drive. And whatever happened to Sierra online? Well didn't Sierra die when they got bought by uh they had their assets bought by division then they go with Vivendi didn't Vivendi take over yeah and then yeah okay yeah and then Vivendi and Activision merged and then all that went to the Activision yeah Activision got rid of most of Sierra's stuff right like I think they did they got rid of fear and for the legend mm-hmm yeah fear was like Sierra's last big hurrah so the first fear but uh that's all I've been playing Arthur round us out what have you been playing. Uh I have also been partly stuck in 2008 because I played a lot more banjo nuts and bolts. Yeah some guy actually a user sent us uh he wants us to add him on Xbox Live so he can go with this TIE Fighter Millennium Falcon and X-Wing he made. Oh shit I'm not even interested what other people are doing it's always just like what weird fucked up thing can I make now like how can I take these parts and make the most efficient vehicle. I know we do need to organize a multiplayer game because the thing I love about multiplayer games is if the other person allows it when you're like in the pre-game lobby if they have like a really awesome ship and you're like man the ship's badass you can like pull up banjo's camera and take a picture of it and like instantly download their schematic and then have it in your own library. Oh that's awesome like I'm just fixated on helicopters right now like the thing I'm using the most basically looks like a flying spatula and I just got the parts that let you detach things so it's basically yeah so you can be like all the sudden and then like blow off your wings and now you're in a car on the ground or all drive like to get a head start and then take off and blow off my wheels. Like just use the wheels to gain speed for a vertical takeoff. Yeah like for me like finding jiggies and completing levels is just a way to get more parts to make more shit. I know I've always wanted to create some sort of like Batman ass car where it's like the tumbler where I'm like rolling in a car and then I can blow everything but like a motorcycle. I think at this point I could do that and actually now that you mentioned it I'm probably gonna make that vehicle seem to be done as a podcast. Dude you were convincing me to play this game. It's so cheap too. Yeah it's like I own it. I can't wait to own it. Like I've been meaning I've owned this game since it came out and I've been meaning to play it for months and I just now like in the last couple of weeks finally got around to it. That's awesome. Yeah it's it's pretty great we'll have to organize some multiplayer because I doubt you and I would just be able to jump on and find games but when you have like a when you have like a 4v4 multiplayer game like some of them like the King of the Hills ones when you don't use like the designated vehicle and you just let everyone take like 10 minutes to build the most insane like push everyone off the hill vehicle. It's hilarious seeing the things people go into these things. I just part of me wonders if I would just be overcome with rage trying to play this other people because the controls are frequently very squirrely. Well I think it's more hilarious than rearranging a lot of times as long as you don't go in like really really wanting to win. Like it's just funny it's like watching a fucked up episode of Battlebots. Everyone rolls in and there's just like that one robot that immediately just falls on its side and goes insert like that shit always happens. Yeah man this sounds rad dude it's totally soaking my captain forever boner. Well I want nothing else other than to stroke your boner talent. So so so the more that um I feel like I played a lot but more shadow complex I'm a few hours in shadow complex now. Cool how do you feel about that? I think it's a very competent well-designed game and I'm still having problems overcoming the whole internal sell out argument against myself playing it for what we discussed last week. But you're not sound out you have to play it sort of. Well I do and I and yeah I didn't pay for it so I didn't get it or Scott card has seen no money from me. But yeah you're helping make an informed game of the year decision. Yeah and that's that's why because there are people that strongly feel the shadow complex is uh an easy win for Xbox live game of the year and uh and they're wrong because it's battle filled 1943 but that's why I get it to explosion. But there's so many good ones this year a lot of some people would say trials. Yeah I mean that's fine there are other people that say that it's a genuine contender for game of the year even though it's not a front runner and I I understand that too because that it fulfills a desire for a game that hasn't been made in a very long time. Any game that's game of the year for 2009 must have a voice from Nolan North. So shadow complex does fall into that there's a lot of more for two have no one or I don't know probably who knows that guy so prolific is like I know Assassin's Creed does shadow complex does dragon age there's only one voice actor dragon age doesn't more prolific in my mind than a dragon age no dragon age has like two degrees or no one or separation exactly but dragon age does have Steve Bloom who's who is the most prolific voice and it has Chloe and the the limey from Uncharted 2 exactly. So I mean shadow complex is a pretty well designed game and I give them credit for that. The anime is kind of repetitive. It looks very samey. Jeremy Parrish's review I remember reading when shadow complex came out. Stuck out to me because he was one of the people who liked it but wasn't as gushly enthusiastic about it and and looking back now I feel like his review is probably the one I agree with the most. Man trials HD would be my Xbox live game of the year if you could just download maps little big planet style of what other people make instead of having to have your friends list. They just announced a DLC for it. Yeah and that is exciting and I will own and play that at your do you like trials shoe? I only watched like videos of it and I'm like man as the clip position is you would go insane is like that it is like quite possibly literally. Yeah I've never beaten the last level in that game. It is so hard. Yeah I just don't know I just never really it didn't interest me enough to want to try it. Man I'm gonna have to give it a code and just give it to you and just be like now you're not even paying. But you know the guy. I feel the same way Dan like I look at trials and I just think this game is gonna make me rage. But I hear that from people it's like it's so hard that they just want to kill their television in 360. And didn't you think explosion man was that way at times? Yeah but when you finish it I felt like having a cigarette even though I don't think so. Or a steak. Like a steak would have been good too. Yeah for us non-mediators. Like everyone still have a way of that game. Everyone I know who talks about trials whenever I hear them talk about trials they sound so tired. What's like you meet someone who's beat the final level and I'm like man you are you are a hero to me because you have 500 trials to beat a level 500 or 30 minutes and I've never beaten the last of long trials. So yeah. Yeah way to sell it Anthony. But every other mission is so awesome and I and I want there are specific people if you go out into forums who put their gamer tags on live because they want you to add them as a friend just to download their trials maps since that's the only way you can get them. So there needs to be a trial store they're really does because I mean the the creation tools in there are obviously like basically what the designers themselves use so you could make some really amazing creations if you have the patience. You know you being in the position that you're in you could always email those developers and ask for an interview where you could confront them about they're not being a trial store. Yeah I imagine they just would be some PR line like yeah I do get press releases like that stuff like that on Xbox Live games though I mean would it even be possible. I don't know to have that kind of feature built into a game. I mean I know it's built into something like Forts of it. What about an Xbox Live game? I don't I don't know actually. I feel like how about you go around asking those questions since I don't know Xbox site Mr. Team Xbox. Look when Aaron Greenberg responds to my email request then maybe I'll talk about talk to the trials guys. That guy's out of the office all the time. Or he just puts up an out office reply. Yeah it says I'm out of the office for the week of e3. Yeah man e3 you put it on long this year. I played kicks plus plus this week which just came out on my arcade. Is it sad that I didn't know that that was a game? Neither did I I had no idea what kicks was. Like kicks you it's like apparently a really popular arcade game way back in the day. Draw the line. Draw the line. I know there's a. So the game the Rebel offenders might be more familiar with it as is the art mini game from bully. Yeah me and I. We didn't know that kicks was like this really old arcade stand by. Oh you've never seen kicks before. I mean everyone over the age of like back in the day. Yeah yeah yeah. Everyone over the age of 34 in the office was very familiar with it. This is kind of like kicks with like the Pac-Man retro revival. Kind of music. So I can do old man shoe and old man chandelier no kicks from their arcade days. Yeah everyone over 34 was very nostalgic for kicks in the office. But so it just it adds the the better you do on a level like the more of the the map that you clear. Like so the point is that you have basically this this ship where you're trying to carve out territory on this map around these kicks or quicks or jabba walkie ding dong or whatever that's floating around the center of the map. And once you once you you claim 75% of the map the level is over. So ideally you want to claim more than that like as much as possible and the more you do the higher score. And if you get hit while you're drawing a line it sends you back to the wall and you can only have that done like three times. They've made a lot of kind of our rated ones for like bar you know those little machines you find in bars like the ones that are like strip poker. Yeah where you basically uncover a naked picture. Yeah like there would be a kick snack off but where you're just on your drawing out or your uncovering pictures of naked girls where that's where they got the idea from book for me. Exactly like Budweiser model circa 19. So what kicks plus plus ads bikini what kicks plus plus ads I guess is if you do well enough you get upgrade tokens and you upgrade like the speed at which you cut or the speed at which you move or your shield which is the number of times your line can get hit. You can also increase your luck and I have no idea what that does. But it's a lot of fun. It adds a multiplayer mode which actually kind of sucks. It's just like two you take on the picture at once. No it's four people taking on the picture or the thing at once. And anytime anyone does anything like if you surround a power up square which are also in this and get a power up it freezes everyone else it's constantly stopping you as anyone does anything. Is it like Tron where I can like draw a line and make someone else ram and do it and die? You can fuck up people by drawing a line around them. No we're fine don't worry that's not the warning you got on GarageBand last week. Oh yeah it's feedback protection. So you can draw lines around people and fuck them up and get a lot of points for it etc. My problem with it is that again the multiplayer is kind of busted and it's 10 bucks for two modes and multiplayer. And in Japan where it's been out for a while and this is the version that was on partnernet like there's DLC packs already and they add a ton of content but I have no idea how much those DLC packs cost or will cost. So it's hard for me to make a recommendation because I just don't know that it's ten dollars worth of good. But if the DLC is cheap then it totally would be because it's a lot of fun it's very addictive. There's no save mechanic or anything like that it's still very much an old scorecade game that way. I've been wondering if some I've been wondering like when somebody's gonna do like the space invaders extreme treatment for Tempest. Haven't they done that like every console generation there's not like a new Tempest? Space drop. Space drop. Space drop. Space drop. Space drop. Yeah that game was bad. Yeah well it wasn't great it wasn't I don't think it was terrible but that game was so hype for so long too it's like it's like it's like the next geometry wars before geometry wars too. We still can't talk about our new two I don't think which sucks again only because of embargo but we'll talk about it next week. And then today I played Dante's Inferno on a I played the demo. Yeah I played the PS3 version of the demo which came out in the PSN store and the Xbox 360 demo which is not out for a couple of weeks. How do they compare? Probably pretty similar. They're similar in frame rate they both stay at 60 which is kind of weird honestly. I think if you're up close you can tell a difference but like standing back watching Arthur play both I couldn't really tell like they both ran super smooth and yeah they run smoother than God of War does like God of War's frame rate is sort of all over the place whereas this is is pretty much it's funny you say that too because uh just sorry to off like derail it but I was watching like Ryan play the new God of War remake and like I had I didn't really ever see it but I did not realize that like the new God of War remake like looks so good it runs at such a good frame rate that it actually looks like like if uh another company did like a badass God of War game but for like a budget like a like price like you know like it doesn't quite look as good as like Dante's Inferno but it looks way like like it looks like it could be a ps3 game God of War II in particular on the God of War collection was really good yeah I just it totally blew me away how well they've up-resited yeah but uh but I mean Dante's Inferno again like I said it on the podcast before and people who are getting a chance to play it now maybe they'll agree with me or not uh it comes the closest to recreating what God of War does as far as combat more so than any other game like that has been able to do um well I don't know if anybody's ever actually really tried to make and a straight up God of War clone what yeah there's like a million of them really like Viking, Conan yeah uh the THQ game is coming out that dark side dark side is dark side is is uh it just it just seems to me like Dante's Inferno is like not only are they a God of War clone but it's like blatant about it yeah that's so that's the thing that we are a direct God of War clone and everything you want to want to want like this chest wall to the weight of chest yeah um exactly there's stuff that doesn't need to be in God of War anymore that will be that isn't fucking Dante's Inferno that need to come over like oh you mean I have to hit the right trigger I mean R2 I mean the right trigger to grab things right really right um and in that respect it does get pretty shameless oh sorry we had a quote from uh David Jeff who we interviewed him and asked him like what's one thing you wish like these are kind of non-gaming related questions right like random things and we asked him like what's one thing you wish you you had invented and he goes or created he goes Dante's Inferno he goes oh no wait I did do that but in some ways I actually feel like the combat and Dante's Inferno is a little bit of the God of War 3 was well uh it's not as graphic from a from a gore perspective but there's much more impact when you're hitting things it doesn't feel like your chains are just kind of sliding off of stuff oh dude I totally disagree elaborate use your words Matt because in God it because in the God of War win like things impact the screen shakes there's like a very solid like where the frame where like not I don't want to say the frame rate but we're like when you hit something like everything in the world slows down for a really impactful split second like every time your chain hits something it's like stop stop stop to make it feel like you're really like hitting things and in Dante's Inferno they have that but it's not quite there there's like just uh it just needs to be a little bit more to be as impactful as I see where I disagree I feel like in God of War when you're swinging there's not much of a sense of resistance and the things that you're hitting where you're just sort of the whirling dervish just destroying everything whereas yeah there is I feel like there's more of a sense of resistance than resistance no you sir are wrong you don't get to say you're wrong without presenting every voice can both take your balls and go home um no I just I and also it's it's more I feel like the enemies are are more challenging generally than they were in the God of War 3 build that I played well yeah I think they made that pretty simple though to the possibly I do think that they they still need to tweak some minor difficulty things here and there in Dante's because it is super easy to die instantly in Dante's Inferno if you're standing in the wrong place or you zig in the wrong direction just a little bit in God of War 3 that never really happened where like you'd walk up to a ledge and you wouldn't fall or in God of War 2 you wouldn't immediately fall off of it or if you dodge rolled you would like stop at the edge although when I was playing God of War 3 I actually do remember sort of accidentally rolling off cliffs or dying a lot more easily than the other ones and that's something that I hope that they're fixing that and that's something that they need to fix in Dante's Inferno yeah I mean the God of War 3 thing though the demo that everyone's played those only like 10 to 15 minutes I mean it's really short it's really hard to know ultimately with the whole Inferno demo is really short too is it well that's really short it's probably about the God of War 3 and 25 minutes depending I'm curious to see that I there's part of me that really wants to play a game on PSP because I've seen the PSP version it's also really good the PSP version is great it's actually a lot like the God of War PSP game and that's okay oh I'm sorry I thought you meant to God of War PSP I'm talking about Dante's Inferno they're really saying they together actually really a PSP and a 360 PS3 wow crazy I don't I mean I don't think that it looks as good as God of War 3 does no it doesn't like the character of War 3 is also dream locked at 30 exactly and that's what I'm thinking I'm wondering why visceral didn't come to the same conclusion that say the Ratchet developers Insomniac did recently which is that there's no reason to make a game like that 60 frames a second because you can make it look a lot better as far as what's being shown on screen at 30 and I didn't go to the preview event and he went to the preview event and he talked about how they were very proud that they hit a constant 60 frames a second and I'd never I never saw it it frees even at the point where there are like 17 or 18 enemies on the screen it wants rushing me if that was their if that was their goal then great they achieved it but you know I think the average consumer kind of doesn't care I think that yeah that's just become sort of like a high nerd culture thing where it's like 60 frames per second is like this coded number and then in certain Dante's Inferno for no videos I've seen them say well we feel like it's incredibly responsive because of the frame rate but I never felt like God of War was wasn't responsive at between 24 and 35 frames a second in fact the only time I ever heard that was from people that were very much so Devil May Cry players and that was like their main thing is why Devil May Cry was better than God of War because Devil May Cry was always sixth. I mean if you know those people please tell me so that they can never be friends with me. I mean God of War I think I for me Devil or not I was never a big Devil May Cry fan but I was much more an inch a guide and fan than a God of War fan and that is that does feel more responsive but it's not an issue of frame rate so much it's just the way that like when you do something in God of War you are stuck in that animation until you're done and Ninja God is less that way and Dante's Inferno is also when you do something you are stuck in that animation until you're done especially when you're in the air and that's what Ryan was saying when he was playing Dante's Inferno the demo earlier today he was saying that like he felt like in God of War there are more opportunities to cancel than there are in Dante's Inferno Dante's Inferno you're definitely like you said very stuck in what you're doing. I did like the upgrade mechanic in Dante's like even in the demo there's a pretty substantial amount of upgrade stuff shown. So you like gather orbs and then spend them. I mean it doesn't even show orbs you just kill things and like you're like white orbs to say a red orb. Are they souls? Yes. Only they're white souls instead of red souls. Exactly. That's totally different than God of War. Exactly. No I mean let's please let us make no mistake in case there's like someone not listening in the back row like Dante's Inferno rips off God of War so badly that you will groan at points. And it's even weirder at times playing the 360 one because you're like boops. It is so weird seeing a fucking God of War game on Xbox 360. Wait it's got an A button? Oh yeah because I assume it does that like when they're doing like a big kill move it's like A. Oh yeah. Was it in God of War? Yeah. Then it's in Dante's Inferno. Including boobs. Including boobs. They waste no time in getting the tits. Even the demo. Even the demo. You saw me but you saw the boobs. No yeah that's true. Both games give you the boobs up front. It's weird though that they show so many different methods of presentation for the story like there's like the cartoon. The pre-rendered cutscenes is very stylized graphically cartoon cutscenes graphic novel stuff in in-game cutscenes. It's just really weird. I'd have to see how that's implemented but that's one thing that was kind of distracting for me from Mirror's Edge the way the cutscenes in Mirror's Edge were. Yeah I could see that. Because I felt like cutscenes were also kind of bad. Yeah they were bad number one and also felt like the game looked so great on its own right like I want to see cutscenes in the engine so I don't know but maybe it's done better. Mirror's Edge looked was always at its most awkward when you were having a conversation like when you met your sister or when you met boss characters or stuff like that as I was like oh come on when you met your sister you get a first person hug. You do get a first person hug. I got one of those in The Darkness. You got the first person makeouts in The Darkness. I gave you patience and I was. All right are we. So yeah I played the PS3 version and the 360 version and the difference is I'll need to go back and play them on my TV because my TV work sucks. Yeah but ultimately I feel like it's not like it's at this point neither of them are like it's not like if you're out of a PS3 you're going to be like fuck I wish I had a 360. No if you have a PS3 you're going to say when does God of War III come out? Whether that's fair or not I mean they've made the game so similar like they're so little different about it other than the reality that it occupies that why would you want to get what is presumably a pretender when the real thing comes out like a month afterwards. Yeah maybe that's why they're giving the special edition away for free on PS3. Yeah that's exactly why. Although and I mean I was talking about that this morning and I was like God EA just keeps doing this with 360 owners like they keep giving stuff to PS3 owners and like just sort of shafting the 360 buyers and that's their prerogative and Sony might be giving them co-marketing money or whatever but Andy was saying that he someone pinged him about seeing a death edition on sale in a UK store for 360 so it may just be that they haven't announced a 360 special edition yet. And they just have two different ones. Yeah yeah because the PS3 when it's called like the what is it called? The Devine. The Devine yeah that's right. Well that might make sense if there was. So it does yeah. Maybe I mean it would not surprise me at all though if that was a fluke and that the PS3 version is. But you know Arthur I feel almost exactly the opposite like you know I'm definitely like a preferred Xbox player but like the way I see it like man we get a lot of a lot of stuff PS3 you know gamers never get you know sometimes I feel like it's you know like throw them a bone. I understand that but EA's bag of bones has been exhausted throwing them PS3 owners in the last six months like they gave they the battlefield bag company two beta was on PS3 the brutal legend DLC stuff has been either free or cheaper on PS3 this the Madden collectors edition last year was PS3 only weird and I mean whatever like like the 360 gets other stuff first so and and I don't I don't really care about that because most of the stuff in the collectors edition isn't something that would concern me but I do know reading the comments from the story I posted there are some people that are irritated about it yeah of course they are it's the internet exactly well why do you think I posted the story all right let's take a break and then we'll come back and view the questions to you. so so welcome back of the second segment of the show now we're going to field some of our listener questions from Twitter for Matt and Shoe about your guys's decision to work with the new EGM why don't you break down what that decision is for people who are unfamiliar yeah so so the new EGM which was bought by Steve Harris Steve Harris the original owner you know founder and owner he's been looking into to building up the masthead and everything for quite a while and pretty much all year there's been recent announcements made that the bit mob staff and the staff of area five we're going to join up for what the future product will be yeah that was what last week right yeah yeah both those now so so yeah but you know not very much is known about at this point so we'll see what you guys can talk about maybe two yeah and then marketing people yeah and then marketing people yeah and then so how's it gonna work are you guys like bit mob and co-op and then Sean baby are they still going to be like independent entities that just come together for this thing okay I'm extremely concerned that Sean baby Inc remain remain in operation if there's not a Sean baby Inc there needs to be no so so yeah let's just start with that so you guys uh like bit mob like immediately you know even though it says in the press release that you guys you know you guys have made it clear on your own side too that you're not like stopping the site everyone seems to think that it's going to fold into EGM and it just ceased to be yeah and it I was kind of happy with the reaction to that like with that misinterpretation of the press release because people were bummed out by that which means oh you guys are doing something right good and all right yeah but uh yeah it's uh so like I think in hindsight maybe the press release could have been more clear but the idea is bit mob.com will run the news department for EGM but it's going to look like EGM content it's not going to say like powered by bit mob or it's not going to be content that we produced on our site that they're just syndicating uh it's going to we're just going to be like okay we're going to bring on more people we're going to hire a few people expand our staff and then have those people with us overseeing it and directing it and what we'll also be contributing new stories ourselves will provide that news to EGM to run on their site but I think there's other things that uh like you know you'll probably see us writing a few articles or columns or editorials here and there in EGM the actual digital magazine well like the print magazine and a digital magazine okay so that's what i've been confused about so EGM the what they what they're planning is to actually have a like a digital version and then actually a print version as well yeah okay it's a print magazine a weekly digital magazine and all full online website yeah and if like you'll probably see us in other weird ways too like I'm not weird but like like uh like so area 5 you know Matt and his team will be doing videos and then sometimes we'll be guests on their shows which is going to be right because it's like we're sometimes guests on your show right on co-op for or for co-op and then now sometimes we might be you guys might be filming bit mob guys for EGM content as well right and we're kind of weird anyway so I think that all fits so this in the scheme of things for area 5 is it more just like another form of contract work that you guys are doing yep exactly yeah we're being hired as a video production company to do video work to do stuff so the video stuff you guys dude uh will it be more in line with uh like we shouldn't worry if the couch squeaks shoot yeah as good as i think is like falling apart i should be so quiet so uh well this funny is it a swatch you really need to worry about well the uh video stuff be kind of in line with what we've seen on the one-up show or is there like plans to do like not the one-up show the one-up show and co-op yeah is it like still like kind of going to be the snacks of that or well the um there's going to be some stuff that might be a little bit reminiscent of that there's another thing that we have planned to work on which i think is is real is it's a new it's not a new idea but it's definitely new for the video game space um i can't really describe much about it because anything i say is totally going to give it away um but i'm really it's actually the thing that i'm most excited about to work with with the EGM and it's going to be a totally new show of it's its own ilk okay how how are you guys going to juggle that i mean co-op already takes a lot of time co-op takes a ton of time but this new show is it's only going to be monthly oh and it's also a show that we can film we can go onto a location film for two days and then have enough material to edit for the next form for the next four episodes so we can film four months worth of shows in two days so it actually will be a lot easier on us than co-op is even though the end show might be four months later it's like oh they're all wearing the same clothes don't they change your clothes it's going to be different people okay yeah yeah you'll you'll see when once the show actually like starts hitting um i don't know when that's going to start we don't have any production plans set up yet but it's just uh it's just that um steve and area five we've all agreed on the on what we want the show to be and how we're going to film it we just haven't started setting up the actual production dates yet so are you doing uh are you just doing this one show for EGM or is it going to be we're going to be their video branch we're we're going to be doing a lot of video contract work for him we're going to be like uh i think we pretty much are going to be the EGM's video department for lack of a better term um so you know when it comes to uh gameplay videos that might support some written reviews in the digital magazine um that will likely be us so um you guys are both going to be like contributing like especially bit more I seem to like the reviews and stuff that that is the far as that editorial well it's funny because before this before we started here today like matt you said you might be writing some reviews for EGM but yeah like we haven't really talked about that at all but it was kind of like when in our discussions with bit mob discussions with EGM there's there was kind of like yeah well have you guys come on occasionally and do some columns and things like that yeah so I think like right now from a contractual point of view if if EGM said hey can you review god or three or something that kind of goes outside of the bounds boundaries of what we've agreed upon so exactly we'd have to actually get paid for that yeah separately yeah exactly so what we have now is we have an agreement set up for the video work that we're going to provide but if we were to write separate reviews I'm sure we would just be hired we'd be paid as freelance which is actually sort of the best of both worlds because a lot of contractors that were for gaming websites are hired for one thing and they get stuck doing a bunch of other shit for free right but you know we're also not actual I mean we're not even contracted employees really these are work for higher agreements right you're providing one specific service right specific um so yeah so you guys probably don't know the answer then when uh like one of the twitter uses hobo johns he says uh bylines and group reviews gave context to the editorial setting EGM apart from other mags he just wants to know uh will multi-person reviews be like the regular EGM no idea I don't know either but I mean I will say like they're Steve Harris is pretty smart like he created the original EGM right he was like the original publisher and when I started at EGM in 1996 he was still there and so a lot of those early EGM ideas like having quarter man in the tricks of the trade section and the four-person review crew were like all from his era of running EGM so I I can't imagine that you know there's a lot of these things that people kind of associate with EGM and love about EGM that you're just gonna drop that said like even like when when I was there we dropped it from four people to three people because and you guys all know this like reviewing games as hard as hell and it's it's really hard to justify paying three people to review the same product three times so I think that's probably the type of meetings they're gonna have but they you know they haven't announced their editor in chief yet and I think those are the kind of maybe Steve's gonna have to defer a lot of those kind of decisions to the new EIC to figure out because I mean if I were to run a new maze I would love to do like an EGM style three four-person review but realistically like fuck you just you just tripled and quadrupled the workload for one article yeah I mean with the cost we've talked about doing that at games by every once in a while like you know because both Ryan and I came from doing that like a little bit of EGM and thought that was really great but yeah that's what it always comes down to is like like we're staff of six people like we would never review any games if we like had to put three people on each one we're searching it thin reviewing one game per person even even having two takes on something like one person says something you know another is still you know if you're not in a staff situation mm-hmm it's just uh well and that's just it is I I don't think EGM this is just purely conjecture on my part because I'm not inside of Steve's head but just based off the agreements that we've had so far with EGM like with bit mob in area five and Sean baby and stuff like that uh I think it's gonna be there's gonna be a lot of freelance that goes into EGM initially I don't know at all what his plans to staff up are in the future but it seems to me like for now um a lot of the content is just gonna be freelance and contract labor so that's not a bad thing I mean a lot of the best writers out there are freelancers exactly and it's the kind of thing where you know uh depending on the amount of content that they want in the magazine every month that's how much they're going to have to pay they pay by the content as opposed to pay by the person so from my from my perspective that's a really smart business decision if that's the way they're gonna go about it because they can stretch their dollar longer that way it's very efficient um well we were like at when I was at EGM before and uh John Davison was the editor or the uh editorial director for the one-up network we talked all the time that we kind of knew early on long before EGM was like known like okay we're at the end of our day it's like yeah that we're not our expenditures are not really smart because we have this history of okay we have all these section editors you know news guide previous guy reviews guy we have to have three reviewers per game and so we we kind of sit out like these you our readers loved all this stuff but it's really expensive to maintain and the magazine business was tanking and we always said like if we were to start over today and we didn't have this EGM history didn't have to carry on we would do it like how you just said Matt like Steve like what we assume and think Steve's gonna set it up like a lot of freelance work because if you take like like why would you put a guy strictly from a business perspective why would you put a guy on salary for $30,000 a year and what's the most that guy can review like maybe 10 games a month you know at the most or that could cost you a thousand dollars in freelance money per month to have a freelancer do this and you don't have to pay him benefits you know so it's just kind of the reality of real life like working in this economy so you would say like that same user who actually asked about the multi-person review says that uh he was asking if you thought shoe that uh the format of the EGM towards the end played a part in its closure you know and kind of what you would think about changing and that I mean yeah I mean that does kind of sound true it's like uh getting stuck into this idea of what the magazine was in a way yeah well it does I mean there's a lot that went into why obviously and that's like another probably hour long discussion which we've had eight million times a year yeah so I it's uh but yeah I mean that's part of it is just EGM's history like at one point we had like 13 people on staff which nuts you know for one magazine and uh but yeah you need to art people you need and that's not including like production and circulation people and sales and legal and everything else that goes into uh a public or a publisher but yeah it's just uh we like you have people like our managing editors our previous editors you know who have busy jobs but they're also reviewing games but like EGM can't be too picky about what it reviews it's like sometimes it's it's kind of like game spot or you guys or IGN like they have to review pretty much everything so if you're gonna put three reviewers per game yeah that's a lot a lot of manpower that you have to use every month right well what do you think the chance are of seeing a more limited implementation of that because I think near the end of EGM it would definitely tapered off as far as the games that would get the three person review yeah they would pick and choose I mean so do you think that the possibility would be entertained to do that for certain releases or or is that just too much baggage that needs to be left behind I'm sure they're talking about it you know like I at this point it doesn't sound like anything set in stone you know everything's potentially on the table right why are you here you can't answer any questions well it's um when we there was a time when uh at EGM when I was at EGM before I was editor in chief where we decided to try with John Davison was editor in chief and we decided to we just like we can't handle this like in a hey they like PlayStation 2 was big Dreamcast was big Xbox One was big like in that era where we just had too many reviews and we're like okay some games are gonna get one person one review readers hated it because they're like why does this game get one review and why does this one and we had all these problems because once in all you get a good game and it's like okay it got a 9.0 so does it get a gold award but that's not fair because you didn't average three people score to come up with that it's just a big mess so then we're like okay let's go back to the three person reviewer and then after I left they were like we we can't we just don't have enough people and they went try that again so the the nice thing I think for new EGM is this is a blank slate and they kind of started so even if they came out of the gate and said we're gonna have two reviewers per game uh where we would have had a lot of backlash if we went to that format while we were running EGM like they kind of I think there would be a little backlash in the beginning but then people quickly adjust and just get used to the new magazine so uh Carl Freestyle asks Matt um if uh the material you guys are making is it supplement the magazine in a form of DVD or is it just going to be like digitally distributed um I don't know uh I'm not in a hundred percent certain on that um is isn't there based on some of the talks we have I think that what's going to happen is we're going to have some stuff that's going to be on a supplemental DVD and we're gonna have and that that will be distributed with the monthly magazine and other stuff that we do will come out weekly on the website or on the digital magazine that surprises me if you're gonna have a physical media disc with the magazine because that there's printing costs there you have such a high loss at retail uh like if whatever you bind it in there's like no magic to it like whether you put it in a bag or you bind it in a magazine people figure out a way to steal that and then you're like you have this high covered price in this era where people are used to getting that stuff for free so I I yeah I could be wrong maybe everything that we do is only going to be in the digital version but I I mean I don't know I'm just saying like it I'm not maybe that would be subscriber only yeah it could be but even like it could be a subscriber only gate for the for the for the website yeah like that that makes more sense to me like it just seems I just can't imagine a lot of people wanting to pay like to put this DVD in my pc or my dvd player and sit down and watch content when we're in this youtube age you know I think it depends on uh I think it might just depend on the distribution model I mean because EGM you know Steve Harris he's he's used to sending he's used to what it takes to put millions of magazines you know all over the country on new stands and you know EGM used to always come with its demo discs and stuff like that so maybe you know maybe there's maybe there's maybe there's still a market for that where people don't because I think a big problem with internet video and the inability to sell it is that there's a lot of people out there that still don't watch video through the internet even even though youtube is insanely popular you know there's still some tv is still the king because people watch more tv than they watch video on the internet so maybe it's just another method to get it out there but yeah I don't know I don't know what the costs what the cost structure would be to that and you know like you said like I didn't even think about the idea that people swipe those discs out of the magazine covers yeah I never even thought of that so kind of a general question that everyone's been asking uh you know in one way or another is uh whether you guys kind of feel like like like what was exactly was like your individual reasons like is an organization to join up with this is it like because steves involved that you guys actually think has just chance to succeed is it like the way it was presented to you like you know because a lot of people think like you know if we've seen print media fail like why is it that this is like worth getting on board with well the my my perspective on it and um i don't know you can tell me if i'm wrong about this but EGM EGM wasn't wrong exactly you see EGM wasn't an unsuccessful magazine you know it wasn't like it wasn't losing money wasn't it was just losing money in terms of Ziff Davis's debt yeah it's that's part of the what I said would take us forever to kind of talk through it because there's all this a lot of the problems that EGM had was because of Ziff Davis and it wasn't their fault necessary they just couldn't put any money into even like promotional stuff yeah I'll tell this one quick story like we had a promotion where we created this uh ultimate uh gamers bundle or something like there was a couple of contests that we did where okay you can win a PlayStation 2 and a GameCube in the next box and we did another one later uh like when the 360 four controller three games bunch of face plays like uh everything you know like a really awesome ultimate beginner's package for 360 right and then it cost us a few thousand dollars or it's cost us very little actually and then we got enough uh new subscriptions out of it even though you didn't have to subscribe to enter this contest we got enough out of it that we made something like six digits in revenue from this one promotion that I thought of and then so I went to the circulation department and said okay can we just get like four thousand dollars if we can make a hundred thousand dollars and it's only gonna cost me four thousand dollars to do so can we do that they couldn't do it because that's how bad Ziff Davis debt was so if you can't it's like okay so you see how things are fucked you know so it's like that magazine had no chance to survive so see CGW is the same way like yeah Jeff Green would complain all the time that you just could not find the magazine war but because Ziff Davis couldn't afford to print it and then now you're in this vicious circle like okay you can't afford to print it you don't put out as many issues no one can find it no one buys it magazine goes away so it's like uh so EGM as a brand was still a successful brand when it was when it was shut down so that's where my confidence comes from is that you know you can't have the most venerable gaming magazine that has ever been uh just go away and have it come back and not have a certain a certain amount of mind share that they're just going to be able to graft back into the fold so it to me it just made sense that all right well if uh first of all like you know if I was if I had been Ziff Davis back in the day and bought gamers dot com or whatever I wouldn't have changed it to one up dot com it would have been EGM dot com you know it would have been like EGM the digital version and EGM the print version um you know fortunately I kind of fortunately I guess it didn't turn out that way because it meant that when EGO went and bought one up dot com a bunch of my friends get EGM yet and a bunch of my friends were able to keep their jobs well did I mean one up was an umbrella for several sites though I mean it was yeah it was but like not right away I mean I don't know um I'm probably looking at it wrong but anyway um I think that you know what when we very when we talked to Steve way early on um like uh he started talking to us about doing video content for you know whatever he was going to do um probably two or three months after we got laid off from one up and we've been talking to him this entire time and the what really you know to kind of answer that question um that you said earlier like what convinced what convinced me of it is that he was thinking about it in the right way and he was asking the right questions like you know he was he was saying well what do people buy on the internet because what he was saying what I keep hearing is that nobody buys anything on the internet they want all of their content for free and that there's no money to be made and it's like well no there is money to be made you can actually um you can actually give something away for free and then you can also sell that exact same thing if there's a value add on top of it and that's a model that works on the internet people do that kind of stuff it's this new sort of participatory consumerism where people think that if they're contributing to something by getting an extra value add on top of this free content then they're going to get more in the future and that's actually what happens so it made a whole lot of sense to me that you know you're going to have the EGM digital version you're going to have an EGM print version and that the two can be melded together and I don't really think anybody has really thought about that in that way and tried it that way and then that video came out last week you know of time ink saying here's what a future of a digital magazine is going to look like on a fictional tablet pc and first thing I did when I saw that as I forwarded it to Steve and I'm like see you know like you are you're already on the money you already knew where this needed to go so yeah that's where my confidence comes from that's why you know when we started working on this deal we're like yeah let's do this and it's just you know I got to admit that there's a little bit of uh cool I get it to be attached to EGM all right I am jealous in some ways what you guys are doing hundred percent um another kind of thread that seemed to be going through a lot of the comments was so everyone just like as far as uh your individual properties are concerned area if I have a bit mob it's like business as usual for that like the co-op show still continues on a regular schedule bit mob still just puts up the content that it does like it's not going to be like like EGM articles tricking in like it's not going to be a content integration with bit mob so for a bit mob yeah it's it's definitely business as usual but actually better so because with the money that we're going to get from EGM it's it doesn't fund us like what we would ask for from like an angel investor um which we're looking for but the it's it's enough money that it it's kind of makes things more comfortable for us so we that we can start building more things that we have planned for the site that uh because everything we're doing is now coming out of the pockets of me and uh the like our co-founder Damien Lin um and you know we have pockets yeah well it's rapidly going away like the burn rate living in San Francisco is pretty bad actually we live in Oakland so uh with the uh with the EGM money that's going to be really nice and uh it's sort of like the story to answer the last question too it's it's nice to be associated with a big brand because like area five is doing really well and it has a great reputation a lot of street cred uh I think bit mob does too but it's EGM is still going to be a bigger brand I think than both of us you know Matt well yeah it's like uh did this happen to you shoe like when you go to E3 or GDC or something like that and you know people were like oh yeah what have you been doing since one up it's like we've been doing this thing for months and months now and you've totally still haven't heard of this and these are like people in the industry yeah that don't know what we're doing but if I was to tell them that you know oh we're doing video for EGM they'd be like oh EGM yeah I heard EGM was back you know it's like we can't help but feel that that's a that's a branding that's going to carry a lot of weight in the industry still so are you guys seeking at least some sort of branding within EGM like will bit mob be cited within the print magazine as a contributor will area five be cited as a contributor in the magazine yeah um we were we were asked to fill out some quick bio things that I guess are going to go in the EGM magazine and uh they have like you know name and title and are you know right there in our title it says you know area five and so we're going to be acknowledged as being contributors as a company as well as individuals do you get giant full page ads for cool up that would be awesome so do you guys know like when the first issue is are you guys even privileged enough to say like when a first issue might roll out or we can actually see you guys content in action i know he's planning a preview pretty soon but i can't say what pretty soon actually means i just don't know i mean the cover that was sort of put around has mass effect to on it with a 2010 preview header yeah that actually looked in that looked really cool yeah i mean just i'm sure it's exciting for you especially shoe having worked on the magazine for so long to see like that with like the old logo and everything like i don't know that was pretty i liked the new EGM I liked the new EGM logo too but when you see it with the old one and it i'm not saying that the new one was bad there's something that you mean the uh just the letters yeah yeah instead of seeing electronic gaming monthly and you know i had yeah that that was and they did alter the typeface of the new one a little bit you know they brought it into the modern era it's not the exact typeface from the old magazine um are you wearing actually shoe right now is that like an EGM now yeah our uh president at the time when we did our 200 this year but gave us all sweat everyone and staff like a 200 this up's issue oh see i thought that was a new one and i was like man that is something Steve Harris needs to get on it's like landing and selling merch like merch is such a good way to to keep things going too and i i know they like EGM merch would have like a lot of staying power even if it was just like the logo and the typical like space invader we got so used to seeing so i wonder if i wonder if EGM like the name i wonder which one resonates better with consumers electronic gaming monthly or just the letters EGM well for me no one ever called it electronic gaming month after me it's EGM just because by the time i started like really reading it like as a has like a like a subscriber type thing it was always EGM by that point like like when i was a child i never subscribed to any magazine so it was like it was like i was that person that those poly bags and stuff were like looking for when i was like a child like i'd go and see game pro and EGM and it'd be like looking like a sonic yeah determined my purchasing did did you ever see the but i wonder if it's like Eigen you know where eventually you just see the letters EGM and they kind of lose their meaning i think Eigen has the benefit of being such a web based property whereas EGM is in a way more accessible to the casual user because it's on a new stand it's in a grocery store it's on the street it wherever and so in that case having electronic gaming monthly on there somewhere sort of says we were about video games you know man we had so many different meetings because we were like there was a point where we thought we should go to EGM but i'm like those those are meaningless and kind of like it's the death of a lot of brands when you go to acronym form but two out of three words in the old logo was like outdated like who uses the electronic and monthly is such a bad word in a internet age but also like three long words relatively long words on the cover that ate up all of that space that when you set a magazine on a shelf sometimes that's all you see and you don't even see like you're saying anything like what sells the magazine on new stands isn't necessarily the logo it's what you put on a cover so if you can't even see that sonic because the logo's heating up most of the space then you're hurting yourself so that like these are all the kind of things that we had endless meetings on i hate to bring this comparison up because in my opinion there is no comparison but what game-in-former has been doing for the last couple of months has been very striking and taking something so text-based and in doing something really interesting cover wise with it like their redesign say what you want about game-in-formers content but their redesign has been very successful and they both had good covers i think they have a little bit more of a luxury than EGM did because uh you know look when we last looked at them they were 99 subscribers yes and a new stand base yeah because you rarely sell them on new stand so they could go really really artsy do you think magazines are at the point where they don't need an ad on the back page on the back cover yeah oh i well i would have loved to have like kind of like edge style you know like just do something big old picture one really awesome cover but that that's so much money that's like the mo outside in something outside of something on a poly bag that's the most money or like a kind of fake cover yeah the salespeople would never give up that slot so you'd have to make it that have to be some kind of like Steve Harris called to say okay i'm going to give up x-many tens of thousands of dollars a month if i give up that spot but i think it's cool enough that the readers will dig it you know but is that is a big that's a prime spot right there yeah did you guys have any other questions there are no more listener comments uh the listener ones were pretty well they were actually a lot of really confused ones with people thinking that the announcement actually meant that matt alone was leaving area five that was a common surprise so everyone from area five is has been hired area five is a company has been hired on a contractual basis contracting yeah it's not matt leaving area five as the lone warrior to get it i knew as soon as the as soon as that press release read out and i read and i read it i'm like oh man this totally sounds like we're not doing area five anymore we've all gone to work for egms so the first thing i did was email revision three and i'm like hey i realized the way that this press release reads but honestly we're not renegan on our contract you know yeah that was that was just a common thing was everyone was asking like so what's going to happen to bit mob now when it closes yeah it's like no it's not closed so my question for shoe then is bit mob is very much aside about community-driven content so how does that how does that factor in with bit mob contributing content for egms like if someone submits a really great story that gets spotlighted on or spotlight on the front page of bit mob is there a chance that that person's story will end up in egms or so probably not because um if this is kind of helpful in terms of the working relationship we have an egm like we don't we're not a news focused site now it's more like features cultural stories opinions things like that interviews so something that's like hey this new whatever game got announced is isn't because we know people don't wouldn't come to us for that kind of news right you go you have some sites like like from whether it's one up or game spot or whatever you just you have your new sites so we're not a new site so it's kind of nice that but they know what we're capable of so we're gonna create all the news will be on egm you know so it's uh yeah you know does that make sense yeah all right take a break well you know thank you guys for doing that with us um sure i think is there anything else that you guys feel you'd like to express well i guess um besides my love for Anthony well we can do that during the break as long as i get to watch you guys expressed a lot of that earlier i'm very express while we were looking for the cat they were off in the dark the uh i guess the only thing i was going to say was um kind of like matt you're saying like why you guys were kind of drawn to egm to one thing i do want to say is when we met with Steve like he like he was always kind of a hero to me and this isn't like some kesass to some guy who's like sending me a check each month now but because why became an egm reader was he wrote this editorial about losing capcom ads this is back in the uh 90s sometime right uh that capcom pulled ads for one of the street fighter reviews because the egm was like it's kind of more of the same like it's the different additions back then weren't improving enough so they call capcom out on it capcom pulled ads and he's like okay let him pull ads what we're just going to keep on doing what we're going to do and i'm like this is the magazine for me so and then so this is a guy like i have faith in i know a lot of people in the beginning were like and i agree like egm is a brand but it's it's i i hope people don't look too much to the past like all this nostalgia getting in a way and thinking oh they're gonna break back the old magic because it's going to be a new editorial team you know guys like john davison or shane baton alzen uh chrisp and boy all these guys aren't working on the new egm but that said i think i have a lot of faith in steve the person uh kind of guiding the whole thing just because he was the original egm founder you know and uh when we met with him it is always like man he's a smart business guy and that was a thing for us like that he wasn't just like some crazy guy with a lot of money he's like i'm gonna buy back this old magazine because gamers love it and uh bring back prim magazine without thinking about how he's gonna make money from it how it's gonna be profitable he's like a shrewd businessman so yeah sometimes it's nice to have he is well and like i was saying before you know we were talking to him it seemed like he was asking all of the right questions all right well uh let's take a quick break and then we'll come back with a few of our letters more like this. all right welcome back to where we're going to read some air letters and Arthur's going to read a very special one from eric yes uh this is from eric eric writes should i say the subject it's balding the subject is questions about getting bald and when to give into god's hate uh dear mr geese my name is eric and i'm 25 years old a couple of months ago i've had the realization that i'm slowly going bald this might sound strange but i never comprehended that this would ever become a problem of mine even though my father is very bald today well i never saw that his head of hair was the window into my future i don't know but since it's now very apparent to me i would like to ask you for some advice of being a man with no hair yourself this is the first email i read this morning by the way it's a great thing like when did you decide to go completely bald and shave off what was left did you ever consider yourself as someone who could rock the bald head how odd did you feel every emphasis is him putting things in quotes uh did you mourn for the loss of your hair how hard was it for you personally do you think shaving the head is the best solution to every balding man looking at larry david for example who has also said who also said the balding men who shave off their hair aren't part of the bald community because all they do is just hide how bald they really are and what do you think of hair transplants thank you in greeting some germany so uh you had an extra spring in your stuff this morning huh i was right after reading that man god does hate me yeah i mean some people rock the the fully shaved look real well it's that we've we're talking about before Jason sat boss random yeah and uh Bruce Willis yeah Bruce Willis being like the the go-to yeah Bruce Willis and Jason statham uh Patrick Stewart the dude and iron man the villain Patrick Stewart doesn't shave uh he's not actually right but in that movie he rocked the beard Jeff bridges did rock the bald look pretty well um i think he rocked the bald look in uh a history of violence as well but more importantly how did you guys come to terms with it i think that's what uh that's more of a so i think the the point where i knew that it was it was just like there was no blind to myself anymore is you know how you'll walk into like a liquor store whatever and you'll see those cameras that are aimed at the register and so you can see the top of your head like i would i would like catch side views of my head and think oh well that doesn't look too bad and then i would walk into that and see the camera and it's like this bright white spot at the top of my head i'm like man i am really that is a big spot without a lot of hair on it so did you did you get the bald spot first uh i think i had the thinning spot and um the way that my baldness manifested is the the hair in front that emanated from the area in front like it just stopped growing like the other hair did like i would get it cut and it just wouldn't grow anymore and it slowly started getting thinner and thinner um mine mine mine actually my horror and on Anthony's face right now is great i knew i was going bald because i actually had i actually grew my hair really long kind of before i started going bald and then when i started going bald and my hair was like coming out in my hands in the shower and like all over blah blah blah and stuff like that jesus christ is that really happening it does really happen along with a lot of blood it's that horrifying and there's screams and screeching music in the back here i had really long hair when i was in high school like past my shoulders yeah and i and i could tell that my i could tell that my hair was like definitely thinning so i cut it short and that's when i started dying it like crazy too like a million different colors because i knew i was gonna because if you bleach it as uh say adam sessler could attribute to it's harder to tell how bald you look so well no i didn't bleach it well i had to bleach it because it was dark a dark brown color okay uh it was like green and purple and orange and all kinds of colors what about you tyler as someone who has thinning hair yeah my hair is in the process of thinning and actually like what i'm rocking i'm kind of enjoying the look because i've i've always known that i would like go bald like my hair's really thin and i have sort of a bald spot on the crown of my head and i've seen your dad he's got pretty thin hair yeah yeah i mean my dad has the bald it looks like you have the world's biggest part yeah yeah exactly but like in my mind you know like when i would watch like a like old like Mickey Mouse cartoons like you know i described this in the car like it would be the it would be the big band conductor you know like waving his head back and forth like with little tuft of hair like snaking like that's that's kind of what i picture myself rocking like in about 15 years i heard you did it from your mom's dad not that you know it's from your mom's dad i mean that's that's the common exception but like my mom's dad has a full or a full head and sort of my other side of your family yeah like my dad is definitely like bald yeah and and that actually helped i think in some ways like originally you didn't think you look too bad and you know i did actually that that's the thing that pissed me off the most it's like fuck i'm gonna look like my fucking dad but that's what convinced me to shave it off and not do the Larry David thing because i'm like i'm not gonna go out that way i ain't gonna go out like no punk bitch see i never thought of it as Larry David thing i mean like i i always thought that i i went bald in in the best possible way that you you can it's like because it started from the back from the front and just started getting bald more toward the back instead of having a bald spot first that i if i looked in the mirror i could kind of pretend that i could cover it up you know but that never actually works it just looks kind of funky but anyway thanks um i was i was always like i was always like uh yeah dude i'm just gonna go for it because you know captain Picard was a badass and he was yes and the way he did his hair and again Bruce Willis good bald role model Jason Statham i don't care what anyone says Jason Statham does not shave his head to be more aerodynamic Jason Statham is going hardcore but see that's what i like about Patrick Stewart he just doesn't shave his head like he he just goes for the ring like i did true yeah except when he plays professor x then he tears completely all right here's an actual well we're not done yet are you guys are still gone i can't there's a lot of balls well when did you so you never you never shaved your head um no i've never shaped me you just graciously i did bleach it for a while because i actually went gray really early too um i uh now i'm just an old man i shaved my head actually your hair is that gray at all wow i shaved my head like three or four days after i got my xbox 360 for lunch so four years now yeah four years ago and i remember when i went back to classes the next day because that's when i was in college like i wore a beanie because funny thing not like having hair and not not having hair you don't realize how cold it is without hair even in your mostly bald yeah um so i wore a beanie and then like i was talking to some friends in class and then i nonchalantly pulled the beanie off and all the hair was gone and they went holy shit um but i i i think matt gracefully rocks the uh the bald with hair look and i my head isn't too terribly misshapen so i do the bald thing i think that i think that's the bottom line is like if you can't stand going bald you might as well just kill yourself now but if you can stand it then if you can't stand it you're totally gonna be fine i never met any i haven't sweated i never met anybody in person the head hair transplant so i can't speak for the efficacy i've seen i've seen videos and stuff dude just just uh a season two arrested development Tobias oh with his plugs yeah i mean that's not really fair no it's fair that's not i mean that's like played for maximum ridicule i mean but like but you know i'll play on that like one thing i'm worried about is i actually have from childhood from when i was born i have a scar on the back of my head and it looks like a ringworm so like when i go bald it's gonna look like i have a ringworm oh my god we have a tower you have such an awesome collection of hats you should just get that uh that's true you should just get a tattoo over that scar that's actually better get a crazy mike tyson head tattoo no you said get a tattoo that looks like hair like it yeah it looks like hair to fit into the hair that's fucking genius you look like uh some game character right i'm not gonna say like you look like a white hair flat like he looks like an unreal engine three character model what's going on there um all right so are we are we done talking about yeah i i don't know i i i i i shaving it is fine and that's the most time we've practically spent on any letter that's a passionate topic i understand i understand how it's it can be pretty like hard to oh no doubt i would probably stop crying if i found out i was going ball you look like you're about to cry just watching us talk about it i just just go with it um girls for realty girls like it a lot actually surprisingly yeah because your head never meant yeah he's looking on uh okay so jacob writes in with an actual game letter and uh and he says what do you read that for he says uh with christmas getting closer i finally got around to calling my father asked what he wanted for christmas and he asked me if i had knee old game consoles i wouldn't mind partying with i'm kind of can like bringing his letter down he said my father spent close to 20 years in the canadian army as a medic and once he got out he became a trucker he's sort of a blue collar guy who drinks and smokes and talk and while talking about women and the problems associated with them video games a country song video games have held as much interest to him as barbie dolls and i thought they generally rated the same as far as usefulness to him the few times i've seen him pick up a controller is when he'd take one out of my hands and tell me to go to bed with all that being considered i figured i'd have a hard time deducing what sort of game console would be suitable for him but to compound the problem the only old out of his console i've got lying around as a ps2 that's a good thing in my opinion that's a good problem um so he says uh my father's a frugal man and just likes uh me spending money if i don't have to so somehow buying an older console off ebay and time for christmas is out of the question he'd get ahold of the truth eventually and most likely refuse the gift so ps2 is all i've got to give him um knowing that what games could i possibly get him that he would be able to enjoy and actually play because his dad did during the days of the originally us get addicted to like super mario bros eighteen wheel whatever eighteen wheeler get him a trucking game and with the ps2 library jesus where do you start well something's metal bonner um and i'm fully serious about that like really yeah it doesn't matter it doesn't matter like a burnout game you don't think that that's too complicated get him metal of honor and the eighteen wheeler so it's like air just live your whole life again through these two games no it's like in my experience like uh like older guys like you put them down in front of a game and you give them metal of honor and they will figure that shit out it's you know that's a funny that you said because my friend Ian his dad uh you know may friend Ian's one of those kids that you you everyone probably had that friend would like their dad is like like way like 20 years older than your parents were growing up like he had the really old parents growing up and his dad was totally the guy that sat down and forced himself to learn how to play metal of honor on ps1 or ps2 and then has since then went and and has become so into first person shooters that he like bought modern warfare bought a 360 you know and it all came from like forcing himself to learn how to use two sticks because he he was that into what you're saying that that into that idea of a first person shooter when he saw like those world were two style games so that is a good call but i think maybe like if he likes to drive and stuff there were some good burnout games and stuff ps2 um Gran Turismo is actually Gran Turismo 3 or 4 is fairly accessible i think in some ways um because you can just drive well i yeah i don't know like yeah i have i have trouble with those guys i i think that for us who like are super into the idea of getting into the high level play of a game like that it can be complicated yes this is his dad reads horror books uh by Stephen King so he thought sine homemade interesting but he's worried about uh the fright factor because his dad had two heart attacks this year no wonder it's a quadruple bypass oh shit silent hill and Stephen King or it shouldn't even be the same sentence those are so different well they both do a lot of weird ass things yeah but weird ass is like the only thing they share like Stephen King is very much yeah i think he was the same because of horror games but man you should just go to you like your local i don't know what the equivalent of a game stop is in Canada future shop but yeah i think you just go there because they probably have a ridiculously expansive use ps2 thing and i think and honestly i think fps's are far more uh far more compelling for people to jump into and play games then platformers are you know the the only other thing is if you think he might like a fighting game you get him something like soul caliber where you can button mash like crazy but like if he's if if you actually think he has a chance of becoming a real gamer yeah seriously middle of honor call of duty something like that yeah i mean if his dad does like uh some platformers that what about something like uh and i was like this like cooper games would those be like too tough i can't imagine this army ex army dude who's a trucker playing something that cartoony i think would be the thing it's like that might look a little silly hmm i'd say the maximum of games but they're so old now um they're kind of hard grand theft auto my i thought about that too yeah i mean uh you could just kind of putts around and stick around yeah yeah a lot of people can just jump into that game and just like figure it out we need new maximum of games so um getting on misty i'm sorry so ryan writes into us and he just says uh with the success of gaming on the iphone in touch what do you guys think of the potential for gaming on a rumored apple tablet some of the drawbacks of gaming on the current hardware is the processing processor power screen size and interface limitations um if apple launches a new device with a more powerful processor and bigger screen is it and it is compatible out of the box with some or all the games on the app store do you think that it has any chance of becoming a serious new gaming platform no yes no i yeah i would have to go in the know can't i think developers view the limitations of the iphone as a benefit like they can put out something simply quickly and cheaply and sell it to a lot of people for a very little money depends what do you mean by developers i mean are you talking about like like when you even when you see like EA put out a game or Konami put out a game for iphone it's still generally pretty simple right but that's i mean what i'm saying is that like you have something like an apple tablet and let's assume that the apple tablet is going to be a success because it's going to be i mean it's not going to be as big as success as the iphone for sure but i mean like people are going to buy that shit and like games coming out on that i mean even if they're really simple rt games ground control still or something yeah exactly like an rts game on a tablet like that's just a no brainer on a multi-touch tablet i mean that's like the perfect interface for rts so i mean if there isn't a really cool rts on an apple tablet you know i will definitely eat my share of pro i just don't think those are the people who would be buying the apple tablet yeah yeah to me it's me it's not a matter of like can it work to me it's it's as simple as the iphone can fit in your pocket a tablet will not like an iphone is a phone is an email device is i mean i can see they're buying really incredible games for it but i don't know that it'll yeah i mean apple laptops have done really well in recent years but it's still not like this big we're all going to make games for apple right but i guess i guess the he's saying that like what if the apps from iphone and stuff could just uh with it or see i see i miss out and work on a tablet like it would be like a little window or something would just go there and it would just function on it because that's where you draw it defeat the purpose of iphone games which is portability like a tablet is not really i mean i can see people like you know maybe making your tablet would obviously travel with you a lot of yeah it's stuff too and people don't keep your tablet in your pocket though no but you might have in your bag and stuff so it's still be relatively portable it's not going home playing on a gaming console home you know but it is becomes more expensive to develop right because you can't take an iphone game and just blow it up like to what i like eight times its size to look on a screen it would look horrible so now you have to have new higher resolution art uh redrawn you know like even 2d games like that's like you'd have to design it for the tablet and probably maybe shrink it down and i'm not sure how complicated that would be but you can't take existing games i just feel like an apple tablet would just be a like a touch inductive screen on what is basically a mac laptop and people aren't developing games for macs or mac laptops i think it's i think it's too compelling of an interface designed for games not to be developed for it there's going to be people out there that are going to make games for it simply because they can't help themselves you know they're going to be like i have such an opportunity here to do something that i've always wanted to do and now i have the interface for it and i'm going to do it so i mean like that you know well i think we'll see a lot of really cool indie games that'll come out for an apple tablet i mean you're definitely not going to have something like engi mocho where you're going to have an entire game development studio that's going to dedicate it to the dedicated to the platform i mean it seems like that's what he's asking them like a real gaming ecosystem as opposed to some people who do cool shit like there will be people yeah i guess it would have to take off on a level like the iphone to really like i the microsoft surface thing could have some fucking awesome games but i don't expect that we'll ever see them except for maybe some weird version of ruse yeah we might get to play them at an e3 or something like that that'll be the only time we ever do um well then yeah that okay then yeah i i guess i agree with you guys then so uh it's not going to have the same so uh you should all right yeah you do love him art there's saying he loves you because yeah anyway so brock uh brock greatson brock greatson i don't care who knows and this letter is actually he directs it at first at tyler he says it's two a.m your time and you're logging on the steam to play plants versus zombie what the hell like it and now he says now a real question have you guys ever started hating a game either from previews or misspelled conceptions but ended up liking it for example i just started to play oblivion again and logged my 300th hour sad i know which is what he says but oh fuck that i remember that i held up playing it i was a freak for 140 i remember that i held off playing it because it looked like a generic fantasy rehashing everything i'd seen before but damn if i didn't end up finding robbing people and smashing various things faces in oddly satisfying red faction gorilla i expected to be total garbage like the only reason i played any of it was just so that i could make an informed statement of how bad it was gonna be and you were wrong i was definitely wrong i expected to be garbage actually you know uh that game metra 2033 that i talked about a few podcasts ago and was talking about the car that was one that when i was set up for that thq appointment it was like come see dono or two expansion and also you're gonna see metra 2033 and i was like i rolled my eyes i was like what the fuck i do not want to see you're a little shitty game you're saddling me with like as part of the appointment but metra 2033 totally ended up being like the thing that i walked away with like the most impressed wow so yeah i mean sometimes if i it's like from a company as soon as like i see something and some developer comes in and tells me like we have this developer they're from this like fucking tiny country in europe and they want to show you their little game i'm just like oh great like but sometimes it turns out to be totally badass tropico three was another one where i was like i have no interest in seeing this and then when i saw it turned out being awesome so yeah i think that does happen you know shoe do you have any examples i was sitting here kind of like half-tuning you guys out because i'm like trying to think back but i just uh i just can't remember i'm positive it's happened yeah but i just i really can't remember like any specific examples but um tyler oh um i could think of one for sure um when i was at e3 uh seeing fall out three the year it was released last year um i also had an appointment to go see civilization revolution the 360 version because it's 2k published and i i totally blew that meeting off i was like what siv four on 360 don't care dude i got i came home and like i had a copy of the game and i tried it hooked yeah hooked matt i'm kind of in the same boat that she was like i know what's happened but i can't think of anything else at the top of my head this is why we don't have guests sims games were uh another one that i was totally like thought was gonna be really stupid when i first tried it and then i ended up loving the sims franchise as well even though it's like such thought it was like such the your mom and dad's game but i were your little sisters but yeah he at the end of the letter 2 he makes a point again to call you out of like basically that he doesn't understand why you would log on at 2 a.m. to play planes versus zombie school games yeah we'll see yeah cuz uh this this guy no in san francisco came came over our apartment that night because oh you actually know the night that this yeah yeah i know exactly what he's talking about because i was i stayed home was working on a free press use and and jody went to this party and her and some friends came home and i knew this guy was a gamer and i was like i showed him captain forever and then i was like i gotta show you plans for the zombie too you're like a captain forever missionary i am dude yeah there's uh i don't know how to pronounce this guy's name i'm gonna try though you see sweden i think it's teodor it's teodor teodor teodor i'm even gonna say his last name because it's just that his full name sounds pretty badass his name is teodor stromberg like it sounds like it sounds like he should be pillaging my village but uh that sounds so much more awesome than i think you intended it he doesn't know i intended it he doesn't have a uh a question early he just said last episode you were recommending games for some 12 year old and the way in which you did it made you seem like you didn't have much confidence in the gaming abilities of 12 year olds in general you shouldn't underestimate kids i played deus ex when i was 13 and taught myself english reading tomb raider walkthroughs years before that i'm sure kids today can handle more than peggle if you just let them try and it's true i guess when i was 12 i was playing things like uh dissent without a joystick i was i was way more badass at that age than i am now yeah so i i guess it's true 12 year olds you know they i guess they just have that they're not like us they don't give up i think we just reacted for hours yeah we reacted to the means the manner in which that letter was phrased yeah they kind of phrased it like they were buying things for like their idiot child which which uh stromberg wrote it and he says that i fucking hate kids so i don't know why i'm standing up for them you were that kid at one point yeah yeah i mean it's totally true um Swedish kids yeah and in some way like that that that gets me to thinking like you know you guys were talking about how a lot of people were donating Tony Hawkes ride i was like man like with some kids gonna sit there and he's gonna be with that fucking little classic oh yeah yeah i was gonna add up all the toys that got donated like in our office to the christmas toy drive like the box day one when they brought in the braille it was just full of Tony outgrides and the male receptionist for most hours went oh my god yeah they were told i'm sure those kids will be totally stoked assuming they have 360s like that's the thing you know um they will definitely be so i'm gonna i'm gonna end uh the the letter segment with one dumb letter which is kind of like uh it has a certain relevance right now because it says uh super bold to your host of cat fancy this is in response to your latest podcast the cat fancy thing actually she comes from because when we first started the podcast we used to read letters that were sent to EGM that never got read because the magazine closed and we always used to read them we didn't start cat fancy instead of EGM and also the cats would not shut the fuck up yeah so he says uh this is a response to your latest podcast in which Arthur commented on Anthony's cat preference to Tyler when he's present i do find that my feline familiars are more demonstrative around guests we have guests that is because uh one or two things people like dog perhaps like dogs some cats are attracted to the sense that are unfamiliar my tuxedo kitty blazer loves to hang out with my sneakers and slippers and seek to either get high and seek it to get a high off of it so he has a cat whose coloration is like a tuxedo that he named blazer yeah um it is also theorized in my household that cats are somewhat territorial and anything that doesn't have their hair on it is new and therefore must be decorated we also seem to have some form of scoring system because as soon as one cat gets up to move off the hapless guest another one moves into tickets place along with some jockeying beforehand so i just thought that that was like a funny letter to end it on because my cat like first we had to go looking forward because she wasn't sitting on someone's lap and then as soon as we brought her inside she made noise from taking a crap she then just laid on shoes lap for like the whole show like she never lays on my lap it drives me insane well now you have like a scientific explanation for it because you're not so that you used to sit in that oh even when i sat on the couch she would come and sit on tylor right next to me there's more it is like the ex-girlfriend that makes out with some dude right next to you yeah it drives me insane um but yeah so thank you for listening thank you matt and ryan for being on which one's me sorry matt and shoe being on jesus i'm so you say matt and ryan because ryan comes over monday yeah um but uh let's uh do a quick where people can find us on the internet you can find me at twitter.com/chefmoney and you can as well as my editorial work at gamesby.com you can find arthur at twitter.com/aegis and you can find my editorial comment at teamxbox.com and then tylor um yeah my twitter is at is twitter.com/dirtyt like the drink and uh i write news for gamesby and then to twitter.com/bitmobshoe and then bitmob.com is our website yeah and you can find me at twitter.com/baldisbeautiful so i'm going to type that in and get something yeah i better go see if that's already taken no uh twitter.com/talkingorange or at area5.tv or at uh revision3.com/co-op some of this stuff's going to get renamed right now because now i'll just do the ending shabiel which goes uh you should listen to our fellow podcasts that are with our partners in hammer suit the business business business and uh that is the mob cast at bitmob.com the geek box at geekbox.net and uh our friends at area5 which you can find their wonderful show co-op at either area5.tv or revision3.com/co-op um that being said you should dig the podcast subscribe to it tell all your friends all that business thank you for listening and we will be back next week monsie! so so so so so oh yeah you finish all the order of the rings books i'm i'm in the last one right now very good i'm enjoying the last one um all right so we're sure that yeah testing testing one two three shire it actually doesn't work it's a funny word everyone laughs thought more uh yep we're down here with matt i saw matt last night at umloud but he didn't rock out did you rock out at umloud no i don't do well with music games at all why don't you do well with music games i'm just not good at them i just uh i can't sing and i don't have the rhythm i don't have what you could call the rhythm matt would you like to contribute well that's because rhythm is a dancer she's a soul companion you can feel it in the air whoa whoa the way we the way we use passion we use this whole companion you can feel it in the air what are you talking about matt what are you saying over there what song is that random is a dancer yep we used to go as a nasal freezer i actually never knew that that's what was being said there right you can't understand that shit dude my mic is like closer than anyone else's i'm telling you my mic is not even like four inches from my face maybe if you took your hood off so you could actually hear through that yeah i mean my mic's my mic's always the closest because this one doesn't have to i just put her up to my legs oh boy check check check look i can practically yeah it's super close i mean it's not even as far as way as my my index finger my index finger is tiny man man are you sure you're just far away from me is she hmm i guarantee you mine's always the closest it's the closest just she because i can't lean back in my chair really come right you got to be up the whole time it's not actually it keeps me awake which is why it's in there and it allows me to sit facing people well i was going to offer to trade sometimes so you don't have to sit down and i like it every chair i purposefully sit here you have a book by your side a cock cup of tea lounge back yes little lounger i'm very urbane welcome to another episode no letters from grandpa it seems to be wearing a bathroom oh man no it's actually no we just hold it on a lawn here at evan school is jacket are we good uh yeah everybody talk at once check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check check is vista worth it what's going on i know that there's a vista worth it that always seems like something that seemed weird to me that i don't know i don't know well because you've got to find out if it's worth it gankster windows yeah i know it just it's just it's just the one just gangster windows vista like that actually never said like something i would do like that's microsoft new initiative gangster windows it's a gangster's paradise dude dude that song was the white boy's anthem when it came out white dudes everywhere would roll around base and that shit money i mean i'm just thinking of act to like like the white gangster the white thug guys that wasn't your intent enough for how you roll ow well yeah we always jam rap but we were we liked the far we were jamming the far side when that was out yeah we always jam rap jam you guys listened to two pock at that time all right actually we weren't two pock fans well that's because biggie and Wu Tang we were more east coast all right well Wu Tang's okay fuck two pock everything all right yeah ready you don't want beef yeah we're good okay let's let's do this thing yo are you recording goo