Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 40 - 111209
Greetings! This week we talk about Europa Universalis, MW2, the upcoming Dawn of War 2 expansion and more, then move on to our second segment covering why you buy your games on the platforms you choose. Then we close out with letters. Vaginacles! This week's music, in order of appearance: People in Planes - Mayday; Envy - Chain Wandering Deeply; Weezer - Tired of Sex;
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. Welcome, welcome, welcome to Rebel FM episode 40. - For real, this time. - Episode 40, yeah, I fucked it up last time. It's hard to keep track. Plus after a while, what does it matter, really? - Well, this is a, I think the 66th podcast we recorded this year. - Right, counting all the game clubs. - Yes. - And Rebel FM specials. - No, that's not including the Rebel FM specials, including those, this is the 69th. - Oh, magical round. - Yeah, so we're here to talk about video games. - Yeah. - If you found us for the first time. I'm Anthony Geigos. - I have a eat sleep game in GameSpy.com. With me is Tyler Barber. - How's it going? - Who does some news for GameSpy. - News time. - Freelancer large. - I put on a news hat. - And he's also part of eat sleep game in it. - Yes. - And there's Arthur Gies. - Hello. - Who is a part of eat sleep game. - Yes. - And as of Monday, we'll be joining IGN Entertainment as a whole as part of. - Team Xbox as the news fin features person. - So not Team Xbox. - So not Team Xbox as in the Xbox page of IGN. - No. - Team Xbox is actually its own website owned by IGN. It started off as a fan page a few years ago and then IGN bought it. Now it is being run by Andy Eddy who's like the oldest person still working in the industry. I mean, the dude's been around since like. - When you put it like that, it sounds kind of sad. - The first video game eggs. No, it's a fucking, it's like the best type of person you could work for. Someone that's been around for that. - Yeah. - Who's the worded scholar of the game? - That's the whole thing is that most people don't stick around. - Isn't there a-- - And they're stuck around for years and years. - But isn't there a saying like you're not supposed to trust people with two first names? - Andy Eddy. I don't know. - I don't know. - I don't know what you're not supposed to trust people with a profession as a last name. - Oh. - I don't know. Andy Eddy. Yeah. He's a good guy. - No, I'm just teasing. - He's an excellent person. He is the greatest person on Earth. - Yeah. But yeah, Arthur's going to start there which just confirms to the world Arthur's Xbox bias. - Exactly. - Well, I mean he's now finally found his right home. - Well, screw it. I mean, at least on like one hand they, whatever. Like no one's going to throw stones at you four. - Actually, the nice thing about it is that working at Team Xbox is like, yes, you have to be comprehensive with covering like downloadable games, all that sort of stuff. - But it's a narrower focus. - It's only covering one platform. - Yeah. - You know what I mean? Like having like to cover Wii games and DS games and stuff all that can be very tedious. - And I am really looking forward to holding Microsoft's balls over the fire on some stuff. - Do it. So, yeah, that's where Arthur will be. He's no longer unemployed. Which could result in sometimes the podcast going up a little later on Thursdays because Arthur isn't going to be home anymore. - Ideally it'll mean I'm more on the ball on Wednesday nights. - Yeah, but I mean the reality of it is that you might be working a full-time job. - And this is not an ideal world. - So, say we're here to talk about games. That was the little news about our personal lives. Tyler's also going to go on a year-long journey, so journey if you will, through Russia and Skypin from now on. I don't know why. - That's a joke, right? - The fact that you had to ask if it's a joke, is like I'm up and joining the motherland that isn't my motherland. - Are you, I mean, would you be surprised if Tyler said I'm going to travel in Russia for a year? - I'm doing the most epic piece on Stalker, clear skies ever. - He's actually going to go live in the Metro stations that Metro 2033 is about for a year. So, so what do we call, but yeah, let's talk about the side about games we've been playing. Games, games. - Well, Tyler. Do you have anything you've been playing that isn't modern warfare, too? - Yeah, lots, actually. - Oh, good. Let's talk about those. - Quite a bit of games. You know, one game I think we should talk about before we get into modern warfare, because I think it deserves a fair shake. It might not be getting the shake it deserves is a, is a fucking, I've heard of that game. - I've heard of that game. - Oh, it's swords. - It's got a lot of green shit. - It's got a lot of green shit. - It's got a lot of green shit. - It's got a lot of green shit. - It's got a lot of green shit. - It's got a lot of green shit. - It's got a lot of green shit. - Yeah, I mean, we talked about it last week. - I actually just brought, I actually just brought Dragon Age home on PC because I was waiting for it to get in my press account, and it just never did. So, and since I already gave the 360 Cup, I had to Tyler, I was like, I'll play it on PC, whatever. - Which is the superior version. - Yeah, but the reason why I want to talk about it is because I feel like, I don't know, it could get overlooked even when there's like a role playing shooter out there. And I feel like it's a really great game. I mean, I'll be the first to admit, like when I started it off the first two to three hours, like after I got through playing and I remember texting Anthony and being like, man, this is knights in shining armor of the Old Republic. Like that's all it is. - That's not a bad thing to be in my opinion. - I know, right. So, exactly. That's eventually what I came around to. And there's quite a few improvements on the Old Knights of the Old Republic, the one complaint I've heard pretty consistently about it, that I've never understood why they keep it the way they did is that like the blood, like there's just so much blood on the characters. It goes past the point of being comical at times. Like, I don't understand what made them decide to do that. - And then on the other side. - You say that, but maybe like, are we seeing two different things because I just see like little blood splatters. - Well, yeah, but I mean, they're completely covered head to toe in it. - Oh, okay. - I mean, and I guess in the PC version, there's like a command line thing or something where you can turn most of that off. - Right. - You can in the console version too. - Okay. - You can. - Yeah. - I don't want to toggle all blood off. - Yeah. - Like a little blood is fine. - I don't know if there's a slaw. - I don't want to look like I just walked off the set of Carrie. - Yeah. See, that's what I imagine in my mind when I hear you guys talking about that, but I've never seen, I mean, yeah, it's a little excessive, but it's not to the point where they're like completely lipstick red. Like, basically. - No, no, no. It's a bit covered in bloods back. - Red rockets walking around. - So. - No. Well, I mean, no, it's not like in Gears of War when you come out of the war. - Yeah. That's what I have in my mind. - Yeah, they're not. They're not like that. - And even in that, like, they show disgust, like they're totally disgusted by the fact that they're in the war. - It's true. These people are completely, like, unaffected. - Yeah. Nonchalant, as opposed. Oh. Oh. - So, have you, what type of character did you make Tyler? - So I'm starting off as like a dwarf. - A what? - Class. - Is he a black dwarf? - He's got really dark complexion and basically bleach blonde, everything like beard and hair. - Wow. That guy. Let's go for old. Silver hair. But I'm basically, like, the character I'm sort of trying to embody is basically like a middle medieval Marlowe Stanfield from The Wire. That means nothing. You should explain. - Man, I hate that character. - Which, like, he is just this guy, Marlowe Stanfield, you know, he's the young drug dealer that basically comes under the radar and basically takes over. - When the primary syndicate is torn apart by infighting, he swoops in and takes over. - Right. But he does so. - What type of character does that? - He is, he's ruthless and cutthroat and doesn't generally play by the pre-established rules that the sort of ecosystem of the dark world. - Yeah, not at all. - So, like, we hit two. - You're guys ruthless. - Completely. Yeah, to give you an example, like, there's a scene in The Wire where this cop, he goes into this corner store and he stills, and Marlowe stills a lollipop in front of the security guard just to see what the security guard will do. The security guard really didn't do anything, just walked outside and was like, "Hey, man, why are you doing that?" - Do you think I like being a security guard? - Yeah, and then so Marlowe had the guy killed because he even said anything to him. Gee. - And so, like, that's kind of the character I'm playing, so that's why when we were talking, I didn't realize that this lady that I killed early on was like one of the only healer classes. - I knew you were going to tell me that because several of the people, every person I know that's played remotely bad, they've all killed the healer. Isn't her name, like, Win? - Yeah. - Or something like that? Yeah, everyone kills her. - I haven't met her. - Yeah. - So, like, there comes the point where it's like what? You have to, like, spoilers. You have to, like, choose whether or not you're going to add some shit to a potion or something or burn something. - Well, no, no. - And when you do it, she's like, "I can't stand for this." - Well, it's, I mean, basically, you know, I mean, the, you know, I'll go very loosely around the story, but basically, there are these, you know, mages dealing and, you know, conjuring things from the dead and stuff, and they're sort of, it's frowned upon in the mages. - Are those the blood mages? - Yeah. They're the blood mages. And so, you know, it's, it's, they're not really trusted, you know, that that's, so, so, so your, your thing is like, well, we got to take out everyone in this tower because this crazy infection or some kind of plague is being spread by their black magic. I did hear there's some pretty silly dialogue at times, like, like, Roy was playing last night and he was telling me that, like, he walked up to someone because he's trying to romance one of the characters. And he was like, he asked him something like, "Being a Grey Warden means I really will never have a normal life. Huh?" And the guy's like, "Yes, it does." And the response that it offered was like, "And that makes me sad." Yeah. It's just the way I picture it being said makes me crack up. Sorry. No, no, no. I kind of, I kind of wish that your character would speak. Yeah. Like, you choose, you go through the trouble of choosing one of like six or seven awful voice options at the beginning of the game for your character and the only time you heard is in combat, when he's doing stuff for following an order and I mean, all of those voices suck. Yeah. And they're, they're actually the same voices. I remember sucking from Nightsea, the older public. Yeah. I've heard the DLC character, like, I don't know if either of you guys got it. Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Like the way Ryan O'Donnell from Mary5.tv described him was he's just the droid from Nightsea the older public. Oh, for sure. That's, that's all he is. He's HK. He's HK. He's a rock version of HK. And he's hilarious. And that's like really the... Well, I don't think I got, I think I got a different... He's a stomped on him. Oh, no. I got a different... Wait. Is this someone that's... Okay. I played, which was on Thursday night before I fell into Assassin's Creed 2. I was in camp and it shows you sort of wake up from a nightmare in camp and then there are people around that you can talk to both in your party and not. And there's this guy I've never seen before. And I walk over to him and start talking and he's telling me about this sad story about how his family lost their ancestral castle and your mentor Duncan promised to help him get it back. And he's all, "Will you help me?" And you can say, "You're so no." And if you say, "Yes, you have to pay to buy DLC to do the quests." Yeah. This is something interesting about this game because he's a character in the game, pedaling for downloadable content, but no, this is not the same Gollum character. Yeah, I haven't made it that far. Gollum character looks like something out of he-man or something like that. Yeah. He's literally made out of rock and he's got blue crystals. Yeah. He has a very... He's his like third person all the time. Yeah. And he calls you like it. Yeah. Yeah. If it would have us do it. And in general... He kind of hates humans. He kind of has like this disdain of humans because he's basically been a statue for hundreds of years or whatever. I mean, I think that we are seeing different things because we are playing different races. Well, yeah. What's your race? And playing the game differently? Well, no. I mean, I haven't even met the character that he's talking about. I'm just saying that you haven't been doing the evil shit that Tyler has. Well, no, but I have not even come across that character that he's talking about. I'm playing an elven rogue. So I... What's their starting story? You can either choose to be the wild elf or the formerly enslaved city elf, which is what I chose. Okay. And they basically live in these slums. Yeah. And my mother who died when I was super young was a rogue that the Grey Wardens had tried to recruit but couldn't because the elven elder married her off the forehand because that's the way the marriages in that society work is that they're arranged between different elf warrens. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. The dwarves start in poverty too, which is sort of where I started to... Really? Yeah. Yeah, they do. And basically, your sister is being like passed around by this one guy. Like literally, they just say it like, you know, he's pimping her out and that's where I just got the idea of me. Yeah. I'm like, fuck it. When you play as a dwarf, it kind of does start with like this whole storyline that's like some dude's fantasy of wanting to bang a dwarf. I mean, the elven story starts with your... This is your wedding day and the local noble son comes in and tries to invoke prima nocta and takes like four or five women with elven women with into the castle. Yeah. I mean... You have to go in and ostensibly rescue them by which it turns out that you were just butchering everyone that you find in this castle. Good. And it's awesome. I mean, that's what I really like about Dragon Age is it's... I mean, it's an easy way to sum it up is like it's a raid at our Lord of the Rings. You know, I don't know. I mean, that's really reductive, but it's kind of a silly bad thing. There's some interesting variations on old fantasy tropes, like the whole idea of magic being a curse as much as anything because demons are drawn to magic users, which means that at any moment, a mage could basically explode in a pile of gore and a demon will take their place. That's kind of... Well, that's always been a thing in a lot of the fantasy I read. Magic's always kind of evil. Yeah, yeah. And mages are... And in this world, mages are sort of like X-men, the mutants, like they're kind of required to... Register. Yeah, register, basically. And then the humans that make magic items basically are magically neutered because otherwise they wouldn't be able to create magic items the way that the dwarves do. I heard the dwarf you get in the game as part of your party is kind of like a whiny drunkard. I haven't come across a dwarf yet. But that would make me very sad because dwarves should not be whiny. I mean, if you play a dwarf, you're not going to run into that character at all. No, not right away. I wish I could be a dwarf with an all-dorf party. I would be racist as hell. That wouldn't go well because I mean... I know you're trying to recruit an army and all that, and I would need more than just dwarves. See, I wasn't even going to say that because that's like a spoiler or whatever, but yeah. I just need to have a reading previous. Like the premise is that you have these scrolls and you're supposed to go to each race and basically demand their assistance because the Grey Wardens... The Grey Wardens owe them essentially for getting rid of the blight, which is this plague of evil like the first time. Right. So if you have anything more to say about that Dragon Age, Dragon Age, some of the menu things like one thing that really bothers me about the menus on consoles is that in order to see the stats on any of your items, you have to like go into another menu. So it's like, if you're looking at all your swords, if you're looking at all your armor... You have to compare it to something else. Yeah, you have to actually pull up another little... And I just feel like it should just, I don't know, it's a minor thing, but when you're talking about like an RPG where loot is the number one draw... Any interface... Any interface instance in that game with the exception of the combat interface, which is actually good where you hold down the trigger and just try to keep stuff? Yeah. That works fine, but everything else, every interface aspect in that game is awful. I agree. And yet, still, it is fun. Yeah. It's a testament to it that you just want to keep going, just like annoying. I know, and yeah, what's really weird is my first walk away from this game left me with a really bad impression. And even in my mind's eye, the game I would envision when I wasn't playing it was like uglier than it actually is, you know, but like coming back to it, I've sort of like had to like bring myself through therapy, like, okay, it's not as bad as you think. You know, I don't know, that sounds like it's a little stopper. Just as bad as you think, you are a battered wife. But we couldn't this time. I mean, Anthony and I were talking about this the other day, and I think like this might get us in trouble, but I think a lot of the praise that's being heaped on this is praise that no one would have even given it the opportunity to receive if it didn't have Bioware's name on it. Like, if this were some random European RPG that no one had heard of. I don't know. I would like to think that I would feel the same way. I feel like about it if it had a reason had been made by Bioware, Risen would have reviewed better. Like, because Risen is also a flawed sort of fantasy game that's still good. I don't know. I mean, you know, it still has all the Bioware tropes as well, right? Which people love the branching dialogue trees and all that, but yeah, I think I saw some. I can't, it might have been Kotaku that was talking about one of the writers of Bioware responding to a poster who was saying it's the same hack need, Bioware's story. And they were being snarky about it, but people don't seem to realize that there is a sort of set of aspects of heroic fiction that are very common and accessible and understood. Yeah. I mean, it's Joseph Campbell wrote a book to hear what the thousand phases and it's like there are only five stories that humans tell, basically five archetypes and then they mix them up. And a lot of times it's the little differences that they implement in those situations that make stories memorable. What else have you been, what else have you been hitting up? Been hitting up quite a bit. Also hit, hit up some more Captain Forever. And I got to the wireframe guys that you were talking about. They are ridiculously hard. Yeah. Yeah. So Captain Forever for people that don't know, we talked to it previously is a small online browser based game that you pay for and it's like you fly around a little space. It's not online in the sense that you play with other people. You play in a browser. You play through a browser. So you have to fight ships, kill them, use their parts to build your ship and make it better. Yeah. To what end I still haven't figured out. Right. Like I've never beaten it quote unquote. Though the creator did say there's an end to it. Well, he said end in quotation marks. I don't think there's, I think what it is is maybe the wireframe guys are the highest. I think it has a full screen destroy. Yeah. Because once you fight the wireframe guys, they don't ever go away as far as I could tell. They go from them for forever and always peer in front of you. Like there's like more, you're just like constantly like it's like once you've alerted the Galactic Empire, right, they roll in and just punch you with a force that is just like you. Yeah. That's like the single player in modern warfare too. Yes. Yes. But the way I finally got to the wireframe guys like the way I managed to get all the way was I just said fuck it like it. I kept my ship extremely small like I never had to sell. Yeah. Yeah. And I was literally just the core with a thruster on the back, two guns on the side of my front gun. And that was it. And I would just prey on the passive ships, the ones who weren't engaging in combat. And if it was, you know, if I could work my way in there, I'd go in and get it. My favorite thing to do is to take the aggressive ships because there are aggressive ships that will attack you out, right? And then there are like ships that are just like taking goods and they're passive. But if they get hit even once by an enemy, they just go ape ship their guns. So my goal is to always lead an antagonistic ship into the passive one and then just let them blow the hell out of each other and then I go in and reap the parts that are left over the pieces. Yeah, I am a horrible person. I'm just like, you will kill each other and then I'll like wait till there's like one ship that's spinning in circles because his engines are all fucked up. And I'm like, yes, now you work with him. Being a pirate is a lot of fun. That's what it comes down to. Yeah. That game's rad. Talking to the creator of it and he said, captain's successor is coming out soon. Is that going to be the name of the game? Yeah. Captain's successor. They need a different rank, like major successor or something like that. Yeah, yeah. Keep moving. I'm excited to see whatever it is next. Me too. I just think that game is so good. It's just a fun, it's like one of those games that is like Geometry Wars. It's like really fun to go back to whenever and just play for a bit because like Geometry Wars, you're going to die at some point and lose quote unquote. Yeah, you know, it's like still fun. And in some ways it seems to me like Captain Forever out spores, spore. And like what I mean by that is like the parts that you put on your ship really affect how you play and I mean your strategy and everything. Well, it's funny because there's only like three types of parts too, but yeah. But when they start varying with like weight and then you know, you get the stronger thrusters or whatever and you know, yeah, I should try your tactic because whenever I've played that game, I've always tried to make it into like a battle cruiser. I'm always trying to like construct my version of the battle star Galactica and just roll around like this giant powerful and I always end up getting blown to bits. Yeah, definitely survive the longest cruiser because it just turns into this war where we broadside each other and both of us walk away spinning and it's like battle like colonial battles. Yeah. We just like roll up in each other. All right. Let's do it. And then thousands of people die. So. Have to forever also very good. It's very good. And also played as well. I played some online with gay Tony this time I jumped on the online stuff to check that out. Was that what was it? Was it like modes or was it just like people rolling around like when we played like trying to live in the city? Well, yeah. I mean, yeah, I played free mode and what's cool about free mode with gay Tony is that they added a whole bunch of parachute checkpoints and there's a lot more helicopters, whereas like. So everyone's rolling around jumping out of helicopters. Yeah. So, you know, that's just like silly fun. Not much to say about that, but um, another than that, modern fucking warfare too. Mewtwo. Mewtwo. Yeah. How are you enjoying the multiplayer now that you finally tried it multiplayer was the very first thing I played and the thing I've played the most so far. And you find it a little busy as far as the interface and stuff. I thought I thought I might, but I don't actually. I do not. I mean, I think those little bars, bars, tags, I don't know what they're called. They're decorated in your players flag or something. Yeah. You get all these little, you know, you get, they, they remind me of the aesthetic that you see in a lot of people's banners on message boards and stuff, which I think is kind of cheesy looking, but hey, whatever, I don't know, they want people to feel a bit, a bigger sense of identity with their exactly, yeah. Do you feel a bigger sense of identity? And it may be a little bit, but not really. What I do enjoy is the amount of options you have now to create like your own classes. They've given you a lot more than even on their side arms. There's the billion things you can equip and yeah, side arms are not only pistols now, it could be like a shotgun or even like a submachine gun, which is rad. You know, and I, I don't switch as fast. Okay. And, and I, I even feel that stuff like the dual pistols and stuff, it doesn't really matter. Even, even like the riot shields, it doesn't, it still feels centrally like call of duty. They have your favorite handgun in it now. Yeah. The Glock 18. The automatic Glock. Oh, that's what you always used when we played a rainbow six. Well, you, you would take the riot shield and the, and the Glock 18, yeah, which you can do in this as well, I believe. Yeah. The riot shields are a lot harder to be really good with my multiplayer. Can you use a gun while holding a riot shield? Yeah. I'm a single player. I've held riot shields over and over again and I couldn't fire a gun, but maybe it's because I didn't have a normal side arm. Maybe. Yeah. Could be, could be. But yeah, we have been playing a bunch of, playing a whole lot of that. And the equipment drops your, yeah, that you're calling with the gas. Yeah. Like you can call in like a, basically a box that falls from this guy. That's interesting. And it, it's one of those things, man, where it burns you sometimes and sometimes it's, you know, the greatest reward when you still get an enemy or something like that, or when you like, happened to me last night, I got my auto turret delivery, but I got killed like right before I was about to pick it up and then the enemies got it. And then like, now they have a turret, you know, but I was, it really makes the, those little proxy battles interesting, like it completely, you know, you'll see a whole wave of people completely change their direction on the map because they see the gas. Yeah. Yeah. And then stuff I really welcome to like, are those seeking rockets to take down helicopters and stuff? Cause now it's a lot easier to down a helicopter. Did you get stingers and single play or a multiplayer? You can choose right off the bat, the rocket launcher that has tracking rockets. You, you just have to go in and, and that's the other thing, your sidearm could be a rocket launcher, dude. So all my classes have the rocket launchers aside on them. Right. I guess, you know, the negative side of that is that when you run out of a clip, if there's the guy right there, you can't do the quick pistol switch exactly. And the other thing is with the heat seeking rocket launcher, you only have one rocket per life unless you find a, an ammo box case, which they have now as well. So I know that you also tried the spec ops mode. I did. Were you playing that with your buddy in Texas? Yeah. Scantron and my friend Jordan, they were playing there, they were swapping the mic, dude. And immediately we, you know, both of it, we were both skeptical. We didn't really know what to expect. You know, what is this mode? We jumped in right after the first round, we were like, dude, this is fun. And basically what it does is it throws you into arenas from the single player. Yeah. Like basically like five minute pitched battles, right? Yep. And they're super, they're, they're quick. And if you play it on normal, they're pretty easy. They're not, they're, they're not that difficult. But here's the thing. It's, it's cooler than like a Gears of War horde mode because they're not all just waves and enemies are coming at you. Like they're all very different. There was even one where it's like a snow level and you both have sniper rifles and you literally have to play the whole thing stealth. Like you can like, cause it's like, yeah, it's like cooperative. At least night, people. Yes. And we were, we were totally doing that. Like we're going to snipe. Okay. I got the guy on the left. You got the guy on the right. Okay. And then as soon after I'm going to get his dog, you know, and it's like one, two, three, boom, boom. Take him out. And, and it was rad too, man, because even in like the stealth stage, you know, we got spotted and instantly it was like swarms of enemies were just, have you had to fight when you were doing it? Did you have to fight any of those special enemies? I figured what they're called. You know, they're basically behemoths. I know what you're talking about. I know what you're talking about. We didn't see any. Well, you know, when they're coming because whenever they come, there's a drum that hits like, okay. And then, you know, the juggernaut is on his way to you. Yeah, but I stopped playing spec ops because I'm not that foreign single player and they put you through the single player levels. So I didn't want to spoil any environments because I've already said they put you through the environments, though the, the, the levels are definitely not the same. They're not the same for sure, but, you know, I didn't want, but even play multiplayer, you'll see a lot of the environments that you use to single player because that those are usually adapted from single player levels. Yeah. But you guys have both checked out the single player, right? Yeah, I haven't played any multiplayer at all. I mean, me personally, like I'll feel free to chime in, but I've only played about an hour and a half. Yeah, I'm not that far either because I also have left for dead two right now and that's been my focus. Yeah. I'm about halfway through the single player campaign, I think, for like four hours than you are. Something like that. Like I'm in the middle of the second act and there are three acts. Okay. And I'm going to be honest, I'm a little iffy. Yeah. I mean, for my first hour and a half, I was a little underwhelmed. I don't know. Yeah. It seems like both of you are having the same opinion. But I told you are both playing on a hard level, right? Well, the hard end is what I've played it on the old ones and I enjoyed it. But this time around, I'm not. I actually think, you know, people can say whatever the fuck they want. I think I'm going to switch it on normal, just to have fun with it. Just like I plan on playing Ghostbusters on easy when I play it. Yeah, I play Ghostbusters on easy when I played it. I just, I feel like it's not, there's no move forward in their level design or their game design. Like it's all in some ways, it often feels like a step backwards from Call of Duty 4. In what ways you talk about like the enemy spawns or something? Yeah, the endless enemy spawns, the enemies that never miss, the eight million grenades. And whereas in previous Call of Duty games, a lot of that stuff has existed to keep you moving forward. The levels, a lot of the levels so far feel much more punitive than they ever have as far as how quickly you'll die. And how often guys will just come out like eight half the enemies you fight have shotguns. First of all, and those shotguns will hit you from like 60 feet away. And you just, I just find myself dying way more than I did from behind more than I ever have. Yeah. See, I'm playing on normal and I'm enjoying it because I'm not much of a single player guy. If I want to challenge, I'd rather play like other humans or, you know, I enjoy like the horde modes where it's like me and a buddy going against a bunch of AI. But for a single player, like I just want to play it on normal. And that way I'm not distracted when the big set pieces happen, you know, because that happens to me. You know, when I play games on hard, you're getting your ass kicked and your heads behind cover. When some really cools going down, you know, jumping back and forth. Yeah. And I'm not, I'm finding virtually no intelligence as I'm playing through. Like I, I'm about halfway through and I found three of 45 of intelligence. In the last game, anything that you could pick up glowed and this, the intelligence doesn't glow. That's weird. So you have to, you just say, Oh, I didn't even know there was intelligence. Oh, yeah. Cause it wasn't glowing. laptops. Oh, that's right. They were laptops. Last time. Yeah. Well, no, I don't, were they laptops? Last time? Were they folders? They were laptops. I remember laptops, folks, how? I mean, visually, the game is an improvement, like a pretty significant improvement, in my opinion, both in, in tech, because people don't look like they're made of plastic anymore. And look quite as plastic in the first one, they weren't, I mean, they didn't always look plasticy, but it was still sort of like they were sculpted out of clay and they were too shiny. And one thing I was talking to Tyler that they really nailed is like, and you'll probably agree. I know it's just that they've really gotten human motion down a lot more in this one. Yeah. Even fingers and stuff on the guns like are moving individually instead of like a hand that's just like this, you know, GI Joe hand. Yeah. And not just that, but there's so much more color in the game than there was in the art direction. Yeah. It's just the, the overall design aesthetic has improved a lot, except in one, in one extremely important aspect, which is that a lot of the time you're fighting, I mean, it's not spoiling anything to say you're fighting Russian soldiers, right? I mean, yeah, it's a continuation of the first game. Yeah. You follow a Russian. There are points where you're in a city where there are a ton of, you know, where there are a ton of your soldiers and their soldiers, and it's extremely difficult to tell yours your guys from their guys, especially from a distance. So you'll find yourself accidentally shooting your people or wondering if that guy off the distance is not shooting at anything as yours or theirs and all of a sudden he'll cap you and you'll know that he's theirs. Yeah. Well, to me, that like, that whole friendly fire or, you know, that tension of not shooting on the thing is like that was one thing, like getting back to the spec ops mode where, you know, we were on a bridge and, and, and there were a lot of civilians in the mode. So it's like you can't shoot civilians and, and there were a few times where the civilians sort of look a lot like the insurgent dudes, you know, so it kind of, I don't know. To me, I, I like a little bit of that. I do too. I, I actually think that that's like one of the ways that it's like, because they design such a really good looking game and they have all these things that pay attention to like guys reacting from fire to an extent and stuff, but those are the times that it also makes other things that break the illusion a lot more obvious. Like when they have like that intro part that teaches you how to shoot guns and there's all those Afghan dudes there, like letting you train them. Like, like, I could shoot at their feet and no one reacts, you know what I mean? Just little things like that. Like they don't have any actual AI. It's all scripted and you know, or that first part where you're in the Humvee and you're rolling and you have like that mini gun and immediately I was like, well, this is boring and I just started shooting at houses to see what happened. You know, and these are civilian homes. And the guy was like, Oh, don't do that. You know, those are civilian homes. Don't do that. But that's all he did. You know, there was like never any like, there's just like that, like repeated couple lines that died. It's like, it's almost like I almost wish that there was more procedural things. It was like, if you are trying to tell the story of like what it's like to be a soldier, I almost wanted to be like, you know, I don't know. You wish it wasn't so scripted. Yeah. I mean, I wish that, you know, people would care if I did something like fired my weapon in our base stuff like, you know, do we want to talk at all about the airport level? Not yet. I mean, people have been asking us about that for weeks. But the thing is, the thing is that I haven't even finished it. You haven't finished the airport? No, I play it all the way up to when you start fighting cops. But I didn't finish it because I dropped out to do something else last night. And Tyler hasn't played it. I have. Oh, yeah. Oh, I haven't. So I mean, you two are if you can. But again, I haven't finished it. So. I mean, at this point, you know what happens at the end of that sequence, don't you? Yeah. Basically. I don't actually know. Wouldn't you say like that? I'm not sure. Yeah. It's pretty shocking. So we might know. I don't even think it's shocking. I don't think I'm interested in poorly done. Okay. Well, the thing is I don't. So maybe we should talk about it next time. All right. Well, maybe we'll talk about it. About it next time. The mission is no Russian. All I will say is that that is the single worst moment I've experienced in a piece of media this year. Like that has made me feel worse than anything I've read watched or listened to. Yeah. I should. I'm not in an effective way, both in a horrified and slightly angry way. Like, I will never play that. I'll never play that level again. Well, I thought from the part I did play the person that summed up my feelings about it was Tom Chick. I had a fidget, which is sci-fi as gaming blog. Yeah. Which Tom Chick runs, I believe. I don't know if he runs it or not, but he writes for it a shit load. That's where he wrote the... When he's not too busy being on the office or on the West Wing. Mm-hmm. What? Yeah. You didn't know that? No, I had no idea. Tom Chick, writer for GFW for years. It covers the sci-fi channel blog for games. He is an actor. He was a current character on the West Wing, and he was also somebody's gay boyfriend on the office. Oh, Oscar. So, Oscar. I had no idea. He was also the person who gave the lower uncharted two score than you did. Yeah. Mm. Yeah, he's a... But I don't know. I think I disagree with you guys. I thought it was... I thought it was an hour for scene. I want to finish this. Maybe that'll change my... Yeah. And I felt like it set up the... The ending happened. I was like, "Okay. It makes sense now." I saw where they were going with it, but there was one moment that I would like to bring up when we talk about it that was kind of like, "Ah." I feel like any emotional investment that it could have created any power as a narrative device was squandered. Bye. What do you like, squandered as in the way that that sequence ends basically makes it pointless. Like, that whole sequence... Really? That's not the way I... I mean, it'll be interesting when we talk about it. It seems like how would there be the rest of the... The concept of that sequence is that you are sacrificing a part of yourself. All right, guys. So... Are we either... Either we're going to talk about it today or not. Well, no. I mean, it's this simple. The point of the sequence is that you're sacrificing a part of yourself, a part of humanity... They tell you that. To be part of this... They tell you that... This thing that will save lives, and ultimately that is pointless, which makes that sequence pointless to me. Which is... Well... Worse. It's not a topic for next week. It's not a topic for next week. Yeah. How about emotional scenes? This is not pointless, but... And it's also sandwiched around like a bunch of fucking bravado, hula, bullshit, and dick chaining quotes. Yeah, there are a lot of dick chaining quotes. And Donald Rumsfeld. Yeah. Like, all the shit that people said, I don't know if six days in Fallujah can handle this kind of content with any sort of subtlety or whether or not it will be insensitive or inappropriate. Yeah, this is... Like, this does all of that. All of those fears about six days in Fallujah apply to this. Uh, you know the weird thing is that someone in my Twitter said something about how... How they didn't think it was that ridiculous to have Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld because they had quotes from JFK and he wasn't that good of a guy. And I was like, dude, a lot of people have flaws, but they're not Dick Cheney or Donald Rumsfeld. I'm gonna be honest with you. The way I am. Donald Rumsfeld was incompetent in a bad person. Yeah. Dick Cheney is incompetent and an evil person. Yeah. I think maybe they were looking at it in the way of, like, when they would use JFK quotes. You know, it was closer to that time and now that it's like, well, who's... Yeah, I just... Who's a poly... Who's speaking JFK was one of the people that, like, kept the Cold War from spiraling into nuclear war when it first started. Although he almost did cause it a couple of times. True. But that's... But more importantly, it was just weird seeing like a Gandhi quote, like, you know, with sandwiched in between a Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney quote, I was like that. So they're running out of... it seems like they didn't want to use quotes that they'd used in previous Call of Duty games. So they're like, well, fuck, now we've got to find new quotes. Why not just stop doing the quotes? Yeah. That's what I would think. Why instead... Why instead of quotes, why can't we just get a tip... Yeah. A game tip like so many other games do. I mean, you do in certain parts, like, don't stand next to jet engines on fire, for example. Watch out. Watch out for grenade indicators. Yeah. So, yeah, we'll talk more about that next week when we've all had, in theory, more time with it, you know, though, who knows what the way things are going to be in the next week, so... I mean, do you have anything to review this week except for Left or Dead? No, I mean, but except for Left or Dead. I mean, that's a game I want to make sure I spend quite a bit of time with. Who at GameSpy gets to review Lego and Deanna Jones to? We're actually sending that out to... I sent it to Phil Theobald, who's moldy gym freelancer. So I was going to send it to another freelancer, except he didn't have a Wii. And I feel like me and Ryan decided that having that game reviewed for Wii as well as the 360 is kind of important for that game. So you're having both reviewed or you sent him both? I sent him both. I mean, they're the same game, except one might have a couple Wii things. You know what I mean? Like, Wii, Wii control things. But I mean, I do think that the 360 and Wii will be the lead SKUs on this, so... Yeah, I mean, yeah, there's a ton of games coming out next week. On top of that, there's LittleBigPlanet and Assassin's Creed for PSP. Did... Like... On Warfare. Did Call of Duty 4 reflex come out this week? Call of Duty reflex came out as well. And I won't judge a game until I play it. That being said, it's never a good sign when I ask for review code for a long time before it comes out. Or maybe not a long time, but at least a week before it comes out or something, you know? And then I ask again that they tell me they're going to give it to me like two days after it comes out. You know? That's always kind of an alarming sign. That's kind of what happened with Saw 2. Um... Yeah, I don't know. I just always find it sketchy when something like that happens because it's like, are you just trying to like hide those reviews from coming out until a couple of days after the game comes out? So... Um... I heard it was bad. I heard that from some people. What? Reflex? Yeah. That IGN, I heard IGN people talking and saying that it was quite bad. So... Okay. That's not the worst-looking game I've ever seen. Yeah. I heard it controls terribly, but I also played the DS version of Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. Well, Tyler, was there anything else that you played? That. Or was that about it? Uh, yeah. I mean, yeah. That was, you know, just played a lot of Dragon Age. So Modern Warfare... Mobilized. On DS. Yeah. Mobilized. Yes. That played it for like a half hour. It's a lot like the last one in that it's a first-person shooter using DS controls, except that, man, it just has like, you know, it has really bad frame rate issues, which is like such a, like, because it tries to go all 3D with polygons and stuff and, you know, blocky as shit still, but like, it's just like, if any time there's like four more enemies on screen, it just gets like chugs. It's like really bad. I... Like, Tyler's like, maybe if you were like going on like an extended like family vacation cross-country trip or something, you had that. It'd be fun. But I could never see myself intentionally going and buying that when there's something like Sivrev that you could just play forever. I mean, that scratches a different itch, I think, than trying to buy a shooter on DS. I just feel like the first-person shooters are not what I want to play on a DS. Right. And you get Metroid Prime Hunters instead. Metroid Prime Hunters is probably the best first-person shooter in, you know? On DS. Or even like, Moon. Moon is a game that like, the game itself isn't that good. Like, the storyline and stuff is just kind of boring and the action is not that exciting, but they know how to make a first-person game on DS that controls well and runs at 60 frames a second. Those are the guys that did Dimension, right? Right. It runs at such a frame rate that it's almost like weird-looking, that it runs so well. So, you can't talk about Left 4 Dead 2. You can't talk about Left 4 Dead 2. I also have been playing some Europa Universalis, which is a PC game that... So, that's the one you were playing with, Rory? Yeah, so that's like a really like, even more hardcore than Civ. Oh, shit. Like, it's like, imagine a world, but imagine like the world before there were, like, countries that united. So, you know, like when France was a bunch of like, kingships that called themselves France, but it's like a bunch of, you know, like, nobles that just led allegiance to a king. Was that when it was like, Gaul or something like that? Yeah, exactly. There's like, Gaul and there's like, all-sauce luring, like, all-sauce is its own country. Yes. Yeah. And so, you know, it's just like, Germany's broken up into a bunch of states. Like everywhere in this, so imagine a map of Europe, Russia, China, America, even the whole world, except it's all broken up into these little colonies. And you know, you can someone... City states. City states, and then you're trying to expand and control, and you just play through a certain time. It was weird. I mean, it's a crazy game. You have to worry about government. You have to worry about your rate of inflation. It's like one of those games that if you're into that super, super intense sort of government sim, it's like there for you. Like, if you want to make good relations, like, I was Spain when I played and I wanted to make good relations with Portugal. So I, like, sent off one of my, I made a royal marriage and then gave them money every month. So eventually we were best pals and I got them to agree that if I go to war with someone, they'll go to war with them. So then after that, then I attacked the half of Spain that wasn't mine because my goal was to try and unite Spain. But yeah, you always have to watch out because then when I attacked the other half of Spain, these other countries that had pledged allegiance to that half of Spain came across the water from Africa and attacked me. I was, it was, it's just such a crazy, dense, intense game. It looks like the world's most complicated risk board. That is exactly what it's kind of like the world's most complicated risk board. But for, as I'm saying, it's got to be that you got to be a type of person that's really hardcore in that. Like, even me, I had a good time playing it, but I would not have played that by myself. It was fun playing with other people and seeing the crazy shit that we would plan. Like, you know, like Austria, Hungary, and Germany invading a place at the same time. But you know, it's like, I don't know. As they do. Yeah. But yeah, that was a game I, I checked out that was, you know, hardcore PC. And then beyond that, I didn't talk about it last time, but I did play some of the Don of War II expansion. How's that? Is that the free one? No, this is not. This is chaos rising. This is a full on paid expansion. Is that out? No, it's coming out next year, like February or something, I think. And this is a full on campaign, like the first game, and, but, you know, to disappoint some people that love Don of War chaos in particular, even though it's called cast rising and chaos is a big part of it. You don't get to play a chaos campaign, it's still a space marine only campaign. The cool thing is, though, is that if you were addicted to it, like both of us played it, you can bring those characters that are maxed out into the new game and level them up to 30. Dang. Yeah, fuck, I hope I still have that saved somewhere. So, and if you don't, you can start with level 19 characters. Like they will give you characters that have points to spend and stuff, but yeah, the cool thing is that, yeah, is that you can bring over all those characters and play in this new campaign and play and they said, you know, play for like another like 15 hours because it's a really long campaign. So. But which is this cost? I don't know. Probably 40 bucks. That's typically how much-- 40 bucks for a 15 hour game single player. I could be wrong about the length, but I remember them saying it was pretty lengthy. You know, just like the last one was a longer than I expected. I still didn't even finish all the missions. It sounded-- Yeah, I didn't-- either. Eventually, I just finished the story. But yeah, it looked really good, you know, and they've tried to mix it up now with the way the levels work, like each level, their goal was to have like a thing that makes that level cool. So, like one level I played had a-- you got to play with tanks when it started, you didn't have your squads at all, your squads dropped in later, but you started off with these really two high powered tanks, you had to just use their strengths and abilities together to take out a large army. Did it feel like Company of Heroes? Uh, I mean, the tanks, yeah. Controlling tanks and stuff is a lot like that, but you know, they're working on finding really cool things, and they have new special characters to level up, you know, new units that you'll get. So it's just-- in a lot of ways, it's more of the same, but it's a significant portion of more of the same, and with a new storyline and a way to upgrade your characters and level them further, new skill-- new skill abilities, you know, new equipment. And there's also a chaos, like there's like a-- not a morality meter, but there is a meter of taint that you get basically like, by fighting chaos on their lands, you go-- there will be times you'll make choices, and you can do it like-- do we open the door to this city that protects them with these electronic things, or do we just bust the fuck down for faster things? And if you bust it down, you get like chaos points, but getting certain cast points gives your character innately certain abilities that might be stronger. It's kind of like Lightside Dark Side, and it's a little-- Oh, a morality system. But not-- but like-- but these give specific abilities, too. Like it might be-- it's more like a-- like a-- what's that Star Wars game? The Jedi Academy, where it's like you get certain powers based off how evil or good you go. So that was really cool. I think that game looks-- looks pretty badass. Yeah, no. I mean, I'm actually-- I didn't even realize that that was coming out, but I'm super-looked forward to it. Yeah. And then I really haven't seen too many previews at this point, because most games are not sending out more preview stuff of-- I played more Fallout. I got-- I'm like eight or nine hours into that, mostly doing side quests to this point. Really surreal to me to hear the Fallout noises coming from your room pretty much exactly a year after I got into Fallout. Yeah, well, you know, it's like-- it's like eventually-- it's like I told you when I saw that they were releasing the game of the year edition with all the DLC, I just figured I'd wait. Now you have DLC, I don't. Yeah. So I might borrow your disc. And so, you know, I'm playing it, enjoying it. Though I was telling Tyler, it's like I-- I do kind of feel like a-- like when I first made my guy, I tried to tailor him to the way I like to play, so I made him like heavy weapons dude. Like I gave him like bonus in that. But I don't find enough ammo for heavy weapons, or even see enough for sale at the point where I am in the game that I basically have ended up being a lot like the character you played Arthur. It's more of a sneak up and use a hunting rifle to blow your head off. I think that's everybody at first though, because that's your only option, but then is the game. I'm like level nine. I mean, once you cross that threshold and you start leveling a little slower, you start finding more weapons to sort of compensate for the slowed progression. And that is when you will start using heavy weapons. Yeah, I mean-- Yeah, I would like to. I mean, at this point, I-- like I said, I pretty much used the one Chinese rifle I have. And then I used the hunting rifle. I strongly urge you to find Lincoln's repeater as quickly as possible. Yeah, I haven't seen that yet, but you know-- I think it's in the natural history. I want to-- I really want to like be a chain gun guy, or something like that. You want to be Fox. Yeah, I want to roll around and just fuck people up with that. Yeah, I know. It's really weird that they give you the option to specialize that early on, even though you really don't get a lot of that ammo and a lot of those weapons. I'm still-- overall, a positive karma, but I do play that game the way I play in real life. Like if I roll in an area and there doesn't seem to be anybody around, it's like technically stealing. I'm like, fuck it, I'm going to steal this anyways. You know, the most interesting-- And if you do little things like that, you can totally earn enough positive-- Oh, you get positive karma. I mean, the big quests are what you get now. If you wipe correctly, you get fucking positive karma bonus in that game. The most interesting quest I did, which this is a spoiler for those of you who didn't play this game forever long ago-- Fuck you. It's been a year. One with the people that believe they're vampires that are attacking that one town and the one kid you're going in search of him to give the letter. And I don't know. I imagine Tyler, when you did that, you rolled in there and we're vampire slayer and killed everyone, probably. Actually, because when I rolled in there, I gave the guy 100 caps to let me in. And then I talked to the leader and I listened to everyone tell me the rules of being a vampire. And then I figured out and I went to the guys like, so you're a vampire? And then eventually, I somehow managed to talk. It was like 25% chance and I was like, let me talk to the dude. And he was like, okay. And then I talked to the guy and got him to leave. But-- Did you get the perk? Yes, I believe so. And I made them make the deal where the town would donate blood packs and return for protection. Yeah. Yeah. But I did think for a while. I was like, why don't I just roll in here and kill every single person. You're blood drinking son of a bitch to loot that whole entire gun store or whatever that guy has while I'm at it. Yeah. So actually, I didn't do that quest as my evil character. I did do the quest as my good character, though. Well, yeah. As a evil character, you split off pretty early on after Megaton. If you-- Yeah. I'm going to get Tim Penny Tower. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't find Tim Penny Tower until I was like level 18 as a good character. Yeah. So far, I can't really decide. Perks, so far, I've just taken the ones that give me extra damage or make me resist damage. And I've taken a couple that give me more medical skill points just because having stim packs do a ton of regeneration seems to be pretty valuable, especially because early on, man, stim packs were like breaking the bank. I think-- I just did not have money for it. I took the ones that gave me more points to put into whatever. I did get the ones that-- Yeah. You also gave me your own experience early on. Yeah. Because it's like the earlier-- The bull is the better. So there's two. So there's the one that gives you more experience. And there's another-- Plus three skill points, everyone. Where you can go back into your special or whatever, and add stuff to that, your stamina power. Oh, no. Yeah. See, I don't-- I think I only did that once or twice. But there's an ability that will give you like plus three skill points to add or something like that. Yeah. Those two like a gun nut. I do find-- No, no. Like, just generic points that you can allocate yourself. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Well, I do find in that game, though, that I remember, I was going to say no. Motherfuck. You just find yourself doing the one more quest thing over and over again? Well, that's 100% true. But I pretty much at this point tailored the points that I put into skills around what quest I need. Like when I realized I needed X amount of explosives to disarm the bomb in Megaton, then I focused on putting my plates in there. When I found this guy with a random robot that required X repair skill, I put a bunch of points into repair. I don't know. I pretty much, in that game, only loot guns, though. And I like to look at random things when I find like a piece of tubing that's like half a weight and 10 value. I'm like, you're mine. I'm just imagining all this crap out here. I mean, later on, that stuff is useful because you get blueprints to assemble stuff at work. Yeah, I've gotten a few blueprints like to make a bottle cap bomb and stuff like that. And eventually, you can make weapons. Yeah. Like not just like single use weapons, but like guns, like the railway rifle, which actually kind of sucks. Yeah. I'm still wearing, though. So I'm wearing the Vault 101 armor at this point. I still haven't found something because the Vault 101 armor, it doesn't have the best armor value, but it's pretty light and more importantly, it gives some stats. Did you get Lesco's lab coat? No. No. I'm also currently hunting a, I'm also, I was hunting an Android. I thought that quest was pretty cool. Did you, did you finish it? No, a lady asked me to give the piece to the guy and like tell him that the Android was dead or something. And I agreed. So, cause she just approached me and was like, I know you've been questioning everyone about this Android. So I should have just killed her and soft. She was the Android cause it did have a face thing. Do you want me to tell you who the Android is? Uh, no. I didn't. Well, I find that, well, I find that out at this point. I actually, if you, if you do what you did, I don't think it'll ever tell you. Oh, sure. Tell me who the Android is. Uh, the security chief of the, of the boat city. Yeah, every city. Like they're, the broken off part of the aircraft carrier, if you go over there, there is a dude in a lab who did his face. Yeah, I could never get in that section, the broken part of the, I think there's like a walkway. Yeah, there's a walkway way over there, but for some reason, I don't know, I really fucked up my first play. I never trapped. Like there's a fucked up trap and, or there are a ton of fucked up traps in that place that will just annihilate you. Dude, I, I got in this situation where I think it was just like classic open world faults where you go into a situation where you kind of camp back out of. I think I went and, I tried to go into the river, river city market just before it closed. And then they closed and like maybe since I was there, it wasn't supposed to be. The security guards started attacking me. So I was like, I started killing everyone. And like a lot of characters in River City that you can actually kill, you know, a lot you can. Yeah. You're useful that you get quests from. Yeah. I basically, uh, had a little mini genocide on that community. So they're just a bunch of orphans on around because you can't kill the children. Yeah. Um, yeah, beyond a fallout, I guess I also played skate three, which I didn't talk about, but only multiplayer, which is all they're showing at this point, which to me, it was like, hey, it's skate three. And you've added, uh, some multiplayer modes that now you can play with friends on teams instead of just one on one or free skate. I kind of wonder how the layoffs at EA this week affect their plans for the early state for skate three. I, I'm pretty sure it's skate. Oh, I, I doubt it affects it because, I mean, there were a ton of people with black box that got shit. Can this week? Yeah. I mean, did they, did they? Yeah. Black box specifically in Tiburon and a bunch of in years. It was all over. Right. But I'm just wondering like what type of positions. Oh, I don't think you weigh in some other stuff. And also I heard, I'm not saying that people didn't lose their jobs because they did, but I'm saying that also, uh, some of it was shuffling people around, not necessarily, uh, there was the tiring there. There was definitely eliminating positions, but also moving them into other like one of our Twitter friends, uh, weirdo, five, one, three, got laid off. Right. I'm going to say, I'm going to say people off the jobs that are people laid off. I don't know. Yeah. That's what I'm saying. I think, I think there wasn't that they laid off a full 1500. I think it was that they eliminated 15 of positions, but certain people got shuffled in other places, not the majority. Mind you. Yeah. But, uh, that was the impression I got from EA people I talked to was that certain people just got like, you were no longer doing this too bad. Your game is gone. Now you're doing this. Welcome to that. Yeah. I hope Mario's Edge too didn't get canceled. Um, I mean, I don't know. They lay off people from in Sweden. I doubt it. I don't think they laid off anyone from dice, but I mean, if they canceled projects to have dice to another battlefield. Yeah. Again, I can't imagine that most of the people that were working on Skate got affected. I could be right. That's, I mean, that's like three is going back about cutting off the bottom third of their lineup. Skate's not a part of the skates. I imagine a lot of those guys that they've been building up. I kind of wonder how many Wii games were in that list. That's what I was going to say. So a lot of those I imagine is like Wii game and DS ports, PSP ports. Yeah. I skate. I'm unsure was mostly fine, just because that is a franchise that has done really well for them. I mean, on the one hand, I feel sorry for EA, like that they keep trying to find success on the Wii and can't, but on the other hand, it just feels like this isn't surprising to anyone. Like anyone who's been paying attention to the saying, why are they trying to put so much focus on the Wii? Like, no one is selling games. Well, they had great success with EA sports active. Yeah. But that's like one game out of hell. And they had like modern success with boom blocks. Yeah. But over time, but yeah, I mean, a lot of the stuff they've tried really seeing ports of them stuff. Did you hear first month sales numbers for Dead Space Extraction? Yeah. It was horrible. It was like 7,000. Yeah. Yeah. So that's horrible. Like certifiably. Considering how much they poured into that game and how like fantastic it is. Yeah. Yeah. Once Christmas rolls around, I might actually go back and play that because I only played the first quarter of it. It's really worth playing by yourself the first time. So yeah, I played some skate. That was one of those games that where I played it and I was like, yeah, it's fun because it's still skate and yeah, it's a new environment to go around. But I kind of am starting to feel like, why do you need to make an iteration of it? Like, like within like a year and a half each time, especially if the only additions are teams to the multiplayer and a new area, right? That's how they justify it. Okay. Yeah. But it seems like most people play single player. You also get a level editor, I think, like a skatepark editor. Like you get a, you get a play game really. Going on the previous games really scheduled that game was probably going to come out in June. Like it's been an 18 month turnaround cycle, 14, 15 months cycle. I think the first, the first between the first segment you're right. The first one came out in November of 2000. Yeah. It was like an 18 month and for this one, they're shooting for more like a 14 month. They're shooting for stupid. But yeah. I don't know. Yeah. I was really hoping after two, they would stop for a long time until they had some new ideas. The next Tony Hawk game is probably going to sell atrociously to that leaves the market a little open. Right. You think so? Maybe. I mean, right. The, the buried entry is kind of costly. That's what, yeah. And I mean, what's, they, they are doing a pretty big marketing thing for it though. Like, uh, like, I don't know that this thing in San Francisco is limited, but like this weekend at the, I think the Westfield shopping center, they're having like a thing on Saturday that's just going to be like from noon to three where people can come play it. Which is also, which is also what they want to be the review event. Okay. I didn't know if you could say it or not. And I was like, no, I'm not going to, I mean, we're going to review it when we get retail. I feel comfortable saying that. Okay. Yeah. I mean, I don't know, man, I, I predict Tony Hawk ride will not do well just based on like, I think it's the, the price point is what isn't it like not only that, but, but think about the decline in sales. We've seen in like the music genre, which is also like, I mean guitar for real. I haven't rock band and Beatles rock band are doing fine, but DJ hero is not selling. Exactly. Yeah. So I don't know how do you guys learn that? That's preliminary retail reaction. That's too bad. It's actually good. Yeah. But, but I mean, it's a single player experience and a genre that typically focuses on a group dynamic. Well, it can be two player. It can. But you can only buy the game with, I mean, you have to buy the game with turntables. Like the, you have to spend like $260. Right. It's a play that I came to play. I, I don't know, this Tony Hawk ride thing, I, I don't have a lot of faith in it based off what I played at E3. I was not that confident in it, and I thought the fact that they had someone surveying me about how I felt about it right when I got off. It was pretty indicative that it was in trouble. Um, you know, I, I, I, I think it's cool that they tried to like totally change the way it was going because obviously just iterating on Tony Hawk the way it was was dumb. Is it never soft? It's doing. But I don't think it's never such. No, it's not. It's a totally different company. Because I was just like, fuck man. Those guys. Yeah. It's a totally different company. And, and yeah, I just, I just think the board peripherals, but ruins it like I thought about reviewing it myself. And I, I'm giving it to a freelancer because I decided I'm too old for this shit is what cross. Yeah. Cause I remember when I was doing it, I was like, ah, sucks. I would have been over like this. Like it was ways that I did, like, I would never sit there and bend over for that long while I was skateboarding and stuff. Like the way they would make me bend over, I don't know. Anyways, that's a, that's pretty much the extent to what I played. Nothing else. Nothing else that I can speak about at this point, because there's a lot of Tuesday and bar goes coming up. Well, what have you played that you can't talk about? Like, what are you doing? Next week, we'll be talking about Left 4 Dead, because it's out and several of you will also have it as well as Assassin's Creed, we'll be talking about, which is another game that we have. But, you know, it's embargoed. I'm probably going to check out some little big planet for PSP because that kind of excites me. And then I played a little bit of Assassin's Creed on PSP, which I'll talk about. You know, and then, you know, that's pretty much it. It's a Left 4 Dead 2 is my focus right now. Yeah. What about Arturo? I mean, I played a little more Dragon Age last week, which I told you about, and then I got Assassin's Creed on Friday night, and all of a sudden, it was Monday. Yeah, kind of. Dude, you got Assassin's Creed and, and that, that, that, that copy of that box never left your little avatar. Oh, yeah. You never saw anything except for Assassin's Creed next to my avatar on Xbox level all weekend. Even fucking Ezio, whatever, we're best friends all weekend. That is all I can say about it. That's the next week. The embargo's up on Tuesday, so. Yeah. I'm sure it's Monday at midnight. God, I can't wait for that fucking game. And I am now apparently writing the review for that for Team Xbox, so. Which was partially my fault. I mean, my fault, if you want to say fault or whatever, it was just like, like Arthur's boss who was writing it was only like a third of the way through. And I was like, ah, you know, Arthur's like 15 hours in, like, I have more than 15 hours. I was like, Arthur's, Arthur's pretty far in. He could probably just write it. I said it like jokingly because, you know, Arthur starts on Monday and it's coming out Tuesday. And then Tal was walking by and he's like, yeah, not a bad idea. That's not a bad idea. Tribe of Fire. Yeah, because it's not like I have two laptop reviews to write in the next three days or anything. Oh, wait. That's right. I do. So. Yeah, but at least you've already played the majority of it. It's like that sprung up with that. I haven't played that much. I'm not going to, I'm not going to have much modern warfare time. And I would like, I would like to get some time with multiplayer after I change my voice chat settings to only hear friends, which is the only way that we're going to be able to do that apparently. Judging from what you like from Rainbow Six, you guys do the terrorist mode, dude. I think y'all would like, I'm sure it's, I think I'll expect a lot. But I'm referring to competitive multiplayer with friends. Hello, I mean, Lord knows how we're going to get that together. If we can't do party chat. You can on ground war play, play lists, which means you can have eight players in your party. They're not hardcore. Is ground war ranked? Ground war is ranked. You can play ranked playlist with the party, but only ground war. I don't think Anthony or Tina want to play ground war though. Seamass fun. I've already got up to level 13, dude, with my first day of play. So is that it for true? I mean, I'm more torchlight. Nothing else. It's new. All right. Well, that's it for, uh, for Rebel Ethan. Which one? That's the last one. Whatever. No, just kidding. I think we're going to take a break and then we're going to come back with the topic that I posted and you guys all commented about. I'm going to come to the back. So the topic that I had kind of put together for this show was called "Why you buy? Why you buy?" And, uh, so I said, "We want to know why it is you buy what you buy from your console choice to the few games you choose to put your hard-earned cash to. Do you think that... I should have said towards. Do you think that advertising helps? And if so, what commercials in particular have helped push you towards getting a game? Some other questions to consider are, "Why did you buy the console you bought? Was it because of the company who makes it the game's lineup, the potential you see for it in the future? If you own multiple platforms, what process goes into choosing one or the other when picking a multi-platform game?" Because, I mean, that last one's kind of more a question for us because all of us have access to basically every platform. Do you want to tell the anecdote as to where this topic came from? Um, I guess it kind of came from the fact that in the office, when we all received... Not all of us, but several people received copies of Modern Warfare 2 from Activision. You know, people were genuinely bummed when they got the PS3 version of it and were immediately asking who they could trade what for to get the 361. So... Yes. Which, I guess, makes sense simply. Modern Warfare. Wow. Which makes sense, I guess, from the multiplayer perspective because technically speaking, they're so similar as to be virtually indistinguishable. Right, yeah. But I'd be right there with them because every single one of my best friends that I play with... Well, more than one person actually said exactly what Arthur often says too, which is an inter name here in our comments that I own all the systems because I'm a whore and need choices, but I tend to go with a 360 when it's multi-platform specifically because of the controller. I really dislike the position of the left analog on the PS3, it's just uncomfortable for me. I'm told there are third-party controllers that have the analog and D-pad flipped, but the cost of a new controller is often the cost of a new game, and damn it, I want the new games. True. I admit it, I have a shiny object syndrome and no self-control. I actually think I'm going to buy that controller soon. And yeah, that's like 45 dollars on Amazon. Arthur's not the only one. One of the humor guys I work with, Brian Miggles, he said the same thing. Like a lot of it for him is just he doesn't like the controller layout of the PS3. And I was talking with Ryan O'Donnell from Co-op on Monday when we were recording Game Club about Assassin's Creed 2 when we were trying to figure out what version he was going to get. And essentially, the versions are more or less the same, except for some minor frame rate issues. And I said for me, it came down to the controller and the achievements. And for him, it came down to the fact that he really wants to play the PSP one and the PSP one and the PS3 one have internet connectivity. Actually, I mean, I think that we pretty much came to the conclusion that that doesn't mean jack shit. Well, on the car though, on the way to the house, he had said that that was kind of a pushing factor for him. But then we talked about it and I sort of clarified that situation. But for him, it comes down to he actually prefers the PS3 controller. What does it unlock? Do you know or something? A few extra weapons in a game where you... It's just, you know, if you're already going to buy one and it's like that little push, you know? Yeah. All the previous have said you own a house in your village and in that house is a room dedicated to like walls of weapons. It's in the short live action pieces. Yeah. Tyler Sampson responds to what he said and says, "This is such an interesting topic to me. I've heard many of the same excuses on both sides of the fence for like one controller over the other. That's what he said. But you know, reasons. I'm super curious as to how people hold their controllers. For instance, I feel like the 360 irks my wrist because I feel that I have to grip the size whereas I set the PS3 controller in my fingers so I'm not gripping the sides. Most other people find that the PS3 controller feels too small and the 360 feels right. I would love to see like how other people hold and interact with the controller. Actually, that kind of interests me too because I live with Arthur and Arthur holds the controller like he's an alien from another planet and uses like fingers the rest of us like throw into the world of not being used and Arthur's like most like when I don't use the middle finger on my left hand, I mean, my left or right hand ever, Arthur uses middle finger a lot actually on his right hand. Middle or ring typically, first of all when I'm playing first person shooters, I think as we've mentioned before, I switch the sticks to Southpaw even though I'm not left handed. And my right hand typically finds my ring finger or my middle finger around where the trigger and bumper are and my index finger sort of like gliding over the face buttons and pushing them that way. Yeah. Which makes me look like a freak. It does. And the PlayStation controllers have always felt small to my ridiculous American hands. When I play games, I might as well be an Ninja Turtle. Like I have three fingers. My ring finger, middle finger and pinky turn into one big finger. And then I have a pointer finger and a thumb and that's it. You're like the penguin. Yeah. I that's the way. But I think I'm probably the majority of people like I'm. Of course you do. Well, I think that's also because I have small hands. So I don't. You're really a small hand. You just have normal sized hands. I have no hand cramping problems, you know. All those things people complain about them. I was like, yeah, that probably won't be an issue for me. So he, Greg goes kind of more specifically about games and he says, for me, it's pretty simple. I almost always buy based on story. I can't really get sucked into a game unless I'm pulled in by characters or a good story. Without this, the game seems to be shallow to me. This is definitely become more of an issue as I've gotten older as well. I used to be more influenced by graphics and hype. As for the platform I buy based on the game lineup. I waited a year before I jumped into this generation to make sure I was going into a platform that had good third party games or support. That being said, he doesn't say which one you went with. So I mean, if it's third party support, that'd still be through 60, wouldn't it? Well, you know, like one thing when you're reading this topic to me is my, my mind sort of went into time travel mode to be just before this generation, you know, debuted. And before the 360 was out, you know, the PS3, it was being hyped, the 360 was going through his hype cycle. And in my mind, at that point, Sony was going to be like the clear winner. I was like, oh, man, PS3, the hardware is better. You know, I'm used to playing the PlayStation 2. You know, that was my go-to console, even though I owned the Xbox. But then over time, the 360, like even like gamer score, stuff like that, I looked at it and I was like, ah, this, I don't know, I'm not even going to care about this at all. You know, but over time, it was just a- And now you're a whore. Yeah. Now I'm a whore. I mean, Andy Warhero says, uh, for me, it is far more independent on demos and reviews. It is, uh, it has been a long time since advertising has been a major factor. My purchase is not since the days of the SNES in Donkey Kong Country with its Nintendo power VHS sent to my house. Can I remember actually thinking game would be great for many type of TV advertisement? And I will say I also got that VHS and that was the first game I ever bought day one. I remember lining up outside of KB Toys with my mother as the gate rose on it so that we could get it. That was the, yeah, that, that actually worked on me too. That was like the best video ever. That was when, I mean, a lot of Nintendo's marketing during the Super Nintendo era sucked and it wasn't until after Sega had sort of moved on that Nintendo really kicked it up. Yes. It says that a lot of my decision now is based on the pedigree of the developer or on nostalgia games mostly consisting of Nintendo franchises. And you and a lot of people fall into that boat. I think we're all kind of getting to that point where a lot of people that group of those Nintendo franchises are in a point where now we have our own money and income that we will spend on games and so certain things that make us, I'm sort of becoming disenchanted with a lot of Nintendo franchises. Yeah, if anything, I would say it's just wearing, it's doing the reverse effect for me where I'm not even excited about the new Super Mario Bros. game. Well, he, he actually says, I will ever concede that I have been somewhat enthralled by almost all the video and accompanying shill for the new Super Mario Bros. week. So he's hungry. How could you not be? And, and that thing is that you're not very excited for, but I will say after playing it, like I feel comfortable saying that that is probably one of the best Mario games come out a long time. I'm sure it is. Yeah. Well, how do you define a long time like Mario Galaxy? I think in a lot of ways new Super Mario Bros. from what I've played, I like it almost more than Galaxy. Whereas like... Cooperative play really adds a lot to side an example of what I was saying about becoming to some channel with Nintendo franchises like I, I will not buy the next Zelda game without trying it because I am tired of buying Zelda games where I just don't finish them because I get bored and stuff. When I first sat down with the new Super Mario Bros. week game, I was like, "Yeah, right, here we are." But then when I played it, I was like, "Okay." So that really is one of those games that it, it's a great game to sit down like. And that surprises me that you really fucking liked the new Super Mario Bros. on DS and it's... Right. Again, I guess it's just a, you know, it's kind of like what you said, just getting burnt out on certain franchises all the time. And so, you know, I just wasn't sure about it, but co-op play, that's where it's at in that game. And that game is ridiculous, that game is like, people might look at it and think, "Oh, what if this is like a baby game or something like that?" But man, that game is hard. Right. Hard. The new Super Mario Bros. on DS was hard. I mean, that game made me cuss a lot. They crossed the fuck threshold. So this guy actually, this next person kind of hits a spot where I did because, you know, one of the questions I asked, you know, was whether you bought a console on the idea of the promised potential for it. And I've definitely done that with the same one he did. He says, "I originally purchased my first next-gen console because of the potential it had, and that console was the Wii, unless my hopes diminished slowly over the months until I purchased my 360." The 360 was purchased because of the game library I already had and was about to have early 2008. It was also largely influenced by my friends who all had 360s. Thirteen months later I decided I have 300 Swiss francs, let's buy a PS3 second hand and round it all off. Yeah. And then he says, "First-party games are what encouraged that." Yeah, I mean, that's... But yeah, for me, this is the same thing. I really like... I saw that E3 press conference before the Wii came out, and I was like, "Maybe... Maybe Red Steel really is going to be badass and stuff." And I really wanted to believe, so I bought it day one, midnight. I was a midnight buyer for... Yeah, I remember. I waited in line with you. But I had pre-ordered mine. Some mine wasn't so bad as I thought it was... No, no. Well, I mean... Well, yeah, I mean... Oh, yeah. I was the same way. I pre-ordered. I was dealing with my Wii too. It was actually... Yeah. They were just... Yeah, all the people... The hardcore part... It was all the people that were waiting outside of the Target and sleeping bags in the cold of the night. I think I have the most hardcore console launch situation under my belt. Dude, I don't know. I might have one that might beat you. Well, Arthur got to go to the exclusive 360 launch event. Yeah, but I think what happened at my PS3 launch event... Well, it's sidetracked. What did it happen? What's that? Tell me, tell me, tell me... All right, so this took place at the Galleria in Houston, Texas. And we all went... And it's sort of like... A giant mall. It's like the upscale mall. And they were doing a midnight launch event at the Sony Store. And there was so much excitement for it. This place is huge. And there's probably, I don't know, there's probably like 30-something entrances into this place. And at every entrance, there were just people just piled around the doors and they had security guards holding them in. And the Sony Store is tucked really far into the mall. So it's like... As soon as they let the doors open at about 11 o'clock, it was like you could hear a rumble through the entire mall. And this is a huge fucking mall. There's like three stories. And it was just people running. Like a bunch of thuged-out dudes too, a bunch of jeez. Well, okay, did you talk to people in line or did you hear people talking to each other in line? I mean, there was talking, you know, people were talking... Wait. Oh, wait. Let me clear this up. There was no line. There was never any line. Like once... Okay, when you were in the mob. It was like a zombie horde. Yeah. It was a zombie horde outside of the mall. And then the Sony... And then so everybody ran to the Sony Store. And it was literally... The Sony Store had glass front of the storefront and I'm not joking. The entire walls of the whole store were like going in from... It was literally hundreds of people surrounded on this... Yes, dude. It was dangerous. I left. I was like, "Fuck this. This is scary." I left a bunch of angry jeez. I was going to say, "Well, who doesn't try and organize that into lines or some shit?" Dude. Well, what I was going to ask is if you heard a lot of those people talking about how they were going to flip that shut-in-the-day. Oh, yeah. For sure. I mean, yeah. Even the videos we saw, I remember seeing online, they were covering launch events for a lot of people. I'm buying three. Remember the one-up show episode for the PS3 launch that was one of the funnier episodes where they were going in line and talking to people. Yeah. Dude. But the last thing I'll say, there was even a woman who was pregnant, pressed up against the door like yelling, "My baby, my baby!" Like she was crying, dude. It was insane. Whereas mine was just like, we basically went out into the middle of the Mojave Desert to an old Air Force base like a day and a half before it came out. Yeah. There was like a real event. Oh, shit. And basically they had every 360 game that was launching there and a couple that weren't. Like, I got to play full auto and realize before it came out how bad that fucking game was. Oh. And it also walked up to 360 every time you played it. But they had eight million like little mini beanbag chairs and like a ton of like shit everywhere. Like I gave people hoodies. Yeah. Like I, they gave you, when you signed in, they gave you a hoodie and a memory card and signed you up and had you like transition your gamer tag. And there's like a special achievement for a tag. But uh. So Justin Granson says a podcast like yours and word of mouth are what bring me to purchase games. Sometimes it's the pedigree developer like in the case of Valve, commercials have a little effect to my buying. It may get me interested, but at the end of the day, it's what the hardcore community says that puts a vector on my hard earned dollar. I think the question works two ways though. One way is the way I described above, but that's for us hardcore. The rest of the mess is you probably won't be listening to this cast don't care. Commercials are how they find out about games. They don't care who makes the next call of duty. It doesn't matter. This is what Activision is so successful. They work on names and commercials and just want sales. Names like band hero help confuse matters too. When grandma goes to get rock band, she just might pick up band hero wrongly instead. And I don't even think about that, but that's why they might call it. Yeah, well they registered band hero as a trademark like the second that harmonics left. I think they came up with band hero before rock band. Right. It's just I didn't even think about that like you know it's it's it's like when you see the DVDs that from movies that release around the same time as the DVD for like a movie that's transmorphers. Yeah. And it's like right by transmark for me. The funnier thing is that they just one of those companies cannot release a fucking game without the other releasing a game at the same time like Lego rock band and band hero came out the same fucking day. But I mean it's true that that it that commercials are the majority of the way people find out about games. They don't care who makes the next COD. If they see Call of Duty on it, I don't believe most people are aware that there's a difference between Treyarch and Activision. I mean speaking of Call of Duty like our infinity award previously like they were a company where I would buy their games just based on their pedigree and I think that actually infinity award has worn out their benefit of the doubt with me. So Justin just said one last thing love you guys and if you read this, can you give the Burning Ewok podcast a shout out. There you go. There's your shout out. Shout out. Burning Ewok podcast. My cat just scared the shit out of me. Yeah. I have been influenced myself by some commercials like granted. I was going to buy Halo three no matter but the Halo three commercials were a good example of commercials. It could be a brief commercials. Yeah. I mean they didn't even show the game or anything like that but I think those were good commercials that might actually get people interested enough in it. They were just created such an epic sense of atmosphere. And maybe the left for dead ones too although those are a little cheesy but I feel like those are at least kind of like a good commercial for maybe getting people to go check it out. I remember when I was playing and loving the first Metal Gear Solid on PS1, I saw the commercial that Sony was running for it and it was like a comedic commercial where it was like oh god you know everything is like so funny this and that and I'm like dude this game is telling this amazing story. It's just like this great action game. It's very mature. It's got this great storyline and they're fucking throwing this joke commercial behind it. You know? I thought that was a little odd. Jonas is something that I think is probably true for all of us. We good? Jonas says my wife and I are both gamers and then he goes on to say but my wife was recently laid off and I had to change jobs several times last year because of all the offices closing in our area. We are a lot choosier about what games we buy versus rent. Demos have become a huge factor in our decision making process. We have a friend that runs a small independently owned game store. Yes, they still exist in some places and we get great recommendations from him and his staff. That's good because I wouldn't trust the recommendations of most game store employees. I also started a gaming blog back in January, my brother and a few of our friends and now we're at the point where we can occasionally get review copies and new releases. Good for you. This has helped us out tremendously with keeping up on some of the titles that we may not have otherwise had a chance to play and gives us the opportunity to talk about in our site wingdamaged.com. I'll throw out some shout outs this time. But yeah, I mean-- Let's flash our goods to everybody this episode. I think demos have become increasingly important back in the day. I didn't care about demos like I can remember like maybe once or twice ever buying a magazine because it came with a game demo or something like that. But nowadays, yeah, it's like when a game doesn't have a demo, if it's not a game that's like something really big, if it's a game I'm on the fence about, that can be the deciding factor for me. Right. Certain games have terrible demos can make a huge difference. Like I was not going to buy Resident Evil 5 after playing the demo for it. Yeah. I hated it. But then-- Lost Planet is an example of the opposite direction. Yeah. Where that was a demo that sold me. Dead Rising is another one. Yeah. Dead Rising was another one. Word, the demo. And I mean going back to way back in the day, did the Metal Gear demo that came with the PlayStation magazine or whatever. Right. That sold me on that game because I would have bought no matter what. Like I would have bought in Resident Evil 2 no matter what. But I remember a demo of it came with a-- Resident Evil Director's Cut? Maybe I think it might have been Director's Cut. And you would like rent Resident Evil Director's Cut to play the Resident Evil demo? Yes, to play the two demo. Yeah. And we play like three times in a row. And then Zone of Enders on PlayStation 2 had the Metal Gear Solid 2 demo. Yeah. And that's why that fucking game sold. Can you guys think of any commercials that have ever like particularly kind of, I mean I think the Borderlands commercial right now is an example of a really good commercial. Yeah. I mean it's got the sort of bro song that you hear in Borderlands, but it's still, it's effective. It conveys the game appropriately. I don't know. I think I'm more likely to be influenced by commercials for movies than for games. Because there's so much about a game that you can't tell. Yeah. I mean I guess with a movie it's different too yeah because a movie you're like going to see a narrative told. And you can get a lot of that from a commercial potentially. But with a game there's always like, they could tell a great narrative and fuck something up. It's going to ruin it. I think that commercials are good for stoking excitement about a game that you know is coming. Like Modern Warfare 2 comes to mind. Like how many commercial premieres did they do for Modern Warfare 2? Like during fucking NBA games and shit and football games? Yeah. I actually am finding this guy a 24 door says that he works at a games, he started working in games retail right when the Dreamcast came out and since it's purchased every system on launch day. But he also says, I can't see myself buying any consoles day one. Now that I'm out of retail most of them simply aren't worthwhile right away. I actually find that true too. Like a lot of the consoles I've ended up buying at launch. Like I almost fit, pretty much it felt like like six months later is when I could have waited till and then actually had games that I mostly enjoyed. I don't know. I feel like I bought a Dreamcast at launch in both Xboxes at launch and I don't feel like I was. 360. At least had Call of Duty 2. That was a great long game with it. And condemned. And then Oblivion came shortly thereafter. But yeah it was like when Oblivion came out that was when I was like okay. Like that was one that convinced me. I never felt at a loss for things to play for 360. But yeah I don't know. I just think I go streak on in Oblivion. That was like the time when I was like okay now I will do it. But PS2 was one that I kind of bought like right when it came out and I kind of was like why did I do this? Because I had like Kango was the game I had with it when it first came out. Because I was a huge Bishita Blade fan and I thought that was going to be like Bishita Blade and it wasn't. Another thing that you got like a red tracer to keep you occupied. Yeah I mean I you know that was still during a period in my life where I rented games considerably. So let's see man I'm trying to I'm trying to be a nice and scroll down to some of the comments that are lower because it's it's easy to like just go through the first. Especially when you're on a netbook instead of like picking out comments beforehand. Right. Bboy Zilla who writes a lot he's like a super regular commenter and on Twitter. He says the last really great advertising push for me was the Ratchet and Clank game. It's weird I never bought a Ratchet and Clank game but damn those commercials are really cool. You know the gun that would turn people in the sheep or shoot them into space. Oh yeah. They were all the Ratchet games. They had great commercials. Didn't feature hits of the week they were just really fun. Ratchet and Clank games did. Like there were just people in the backyard being like whoo. They check out my chicken gun. Yeah and just like Blysh should have a fence in it. Or turn their friend into a chicken in. Yeah. Um. Good call. I've come to terms that few if any advertising works on me I'm 27 years old and pretty set my ways like most people made that's not true. Most people your age aren't that set in their ways. I don't go out of my way to listen to new music and I don't see the point of buying a new Madden either. He's not a lot older than 27. I was just sitting on my porch with my shotgun. I don't think I was like God damn long. I don't watch TV like normal people because TV is on the internet now so a lot of ads miss me. Gaming mags are a sight and sights are a bit weirder. Sometimes I'll watch trailers. Read excerpts for games. I know I will be grudgingly play bay data and Dante's Inferno in quotations he says. But uh or in parentheses. But if it's a game I am really amped for I'll watch and read minimal about it. I still have only seen two minutes of Uncharted 2. Um yeah. And then he goes on to talk about a ton of other consoles that he bought. This is a sort of side question. When can you remember caring about the release dates for things finally? Do you think that the Donkey Kong country is the first time? Well that was different. That was like a- An event. Yeah that was not that was even an exception it wasn't the rule even after that. Like uh even when I was in college you know and I even in college and high school I still considered myself an avid gamer I played the shit out of a lot of games. But I had a lot of games I played I had a few games I played a lot. And I generally didn't know about games until I went to the game store and they were there. Like I was not that person that followed and waited for the release date of a game. Hm. So. What about you Tyler? I definitely um there was always at least one or two games a year that I would hit. Uh day and date. I remember the very first game that I bought on day one was the um Ninja Turtles arcade port for the NES. Dang. Yeah that was the first game I bought because you know I just loved Ninja Turtles and you know throughout the years I would always be the day and like Mortal Kombat 2 on the SNES I bought day one, perfect dark bought day one, probably think of a few others. I mean I didn't even uh I didn't even really read video game websites until I met you. Like I read them occasionally like when I wanted to know something about a specific game. But I was not a daily visitor to any site. Um. I'm sorry. Man I would I would go check gaming websites back when we had um we had dial up so a lot of sites like IGN would load super slow. Break your shit. So I'd go to either like at my high school at the time or um my college who would have. I mean I read IGN stuff sometimes. I didn't start reading or visiting game magazines until I don't know if you ever read Gamefan. Yeah. Um when Gamefan disappeared basically because it's sort of just vanished is when I went online like to look for game information and that's when I first found IGN actually. So it's like 98, 99. Yeah I mean it's like I said I also read uh some GameSpy way back in the day but uh these were all things I just checked when I was specifically looking because I was on the fence for a game. It wasn't uh it wasn't because I was just an avid reader of daily content. See I even to this day there are very few websites I actually read every day. Right. Back then is how I how I am today about music like I'll randomly go to a few music sites just to see if there's anything new that I haven't heard of that I might be interested in. I was the same way with my games coverage back in the day. I wasn't so tapped into where I knew what was coming you know that I knew games were in development. I don't yeah I don't think if I if I worked in if I didn't work in this industry like if tomorrow I stopped writing about games and went on to a different career I don't think I would check video games sites regularly anymore either. Really? Probably read a few blogs that were more about culture games culture but yeah I don't know I it wasn't like it was like I like doing it I like being a part of it but I don't know I was never that super into it I just like to play the games but I didn't always want to read other people's stuff. Man I would still I remember my first trip to Europe when I was backpacking through there for more than more than a month I was like damn I can't wait to get back to read all my magazines. magazines I still love to read yeah Mags all the time. But like I said that's because I don't I'm totally over these days even like even if I like I said if I was working this I'm over reading reviews and previews of games like if I'm going to read something I like it once like a feature I like it like the edge that I have in the bathroom right now that is like got has like a three page feature about the development of earth defense force 2017 and it's such a great game and that kind of breaks it down about like it has like this really good story about how it came to be and stuff like that's the type of stuff on reason sort of remind you the jokes that we'd make while playing it's like oh well it would have had this feature but that would have been like another dollar on the price exactly I mean earth defense for us you know it's like that's like post release coverage like that that they just find some unique angle that you won't see anywhere else that's the type of thing that's actually really interesting to me have you seen the cover to the next edge I have not it is the best looking game magazine cover I think I've seen like two or three years what's on it that's a tall order it's a thing about the about TGS and it's like a like a zombie type thing like it's a zombie outline type thing you'd have to see it but it looks super good we have more comments now we have a lot more comments I'm just trying to find one that's covering something that we kind of haven't already gone over let's do like two more okay let's see that's another controller one okay this is just kind of a funny one his name's pants underscore eleven and he says I'm a total video game hipster if a game is all the rage on podcast and it sounds like something I would like then I buy it plus points of John Davison likes it wait wait no that's not that's not hipster he said his video game is like other people heard about it you can't like it anymore the hipster ethos I would be someone that buys on release day except that in Australia it's almost impossible to know when that date is and be stores never seem to have anything on launch day anyway as for console choice I alternate platform holders each time first it was ps2 then ds then pc next I think I'll get a PSP I would get a PSP but I would wait if I was you I would get like the maybe the I mean there's a PSP pack coming with I think the new assessment screen and that's like a three thousand or is it yeah the three thousand is the PlayStation store region coded for PSP do you know I don't know there's actually I you didn't call it but there's a a comment in the in the comments about a guy who was in Mexico who can't buy anything from the PlayStation store because there's no PlayStation store access in Mexico well I wonder if that's really true it's how which I think it's like the 18th and 19th comment or something like that that's just seems like a I don't know that just seems like a weird thing like a gross oversight because it seems like it would all be the North American store no because Sony has different subsidiaries that operate in each country I'm just looking for one one more good comments all right are you saying that our comments suck no it's just the ones that don't cover a ground that we've already covered you know I'm always looking for the extra special one when we're on a time constraint Rob Thomas who a matchbox 20 no but he is this guy is a regular contributor if you saw his picture you would recognize okay he actually looks kind of like like a like you if you were scarier like this guy looks a little bit scary I'm sorry Rob yeah it's always like plus 2 to scariness when you're when you're like bald or white yeah like it adds like a plus 2 like this guy might want to beat me up is that a fable this guy Mona beat me up while saying bad things about black people um but he says much like movies television other media advertising does not get me to pick up a game that I would otherwise have zero interest in that being said a good trailer or promotional campaign can certainly up my geeking out over a particular game but promotion alone will never sell me what does sell me demos being able to go hands-on with the well crafted demo does more than any multi-million dollar ad campaign ever could bioshock is a prime example of this before it came out that was another excellent demo um before it came out I'd heard all the media about surrounding it but I couldn't understand why I was supposed to carry the screenshots didn't grab me the art style was nice but I'd like to think I'm a little bit more discerning than to be distracted by pretty sparkly is alone the bits and pieces of stories I'd heard underwater utopia gone wrong vague and ran connections were somewhat interesting but the whole mess didn't get didn't gel at all until I laid my hands on that infamous demo um infamous is bad yeah I think famous is good needs to say I put my pre-order in the next day and I never regretted it um bioshock is the only game that I've ever tried to get like when rumors came out that street date was broken like I went to places trying to find it really yeah and was sorely disappointed I think I yeah Gears of War 2 is the only game I intentionally went around trying to find street date gee could that be because all of your fucking co-workers came back with it well it was it was Gears of War 2 and it was also uh halo was another one I was trying to do but that was mostly because I was trying to put up a guide but the time the game came out and that was uh when new egg was supposed to ship stuff out early and then they fucked you yeah um but yeah thank you everyone for commenting I highly suggest that people go check out those comments they're at eat dash sleep dash game dot com on the rebel FM episode 40 pre-show question thread they're actually all really good um I just don't want to stay up till 11 o'clock tonight so we're going to take a quick break and then we're going to come back with letters well that is all transmission over yeah yeah yeah he's heard some music welcome back to do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do do to rebel FM podcast explosion pop pop pop pop pop pop podcast we're here with some letters the first letters from Tyler who writes into us all the time even though he's on the show and uh Tyler just likes attention no it's actually his name is uh his name is well I don't know I'm going to read his last name which we don't normally do but because I think it's fake anyways I want to say Tyler blind blind is that a last name blind probably well it's certainly not as meritorious as gag us um he says I'm a fan of horror in all its forms movies book games etc what strikes me is that there are some truly outstanding horror games out there dead space me a prime example that simply don't scare me I wonder if there's something wrong with the common definition of what constitutes horror or quite possibly with my own definition I'd like to know what makes a good horror game to you tone atmosphere disturbing story and the unknown all factor go into good horror for me but one aspect is the most important tension I think developers ruined the possibility of tension and an easiness in their games by providing the player with weapons which are comfortable and empowering to face off against an enemy undermines the concept of the unknown excuse me while simultaneously breaking tension by providing quick resolution of the conflict which arises with each individual battle this prompted another thought if fighting is out what kind of gameplay best suits a horror game it's funny if you ask that Tyler what's what's that uh it's called penumbra that's black pillage if you have a decent even decent to kind of crappy pc you could probably play penumbra black plague get over the graphics they're kind of like late xbox in a lot of ways I mean some points some points are better but some points they're not it uh but it is an excellent horror game that is probably the scariest horror game I've ever played where you don't have weapons they never once give you the ability in penumbra black plague to defend yourself the only other time that you can ever like fight a monster is you usually have to use something in the environment like a lot of the puzzles are all physics based a lot like half life but even more so to where you might have to like push something so that it knocks something else over unblocks it or away and there you escaped it you know you might have to lead it in a circle so that it gets to a spot where you can block it in but you never once will ever be able to feel like you have the upper hand on them and there are three penumbra games right there too I feel like there are three I think I got all of them for like ten bucks on steam there's uh overture which is the first one and then black plague is the one I played and then I think it ends with black plague I have to look at my steam list but uh but if you're gonna play one the one I've played and that I thought was really good was black plague like it's such a weird game it has the atmosphere it has the extreme dark because a lot of it is stealthing past enemies because you can't fight them like that is a you I would play black plague instead of overture as well because an overture they did give you a weapon but they make the combat based on holding the left mouse button and like swinging with the mouse and it's really bad and the combat they give you a weapon but you're generally terrible in combat um so you really can't fight that well but just the fact that they give you a weapon always makes you feel like you can fight and that ruins a lot of that for me and taking that away from you made a really good siren blood curse is another one that they often take away your ability to fight and that's when it's at its best as well I thought we've answered the sweater before um well he just wanted to know what makes what do we think makes a good horror game and I agree with him and we talked about this last week um I don't know this is this is the letter that was sent to us two hours ago from time well we also had another listener who sent the same letter five times well we've never received a letter from Tyler blind because I would fucking remember that name um great fucking name um sounds like a corn song but yeah I mean I agree with intention is what makes a horror game to me hundred percent and uh sometimes dealing with like really weird shit but tension is always what it's about yeah helplessness I think yeah like you know I don't think left for dead's a scary game it's a tense game but it has some jump scares I wouldn't name it as a horror game it's more of an action game to me so I don't know I think that the moments of tension and left for dead come from when you're separated from the group by someone and something is tearing you apart and you have to rely on other people right they're not scary they're more like I never feel like when I'm playing with her dead like man I just don't want to put the controller down and stop playing which is definitely the way I felt during certain parts of like Silent Hill 2 or 3 um let's see Avi writes in Ravi and he says uh do you know how much the how much cut the publisher gets on a game versus the developer I've heard some people encourage others to buy a modern refer to used as a move against Activision I'm also considering this but I don't want to fall infinity ward at all I realize this might not make a whole lot of difference in the long term modern refer to will sell fuck 10 yes but I was still curious I actually don't know but the public I think it's based on this like on a on a I mean in the case of the case of infinity ward they're owned yeah they're owned by Activision so it's not like borderlands where they're licensed like it's a 2k whereas not published it's or yeah I mean it's published and they're not owned exactly whereas infinity ward is a Activision studio so I mean they're probably incentives like I think that other first party games have had incentives for reaching certain sales numbers I'm sure if they reach certain goals everyone's going to get yeah you know other than that seat install like they just get their they get their paycheck like that's that's how that works with that kind of situation yeah I mean uh buying a game used yeah I mean Activision doesn't see any that neither doesn't fit any word yeah that is all your local gaming store like Sony Santa Monica they are doing God of War I mean they're just being paid as work as employees of Sony they're not they're not being compensated based on sales unless it's like an incentive bonus or whatever okay Shauna writes in and uh before I get to my question I'd like to give you a quick update on an email of mine that you guys read in an earlier episode I wrote in talking about my inability to play console games and I've been practicing a lot I have played through gun and bully with the old game club episodes oh I'm still heavily intimidated by the console versions of games like GOW which I'm assuming is either Gears of War or God of War not sure did you hear that the composer from bully was saying today that there's a bully to that's gonna come out yes yes I'm still heavily intimidated by the console versions of games like God of War or Gear of War not sure or left for dead but I'm getting better at Halo and might make the leap probably to Gears of War soon I'm still pretty laughable but I'm highly motivated to get better she's a lot exclamation point she's very excited about this good for her um anyways so back to the real topic of this email I live in Omaha Nebraska which to most around here is the big city Omaha's is kind of a big city I mean but I've always wanted to visit somewhere more urban I decided I'm going to take a vacation to the SF area after hearing all the exciting things to see I'm a big wow geek but sometime probably sometime in August of next year to hopefully correspond with Blizzcon but in the event that I do not get tickets which is the most likely outcome I wanted to see if you guys had any advice on places I should visit and things that I should see while I'm out there also I'm trying my darndest to hopefully be out there during a time when you guys would be having a rebel FM meet up as living in Nebraska I do not have much of an opportunity to attend those events which always sounds so awesome do you have any rough guesses as to when some might be coming up in the future no I do think this is the shot is that we have it's like we do meet ups we did want it e3 which was super impromptu and then we did want it packs which is more planned it's always been planned around gaming events um if I go to Blizzcon next year maybe I would do a gathering of geek box and rebel FM listeners because I doubt we would all be there so but uh yeah I mean I wouldn't really have much reason to do that unless you should let us you should even us again channel when you're coming out and because other people in the Bay Area have expressed the idea of a meet up so maybe we could do something when you come out not a meet up per se but fuck even five people going out to dinner whatever um places to go sf moma the dee young um right but if you just want to see things that are like places to see in the city to Golden Gate Park is really nice the Japanese tea gardens really you want to see the elusive hipster in its natural environment that's Dolores Park the Academy of Sciences opened up and it's there again though I suggest you get there extremely early so you can get passes to the planetarium um Union Square and Powell Street are both tourist areas there's good shopping there's the power 39 if you like shopping cuz um there's a lot of stores aren't in a lot of major cities like we have to have a binge and you decide you want food if you have money you should take a cab over to mission find some good burritos because you probably can't get those out in Omaha, Nebraska I still don't really dig mission burritos you don't but I'm saying compared to what she probably has in Omaha Nebraska true it's probably I mean it'd probably be like a trip to Mexico so halfway to Mexico but yeah and just walk around the city man it's so unique and it's not that big unique city she also says that she wants more chuff love I listen for gate conversations but I stay for the chuff those old segments used to make me smile and I miss them but uh I think we're done with those I just want you to know that Shanna there's gonna be no more chuff love segments ever if I ever were to get into relationship or something again I think I'm done broadcasting it on podcast it was comedic when it happened I mean broadcasting the dirty details in particular but that was uh that was mostly done at the uh the prodding of Sean Elliot to make me do it it made for good it didn't cast but I wouldn't have done it if it hadn't been that Sean was like you got to do it peer pressure yeah it was some extreme peer pressure and I would never do that to him um so Andy writes in and I haven't even looked at his letter but the title of his letter is quality question so we're gonna see if that that's true okay what's the time stand against I have to cut this out no I'm 54 you're not gonna cut anything out there's gonna be no cutting so we do not believe in editing or bleeps and he says I believe in bleeps I'm a little blooper here hopefully I don't get too philosophical already starting off scary since this is my first letter but here it goes relatively recently recently uh oh I finished reading a book where a large part of it dealt with finding quality I now find it a rather interesting exercise to apply quality to different forms of art in other words there are some pieces of art that are considered flat out better than others by the majority of people who experience them as I consider video games in art form or at least developing art form I've tried to apply this to my gaming choices lately but I've been having a hard time narrowing it down to certain characteristics that give a game quality so my question to you is what do each of you individually think makes a video game a quality game in general what makes it better than all the others there's there's none it's not fucking chemistry but I do think or it is chemistry but it's not I think I in some ways for me the obvious thing is that you can see that the production value is there sometimes for me a huge one that can be an indicator of quality like initially is uh it can be something as as simple as an interface like if your interface looks like you used a font straight out of Microsoft Word and just pasted it in a like a box on top of a background I'm alarmed I'm like this is looking bad you know what I mean like that that's that's a scary thing whereas when you see something with like a really slick interface like I think the original dirt actually was a game that had like a really cool interface with the way it would pull in and out and stuff Assassin's Creed has an excellent interface like games like that like sometimes for me interfaces can do wonders to how you perceive the game Dead Space was another game that had a fantastic interface and it also shows that like the company you know they value I mean they put thought into something that is high quality that is something minor you know really what interface doesn't necessarily like determine whether it's a good game but that can be a pretty early I mean yeah like I was talking with Arthur earlier I was like you know where the Assassin's Creed studio it's like the Montreal folks right so they're a little more artsy with their menus like that was one of the things I loved about the first Assassin's Creed was just I mean a simple thing from like their font choices and the motion excuse me the motion graphics I mean for the most part European design when it comes to interface stuff is just leaps and bounds ahead of stuff coming out of America and Japan even like seeing star on ps2 they're like wow this is awesome like mirrors edge mirrors edges interface is gorgeous it's really nice uh Ian writes in and says over the past few weeks my dad has expressed interest in learning to play some games like the new Ratchet and Clank or the new need for speed shift with the amazing graphics I was wondering what games I should start him off with before going into modern warfare 2 on hardcore mode I have a 3k I just probably shouldn't do that I did not have a 360 or we but I do have a ps3 and a good PC so what should I start off with do any of your parents play video games and are they any good thanks a ton etc all right so the thing is is that for me if I was going to make my dad play games I think you really got to think about what type of dude your dad is like my dad loves like the history channel loves crazy military strategy but my dad also is not like a super fast-paced sort of guy but I do think my dad could learn to love something like sieve if he actually had a genuine interest in wanting to learn because it's turn based you know and it still deals with like history and stuff that he's interested in I mean if your dad really does have an interest in playing things like first-person shooters uh I would maybe something cooperative exactly like I would check out something that you can play with him cooperatively Patrick Lepp talked about how the way that he introduced his girlfriend Katie to shooters was left or dead yeah you could play that split screen on easy yeah and uh you I was gonna mention you know when he when when you brought up modern warfare hardcore mode I would say don't shy away from any game he's interested in just put it on easy I mean simple solution easy if you can but yeah I mean nothing wrong with that man PC games too I mean you know it doesn't it doesn't maybe your dad shows interest in things like need for speed and stuff like if he's a racing game fan let him try racing games I think those are usually pretty easy to pick up I mean if he if you had a 360 I would suggest force assembly because it has the most customizability to make it accessible well shift has all that too though you do you do like the racer on the track and it offers you all these helps and assists and stuff as well like the auto braking and the driving line and the brake line and all that yeah auto braking um yeah I mean you you do have options out there but I would encourage you to try and think about specifically what your dad is like and maybe even not play you don't even have to do games that are like crazy complex like you know my dad would probably get a kick out of something like captain forever as well really simple easy to understand you know tower defense games maybe he'd love tower defense games you know that seems like it could be something a lot of that's a game that I those type of games I think are easily introduced to people that don't necessarily play a lot of games um and they are really good um let's see Jason different I would recommend and he says that his Twitter is actually really good I X oh yeah um we met him at the meetup he's nice dude he's also infinitely more interested in grammar than all of us combined which is saying something I noticed on the most recent podcast that you referenced the term faggot explicitly when discussing offensive terminology but obliquely used n-word instead of the actual word referred to I don't wish to call you out specifically since I've seen the sort of thing in many places and it seems to be a pretty common convention this looks to have several elements for one modern middle class or aspiring people are deathly afraid of the appearance of racism it's true which is not to say that they actually care about racism that's a super matter true that's so true they avoid any terms they could be considered racist even when referring to them to the terms themselves this doesn't appear to be the case or at least not as passively with homosexuality the threshold for the appearance of impropriety appears to be different for these two areas you can extend this further by looking at the use of potentially misogynist terminology which is even more widely accepted mainly I'm curious to know if you considered this before why you feel the need to obscure racist terms but not anti-homosexual terms I don't say homophobic because that to me suggests something less like blight than difference in more callous action not attempting to excuse myself of anything either since I'm doing exactly the same thing he didn't write n-word quote okay so I'll just say it right now I I do not say nigger because I am a white guy with a shaved head among other things that is a word that was used by a white by by white people as a means to demean black people not only for centuries I mean even beyond that it's just like I mean like it like it or love it I love it or hate it which I hate it but the word faggot is such a common term I mean I bother me like like I have never been called a nigger I have been called a faggot yeah I just think that uh that part of it is also that you know you hear it so often that it doesn't have like that same like like oh my god that when someone says you know nigger they doesn't that is like such like a I mean you break someone out of whatever they're doing right I mean it's crazy like you can go pull up like one of Eddie Murphy's first stand-up acts from like the 80s and he is breaking on gays so bad like so much and it you know and I I was sort of fortunate enough in my high school days to to date this girl who had like these really extreme like they were into kill rock the label kill rock star like bikini kill sort of girls and so they would even school me on like well you shouldn't call cowards pussies because it's you know these are things that are obvious I mean it's misogynistic it's saying that it's obvious now but you know when you're a high school kid you're calling somebody you know you don't think about I don't and that's the one that I not pussies so much is like using the word vagina as a synonym for late for for week or what we do sometimes I'm like saying like saying if I can't can't do something or I'm like too afraid to do something calling myself of the of the giant McVegina scene or something like that which isn't really appropriate um but it's just yeah I just going back to what he said I just think that the n-word you know is just like so much more grating like I don't know it's just like I feel weird having said it I feel I so do I I mean I feel weird when I listen to uh I don't know much about you's history book and he reads it in quotes from the time yeah I mean it just sounds like weird to me to have it here yeah the n-word is like turning it to 11 and in some point I also think the reason the people will say fag and don't say this because if they said f-words you might think they were saying fuck yeah you know I mean a lot of people aren't comfortable saying the word fag and even in reference to its use as as an insult or epithet like Adam Sandler's or Adam Sessler's soapbox segment last week about the modern warfare 2 video like he made reference to the word and a lot of other podcasts made reference to the word but no one said it I think we're we're the only podcast I could think of that I actually said it and whether that's a good thing or a bad thing it's up to I don't think it's a bad thing we said it we can say the word we're not giving it any power just by saying it and pointing out that it was used you know I I mean it is a word that exists in the English language I mean but the the interesting thing about the letter is it comes in a political climate where like gay marriage is a really hot button issue so it's it's almost like we're getting you know we're we're getting no more heated debates about the civil rights about homosexual so it is interesting like in 20 years you know will it have the same you know people are made to say it the n-word I mean the the gay rights movement is much less predicated on a specific race or color discriminating it's for sure it's much more sort of a broader thing whereas the n-word is very much something used by and the white majority to I mean the n-word has such a history to write 100 over a hundred years of like really for sure mean use and 300 or yeah you know I mean I'm not saying that the word the fact doesn't but it I mean it's not a good word it is not but I'm just saying it's an awful word unless you're in the UK and it's a bundle of sticks or a cigarette and I have known the occasional gay person that like to be called that I mean they're black people that use yeah actually heard I heard an interesting debate on NPR one time on news and notes which is the you know the show targeted towards black people on the NPR and you know they had like KRS one who was defending the use of the n-word versus what's his name you know the guy from the shapel show Mooney Paul Mooney who has since renounced that word and will refuse is to use it yeah and that's an interesting conversation it's just not one that I am equipped to participate in one is not one that we're equipped to really talk about and number two it's it's not really good subject fodder for our podcast well we sort of devolve into that but yeah so so you know we touched on what you said it's an interesting point to think more about yeah that was a your thing should have been called quality question not that the other guy wasn't but that was a good question yeah that really was but yeah so that's it for us this week we'll get to hopefully more letters next time around remember to listen to all of our hammer suit partners podcasts including the mob cast a bit mob .com see my mix it up this time and the geek box at geekbox.net as well as the game spidey briefings at game spy.com where you can read some news from Tyler some shit by me and you can occasionally hear me and Ryan Scott ramble about really stupid shit be sure to check out be sure to check out area five at area five dot tv and originally three dot com slash co-op yeah and then uh because bar barkers and around to say any more i'm gonna say it spain new to your pets we have oh and also if you if you have the time check out our children's miracle network special and if you've got the cash it would be nice if you donated yeah we take pay about the notions now too what were you saying Tyler i'm gonna be on this week's episode of co-op oh yeah talking about gay tony Tyler's on this yeah you were on this week's episode talking about co-op and you are on this week's tony and us talking about uh torchlight this week and borderlands last week so yeah definitely go check it out for that you can follow me at twitter.com/chefmoney. Tyler at twitter.com/dirtyt like the drink and arthur at twitter.com slash a-e-g i-e-s and you can email us at letters@eat-sleep.com. Now we're really done. We're really done. It's very over. Now I get naked. We're trying to cool. Tonight I'm down my knees. Tonight I'm making new dreams. Tonight tonight please don't wipe your love. We make it a long, long, true. [Music]