Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 34 - 10/01/09
Greetings! This week we get the ball rolling talking about Uncharted 2 (no spoilers of any kind, promise), Majesty 2, the new L4D DLC, the Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 demo, and a lot more. Then we talk about the future of sponsored media outlets and how they fit in with gaming coverage (with your comments), and then we close out with letters. Squid balls. This week’s music, in order of appearance:
;
[MUSIC] [MUSIC] Well, there was the part before you came in where me and Tyler were beatboxing. Welcome to Rebel FM episode 34. I am a host, Anthony Gallegos of gamespyandeatsleepgame.com. With me is Tyler Barber. >> I am also a host. >> A host, yes, and co-host Arthur Gies. >> What are you hosts of, like some kind of parasol? >> I'm a hostess, we're hosts of this show. >> Bring the field snack. >> As much as- >> I'm a host for a deadly virus. >> As much as I do the intro and outro, I don't consider myself to be like, this is Rebel FM with Anthony Gallegos. It wouldn't have my name subtitled underneath it, like. >> It's not like this American life. >> Yeah, exactly, so I mean- >> What life were wasted? >> I mean, maybe at this point, we're all very important part of this show. Not that there wasn't a point when we weren't, but it was like, there was a point maybe when Tyler was like the new guy. And at this point, Rebel FM is really solidified in this thing where it's S3. Rather than any one person, that's my opinion. So, I could see that. >> My penis feels so soft and warm in your mouth right now. >> What do you say that for? >> I think we just, that's not hurting, hurt ourselves sucking each other's dicks right off the bat. >> What you're saying is we should trade off introducing the shows, so we can. >> I don't know about that. >> Maybe you don't want that. >> Next thing you know, you'll want to vote when we make decisions. >> I, it's not for Tyler, Tyler's suffrage, yeah. >> It's not like I ruled it. >> That's like women, I don't believe Tyler should have the right to vote. >> It's not like I ruled the podcast with an iron fist or anything by any stretch of the imagination. >> No. >> So. >> We do. >> And Tyler listens. >> I'm fine, just, let's not, not in front of the children. >> [LAUGH] >> So we're here to talk about video games. >> And how? >> So we're going to start off today with the normal fucking podcast talk of what games we've been playing and we're going to leave out Uncharted because we wanted to give Tyler some time to play. >> Wait, or we can't leave out Uncharted, I just think. >> I think we should, honestly. >> I spent like 10 hours this week playing Uncharted. >> I know, yeah, but I still think we should wait till Tyler can have direct input. Plus the game's not out till October 13th. Like, I don't think that we could, we could wait till next week's show and give Tyler a chance to play. >> I mean, you could break down why you gave it the review you did more detail. >> Okay, we can touch upon Uncharted but I really don't want to go into an in-depth talk. >> Not until we can spoil the shit out of it. >> Not only that, but like, I'm just tired of, today of all days is the day where people are finally reading my review and I'm quite frankly tired of talking about Uncharted with people. >> It is sort of the Uncharted echo chamber on the Internet today. >> I mean, every game that's been big that I've reviewed Halo 2, it's just like writing a review and seeing positive and negative comments to confirm you, I don't want to just talk about it. >> So we do a lot of games. >> If you were just giving it five. >> We do have a lot of games to talk about. After that, we're going to talk about whether or not you guys think that there's a changing face of games media, you all had a lot of input in that and you actually kind of came to a consensus that we'll kind of touch upon. And then we're going to. >> Like a game spy review. >> And then we're going to end some reviews, we're going to end some, we're going to end with letters, including one that actually is just so random, some guy wrote in talking about if we ever played outdoor games and I just happened to play this fishing game today at work. >> Oh, I thought you meant like games out in the world. >> No, no, no, he specifically was talking about like Cabela's. >> The deadliest, the deadliest game. >> He was specifically talking about Cabela's big game hunter. So and stuff like that, like shooting games. >> Yeah, his version. >> Exactly. At some point, everyone's played those dumb deer hunt games where you try and shoot only the male ones or something, but I mean, this fishing one, I wanted specifically tried because of the, the pull for, you know, there I was launching. I tried Bass Pro fishing like the new Bass Pro fishing game that comes with the fishing rod. >> Which if you're unaware, Bass Pro is the giant fishing shop that is in some, some major fishing places. >> And Tyler, Tyler looks extra quiet compared to us. >> Yeah, I do, but I looked fine on the, I, I looked, I sounded fine. >> And headphones. >> Yeah, you did. We'll just leave you like that. And okay. So anyways. >> Sorry. >> I was distracted by my. >> Yeah. >> That's not the way it's gonna sound. >> I barely touched it anyways. See a Bass Pro fishing, they're like a, it seems like when I was in Texas, they're like the, the shop, like when either the, that giant store I described to you right outside QuakeCon was a Bass Pro shop. I knew it was like as big as Walmart for sporting goods only. >> They're huge. >> That's a relatively new chain, you know, most Texans would associate any, if any chain that would associate Academy with being the number one hunting chain. >> So yeah, Bass Pro fishing comes with a rod with the, the wee one I assume you snapped the wee rope and, and it uses the built-in accelerometer. The 361 has a accelerometer in it that's just used for casting. >> As well as for maneuvering your lure in the water, little movements, and until I got it home and it seems to not be working, which team Xbox will be really happy about because I'm borrowing theirs and they have to review it. You know, it was, it was, it worked pretty well at the office. >> Maybe they can find, they can just re-reviewed Sega's get Bass fishing from the dream cast. >> So it's weird that you say it because this game looks pretty bad, like Tyler briefly saw it, like it looks like an Xbox one game. >> It looks like a budget title. >> And it is as Tom Price from Team Xbox said, an open leg game is what he calls it. Because you, instead of like being an open world, like when you, when you start in the leg, you get to drive the boat where you want and pick and use a fish finder to find fishing spots. >> Can I find draws? >> So there, I think likes might have special fish. I haven't quite figured that out, but it sounds like it. And so it's pretty cool, I mean, you know, as a vegetarian, I miss fishing in a lot of ways because I did have fun doing that growing up. >> Never liked fishing. >> And the force, like this has, you know, the vibration when they bite the lure and stuff it does send remembrances of landing fish back in the day. You have to watch things like rod tension, like for the string, that's why it has those lights that change colors, so you can tell like if your line is going to snap. >> Oh, fancy. >> Can you feel guilty fishing? Back in the day when I ate them? >> No. >> Okay. >> I mean, that's the thing. As a vegetarian, I won't do it because catching release, it's like I was telling Tyler in the way here, catching release. I mean, you can say you're going to catch release, but there's inevitably that one fish who like goes for gold and swallows it real deep and you basically pull out part of his guts with it. >> Also, I mean, even the ones that survive, it's like, here are little fish, here's this piece of metal jam through your face, help you're okay. >> Yeah. And to be fair, I've been told that they don't really have any nerves, usually where the hook sets because it's just like pure cartilage, but yeah, I mean, I never felt guilty back in the day of fishing, but nowadays I wouldn't be able to do it, which is why, you know, this game's still fun because fishing is still a lot of fun and this game is like accelerated fishing, at least when you play the arcade mode, because there's like a real mode too, which I assume is probably like a lot more failures. >> It's all the fishing without the patience. >> Yeah, because in this game it's like you throw a line out there and within like two tries you're going to get one on your line, you know what I mean, if you're accurate with it and that's like real fishing, it's like one in a hundred or something, you know. Well, maybe that's not true with like modern day fish technology, but when you're just going randomly off the shore of a lake. >> And not some kind of like fishing farm where it's looking. >> Right, just, well, even most natural bodies of water these days have farm fish in this. >> That's true. >> But unless you go there on the day, they're stalking it and start casting your line right where they're stalking them, which I've seen people do. It's like, yeah, I mean, it's pretty cool. It looks like a pretty big budget game, but you know, I just remember someone asked if I ever played those and the truth is, no, I don't, I don't play those hunting games. You know, the only reason I even tried this one is specifically because it had a peripheral that used motion controls and vibration and stuff that I thought would make it more like the real experience of fishing, because it's not like when I play a shooting game, I need to feel the experience of shooting because they're fun otherwise, but fishing is one of those things that I don't think is very fun when you just do it. >> It's the physical engagement that people find gratifying that and the reward of catching a fish. >> Right. And I mean, and it's kind of like playing a, it's like gambling. You don't know if you're going to catch a big one or a small one. There's all those things that make fishing kind of exciting. >> Also. >> Do you like gambling when you'd be afraid that the fish is going to like eat your boat or something? >> Well, I mean, it also seems to me like a lot of people fish just for the relaxation of it just sort of being out in nature and just kind of like sitting in one spot for a while. >> Right. And they do go with this, right? You can pick really pretty spots and go to all these different lakes and all these different states they're supposed to be like- >> It's got like the calming acoustic guitar strumming. >> Yeah. I mean, there is all that to it as well, you know? I mean, it's, it is like one of the cooler outdoor games ever seen most of those outdoor games when it's shooting and you're using controller. It's pretty boring, you know, maybe if you had like a really awesome shotgun peripheral, but even then like, I don't know, I mean, don't get wrong, like hunting and all those things, the reason people do it is because it's fun, like it is. If you can get past the whole, you know, killing bears sort of thing. >> Murdering bambi. >> But, you know, I don't know, those games are like some of the only semi-games that I actually appreciate when they're more sim-like, but this fishing game is probably is a really good example of a cool fishing game except it looks pretty terrible and it's $80 with the peripheral. >> Christ! >> So with the peripheral, right, it's $80, otherwise I think it's still a $60 game in which case it's like, I don't think that game should be $60. Think of who your target audience is, it should be a $30 game of Walmart. >> I don't know, maybe they feel like the people who are willing to buy a fishing video game have disposable income. >> Mm-hmm, yeah. I don't know. >> For all the retirees that own Xbox 360. >> Yeah, exactly. I don't know. I, I hopefully, maybe it's cheaper on Wii, I don't know because it doesn't have to have the accelerometer technology or any of that built in, but yeah, I mean, it looks very clearly like they might have started on Wii and then ported it to Xbox actually now that I think about it. >> Oh! >> I mean, it would make-- >> It didn't look that bad. >> No, no, no, but I'm saying they up-res the textures for the 360 one, which would make the most sense because in my mind, where it would do the best is on the Wii. >> The Wii, yeah. >> I mean, that seems like the type of people that would be more, because people like my parents that would be into a fishing game are more likely to own a Wii have bought in one at some point on a, on a Wii sports or Wii fit sort of impulse. So. >> Yeah, I mean, I remember with the, the year Half Life 2 came out for the original Xbox. That was, I got that game for Christmas and that year I bought my dad. I think it was big game, Dear Hunter, for the Xbox as well and we ended up playing that on Christmas Day more, then I got to play Half Life and it was, I mean, it was just kind of like a dumb, dumb game, it wasn't anything great, but-- >> It was a bombing experience. >> It was. I had some things, so I, I, uh, fishing was a bonding experience for you and me and my dad growing up. So, in some ways, I kind of miss that, but I don't think for Paula's or a bit bass pro fishing thing is going to be it, unfortunately. So. >> Unfortunate. >> Yeah, I've also been, I also checked out some Crime Craft. >> Tell us about the fascinating World Crime Craft. >> I went to this event for Crime Craft and it was so weird because, uh, you know, the game's out in retail, uh, and-- >> It's not doing especially well there. >> It's weird, you know, because their main focus of selling is digital distribution because they made an exclusive, far as retail distribution, the only store that game will ever be sold in is Best Buy. That's it. It won't be in Game Stops or Walmart's or Targets. That's why it was, that's why I had that front kiosk placement and we're at Best Buy. >> That's such a bad idea. >> Well, I mean, they knew when they mentioned it, they said they knew that it wouldn't sell at a Game Stop because Game Stops PC sales kind of suck. And they still have digital distribution and they knew that's where the bulk of their sales would be. And signing through Best Buy got them, you know, front placement in a, in a pretty big camp. >> Right, in camps and, uh, prominent-- >> They're doing the Best Buy's, a pretty big retailer still for PC games. >> Yeah, yeah, I always see people in there looking around. >> So, I mean, Walmart is the biggest. >> Right, I just don't think that, I just don't think that Walmart was interested in an exclusivity deal with a game that's all about making gangs and being a gang banger. >> But Best Buy. >> Yeah, I just don't think, you know, so, uh, yeah, it's, it's all about a game where it's, you know, it's been compared to me, to me as Guild Wars. So there's like a central hub area where you actually participate in a world with a bunch of people. And then from there, you go off into instances where it's a third-person shooter, it's very much like a competitive third-person shooter, like, like, uh, you know, imagine if something like Call of Duty or Unreal was a third-person game and not good, and uh, and that's kind of-- >> And not good. >> I'm sorry. >> Was that a subliminal message? >> No, but I-- >> Crime not, crime. >> I'd be fair, I'm gonna be, I'll be straight up just to be in full interest, full disclosure. I only played it for about 10, 15 minutes, but, you know, just off my gut feeling with those, I was like, "Man, this is really not fun. You know what killed it for me?" Which they said they had like a 50/50 split on, uh, was that there's no jumping in that game whatsoever. There's no-- there's tactical rolling, so when you hit space bar, you'll do like a roll to the side and to the right. But imagine when you're in the hub world, I ran up to the first NPC and I got a quest and I had to go upstairs to like this, like, like kind of like the top stairs of a bank. And uh, I got the quest and then I was like, "Okay, now I'll jump over this 12 inch ledge back down to street level so I can get to the NPC." >> Nope. >> Nope. Had to like walk around the ledge to get to the stairs and go back down. It just feels like you're completely neutered without a jump button. >> Team. >> Like, I don't know, it just seems-- >> It's good. >> It just seems-- >> Especially if the environments are huge, you know? >> Yeah, it seems really, really stupid to me. And if it's all about like being gangs and making these gang lives, I know like the crux of the game, it's weird because they want to push it to be that, but really, the game to me just seems like it's just a competitive third person shooter. And a gang is really just a way of saying a clan because I don't feel like you're really encouraged to live this whole gang life like they want you to be other than you can customize your gun with like really bright colors and stuff. You know, I don't feel like there's any like interest in making like a real gang, like we were making jokes. What do you want to say out there? I can tell you got something in two few times. >> I just feel like this seems like it's coming up more and more often than I hear, and it's not just you, but I hear you say it a lot is like I don't feel encouraged or what I wanted it to be. It was this, whereas like I just, I'm not seeing people take games for what they are. >> Well, what it is is the third person shooter, but I'm saying this isn't even what I want. This is necessarily because I know it's like an easy thing to play onto it and just like Critic says a game for what it isn't and to come off that way. But in this case, I really do think what they've been pushing, even in their PR boss and everything is that this game is all about letting you live like a gang life. >> You're saying it's like a fallacy of a concept. >> Yeah. And it's like, and it's like there really isn't any of that. There's no like, you're going to roll around in this town and see a rival gang and all this and be like, it's on and kill them because as far as I know, the only combat that goes on is in these instances, these like PV, these like deathmatch battles where you have respawns and all that. >> So you want like South Central? >> I mean, the way they're describing it is all about building a gang and becoming the biggest gang. And if it really is that like a real gang life, it's like, now you have turf and you defend it. >> It's like gangs in the 50s where you don't fight outside the rumble. >> Yeah, I mean me and Ryan said we wanted to go in there and just make like an all Hispanic gang and be like extremely racist and see how long it takes for us to get kicked and be like, that's what real gangs are like, man, because we're just like kill you because you are black. Sorry. You know, it's like, that's, I mean, like, you know, a lot of the Mexican gangs, like the Norteños and stuff, it's like, they are just extremely racist. >> There's this like gang from South America that are from a Latin America that's like they're a number. >> Yeah, it's 14. >> Yeah. >> Yeah. I mean, they're extremely racist. >> They kill everyone. >> Yeah, that's what I'm saying. So, I mean, the reality of gang life is that it's this vicious, brutal, fucked up thing, and it's like, I just kind of wish, you know, it's like, okay, I'm really not trying to judge a game for what it's not. Now I feel like I'm dancing on my toes after he said that, because I just- >> I mean, it just doesn't sound good. It sounds like what it has is not good. >> What it has isn't good to begin with. If it was just like this awesome third person shooter, that'd be cool. But I mean, they're trying to make a game that you pay for monthly because it's an MMO, this persistent world MMO thing. >> Yeah, so I mean, that's all you need to judge it on, which is that it's not, the underlying mechanics are not good, like, it doesn't live up to what they're trying to sell it as. >> Right, I think if I was giving it a letter grade and stuff, that's what I would want to go on. But I think it's fair just as a critic to sit there and say that, you know, there are some under realized themes that they really seem like they wanted to press on, and for whatever reason they didn't, you know, I just, I really hope that games like APB can capitalize on that, and, you know, really kind of apply that idea of rolling around as a gang together because, you know, it's like when we play GTA Online, one of the coolest things is when you kind of get into this mentality that you two are rolling around the car and you're going to drive by the first DGC. >> Right, you know, I mean, you say that I'm really just waiting for someone to capitalize on that idea and, like, make some multiplayer shooter completely based on that, which may very well be what APB is, you know, like, you know, I mean, my favorite moments in Grand Theft Auto history were Grand Theft Auto San Andreas where I was, like, rushing back to different parts of the hood to defend it from other gangs, you know, I like the concept and the idea. >> Yeah, I mean, I guess, you know, it's like EverQuest wasn't a game that was what I thought it would be when I went into it, but it was still so good that I loved it anyways. But it's like, you know, the way that they've described this game and stuff, I just thought there was going to be a lot more to it and, to me, it seems like a very shallow thing. You have this world and you do some shooting and I'm really not that impressed. I mean, I would really think it would be way cooler if they could find some way to capitalize on that making a gang thing and ruling a gang, like, I would love to be in a crazy gang with a leader that could randomly kill someone, fucking disobeying them or something, like, if they're going to go for the thug life where everyone's in gangs, I want it to be, like, this crazy, brutal world, like, that would, that would be so cool, but... >> Crimecraft is not bad. >> No, Crimecraft is just this eerily quiet thing, too. There's no voice acting that I've seen at all. Like when you talk to an NPC, they don't even do, like, a what's up or something like that. So the only sound we heard when we were playing... >> What's up? >> The only sound we heard was the pitter patter of feet and shooting a gun, and that was it. >> It's, like, big, thuggish mice running around. >> So, I don't know about that game. >> You heard today that the secret world got delayed, right? >> Yeah. >> And a bunch of people from that company got laid off. Well, it was, like, yesterday that I think that happened, but... >> I mean, Conan, I don't think did as well as they hoped. I mean, I know it didn't. >> I don't understand what more they needed or wanted from that game, it sold a lot of units. >> It sold well, but I think they were hoping to hold on to subscribers longer. I mean, the game costs a lot to make, but hopefully, secret world won't cost as much because he's using the same engine as Conan, so that's already there. Yeah. So... >> DirectX10 ready? >> No, and this is made by Ragnar Turnquist, who made things like Dreamfall along his journey, so he does know what he's doing, so... >> Like, he's the guy that wrote the fiction, like, that's creating the world, I mean... >> Yeah, I think so, so... >> Yeah, it's just harder, it's just, I don't know. Sometimes, you know, like, uncharted, I didn't really judge for what it was or what it could have been, but it's just so hard because sometimes after playing so many games, like, I just see these games and I see, like, such missed potential to, like, play on the themes that they saw. Not that I'll ever move to design, right? I don't pretend to have ideas that grant, but... >> I just see, more and more often, I see people getting mad at things because they're not what they expect them to be... >> Or are you saying people or are you saying me, though? >> No, I'm saying people, like, a general... It's a general thing that I'm seeing increase this year, both in games and movies, especially that, like, they want something to be a certain way and if it isn't that way, then they're not even giving it a chance, they're just shitting all over it or... >> Right, I mean, I guess some people interpreted my halo thing that way, which really isn't fair because I, in the end, I didn't let what it was and what it wasn't affect my score as much as... It's hard, I don't want to explain it, but I mean, that wasn't what went into my scoring of it. I think it's fair to mention these things in a review if you want, but I don't know that it's not fair to have a factor score. >> Yeah, I feel like reviewers or people that write about games should have the... Should feel that they can just, you know, say things like that and stuff just because it's interesting sometimes reading those perspectives and it's hard because, you know, without the exception of preview and review cycle, there isn't really a chance to ever talk about those things, because most sites don't offer you just the chance to do editorial, which is a shame, because I'd love just to have a column about random shit like that. Things I would like. >> I just read you didn't talk about that at the end of the segment, because then we could have said, "You should make a change in game media to make that possible," and it would have been a totally decent segue. >> Yeah, I mean, I would like that, you know, very few sites have stuff like that. The escapist does a lot of very intense editorial, but... >> That's pretty much all the escapist is. >> Right, you know, it's like I would like that, you know, I would like to not have to review games with the score, because that's just annoying in my mind. I like to be able to talk about games, and when you're not assigning its score, you can say whatever the fuck you want about it, because people don't care at that point, and they can just read it and be like, "Huh, food for thought." But what else have you guys been playing? >> What else have you been playing? >> Man, I mean, besides that, I mean, I guess my life's been pretty well-dominated by uncharted to get it done in time for the review. >> It's also majestic, too. >> Oh, yeah, Majesty II. >> Majesty II, I'm sorry. >> Majesty II. So people have been asking me if that game is like the first one, and I didn't play the first one, so I can't answer that for you. I've heard it's very similar to the first one, in the sense that it's, you do all the same as you do in the first one, it's up now, it's rendered in 3D, but Rory, who's played the first one, Roy Mannion, who works for Game Spy and one up in the past, and, you know, he said that there are quite a few differences that people that play the original will see, but the premise of Majesty II is that you are a king, and instead of, like, directly doing things in a RTS fashion, you, like, offer money for people to do things for you. So you really are a lord in that sense. So you still build buildings, and you get all your money through random taxing of your citizens. So you have to build things like a ranger's guild, and then you could build rangers, and once rangers are built to explore the map, you don't tell, you can't just tell a ranger, like, go here, but you can set a marker, like, go explore this, and all, whoever does it first gets 200 gold, and then these heroes will just be like, "I want 200 gold," and they'll go running off to do it. Cool. So it's sort of like the Sims, in some ways? Yeah, it's like you're setting, like, you're controlling the environment and the world that they live in, as opposed to them. Yeah, it's like you're incentivizing golds for these heroes to do things for you, like, you find, like, a goblin lair or something, and you can be, like, 1,000 gold to whoever kills this, and it'll tell you how many people are interested, so all of a sudden you might have, like, seven heroes venturing out together to go and take this on, and to build your economy, you'll make, like, a store that heroes can go and buy items, and that actually returns gold to you, and they'll use items, like, health potions and stuff like that. Is it interesting? Like, is it fun? Yeah, it's really fun. I mean, because they, you know, it's not like you just do that, right? It's like any RTS game would be, you have a clear set goal, like, one might be, "Reach this caravan," but to do that you have to get through all these enemies before you can, and, you know, just think about protecting your city because your city comes under attack fairly regularly from random monsters, so you, you have to make sure you have enough guards in place. What happens when the city gets attacked? Like, how do you... So you have two guards that defend your main castle, but then you can also build guard towers, and each guard tower has an archer inside and one guard that's meant that'll patrol, and each successive guard tower you build gets more expensive, so you can't just spam them, and so you just have to kind of build them in key places. Seems like a sort of desktop tower defense kind of element to it. Yeah, because I mean, so you see where the monsters are streaming from, and monsters always come from basically, like, a gauntlet-style generator, so eventually you'll send someone out there to explore, find the generator, and then fucking set, like, a $1,500, like, money that you want these people to go take it out. So I've only played the first few levels, but they get way more difficult, like, take out this baron and this castle, and so, you know, I think, like, I'm not sure- Like, do you have to pay mercenaries to do all this? Like, you can't make- Yeah, you don't do anything yourself except you can cast a few spells here and there, but beyond that, everything you're doing is, like, by setting these money goals and building these units and setting goals for them so that they'll level up, like, taking them out to make sure they go fight these monster generators, and each after each level you can take your highest level or any hero that you want, and you can save them as a lord, and then you can build a house of lords, and you can always bring out your lords to fight for you later on. This is such, like, a quintessential PC strategy game? Yeah, it is. I mean, that's totally why I like it, right? Because it's, like, the part of me that loves games like Civ 4 and was interested in that tropical game. It's even like, I mean, Civ 4 is downright, like, action-oriented compared to what this sounds like. I mean, this is still, like, you, I mean, it's pretty, it's still pretty fast-paced because you're constantly having to set these new goals, like, you know, because you can even set goals of, like, bounties on individual mobs' heads, so if there's, like, a big mob heading toward your town, you're like, "Oh, fuck, 2,000 gold to the guy that brings that down." You know? Is it turn-based, or a place on the table? No, it's all real time. Okay, cool. So, you know, I mean, it's, it's just kind of cool that you don't have direct control over units, so you kind of have to influence what they want to do. And so when you get lords, it's even worse because in some ways lords are, like, super powerful guys, but lords, lords will not work for pennies. You got to fucking pay them well for them to want to do things. Oh, man. Does anyone ever rebel or betray you? No. They're, they're really good about that, but they will die. And when you die, when heroes die, then a graveyard spawns in your town, and skeletons will randomly spawn from that, so, yeah, so, it is Jesus. You can resurrect heroes from the graveyard, too, so there is a positive thing to it. The graveyard, I mean, the graveyard is just there forever? Yes. Unstructable. Yeah. Yeah, they just do a few things to keep you on your toes a little time, just like there's an indestructible sewer that keeps spawning rats that attack your town. The good thing about them, though, as much as they are negative, is that they'll also these rats and everything your heroes can level up on them. And so it's like creeps, like creep generators? Yeah, so they're leveling up on these things and able to get gold, and then they can spend that in your market place and give you more revenue. So, I mean, everything in that game, you know, it isn't just like Warcraft where you build a blacksmith, and then you build armor and it goes to everyone. You actually have to build a blacksmith, say that you want to craft armor, armor is crafted, and then a hero comes and buys it, like when he has enough money. So that's why you're encouraged to go out there and place all these bounties, because you have to give your heroes money to spend, to influence your economy. So it's kind of like this crazy economy builder at the same time managing the subjective kind of, just by paying people really well. I don't know, I guess it's kind of like being a lord of mercenaries, really. I mean, you don't have a direct army yourself that you control, so that's why it's called majesty because it's all supposed to be about ruling as a king kind of from afar and just kind of influencing people with money. So it is all about greed. I mean, even kings though make like tactical decisions about where to deploy armies and stuff like that. It's very like there's this contrivance present, which is that you cannot maintain an army. Like you cannot maintain your own force. Right. Well, it's not, but the battles don't occur on the army scale. It's all just hero. It's kind of almost like if a hero would represent like a unit or something, but really it just occurs on the individual scale. There are no units of guys fighting around. It is very much like you might as well be a super minor lord, and these guys are even way minor, minor, minor, minor lords. I don't know. Yeah. It is what it is. It's not trying to be able. So it's like your Lex Luthor or something? Yeah, you're not a big battle sim or anything like that. It's just an interesting way to do strategy and to make it still like because so much your mind is just thinking about money. It really is greed the game in a way. So I mean, you know, like you said, it is a fundamental sort of PC sim and it is, it's just, it's different from most anything else you'll play as far as that goes. Yeah, I don't know, I enjoyed that. Left for Dead Crash Course is something you've also played. Yes, we all played that last night. Tyler, how are you feeling after, after playing Left for Dead? I, you know, I like Left for Dead. I, it was one of the games that I got in on late. So everyone had sort of been jaded by all the campaigns and everything. So it was exciting for me to play through this campaign for the first time with other people for the first time. So, but playing with you guys, y'all play on hard and you tend to rush ahead. One advanced. Unadvanced. Well, I mean, I was like, man, we should, we might get through it. You say you guys, but let's be clear. Anthony rushes ahead. Anthony rushes ahead. Well, so much. Like we will be looking around and I look in the distance and all I will see is a very small silhouette with chuffed money over it through building because, you know, one of the things that I left for Dead though is to keep moving. So I try and keep us moving by. Yeah, that's true. I'm keeping ahead because when we stand still, that's when you hear the music and you're like, Oh, fuck, here comes the board. Exactly. So I'm just, I mean, I'm trying to avoid that. So I mean, that's just a game where it always feels, I always just feel this impetus to never stop moving. Like, even when someone goes down, I'm always just like, man, I just want to fucking shoot while I'm running because I just don't want to stop for anyone. It'd be nice if something they added a letter to which they won't, but it would be nice if they did would be the ability for one survivor to drag another. So like the survivor that's on the ground can like fire pistols and that's been added in mods. Yeah, that would be such an awesome thing for them to include in the retail version. And I wonder if they feel like it would break balance. I don't feel like it would because it would basically incapacitate the person dragging. Right. That is exactly how it works on the PC one. The other person can't shoot, but the person being dragged can still fire their pistols. Yeah. You can get it to where I think on a mod in PC, there's a mod where you, if you're down, can crawl, but when you're crawling, you can't shoot. So but at least you can still kind of move towards the other survivors, even if you can't help them while you're doing so. I mean that I wouldn't even, like that I could live with that. I just feel like it would be such a huge strategic addition, like because if you're crawling, then that just means that you can't shoot. But if someone has to drag you, then that, that leaves you just with your pistols and someone else with a normal weapon out of commission. Like it's a, it's a, it would be a huge sacrifice on their part. Like a calculated risk to stop firing and to drag you out of harm's way. Like while someone else covers them. Yeah. I just think it would be interesting, but crash course, what do you think of crash course? Did they, um, you know, and this is evidence that I've not played very much left for dead, but did they always have that sort of prism light, light flare that come off the other players flashlights for this? Was there like a graphics up there or anything with it? Cause I noticed, like when I face you and you're facing me with your flashlight, like there's this sort of prismatic flare. I don't know if there's something I didn't notice, but, I mean, either way, whatever it was, I didn't really, I mean, let's be clear, like from a, from a data standpoint, they did not add a ton, crash courses, 8, 4 megabytes, although it did do a tiny update beforehand too. Like, you know, like when you first started it up again, yeah, but I mean, that's so fast. I know. I just wonder what it was. I mean, who knows, right? I mean, like there's not, it's, it's obvious that most of the crash course uses preexisting assets. Like, so it doesn't really add much, um, you know, for new graffiti, what did you guys think of it overall? I mean, people bitch because it's only a two chapters, but I felt that they were pretty long. I mean, yeah. First of all, they're, they're long and I, they're reasoning behind that was to give competitive players something that wouldn't take like 90 minutes, supposedly because I mean, it takes like 30 or 45 minutes to go with single player through a campaign or co-op through a campaign versus, is double that right and people all the time in our experience would just drop the highway through and I can't blame them because it's such a huge time investment. Right. So it took steps with the crash course to try and, uh, quicken the pace of those versus matches, those of them. Yeah. So with the two chaps. Yeah. I mean, we didn't beat it either. No. The ending part. The ending part. Well, we didn't come that close because apparently, you know, when the lights shut off, so the ending part is that you have to hit a generator, which lowers a car you can get into, but at some point during it, the generator stops and you actually have to run back out there and restart it. So yeah, that we always got to where it started, stopped the first time, but I've been told it might I stops at least one other time. So I think it only stops once. Uh, maybe we'll, maybe we'll tell him jibs on me, but, uh, yeah, I mean, even still, I mean, the only time I could see having a chance to go out there and stop it is when like the tank attacks or something, right? And so the thing about the tank, like this crescendo is that not only is the tank there, but I don't remember this ever happening in any other, like episode, which is that every other fucking special infected spawn at the same time as the tank. Yeah, I was going to say, in my, in my experience, usually when you fight a tank, that's all you're fighting. Unless it's versus, if it's versus then, right, but in, in normal, they just don't bother. They're just like deal with the tank, but yeah, in this one, people were getting smoker and 100 and spit on during a tank battle. I was like, what the fuck? But apparently they have changed the respawn timers in versus to make it even more fast-paced. They've also added, um, like status images for all of your teammates. So if someone has a cool down thing on their tongue going on, you can actually see that if it's another player. That is nice to know. But it's, I mean, it's a lot of fun. Yeah, did you find it was worth $7? Yes. And the reason I say that is because it is a $60 360 game with four full chapters and each one of those breaks down, if you want to break it down that way into 15 bucks. So then split in half. Exactly. So like half like a chapter that's half the size is 7 dollars. But even that even that seems just like silly reasoning, like it's $7. Like that's one hamburger, like I mean, I mean, yeah, I mean, it's nice because at least, I mean, I mean, I, I mean, I, I own the PC version just as you own the PC version and I think you own the PC version. I don't have it. It's, I think it's $15 right now. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, on Valva, I'm sure Valve could, they'd release it for free. I mean, the PC version is free, but Microsoft says it can't be free. And I think it has something to do with not being, not wanting to put out premium content that's free while other premium content, right? Makes everyone look bad. Yeah. Yeah. And they gave them their one freebie. It seems like it seems like they're willing to do one freebie like they did with gears. Yeah. I mean, this one supposedly also added more survival mode maps too, which I, I've never really put too many too much times. It's just because all that stuff came out once the, the, I don't, I don't want to say hype cycle, but once the multiplayer cycle had moved on to other things. Not only that, but when we tried survival mode, it was so hard that that kind of turned me off. Yeah. And it's hard to find people that are really good, like in our circle that are all on at the same time. Right. So we just didn't necessarily, I mean, left for dead really is a thing where it's like, you got to have a team that knows how to work well with each other. Even if you butt heads at time, that's fine. Well, I mean, we were talking about expectations earlier. I mean, you guys got to check your expectations. They were saying, you know, like survival people, you know, they probably won't last, you know, like 12 minutes is something to brag about. Yeah. I mean, the most we ever last. Like in the balls. Like six minutes. No, we definitely got a part in that. I mean, it's tough. No, it is really hard. I mean, everything, the thing I like about survival mode as far as like, how sadistically they designed it is everywhere you think is safe. They've made it to where it can break. Right. Basically. I mean, there's the illusion of safety. Right. But I will say that I'm pretty sure that that is the last piece of left for dead content that we're going to see officially. Probably unless they figure out how to patch some of the left for dead two stuff in, which I know they said they want to do that that HUD stuff, like the cooldown timers for your teammates on versus when you're playing is infected, is from left for dead two. Oh, cool. But I mean, they added 250 achievement points with the crash course DLC and that indicates to me that perhaps they're just like, all right, well, because there's only so much that so many achievements that you can add with DLC within a certain time span. I mean, you're right. It does kind of come across as a, all right, shut up so we can make our new game come out and not. Yeah. I mean, it's like a month away, right? Or two months. Yes. What is it? November? Yes. So I mean, tomorrow is October. Right. When this podcast goes up, it'll be a month away. October 1st. Yeah. So, you know, I mean, I'm not surprised that this is just like, and here, shut up. My rock band instruments are supposed to be delivered tomorrow, according to my tracking information. UPS tracker. Since your home alone would be just going to play some nakedness. Well, like, I mean, it's awesome, like, you know, cause I ordered my rock band pet, you know, sort of bundle in two different places. And so I ordered Beatles and the backup microphone off Amazon and those have already arrived. So I've been sitting at home, you know, afternoons alone, usually, I spend them with my lady, but now I just drink beer in my sorrow and sing Beatles songs by myself. But I love it, man. I love working on my singing because I've never been taught how to sing. Yeah. And I mean, I've always been into music and I was in, you know, percussion for 10 years and, you know, I was always into that. So it's fun working on singing and playing Beatles. I still haven't like, I, what you saw me play the Beatles rock band is all I have played of the Beatles rock band. I just don't feel like I've had time. Yeah. I mean, I hear you. I haven't played it. I think that in our house and I haven't played it. I think maybe if people hadn't been talking about it so much, then I would feel more of a need to play it. But we're caught in such a cycle where for the podcast, it's like, okay, well, we could play this, which we played before that's fun, or we can play something else that we haven't played to have to talk about. Dude, I don't know, but Beatles to me, for me, you know, I mentioned the singing thing. It was one of those things where I really wanted to see how I would do, you know, singing Beatles. It was one of those things where I felt really compelled to play. And I'm the same way with drumming. Like I really, I love sight reading. And that was one of the things I really loved about DJ Hero was it gave me that feeling of sight reading music, which is like, if you're not familiar with it, the term, it means when you basically get a sheet of music that you've never seen before. And the director goes with the band over it and you try to play it like, all right. But yeah, man, I'm excited to get my fucking drums in the mail. I will say this. Like I hear a lot of people bitching about how easy rock band Beatles is, but when I was playing on expert. And I don't know what they're talking about. Like the fucking like the three chord progressions, like the three, the three note chord progressions are fucking crazy. Not only that, but the faster parts and even some of their like more poppy love songs were pretty challenging on expert. You're, you all were playing on guitar? Yeah. Yeah. And I don't know. I think that game's just fine. Like I mean, I don't just, these like the people that are like five starring, Dragon Force. Like, I don't know. Right. I mean, maybe it's easier than other rock band games. I think that's such a danger for rhythm games that like the designers probably feel a pressure for, which is like this constant war of escalation that they have to make shit harder and harder and more challenging because they're like small group of people. Then you just come out with like guitar hero dream theater. Yeah. I think they're smarter than that because they realize that the majority of people play it probably play on easier, medium at best. Like most people don't even use that last button actually be curious to know what the figures are for that because I'm sure that at least harmonics has that like with the amount of people that play rock band online. Yeah. I'm sure there's some sort of rough statistic they've taken. Um, yeah, I definitely don't have a problem with the skill level that's on there. I don't mind if it feels a little bit challenging, but I'm not failing. Like I don't need to fail a song and complete it five tries later to feel a sense of accomplishment. I just wish I had time, but I haven't and like I was thinking about it yesterday and thinking, you know, I don't know when I'm going to have time to really dig into the Beatles rock band as much as I'd like because like this week, we're going to be playing Borderlands after I finish Uncharted. Well, to be fair, none of this is shit you have to play. No, but I mean, it's like, am I going to play something that everyone has talked about recently or am I going to play something new that I can talk about in the future? It's true, but if you were to play Beatles and find an interesting way to talk about it, it's I can't think of anything to say about the Beatles rock band. And that is your problem for the last two months. That is your problem. I mean, really, like, can you think of any avenue that is? Oh, yeah, man. I don't even think about it. If I had to write something about the music in the pause menu and in the menus of the game, it's just it sounds like a damn thing. People have talked about all that stuff already. Really? Yeah. Fuck them. So what else have you been playing? I tried the Ninja Gaiden 2 Sigma demo, Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 demo on PS3. And I think I've gone on record more than once as being a pretty huge Ninja Gaiden fan down the beating Ninja Gaiden Black on Master Ninja Mode. I didn't do that with Ninja Gaiden 2. I only beat Path of the Warrior, which is the second difficulty setting. Because towards the end of the game, the design, like the boss design and the level design and the encounter design in that game just sort of falls apart. And the camera is balls as well. And that just makes things worse. But Sigma 2, it doesn't... Did it feel like it fixed any of those things that you... No. I mean, the frame rate is better. And that's good. Because occasionally, the frame rate on the 360 version would really be hurting. And it runs on a higher res, because the last Ninja Gaiden 2 didn't run in 720p. But do you feel like the camera problems are? No, the camera problems are not solved. I've had camera issues in the first mission, which is what that part is. And I think they added a boss. Like, I don't know if either of you guys played Ninja Gaiden 2. I played a little bit, yeah. Do you remember a Buddha boss in the first act? Like the climbs up a building fucking stay-put-martial man style? No. Like, I don't remember that at all. And that is, I think, the new boss that they show in the demo. And it's fucking stupid boss design, where you will die, because it doesn't give you a chance to hit it. Like that is what makes it hard, that you don't have an opportunity to hit it. Which is like exactly what Ninja Gaiden games don't do, usually. Well, that's what Ninja Gaiden Black didn't do very often, but that's sure shit when Ninja Gaiden 2 did, and a lot of parts. Yeah, that really turned me off. There was one boss that I think it was like that, the train, like there were parts where you couldn't. Yeah. Where it was invulnerable to your attention or something. I mean, the worst boss in that game is the last boss. Which is four boss encounters consecutively that you have to do in one straight shot. But I mean, it doesn't, like, the combat still feels fine, although the mushy sticks on the dual shock make it feel slightly less responsive to me. But that's just a preference thing. All of the gore is gone. Whoa. It seems like such a weird thing to cut out of a Ninja Gaiden game. Yeah, like you can still cut things off, but the limb disappears as soon as it leaves the body. And there's not really any blood. Like it's like exactly like if you think back to Ninja Gaiden, like two, like blood is the number one constant. Like everywhere you go, it's just like ropes of blood spouting everywhere and limbs going everywhere. The reason this game looked so good is because so much shit was going on. Right. And they did it to drop the rating? I know, because it's still rated M. And I mean, they added like they're still partial nudity in parts and like it's it has more breast jiggle. I'm that there seems like there's not even reasoning behind it. You'll cut off a guy's arm and like there'll be this brief sort of like fade and there'll just be like this stump, like this purple stump. Here the you'd said that you thought it was possibly to bring the frame rate up. Yeah, I think that it might have been an issue because like the PS3's fill rate, like the rate at which it can draw things on screen is not as good as the graphics hardware on the 360. And if they cut down on things on screen, that would probably help the frame rate because there's a pretty insane amount of shit going on with all the gore and dismemberment like because it would keep in it. I can I can hear pitch, pitch, forks, torches tearing outside the door. Like I really don't care. If you ever want a good technical breakdown of the the origins of some of the graphical differences you see on multi platform titles, Eurogamer has a section called digital foundry where they do comparisons down to a tenth of a seconds worth of frames as to what the differences are between games. That sounds like Eurogamer found like an interesting way to talk about tech and more importantly a way to cause a flame war that gives them a fucking ton of hits like if you ever read something about how well such and such doesn't run this way or like these resolutions are sub HD like the digital foundry covers that shit and they cover in a way that is that is understandable to most laymen and at least at least some degree. I feel like most people aren't like Arthur though like Arthur has like a genuine interest in graphics tech. Most people that go and read that shit are probably like the type of people that want to then go on a post a nigga told you like like that's the type of shit they want anyway the game looks weird without that dismemberment it looks sterile without that dismemberment man you know they they probably should have just made all those swords and they're like lightsabers that make a little more like if they had smoke rolling off the limbs when you did it like actual like there's like this sort of purple smoke but it's not like singed body part smoke it's magic it's magic stuff I mean and it doesn't seem like they've changed some of the fundamental encounter design issues in that game so I don't I will not be paying $60 for that game maybe wait till you it gets cut or something yeah I mean we'll see it would have to sell really well to get discounted or sell really terribly and get discounted maybe heavenly sword is still $60 well heavenly sword is also a first party other companies I've seen go tech might might need the sales I'm just thinking like like some games that I've seen come out and then like two weeks later you're like 39 bucks already I mean I think ninja guy - actually went down pretty quick but like the ninja ninja guy - on Xbox showed that it was rushed and that there were parts that just weren't clearly monitored by itagaki or his immediate lieutenants and none of that feels different yeah I mean maybe at this point it was just kind of shit out because they wanted it out I mean it wasn't shit out they did a lot of work but like they added three characters and online co-op yeah not a game I would think three characters or co-op but even just three characters like I don't know playing as different characters is that appeal to an injured guy and player I mean it plays differently they they they each fight very differently and move very differently than Ryu so in theory it adds the ability to go through it more than once with a different person no because they're only like specific levels where you play as those characters oh this is a whole lot less interesting what else of did you hit up lots of uncharted - yeah we can touch upon that a little bit so why solo yeah why solo Anthony why solo yeah apparently my Metacritic average is a 9.0 for that game which first off I have to tell you don't look at the Metacritic score because the Metacritic average for Uncharted 2 right now is a 97 because the thing is the thing is is that game spy scores don't translate exactly so many sides don't translate like like that guy swears he has some that runs Metacritic like first off I'm gonna tell you that most people in the game spreads they fucking hate Metacritic and they hate the guy that runs it and most people working in the game development hate it to hate it as well it affects their bonuses likes it are the publishers and PR sometimes even they hate it sometimes because it affects their like even like hardcore statistical analysis for anything else they they take the most serious outliers in the data and they discard them yeah because they're like random occurrences Metacritic is fucking it it's a crazy entity it's almost like something came in and like hijacked it's weird too because he he swears up and down he has some crazy math formula that he won't disclose to anyone because it's a secret formula but it doesn't make any sense like I just I don't get it but anyways I feel like the internet would have cracked his fucking code if there were something legitimate in place yeah so in fact I know that the internet would have cracked his fucking code if there were something legitimate according to uh Metacritic I gave it a 9.0 but what I actually scored was a 4.5 out of 5 on game spy which is a great rating the word associated with it is great though I have and uh here's a question why would calling it 90 out of a hundred be a problem it's not that's the little point is that like the thing the whole thing about review scores is that like since reviews and individuals thing like what a 9.0 means to me is is obviously different than what a 9.0 means to people in general that's because a 9.0 doesn't mean validation or a lack of that and a 9.0 obviously means something different to me than it means to other websites as well because other people like I mean when I give a 9 if let's say we were on a 10 point scale like way back in the day it went up and I gave a 9 man that was a game that I was telling but like that to me is a game that you should definitely buy especially like if you're all interested in it you've been waiting for it buy it and if you're not you should probably check it out like you know if I if we were on the crispy game or buy it buy it try it you know sort of system it would definitely be a buy it for me I mean I it's the same score that I assigned to Dead Space and that's a game I intentionally went out of my way to buy I'm also I also put in my pre-order for Uncharted as well that's another game I'm purchasing even though I'm sure I'll get a free copy of it you know I mean Uncharted is a fantastic game and I meant it in my review when I said to me I mean it's the best PS3 exclusive you know I should have used the words my personal favorite PS3 exclusive because people took it to me and that it was GameSpy's PS3 exclusive and that's not true it's the only game I played on PS3 that would make me sad if I didn't own one yeah I mean I do think that it is a game that like if someone could go and sit with it for an hour it could be a system seller in the same way that when I played condemned for the first time on Xbox 360 or the original Ghost Recon Advanced Warfare those to me were system sellers at the time because well for me right I really liked the first girl a lot I mean clearly I had lower standards yeah well I mean so I played those you know and and and like oblivion like all those games were system sellers to me and right alongside that to me is you know even the original Uncharted I liked that much but even this one like it still to me is like such a fantastic it is the best reason to own one yeah for now yeah I mean I I have high hopes for the new Ratchet and clank game as well but we'll see you know just because I love the last one so you know it is the best like I enjoyed Resistance 1 and 2 but they don't hold a candle done Uncharted 2 like and I would still have rated on Resistance 1 and 2 as good games but you know what are games that you gave 5 stars or would give 5 stars because I had someone like I posted in the neo-gaf thread on Uncharted because a lot man just the fucking crazy the horrific things that were being said about me I was told I should be raped and murdered today in an email oh really yeah oh that was an email that wasn't a comment no that was an email sent to games by feedback there were several emails sent to games by feedback today about me um for so just to make this clear someone said you should be raped and murdered for giving it giving Uncharted to a 4.5 yes out of 5 yeah are you sure it wasn't Sterling no I mean I still think doesn't care Sterling Sterling totally is like you know Sterling runs a review section he knows that reviews are I kid I uh but yeah you know I just I guess games that I would give a 5-2 at the time when it came out would have been outcast that's still my favorite game of all time but honestly like for me timers appearing in that game for me a 5.0 is like a game that is like an unbelievable experience that when I finish it's like I I'm just like utterly blown away by and that really doesn't happen to me that often yeah with a lot of games but when it does happen for me it's like those are the times I just know like I'm trying something more than a game that you played when you were in your teens that no one will else whatever but the thing is that I've gone back to outcast again and again I've played at three different times at three different points in my life and every time it still blows me away again I need a game that people have played uh Half-Life 2 when it came out yeah Half-Life 2 when it came out probably I would say Half-Life 2 Episode 2 I'd give a 5-2 yeah I mean when it you know it's just like God of War II I mean maybe Portal I don't know I think I would have given Halo 3 a 5 yeah I don't know I think like I think when it came out I would have given Halo 3 a 5 yeah I would have either given a 4-5 or 5 um to me a perfect score I mean it's like it's like one of the rarest scores you can give because you're saying like this is I just we just shouldn't call it a perfect score yeah I hate that term like the highest recommendation that I can give yeah okay because when I say a game as a 5 I'm not saying it's perfect because even my favorite game outcast that game had some flaws like every game even my favorite games in the world you know I love Halo I could have even seen myself giving Halo 3 a 5 but that wouldn't have been because it wasn't without flaw it would have been because not only do you get this like really fun single player game and you get the ability to play co-op get the ability to have this new awesome multiplayer and you know the ODST had multiplayer but it wasn't like it brought this whole new multiplayer right it just had besides firefight so what I'm saying is like Halo 3 was like the total package like it's I mean that game and you had like the camera stuff you know all the stuff where you could record your things I mean that game is just so feature rich right right a lot of ways you know yeah when I say perfect I mean it more in the sense of like it is the highest score it's not a perfect game right because I mean the thing is even a game that I were to give a a 5.02 I would probably have some things that I would write in there that would be like the things that people look for that are trying to figure out the exact math of how where did that point five come from and that's just not how it works I I for me I think the distinction is there are certain things about Uncharted 2 that I could imagine a small minority of people being completely turned off by and hating the game for right because there are still problems with the mechanics of that game like in so much of the other stuff just like blows all of that away for me but there are still parts in that game where I think to myself fucking uncharted and not in a in a shrug my shoulders oh be kind of way but in a I can't fucking believe that they didn't do something about this right I mean that's why you know I used the analogy I did my review that I've used with you several times of it's like having a brand new Lamborghini with a scratch in it or something like that but you said it's like Lamborghini with a tail guy like a tail light busted yeah but it's like it's like you know you'll have this beautiful thing that for all instance purposes is like a masterpiece of like engineering you know this game but it's like a hot girl with a zit on her friend there just like this couple things you're just like oh and it's like because it's so beautiful it really exacerbates like those things that like stand out that you're just like what the fuck happened for example you will there will often be times where you'll need die several times before you know where you're supposed to go later in the game that parts didn't bother me as much as you know just like I was telling you the obvious video game like tropes in there where it's like now you're gonna fight a guy who can suddenly take 300 bullets like they're some of the boss design is fucking terrible although the first boss in that game is amazingly fun to play as far as are we oh yeah we'll want spoiled yes no I mean I don't want to I don't want to get in any content spoilers but the first boss encounter like proper boss encounter and uncharted too is super fun yeah it's just the humanoid boss encounters that bother me um but again something stupid that bothers me is that if you go into a melee sequence of someone you are stuck in it until they either went how you stopped attacking no because it stuck me in that sequence like once I was at the second punch I could not break out I could just weren't I've rolled away from him before no it wouldn't it wouldn't let me in like I punched this guy like twice and there were three other dudes in the room and then I proceeded to like duck and avoid his punch and then punch again and meanwhile everyone else in the room was unloading their guns into me and I guess in my mind I remember being able to roll away but I could be wrong but that being said uh I do feel like they've made the the the melee combat yeah the melee combat is a lot better way better than the the original one it was so useless I just avoided it at all costs yeah whereas in this if it's just one dude the melee combat is an extremely viable in fact I would say in close it is a preferable option I will always rush someone and just melee them if I have a chance melee in close the guns still are good like fight like gun combat when there's more than one dude like that's close to you is still fucked I mean you are very inaccurate when you're running and gunning I mean it is like like even you will be shooting like 50 50 feet apart and aiming is not an option because you move so slowly when you're aiming that you like in close like the computer will always beat you to the draw yeah I mean you know I guess you could chalk that up to realism or something but it doesn't necessarily make a fun thing I mean you know running with running with a gun which I've done in real life and I don't recommend anyone ever do he's not easy but that's why you do walk slowly but yeah running don't have room with a gun you just look like an asshole and you'll hurt yourself so um then scaling things is generally a lot better but there are still times where it's sort of not clear what you can get on and let it go yeah I mean that that hint system that they've added is nice where it tells you like you know eventually it's just like climb in the window but the fact that you have to have one of those sometimes is not always good but it is nice sometimes it's maddeningly vague it's just like find a rocket launcher yeah or okay where the fuck do I do that yeah there was definitely one time that I was it said climb into the window and I was like okay how I was like I can see the window and I was like but I cannot find the steps to get up to there it's like the hint system saying find a bitch baby mama yeah what do I gotta do exactly how do I still deal and I mean these are just examples of why it isn't out a perfect game no game is perfect it is easily the best story I've seen in the game this year like it has the best characterization possibly of any game I've ever played right I mean the story can be a little predictable at times like I bet you someone's gonna be a bad guy but it's still predicted the last one it's still told in such a way that it is it is fun it is very fun to go through even if you can think of what's gonna happen I mean engaging is another adjective that is just overused and almost completely played out by now but it is extremely engaging like it just it sucks you in and pulls you along and you want to know what happens and when like you feel what they want you to feel they manipulate you so well like more so than arguably a lot of movies do as far as making you feel a certain way about the characters and what's happening um when redacted gets shot after a certain extended sequence you just can't fucking believe that that happened yeah yeah um so yeah I'm trying to very good I recommend it excellent great if you have a ps3 you should buy it yeah I there's a reason I did you know not only because if you don't have a ps3 and you're a 360 or we owner well I'm sorry or break your heart but you were missing out yeah or if you've waited to buy a ps3 for a while right and you've been thinking about it that could be a game to pick up with it and the original one's only like 29 these days so you could get them together and I don't think there's any there's not I don't really see a reason to play the first uncharted if you haven't played it the only reason to play the first uncharted I still think it's fun I still think it's a really fun game it would just be to have a little bit more insider knowledge about a couple characters that's really and you don't need it you can they do a really good job of of having the story basically introduced the characters well enough that you're like oh these people have a history and I understand it so yeah what if uh are you done I think you are but I'm not sure I mean we've all been playing Half-Life as well but that's first yeah I mean episode one makes me mad yeah episode one makes most people mad it's the lowest rated Half-Life is it what is it like eight 87 is its average and I'd be willing to bet that there are a few outlier scores in there that are like sevens yeah oh for sure that's why the average play 87 so what have you been what do you mean I've been playing a lot as well okay we'll give us one thing I played this one really cool game on steam that's uh that that a listener actually sent my way you know you contacted me it was like I really wanted you to play this game and I kind of felt worried about it but I guess he gave a good case for it and it's that game uh yeah a disregard for gravity yeah um and you know it's it's it's it's kind of fun like it um I've never played trials or if there's never played uh so what is it in the very basic okay and yeah so like the very it literally just is a with ages for you're like getting me away this is the completely fucking dumbfounded look on my face yeah it's basically a uh very fantastical sort of parachuting game another or or base jump free fall sim free fall sim to be but but it's not really sim it's very very arcadey okay yeah you and you jump off you jump off like the tip of a building and you fly through points basically yeah and guide your guys like Superman 64 but no no it may be you are except you just gravity care yeah yeah yeah and then so it's it kind of look the look of the game is similar to some of the abstract mirrors edge downloadable content that was out there right where it's just like panels put together right uh huh and so you're sort of like falling through these geometric shapes and some of the shape designs i don't know if this is going to sound weird but reminds me of like some moments in star fox something else that completely makes sense yeah and you get points not only for falling through things but don't you also get it for how close you can get without hitting yeah yeah there's there's there's a couple different ways like hug and hug hug it hugs and kisses you know you're getting getting close to walls getting close to objects and and so they're also these like panels that you break that give you little points and then later on in the game you get other things to do like um there are these like crosswalks in the building and if they're tinted blue they're your fans but if they're tinted red they're protesting you and so it's like the i might have this wrong but it's like the left mouse click is gives them the finger and the right mouse click does thumbs up you know so it's like just more ways to get points but and it seems like pain without the foreplay yeah i mean well you don't crash at the bottom you parachute and land yeah and in which i actually thought about that it's funny you mention that game because i thought about that game specifically because like when your your fell state is when you hit any sort of uh you know any surface like you know if you hit the top of a building obviously you know you're splattered you're dead i was like oh man has such a missed opportunity like there's that'd be great time to do something crazy rag doll but whatever um still the fun of the game is that the more challenging paths through the levels you know you are really obvious because they always have the brightly colored you know point point glass things that you break and so it kind of gives me what it sounds like you guys describe with your experience with a game trials where you're always like trying to get through the level you know through the most efficient way in the most points and um so i've been having a lot of fun with that you know it's uh it's difficult i've always had this infatuation with parachuting and stuff like that i've always wanted things that are also available on direct to drive man ching ching i need to fucking buy a world with goo yeah i think it's five dollars per cell right now yeah direct drive has been trying to lure some people away with some five dollar a week sales or whatever that is pretty much the only way the director ride to direct to drive will get my business unless steamed does not have something another one another last thing i want to say about odd has um it has some really weird uh personality about it and it takes it does take place in sort of a universe where it's like you always have this guy and he sounds like the world's DJ and he's like always in a monotone voice and he's always like reporting on some really really random news like three green cats eight jelly beans and turned into hotter balloons you know i'm not that's not one it's like random as shit and then you unlock balloons and uh you know that's how you progress in the stage like and some some of the quote-unquote stages are just like basically a screen saver with somebody walking you through a guided meditation and it's like legitimately a guided meditation like it's a weird game in the game yeah it's weird but i am i am enjoying it i'm having a lot of fun with it um in another sort of downloadable game that i've been playing is a um is one of the x and a games that was actually at packs and i saw it there and wanted to check it out it's called soul survivor soul survivor is this the tower defense game yes yeah yeah it's a tower defense game you realize that we're gonna have to have some kind of fucking intervention for you within the coming weeks oh man yeah i'm getting into the genre deep not gonna stop can't stop we'll stop the beat but uh i i haven't played it enough to really talk about it a lot but like what i can say from the get-go as it seems like the difficult tower defense game like they throw a lot at at you really early like they give you a bunch of towers right off the bat and don't let you get adjusted to their strengths and like the second level is like really tough even was giving me a lot of a lot of a lot of troubles but um yeah it's real twitchy how much is it like three bucks or something like that it's it's 560 microsoft points seven bucks seven dollars yeah it's the most they can charge isn't it i don't know i thought the most they can charge is 800 really yeah this one's 560 i believe i think they can charge up to 10 bucks if they want uh so and it's actually made by a team of people the the the production value is really high on it too and the graphics are all really nice and um it you know it almost feels like a game you would see on live arcade and i i almost wonder if um their next game will end up on live arcade yeah i mean it could maybe i mean just because it's an indie game doesn't mean it has to be a cheap thing i guess it's just you know whether or not you want to go through the validation process to get put up on Xbox library yeah well it's an insert process yeah um the development team they're out at Orange County and it's their first title so although i doubt it's their first game i bet you the guys have all probably worked on other things i wouldn't be surprised but is that what else you've been hitting up um mammal i got to check out uh borderlands single player right because we couldn't get the build we had working out the and man i was uh i was surprised at how tactile the gun play felt how physical you know it felt it felt very i mean what was it this rule this rule but yeah i guess it i guess what it shows is like maybe they were studying Call of Duty modern warfare as far as like the gun feedback or something everything with like the feedback i mean i mean first of all the control layout is Call of Duty i mean 100 wasn't brothers in arms pretty much the same i think a lot of games at this point pretty much taking you know x to reload you know they they've got but even the way like when you break into your sprint and the way the sprint animation looks and everything it seems very derivative but i don't mean that weighted in a bad way because i feel like it really really works and the whole like bouncing the numbers off the top of you know you like that yeah i i think that's going to be divisive in some way can you turn it off like that i don't think so it seems like it would be a good idea to be able to turn that on or off yeah i mean it does help to have a direct indicator of how much damage you're doing and like us right and you like to see those big numbers how how else are you going to know the difference of the weapons you know i mean you can check the stats against one another yeah i'll be able to never show do you numbers but this is like a real that's true real-time feedback of i just think maybe that's a modern thing though in like wow i know you know anecdotally the mmo thing that that's i'm saying like oh okay sorry it isn't a mo thing not just well but i'm saying like in what my friends and i that play world or craft they always you know like oh i just created for a thousand it's my biggest crit yet people just like to see that shit well even like back in the day like the old old rpgs i mean that's just an old standard when you they're hit they have points you took off bounce but um but yeah i mean borderlands it's it's it's interesting i um i i i played up to level 10 how far have you been i think i've only played up to like level seven or eight and i think that build only goes up to 14 okay so i mean it it got to the point where and just to clarify when you say levels it's not levels in the stages in the game it's okay levels of your character yeah exactly like an rpg would do and uh it's it's kind you know so far it it has been fun and held by interest but i'm i'm getting to the point where the enemies and you're starting in the club area are really really weak now and i'm kind of wanting the co-op experience i i really do think that that is going to be a game where single player is going to be all right but playing co-op is where it's at to human or something yeah i mean yeah i mean i didn't play enough to human to know but you know for my understanding for my understanding yeah to human if you didn't play co-op was like eh but when you played a co-op it's like oh it's pretty fun so but uh yeah yeah i mean i've i'm pretty impressed with it so far you know we tried co-op today with our debug copies but i think they have to be land is my guess yeah you're probably right they probably can't be played over an actual network yeah it was weird like every time both of us would try to load the game the screen would just go black yeah but when you tried to play unplugged it worked fine yeah um and i and i love the look of the game i mean i love the art style i think it's have you ever seen what it looks like sha4 like it was yeah well i mean i'm i you know i've been familiar with the game since it's since it since it you know showed up on the game informer cover i mean however many years ago but um yeah yeah i have been remember there's a game that for a long time i would get confused with voter lens and vice versa that's not coming out anymore called the crossing yeah i don't remember the crossing that's where like that's uh it would always be on my multiplayer like you would be as a single player like a templar and other people could jump in and play as the enemy ai which were like just these dudes with guns man who was that um man that was even an old gfw feature yeah they did let's say on uh the one-up show about it oh man it sounded really rad like what they were trying to do but it was one of the super ambitious things and then left for dead kind of snake them with the verses which is essentially sorta i mean it's not exactly what they were tackling because they were going with this whole like role-playing aspect of it too where you where your character would level up and yeah yeah it's just another game that looked awesome that was a casualty of consolidation in the next gen sort of price wars like that and stuff like harker oh yeah harker minutes and aim i forgot to who made that i think it was going to be the collective oh yeah man that's a total game i forgot because the dudes that did not just Buffy the vampire slayer game doing like a hardcore serious gritty disgusting vampire game oh yeah that's right man i totally i forgot that game was ever supposed to exist you know one sorry going back to borderlands i just don't know by all means they're they're supposed to be a big emphasis on vehicular combat and i just got my vehicle so i think that that's not 100 true really yeah like when i was talking to randy pitchford when i was at the studio like he randy pitchford who's in charge runs gearbox um there's chief use car salesman he he he uh you know he said that like that was kind of a misunderstanding of it was it wasn't like trying to be like the way that rages where rage is like very much centered around this idea of car combat stuff you know he compared it much more and he didn't say it was like halo the game because it's not but he wanted to say that the way vehicles are in borderlands or the way they are in halo they're there if you want to use them but they're they're not like they're more disposable yeah it's not like it's not like this thing is like once you get your car it's with you for your life no it's like they're just right to have fun with yeah yeah so i mean well yeah yeah i just got mine in it it controls a lot like the half-life cars where your acceleration is also your direction and man dude well that's how it is in halo too right but but they break them up oh yeah it's true yeah uh would have used the other stick forward to aim a gun or something i think so okay um but man and and i i don't you know i don't know if it's indicative of the of the debug build but i was like hauling ass and there was this gate and i thought okay i'm supposed to break through this gate but i crashed into it full speed but then my car got stuck in the gate like it glitched oh yeah that was exactly what i thought you were gonna say or you were gonna tell me that you went flying like a thousand feet because of the physics budget oh man like that's that can't be good when the very first moment i got the car ran into the very first wall in front of me and got stuck like surely a tester preview code preview code but although the game is coming out but that preview code is also like a month old as well okay so it could be it could be just indicative of code yeah but i'm just a lot of bug testing gets done right at the end at least you know you know he's told me that's what the last minute crunches for so but you know what what i did play was a lot of fun and eventually when i got you know the weapons to like take down other guys shields you know because i i was wandering around and wandering into areas where i obviously shouldn't have been at my level right and so it was like badass to come back and be like these guys so yeah man if i really want to play co-op and see how the different classes play on each other word all right we're to the bird is that it for you um well yes all right let's take a break and we'll be right back about our main topic good good comments we're killing nowadays blankets turn to rays covering the sun lay out on the lawn trying not to yawn from the everyone offset in the steel waiting for a thrill to defrost the tide and we're back yeah this time around if you hear uh eating sounds that is not me mistake it's not a clock and we're putting off dinner until after we eat so we're all putting off dinner until after we eat it's after we finish okay so we want so you know the pre-show question i kind of threw out there for you all was something about changing media was the very loose thing and uh here was the prompt i wrote what can we can we have a pact that every time we say the word media we got to say media like ology don't look at me like with the creation of things like uh i don't want to murder you just want to wear your skin all right with the creation of things like capcom and sony's blogs as well as publishers like ea making their own podcast and having ex-games writer jeff green helping their editorial presence what does this mean for the future of games reporting are we moving into a place where the games media as we know it is will be rendered impotent with people getting their news and updates straight from other publishers from the publishers and developers themselves are the only magazines that can be sustained in today's economy one that are sponsored like futures upcoming wild mag playstation the official magazine or official xbox magazine so i was kind of way and um we can add to that list of jeff green uh garnet lee is now no he's working for shack news yeah garnet is still a game fly it is gameplay the game fly owns shack news oh okay as where is like a game helper site it's i mean game if you if you wanted to get technical that would be more like a game-informer situation yeah i mean garnet garnet still like people don't seem to understand that garnet is very much still working in an editorial presence right restrict it straight up and he's not working but this is and along with the topic like now it's this new sort of middle ground where we're like oh is it a game rental site right i mean game tap was the same way right game tap had an editorial presence with gc had to be me an operative word yeah um so uh we'll move right into the first comment actually because i think it kind of is pretty dead on with the way a lot of people felt and this is from andrew halbertson and he says it's awesome that it's happening but i don't think that in the eyes of the core gamer that it can ever replace central games press we always want well we can talk about this we always want unbiased opinions but even those of jeff green can now be considered that way i don't quite know how to pinpoint the reason except for that it just isn't the same he says in quotation marks i mean no matter what you're gonna get biased from everyone but i think what he means is he doesn't want bias in the idea that they're trying to affect directly affect their game sales maybe impartiality right that they're or that they're giving the game a fair shot and they're not coming there with ulterior motives yeah i mean you know pat right underneath us is that he likes the idea of these company based podcasts because they have access to a lot of people like you know obviously a has access to some pretty crazy people will write you know tim shafer but uh you know he says a lot of companies are having their community managers run them and that's a good idea he says though i do wonder if in the future main major game announcements will be done via twitter and link into a blog post on the game developer site you know as opposed to the way they're done now where comes from like a new site like igan or kataka well i mean that already happens today what people don't realize is that like those people getting like the blog post you see announcing games are just people on an email list which isn't really that much different than people on its twitter list really yeah i mean it's just uh it's not public yeah but we we do get embargoed press releases i mean i i think that they would they would just tweet something what like after the embargo for press releases up i mean can i can i just interject like how i view like this games company producing media thing like without derailing everything no i think that's a point i'm not really interested very much in what they have to say before the game comes out i'd be much more interested to hear what they'd have to say as a post mortem like in a common like dvd commentaries are interesting a lot of times to me because they're recorded after the movie is made and like nothing can change so it's like well this is what we did i mean these were the considerations that we had to make like we just didn't have the budget to do this or or we only had a certain amount of time to get this shot or like people this wasn't received as well as we'd hoped and this is why we think maybe that's that is like yeah that is the kind of information i'm interested in hearing from those companies as opposed to our game is going to be so awesome and this is why here's this other person from the company to tell you why their game and my game is going to be awesome yeah i mean that everyone always seemed to like those post mortems that egm did where they'd get someone to sit down and be as candid as they could i mean yeah that would be really cool except i i would see a hard time having that on a developer one where it's like you know i don't know where you feel like the pressure you can't say well we were pushed to push this out the door before we wanted to or something that's that's an unrealistic and unreasonable thing for gamers though like that they have this expectation that things don't get cut or things don't get rushed to make production deadlines like at this point don't we accept that movies like operate under under budget constraints like i mean games certainly do yeah not only that but just on a publishing schedule we've got to get it out by christmas yeah or like it's cost a certain number of hundreds of thousands of or even millions of dollars every month this gets pushed back so do you think it'd be more appropriate to say than in a lot of these comments where people use the word unbiased they might mean more impartial like i mean some people some of them might some people would prefer objective reviews whatever the hell that means like i want you to come to this game like a robot i think they mean non-associated like not associated with the developer publisher right that they don't have a vested interest in the successor failure so you're saying like if we were doing a podcast about rebel FM and how awesome it is and not only that but like it was designed to get advertisers interested man that's meta yeah i mean ertard says i don't know how to say his name it's ert erd ertard ertard ertard ertard seems like an anagram of retard which is probably what he was going for i think so too um yeah he says uh i'm certain there will always be a market for unbiased information however whether it's financial state financially or sorry however if it's financially sustainable is another question i think it could be done by huge networks like ijand and ugio i don't know how huge your ugio is um in some form ugio is pretty big right like their traffic numbers are pretty high but i doubt they will be as profitable as they need to be um yeah this is that's something we discuss on a regular basis especially now like i think ever since the one apocalypse like now that people are more in the wild than perhaps they used to be like the realities of covering games as a business are much more discussed than they ever were and like something that i see something that i see on a regular basis that i think it's super funny is that i see people that's are under the impression that monetizing a podcast is easy that all you need to do is find ads and like that will be enough to sustain and that all these companies aren't monetizing podcasts because they lack vision yeah whereas the reality of it is that i think publishers and a lot of other people have made it pretty clear that they don't know yet that podcasts like there's not there's not enough evidence that they can present to the people writing the checks that hey this is a great way to advertise you know or they just haven't seen enough to convince themselves much less be able to convince an executive right if there was a metacritic for podcasts they would care i mean technically there's iTunes if you want to get yeah but i'm but but but but if metacritic the website had a tab for podcast writing yeah then they would care don't give them ideas teller try not to i'm sure if they thought that they could sell advertising on the page where they would have where they would break podcasts they would do it but yeah you know one one thing i think that sort of works in our favor is like when you sort of throw the human element into it like you look at a person like jeff green for example which like it's one of the things that i think that makes him a great person is that he's very candid and like he speaks to his mind yeah well i mean so sometimes he'll say stuff that isn't necessarily the quote-unquote EA message i feel that we are on a list of the worst possible people to judge the merits of jeff green hosting that kind of thing because we know i mean you know jeff on a personal level and we've met and spoken with jeff and i can see and i feel like meeting jeff and talking to a man person he's a person of integrity like i don't think that he would be like a shill like except an eight joking and totally obvious fashion right but how does anyone else who who's never met jeff or like or read no one else and on for fucking capcom or like Alex Navarro from harmonics who used to work for game spot and his friends with the giant bomb dudes like how does how does people who don't know that history who aren't familiar don't care like how do they like know that those people have integrity it makes me wonder though do you think that people outside of like the hardcore people that read a website about gaming daily and stuff would they care about it coming directly from the source of the publisher would they ever consider like no this might be biased or severely biased and impartial or they just gonna be like yeah this is information i i i i think the bottom line is like does it make interesting content and a lot of times like people are bored when when you hear people talking a message because people can see through that shit you know i don't know yeah i think that i think in this case it's much more obvious that the person doing the the content has a vested interest with a podcast or something like that because you need to go to that company site to get information on that podcast whereas a magazine published by someone say Nvidia or blizzard is on a newsstand just like everything else where you assume that they are not associated with a content creator okay yeah where someone's selling the product that they're covering right so a lot of people it seemed to be that they thought it was fine for something like podcasts but they would never really want like editorial like previous reviews obviously from game publishers like podcasts that were revealing like inner inner workings of the company they think that's kind of cool haven't they inside her look like what is this team up to today we're working on water like that that was a big thing like leading up to halo three like bungee was really uh out there with community sort of like with their blogs and uh with some of their podcast leading up to the release was like really getting into some of the technical things that they were doing yeah and i mean bungee was trying a lot of new things like there was obviously a lot of pent up demand for information and so they could trickle out information that way but i mean it was still like they only did a podcast like once a month or they'd release a new vidok like every couple of months um out of all the companies i see doing like companies doing magazines or print media to cover their own products the only one i think is sustainable that i've seen would be blizzard and that's only because there are so many people that play a wow that are interested like yeah i mean they're coming out with the wow magazine sponsored by blizzard like lucas arts can do a star wars magazine because there is an audience that is interested in all the shit that you can talk about for star wars and wow has so many like different products associated with it now between books and comics and action figures and the movie that's coming out the card game and the card game the the possibility of a tv show which i think i've heard like i i mean there's a board game right there's a board game like there's all these like different products based on the fiction yeah and the magazine the subscription only it will not be sold on new stance yeah so but it'll be on high quality paper like edge i guess so and there's an ecosystem of products aimed at people that play wow so it like it's such a no-brainer to advertise your product for wow players in the wow magazine right i mean there is no advertising in the magazine whatsoever it is that is a fucking surprising wow yeah that really is surprising it is i would figure even it is going to be ad-free that's why it's subscription only like it's and it's not cheap the subscription is like like forty like forty dollars for you so what i wonder then is that if they're and some of these companies are i think if they're operating at a loss as a means of marketing yeah i mean i blizzard's gone on record saying that they operate bliss con at a loss but it works as such a an advertising machine for them once a year that it's so worth it i think it's that's a community building thing where they reinforce loyalty to the product right yeah which is so weird to me that you can reinforce loyalty it's like they're a mecca way yeah yeah it is like like it's like a religious experience i was really starting to fall out of touch with wow but my faith's really back strong now it's like people who go to promise keepers exactly like that is exactly what it seems like but that's i mean but but still like you know we don't we don't want to put too much of a pejorative style like i mean it's a good thing game informer is is an example of something that i wonder if it even needs to be profitable for them to justify you know running it because it's just another way for for game stop to have leverage in the industry so i'm going to read a comment from gdw i think he comments pretty yeah he comments well sometimes he he can be less polite but generally personally i think there will be and already is now a population of uh several hosts of news information he means like a the bonnet he means like sex time as sex time okay so he met copulation it wasn't a malpropism as well as a tent they're presented in the publisher developer podcaster great they can give you a look into a world we the enthusiast gamer almost never get to see probably the best example this is the full moon show insomnia x podcast affair it's great and in-depth minute by minute details they get into with their position x segments are amazing still these guys can't be candid about themselves or others they are leashed whether we believe it or not and this is where the general media will come in probably the longest running but now semi-defunct example this is one of yours slash listen up the talk you heard from the guys on their gut feelings was unrestrained untempered as unrestrained untempered gamers was incredible they wanted to call itos dick-headed assholes for trying to fix scores and can't lynch then they did blah blah blah so i mean he's saying that he still thinks that there will always be a purpose for independent stuff because i just say that i don't feel that knocking idos for the canon lynch thing demonstrates any bravery on anyone's part yeah like that became such a cause du jour like to sit there and say fuck idos for this shit involving canon lynch like and there is so much more to that story than anyone has any idea like people will never know i mean it's not well you know it wasn't completely lost in like good faith i mean you still you know they still had to put their you know neck out on the lemons yeah i feel like one up had already made a pretty obvious thing that it was okay to complain about it right because they'd even join the protest i thought what gfw did with that topic was much more interesting where they just talked about how that situation comes about and where they think where they see things going as opposed to just saying well fuck idos we're trying to get people to review their shit better because everybody does that yeah i mean a lot of it happens behind it doesn't come out where someone gets fired over or potentially fired over it but i mean even a pr person i talked to the other day was saying like you know he we were kind of giving this other pr person that he works with shit because the guy is like a notorious call you up semi-yelling on the phone about whatever you didn't tell you like word for word your opinion on your review is wrong like that's not like he tries to tell you why it's just your opinion is wrong and so the other guy was like well you know he's like yeah i would never do that but you know i'll call if i feel like there's like a factual error or something you know that's kind of like or if you don't feel like they're being fair yeah it's like i mean you know all pr people like literally there have been times that i have been in aim conversations with someone where they ask me how come you didn't cover this or how come this got the grade it did but they'll also like say like you know off the record like the only reason i'm doing this is because it's my day i have to like i have to so i can go back with your answer and they'll leave me alone like there's always someone higher up pushing these people so sometimes people don't handle that pressure in the best way they should so why don't you read some more comments um okay i know that mitch dire posted in there yeah i'll get to his uh mike g says as far as video game specific print media goes i agree that a sponsored magazine is probably the only viable magazine as far as blogs are online media go i feel the future is pretty bright breaking news as far as i see it is just one part of the job of enthusiast press reviews undoubtedly the biggest portion of a game journalist work would uh most assuredly need to still come from independent sources where i see the future is the brightest for game journalists is editorial content longer-form journalism and well innovation a redefining and re-vigoration of what they do evolve or die should be the mantra if publisher controlled news does become a threat to your relevance i mean yeah we're kind of experiencing that with uh you know game spy like right now we're in a place where we're trying to transition and find like a new direction because i think you know increasingly everyone's finding that the old direction of things works for this being a static destination for a limited group of of entities game spy and igand can make that a viable thing because right now they're the two biggest but anyone else trying to fit into that rat race needs to have a different angle you need to not be naturally selected out of that race yeah and psychotaku enjoy stick found a different angle we're just going to cover all these little news things with tiny little blog entries that's there and they're fighting for that you know it's like there's there just there can only be so many of anything you know it's everyone does really have to come up with a a really cool concept you know like sites like the escapist they are not long-form content yeah gamasutra covers like in-depth game business stuff if you want to know something about game business that's like they're like the go-to place i kind of wonder if like one of the ways that rolling stone is managed to stay relevant generally speaking is moving beyond just music coverage to talk about culture and politics and also other forms of media which they always don't do to agree but increase anymore so it's like yeah so i mean i wonder if there's any way that a publication that focuses on games as a means of survival could expand the breadth of their coverage here's here's what i think where that conversation goes it goes from that idea to sort of like what IGN is sort of reeling back from like when they would do like babes movies comics you know like now they're you know even with the redesign of their front page yeah but i feel like i got a lot of stuff that was IGN applying their same strategy for gaming coverage to every other kind of coverage which is just to have a piece of content about everything as opposed to like editorial that is well researched and thoughtful and well written that is aimed at an audience as opposed to based around a certain kind of content like the stories and the yeah like the stories in rolling stone are are frequently about stuff that is that is of interest to people who are interested in music but is not necessarily like oh well people who like music like guitars let's do an article about new guitars coming out or these guitars are like they like seeing naked girls let's have a thing about girls and bikinis right right yeah like that's like FHM and maximum stuff right but like not those magazines are all sold on like pirates you know pirates today you know modern pirates are you know stuff like that or yeah political issues around the world hot button issues like the the magazines in the uk that seem to do successful as men's interest magazines have just have like a much broader kind of amount of stuff that they cover in a more meaningful way than yeah i guess i still wonder like as far as like meh like online goes how much that stuff will or work because long form articles are so labor intensive why more referring to print media yeah oh you're saying to make something sustainable that is yeah like there's not a lot of really in-depth toilet reading in games magazines right now whereas rolling stone is perfect for pooping yeah i mean maybe if you i mean the only way i always see in my mind is if you can get people to pay a premium for a subscription or the subscription actually funds most of the magazine like edge does i mean that would be nice where you aren't we're advertising helps make ends meet but it's not like the staple of yeah i mean magazine seltzer rates i found out through just talking to people it is staggering how low magazine seltzer rates are in america like in japan uh issue of famitsu like has a seltzer rate of something stupid like 70 or 80 percent like 80 percent and in america like which means that 20 percent goes back and is destroyed or repackaged in bundles that are sold into discount right and whereas edm and gfw when they were doing good i guess supposedly this is just what i've heard had like a seltzer rate around 20 that was a good time i'm just glad that the clothes my mind like and and and and you know the the reasoning behind that is that america is so spread out in places like japan or so dense right you know that's what they said you could have one distribution center that could get everywhere whereas here there's like a ton of money to go into distribution and there are like there was like six or seven huge magazine distributors in this country although now i have a feeling that those have those have consolidated somewhat yeah i mean i mean like internationally too there are magazine distributors over the last few years that have folded like they're definitely magazines in the uk that i have a harder time getting a hold of now than i used to yeah i mean you you know you always see you know if you go into Barnes and Nobles and look in the magazine section you'll see a lot of like fancy like foot photography uh magazines or art magazines and i always wonder like how would a gaming culture magazine do like one that's not just about like exclusives not 100 percent about specific games but like people within the culture you know like the desenctuous like i buy a lot of those magazines and they are oriented at working professionals or aspiring amateurs in those fields which is kind of how edges too in a way would you say i mean i feel like it is like edge is directed at like a it's a thinking man's game magazine like a connoisseur's game magazine like a cigar magazine almost for gamers right like whereas those those are very functional like they have tutorials like they're trying to teach new skills like they're trying they're interviewing people in those fields like to get their input on workflow and things like that yeah when i think that's a really difficult model to duplicate for for the gaming media you're not growing when you're growing up magazine i'm growing up i'm sorry i just got caught up reading a series of comments that i'm not going to read but it was some fucking crazy stuff are they in nane or are they just yeah they're just not worth it you should totally read them um it's about saving them i don't know i don't know i don't want to alienate someone as the thing uh well a commentary made a crazy comment and everybody's ganging up on cuz he wasn't like he was being an asshole he just had a pretty out their perspective on things that was like and then people will read the out their perspective i would like to comment fairly on that out their perspective maybe it has made him a good shake all right who is this this is jake mckenzie jake mckenzie comments a lot of you does not seem like an idiot all right i think the ea podcast and oxm um is a capitalistic version of authoritarian deliberation that already i don't know what it means all right moving on does he contextualize that at all so with their buying power they are able to effectively drown out all forms of criticism by drowning the new cycle with the sea of irrelevant dribble just like china can reach out to bloggers on the internet when a man is beat to death in a prison and get those bloggers to blog with the man tripped and fell while playing hide and seek ea or microsoft can reach out the community with a false veil of legitimacy and convince the idiots to falsely give press to a product so it's almost like a worst case scenario well no i i would say flat out that that is at least a segment of the motivation for companies doing right i mean they don't if they can drown out the negative criticism and just have their message continually and maybe not even drown out but create their own buzz like create their own information stream like that sort of i mean you like bypasses anthony you told me today uh your your friend reviewing twitted like they should have renamed what's the time uh it's it was one forty five you seriously can't talk about that no we can't talk about that fuck that no fuck you i want to keep i want to work in this industry fuck you oh man i would love to talk about it tell you but i mean uh because it's then god damn it every time you say that shit i have to go in and take it out then said publisher will get talked to my boss and then i'll hear it and then uh man you put up on the postal to go to no it's just like there's shit you don't talk about like i will tell you stuff during the break is that a shit that we people don't talk about um and listeners you can just sit there and wonder what it is because i'm not going to tell you uh i i don't think that that's a completely ridiculous way to look at it i think it's a pretty heavy-handed comparison i yeah i i really don't think that uh yay is trying to be you know they're not trying to be anything like communist i'm sure that there is an exactity that that's always thinking about it's like this is a way to fucking bypass conventional media we don't have to worry about reviews we have jeff to tell everyone how great our shit is and not that jeff thinks that i'm sure that he doesn't oh man jeff i mean that's the pro uh oh i don't mean to make it sound like it's a problem with jeff the great thing about jeff is that he won't ever he would never do that like jeff wouldn't like you know jeff doesn't hide the fact that the game he was working on is geared towards children adults can still enjoy it but jeff's not going to be like this is the greatest game for anyone who ever lived like he just not seriously anyway yeah uh whereas oh xm i mean like sponsor that's a a magazine that has the support of a party holder but microsoft can't show favoritism to one right one thing or another i mean with the exception of first party releases and even then they can only give access even opm was a magazine that was uh you know it was a sponsored magazine that zif davis had owners that went up at time and uh you know even that it wasn't it was still a sponsored mag but it wasn't like i mean they didn't just lavish affection the whole time nintendo power as it previously existed is the closest to what he would jake seems to think is the problem right even then it doesn't exist is that anymore right um but i mean i i think that oxm would be heatedly maintain that microsoft is not exert editorial control and they sure shit didn't for games for windows the magazine um gordon says golden says i could see news being something that is done mostly by companies that seems to be a consensus among a lot of people too that you know since we're getting news from websites that are just rewriting press releases a lot of times anyways um as sites like the sony playstation blog have shown and podcast are great windows in the development process um i'd like to see those companies podcast be incorporated into the games in some like mjs4's ipod that came with the introductory podcast on it that could be an ongoing commentary on various parts of the game hearing from infinity ward about upcoming events dlc and changes that they're bringing to modern warfare 2 could be a really cool and big step from just in game news posts and twitter i'm surprised that infinity ward doesn't have a podcast yeah because that guy is like super active with the community and outspoken and i mean he's not he seems like a nice dude like the only time i've ever seen him lash out was when he was sort of provoked by stupid shit oh i don't mean outspoken about it it's mean that he if you want if you give him something to talk about he'll talk about it well i mean he has talked shit in the past like it was thinly veiled shit but it was shit nonetheless one like the i think it was the director like the director for call of duty world of war like was saying was making comparisons to modern warfare too and robert bowling bowden bowling from from infinity ward the the cm for infinity ward felt the need to set him straight so uh gordon continues to say you know reviews things like reviews, previews and the more opinionated articles out there it would always have to be something that the media has to do since readers don't really want reviews from those that made the game peter maulney's review of fable to nine out of ten would be more acceptable if it was done as a more of a post-mortem than just a straight up review that would be taken as basically but nothing as nothing but p.r. fluff's i feel like nine out of ten from peter maulinew in his own game is pretty decent obviously his own gamers i actually do think i've heard that yeah when i came out and honestly i mean i could i don't agree with that score but i could see how someone would give it and it certainly scored better in many uh outlets than that um i don't know i mean do people understand that a lot of publishers give review guides yeah with games that they provide i mean review guides at least most of the time most of the time are just like walkthroughs written by a qa person that they try and explain in case you get frustrated so they try and limit your frustration so it's like uh just look at page 43 it tells you where that box you're looking for is fuck that i've i've never received a walkthrough as a review guide but what i have received a lot more that's not surprising sorry i don't understand like our our uh sort of truncated instruction booklets yeah i mean i'm just saying as a review as a freelancer that's not surprising though because most of the time we won't send a review guide with the game they'll get one sometimes those would have been helpful well yeah but doesn't that sort of see that just like blows my mind that that you would take like this documentation that makes a game easier or circumvents a design issue to finish it to give it a grade like i mean sometimes straight up review guides are a step-by-step fact that just tells you how to do everything like you could potentially die if i need that then your game is going to get savaged by me right well if you were to constantly need it see most review guys i seem like even now that i think about it it seems like they were straight up photocopies of the instruction book now sometimes they are sometimes they are but i'm saying okay i have definitely gotten like 40 page booklets that tell me how to play their game you know i'm not going to name or how like how best to approach it yeah and yeah i mean that definitely there's definitely been some review guides that have been very heavy-handed and the this is what you should note and expect from this game you know don't go into it with your own expectations here's the expectations you should have i mean like there are definitely PR people out there and in development more publishers more specifically in PR out there that would love nothing better than to write a review and send it to people so they'd just publish it rad evan or rad devan sorry rad devan says uh there are two reasons company sponsored blogs and podcasts will never replace gaming media one they will never cover competitors products people are lazy and don't want to go to ea's blog to read about dante's inferno and then go to sony's blog to read about and charted they want to pick a one-stop shop that can cover everything become comfortable with its staff and the organization of content and find everything there too internet users are especially savvy as customers go they can perceive when they are being sold to even if the distinction is subtle they will realize the activision's blog never says anything negative about dj here they will also assume that dj here it was probably not perfect at that point anything about dj here on activision's blog will be filtered by their brain as an advertisement you know i i kind of only partially agree right with the idea that people want a one-stop shop because that seems less and less true i think people nowadays are way more likely to have a ton of websites up on a tab and just go there and spend about one minute at each look at the things they look for the opinions that they've grown accustomed to that they understand that they feel like they can relate to when we're another like that's i mean that's definitely what a lot of sites are banking on is developing more of a personality among their staff i mean even me all bounce around and be like i'm going to go see what they had to say now i'm going to go see what this person what covered now i'm going to go to gamasuitry because i want to know something about business needs like i don't go i don't go to one-stop shop yeah no i mean now more than anything i just have sites i don't go to yeah that i've eliminated for my daily like hopscotch game but i don't know that internet users are as savvy as they think they are i mean i mean i think it's been shown overly i think it's been shown through our so through idion focus testing that people can't tell the difference between a preview and review that people aren't that savvy yeah and i mean it's not like if anything it's like in some cases they're overly skeptical which is fine i guess but like it seems like the more likely that something the more it's something seems to reinforce the opinion that someone is holding frequently the more they believe that it's a legitimate source of information which isn't just a gaming thing obviously like it's a problem across media but um hannah says you know hannah hannah this says uh i like to think we're all smart enough not to rely on publisher created content as to the actual merits of a video game sorry hannah i i'm general in favor of people being or in general a believer that people are idiots but uh she says i think what will happen is that sites like bit mob and user generated content in general will increase in importance i mean i could see that right i mean the strategy that bit mob has in theory like is that uh you know with a very small staff they can have user promote user articles and get people to submit some really cool content with the hopes of making to a front page we are therefore moving a lot of the work from their hand like the thing the bit mob isn't even necessarily user-generated it's more like an open submission call at all times that they will then they will go through right and so you're instead of going and doing it for the getting paid it's like the same person that wants to be level 71st on the server you're doing it for the prestige you know like yeah that's a giant bombs thing is that they have like the scoring system for for content but i mean i i don't think user-generated content is fuck i hope it doesn't because so much user-generated content like as far as academic assessments or opinions or evaluations are so bad that they're so they're so useless to me like yeah i mean uh you know in theory of someone like shoe or damey and they're the ones filtering it and stuff it's like but even then that eliminates the the sort of like crowdsourced groupthink mentality that things like wikipedia try to enforce as soon as you bring in other people that like determine what's good and what's valid and then elevate that then it's basically just like people work it's freelancers that are working for free real freelance yeah um so yeah he says uh this is anthony w and he says i follow game coverage for opinions i listen to rebel fm for opinions and entertainment i just don't think this stuff will ever be worth a damn coming from publishers news and updates who really cares what that comes from as it just gets regurgitated all over the web onto my computer screen give me an insightful relatable opinion a sense of community and a sense of personality oh and a buttload of top five lists so you had me until top five lists you son of a bitch yeah that's so true though i mean uh you know at various outlets that i've worked for i can't begin to tell you how often we hear the idea of like how can we turn this into a list okay well i have read that list tend to get way more traffic that that's fact and like who here does not like the film high fidelity but i mean high fidelity also demonstrates how futile the very idea of making lists for everything like is true i mean it but it's a it's fun exercise like the anti the anti moral of high fidelity is you are what you like not what you are like okay like that's the sort of thesis that's proved incorrect you know i think the reason people like list so much is or like why it's such a good traffic generator i should say is because a you can often break lists up into a lot of pages for page views but more importantly it's so easy to create outrage and it's almost more important what you leave out of your list yes because it's fucking included you get a ton of page views where people are like i can't believe you left shadow glosses off your top five ps2 games you know it's just like the people that will then rage in the comments about that you guys should do a top 10 list of things left off top 10 list shit i joked with will today that uh from now on since the halo and uncharted review have done so much traffic because they're quote-unquote controversial scores but anytime the anytime uh and they're both one four and a half four four and four yeah so so i almost talked about two four and a half on odsd but then i relented so uh god so uh i told will that anytime we think of a score we should then add plus or minus half a star so that we can get more traffic to a story so i i just joked to him i was like the controversy you mean you don't do that already yeah i was like i was like man then we should just do this to generate traffic now like uh when uh i don't know like what's the next biggest game comes out uh assassin street to brutal legend let's say assassin street too because brutal legend no no if you want a game that like that people are going to look at their reviews and freak out about that might be modern warfare okay so yeah let's say modern warfare we just give like a three like or something like that it's like yeah it's just like all the sudden game spikes well the game is generally well designed it's more of the same and it was a missed opportunity in every regard infinity ward really is just showing that all they can do is crap out sequels like bam traffic i don't know that that would be an aspersion against infinity ward so much as the fucking truth at this point so it is their fourth call of duty game and that is literally all that they've worked on man we're getting pretty lengthy let me uh i know people say they don't mind like a podcast but people people that otherwise say i was about to make a length joke but i realized that i heard a length joke on the giant bomb cast you know you said that michie commented but i'm looking through the whole list of comments and i don't see one from him up there we go found one all right we're gonna end with a mitch dire comment um fruit contributor and friend of the show uh mitch dire i want to hit something really quick you're putting too much stock into the magazine's success relying on the respective sponsors it's not like microsoft is keeping the diem brand of oxm afloat with its name futures print revenue was a fairly substantial at the start of this year and i think that to dip into the actual topic it's because of how the magazine is executed excuse me print can handle news straight up but where print succeeds over online is its clever use of features and preview bits reviews and itty bitty preview articles come standard but oxm does some pretty outstanding features that make it a worthwhile source of entertainment rather than a directed outlet for the hottest news reporting in print is reliant on a great voice and specific details instead of instant articles about a new character or a level outline now that we are getting to that from developers and blogs are linking to the original are linking to the original info i think that some sites are going to have to fall back on more creative and original content my affiliation with oxm definitely lends a heavy bias but go look at the last few issues and tell me that the competitive achievements and kodu features more totally awesome has report reporters are being silly strict excuses online by devs not unlike print was getting scooped by bloggers i think we will start seeing less of a focus on journalistic reporting and i do mean less of a focus not the elimination of and more of a drive to create awesome content i feel like we need more journalistic reporting in games like fuck if someone could do like a journalistic breakdown of the the epic v silicon knight's thing yeah i mean it's just like it's so hard to get these people to open their doors but yeah if there was like that one guy who could like get the instagram like when people like i know that it drives gamers nuts when they talk about like well where's gaming journalism's Lester bangs like it's because like the shit that he did like the reporting that he did the writing that he did was so unconventional for the time that it was interesting yeah i mean he was reporting on a band which would be like five people at the most whereas like developers are hundreds of people or like get someone like hunter like a hunter s Thompson for the gaming industry would be interesting yeah i mean someone they could get inside with these people i don't you want somebody that just harasses mark randy it helps me fascist at every opportunity party my fucking brains out with anybody if you'll pay me to do it to write about their dirt so uh let's take a quick hold punch and then we'll come back before this i'm gonna say it's okay so we're back Tyler's still chowing on a few chips away from the microphone he'll chime in when he feels that he needs to they're so good i can't help him we're gonna go get food in like 25 minutes so uh this is from julian and you're right in any room hello rebel fm greetings from austin texas oh i have a question that's mainly aimed at arthur being the street fighter of the crew but it's something that i'd like to hear you all chime in on when the current generation of consoles began its journey into dlc territory i was non-plus to say the least the prices seemed far too high for far too little i kind of felt the same at the time um really i feel like yeah first i was skeptical dlc i think that's this there was skepticism that it was publishers looking for a way to fuck us big time yeah that's i think that that skepticism has largely been born out uh right eventually we started getting some more robust content like follow three missions and lost in the damned it's gotten to the point where i'm finally coming on board to the whole dlc thing and even looking forward to it with games like mass effect too from the very beginning though one place that always seemed where i was always a big supporter dlc was in fighting games especially when it comes to cap comb releases when street fighter four was announced we all knew that there would one day be iterations on it and some would say with good reason usually takes them a couple releases of a street fighter for a street fighter game to hit a sweet spot do you agree i think that in in hindsight people feel that street fighter is at its best after a certain amount of iterations on a sequel so i'm gonna kind of i mean street fighter alpha three was considered amazing when it came out right street fighter three was considered amazing when it came out but it was i think they're made more accessible and they're they can always be balanced better so he says uh i'd always hope that the inevitable turbo super second impact would be a downloadable twenty dollar upgrade me too instead it looks like it's going to be a standalone disc after all um granted it sounds like super street fighter four is going to have a ton of new content at the lower price in the original use and i'm totally on board for it but isn't it something that could have been done as dlc instead dude to to borrow a concept sorry to cut y'all know go ahead um from robert ashley it's like the beatles tax of our generation it's the street fighter tax i thought the square tax was the square tax yeah all square ds games are ten dollars more than like anyone else's um i my knee jerk reaction is to scream bullshit like because that is not dlc because all that i've heard so far is eight new characters which is a lot of characters but that doesn't that still means that the existing fucking characters and assets are still in the game and that drives me a little nuts the website events hub is a pretty thorough like capcom aficionado website and uh i i know excited to do the little news story for it and they they had a pretty detailed breakdown of the things they thought or had good work they had heard on good authority yeah heard on good authority that are going to be included and seem like there were a lot of really specific sort of uh fine detailed things that are going to be but they seem like update things like these yes like tweaking game balance is not something that you can fucking charge full price for anymore this isn't the 16-bit era where like you'd release a new street fighter to innovation now would be pop in street fighter four and it says an update is available yeah i mean i i'll hold final judgment until i i hear what they're doing and how big of a change it is like if it's like a radical restructuring of street fighter then then we'll see i mean that it's cheaper is a good start but i i still i am non-plussed at the prospect of them releasing a new retail version of street fighter four only the the listener mentioned lost in lost in the dam which is tends to skier on the more expensive side of dlc also like a more fleshed out like how would you know if it was like twenty dollars update i mean what if i felt like lost in dammed was it no if the super street i you know what i think that if it's a twenty dollar piece of dlc with fucking eight new characters and a bunch of rebalances and a bunch of like subtle additions that is more than reasonable because i mean as it is now the game doesn't have a ton of characters like and i and i have faith in the people making the game but to charge me for whole new content like just to basically force into uh obsolescence that disc that i bought right like right especially with uh with the online community yeah i it's just and i mean they fucking done they did that with hyper fighting but at least they took him a couple of years right i don't know i just yeah and this is so soon so so tommy writes and it's a pretty easy thing i'm pretty sure i can answer uh he says uh i was just curious what your relationship with hammer suit is exactly i went to their site and i'm still a bit muddled about what they exactly offer some services listed seem to be editorial in nature and i was just curious since you don't really do reviews at eat-sleep-game.com what do they do for you and i was so hammer suit just represents our ad inventory i mean hammer suit exists in a lot of capacities they are a business development company for video games media outlets i mean they they own some websites and then they also partner to get ads and stuff for websites like destructoid and gonons i mean i think destructoid and gonons i know they actually work on tech as well yeah i think they're they're full partners yeah they're full partners with us they with us geek box and bit mob they just represent our podcast ad inventory yeah and our website ad inventory they leverage us together theoretically as a network that's all like they don't have any say editorial or anything like that because we weren't interested in that kind of deal there were other offers on the table for things in the main content-wise it seemed like we wouldn't be owners of it and that bothered us yeah so um so this is from jostlin not that they're not awesome hammer suit are really good at what they do yeah uh yeah they just started a couple of those websites too i think run deals yeah they're super good at naming sites too yeah run dlc and it's an awesome name yeah like even hammer suit is a great name for a company um so jostlin writes and says hey guys big fan of the show since episode one i often hear you talk about music and video games and i heard a song called 1991 by crystal method crystal catals is what i think crystal castles castles castles they lift out a letter which is why i wasn't sure they said seals crystal castles and i think you should definitely check it out this music makes me remember it makes me remember a video games of that error for some reasons i don't usually like that kind of music but this one really has the feel of the apid era i think you should play it on the podcast now my question what would you like to see in civilization five if it ever comes out because i was thinking about it oh and while they can not this date and while they could add whoo and while they could add better visuals and more sivs and more units i don't see how they could dramatically improve the game and make it a true siv five now i'm not saying that this game is perfect but i feel about fixed network code i feel that siv four yeah i feel that siv four uh yeah way to fuck that up games by i feel this siv four with beyond the sword expansion installed is really close to the ultimate siv experience i can imagine being in for access this place i would seriously wonder how the hell we can make a siv five what do you think i can guarantee you that sid myer probably has had that question go through why do you think it's been so long since there's been a proper siv sequel that's that's it right you have to wait till like a graphical leap happens i don't even think it's that because i think they totally could have done that like i think that rome or like empire total war and shit like that demonstrates that there have been huge graphical leaps in siv yeah i mean uh you know i honestly that is a question i would have to put some serious thought into like obviously if i had the answer to that i'm gonna go work for for access greater micromanagement like if you wanted to do more involved or maybe even i mean siv rev in a way might even be a move for them where it's like a less micromanagement even less if you want it i don't think that'll happen on pc though i don't think so either but uh one one thing i thought which it might be in the game i don't know but would be a uh more detailed interaction with your um with your factions people you partner with so like say if you want to go to war with this specific come up with a specific country and you're gonna say hey uh india go with war go with me to war against um you know whoever um but have the you know have it where you can like specify like okay we're gonna attack this city like i want you to help me seize this or granular control over that kind of thing yeah or or or or even more of a um that's what i was thinking of today it's like it's it's where you brought this thing out i was the splatter today it would be cool to see more specific things like beyond just being able to negotiate with someone be like hey stop trade if you could do specific things like hey deny this country food and see if you could starve them and submission what do you fucking like the us and cuba or something and like actually form perimeter things like instead of just having units on the square you could literally form like a fucking i mean since before i haven't seen really anything that's taken what so for did further yeah like the uh the only games i've seen take it further like are only in certain areas and that's because they are much more specialized in that direction like empire total war is much more of a strategy like a combat oriented strategy game so uh yeah i don't know do i i i don't know if you can figure that out if you can figure out where they should go maybe you should contact yeah like fucking sit mire so brian writes in he says hey guys for about a month or so you guys have started to pimp bit mob and game spinder show is wondering are you guys merging or something that no i work for game spy game spy is my my daily employer and also tyler does news for them and gets paid to do that and arthur's done freelance for them as well so game spy when i got hired there also allowed me to continue to do this podcast which is unusual for a lot of ways i'm thankful and i don't mind pimping them because them being successful means that i continue to get paid and uh we pimp bit mob because they are friends yeah and they are in their friends and the geek box regardless of its status as an hiv positive individual is also composed of our friends um so craig s nothing you got nothing craig no i got nothing what what are you what what more do you want i mean what's more there to say they also get small box there's no cure there's no cure for aids uh i mean it's just bad news all around i mean they don't give emola so there's that oh that's true craig writes in and he has i have three completely different questions the first one i don't think we're really going to touch he just asks what we think about steve harris restarting e gm you think as a chance of succeeding if you're offered a job would you take it i don't really feel comfortable touching that yeah i i don't think that we're in a position where we could respond to that other than to point at the second segment of this in our commentary there in the comments on the site yeah print is a very challenging market i'll say that um do we want it to succeed to succeed absolutely yeah i'd be curious to see who's going to be in charge of it i don't have any understand knowledge um i love thief just wondering if you guys remembered or played the series what are your opinions on it basically let's give if you guys have opinions i dabbled in thief a little bit i never really got into it i understand that it's really good except for people complained about thief three because it was put on xbox two which gimp development and then he has dasx two both sorry and then he asked me uh if anybody played demon souls no when i keep hearing about this game i always kind of wished that there was a that thief took place like in england and it was like some like the gentleman's thief and like he carried around a pipe was going to have one of those somewhere between thomas crown and churilla combs yeah all right i know where i'm going with that you and me like this time let's do it so design one on one so kenny writes in and uh you know this is an email kind of that we get a lot but it's kind of a different perspective so you know he says hey to all of us and he says how are you all hopefully fine i'm a third year college student at a community college hoping to transfer out in the fall to san francisco state university and get a degree in journalism i've got hopes that maybe a good education can get me into video game journalism out there in the mecca that is the bay area but with most of the things i've heard from you guys in previous episodes of one of fm the industry clam is basically a wasteland it's like i'm a naive actor moving from a small town to hollywood looking for the big time uh i know talent is a major part of journalism but how far and who you know unfortunately but how far can credentials like a degree in journalism get you in today's environment i really want to be optimistic about my major but if this career is based on pure luck i'm gonna have to start thinking about another field and i really don't want to go back to computer science fucking nerds oh is that it i don't know if luck is the word as much as networking he says ps since i'll be moving to the bay area without knowing anyone up there what you guys or girls depending on who the episode be my friends i assure you i'm cool if stating that i'm cool doesn't invalidate my coolness i'm totally not cool at all i need some people to show me some dope taco stands and bike rides if you don't can't eat if you can find a fucking dope taco stand around here then let us know can't wait if i know where you get up here i would be perfectly okay with meeting up for you for lunch at some point but i will not show you where my home is until i'm positive that you won't come into my house in the nighttime this isn't the geek box um i think networking is important in pretty much any field where there are way more people that want in it than there are positions right i mean uh you know some people i've talked to said that the game industry though is is particularly filled with penepitistic that people have like this idea of like like i look up to you but it's edit it's like it's like editable it's like they i look up to you but someday i will kill you and take your place like well there is a like a limited number of positions and a limited capacity for advancement like it's happening now um sounds of every day saw sounds today i mean for me i never had like i got a job it went up because it was available and because i really like the people working there but it was never a goal it was kind of a fluke it was never yeah it was never a goal of mine like yeah see i'm i am an example of an extremely lucky case i did not get in because i met someone or something like that it was extremely lucky it used to be that interning somewhere was a good way to get your foot in the door but now it's much less so yeah i mean i was probably one of the last people that i could be said for you know and uh you know i got extremely lucky but unfortunately a lot of it is i don't know but like my exact experience i never went in to take someone out nullifies like what like what you're saying um i don't think it nullifies it i think it brings a parallel point of view it brings a parallel like it doesn't nullify your asshole um but like i mean uh yeah i mean i didn't get hard because i wasn't intern i was a long term lover for you your problem is that you are quote-unquote overqualified for intern level positions right and in tylers like one of the things that tyler had going on from which you should look into as well kenny is that you know tyler like when he when he would throw out like you know we get plenty of emails that are like hey i'd like to try freelancing but when tyler would do it he could be like look i've written for the free press heustin you know and he had like something that he could throw out there's a tangible thing of look i've written for someone and even if you haven't necessarily heard of the media outlet just saying that you've written for things previously adds like so much more like like weight than just i was just trying to write for your college paper even though like a lot of people say oh i wrote for my college paper but it will still give you a sort of experience with deadlines and i mean uh luke luke smith wrote for his college paper yes and he didn't even write about games i think you wrote about music sports as well sports yes that's what i'm saying i mean i mean ultimately uh like i you know i i don't want to discourage college because i definitely love love my experience in college and college education but um your your degree is not going to matter um specifically like a journalism degree like it will help and like it might make your interviewer say oh cool but like bottom the bottom line is like what work do you have to show yeah i i mean talent is talent is important like being able to write is important and that's and and i don't mean that to just apply to the game industry that's really anything like uh you know anything creative even even like graphic design like david karstin like one of the more uh more influential designer the 90s like had a degree in psychology and went into design afterwards you know it's like yeah i mean uh you know i really think that in whatever degree you have can bring an interesting perspective to it like arthur is an art in english major but more specifically as an art major could sometimes be in a better position to try and understand and comment on the way that some the way something's presented affects you like and can find words to express it better than i ever could you know also like i spent a lot of time developing so like a critical like a critical eye as far as like meaning and stuff like that right i think that being versed in a like a wide breadth of of uh a good liberal arts education is is great yeah because like for me you know i've been reading this book called uh the paradox of choice and that actually has greatly influenced the angles that i took for the last two reviews i wrote both uh dead space and uncharted so i mean to i think it's less it's not so much who you know is tenacity and sort of developing relationships and being good at what you do i mean to to an extent you can have a great personality i've seen people hint like first like first blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah first hand that uh yeah that had like a really great personality everyone thought they were the coolest person ever but they just didn't have the talent and they weren't going to get it and so eventually they were kind of slowly pushed out yeah as gently as possible at some point you need to be realistic with yourself that if you don't have the chops you don't have the chops like someone can always be a better writer but not everyone can be a good writer yeah i mean not everyone's a writer that's what it comes down to yeah i mean to get a job in this you need to be a writer first in a gamer second like and here's like a good measure like i know um like i don't like i'm pretty down on my own writing i don't think i'm a very good writer but i know that while i was in college there would be you know like say there's 20 students four of us got As on our writing essays i was one everyone else you know bc's it's like if yeah you're not getting good grades on your essays in college it's probably not a good but even then college writing is so different it is it is different and and i don't mean to say that college writing is but i think it depends on the class it is indicative of the fact that you have a basic grasp of how to convey an opinion in in a certain format like this teacher wants this so i'm only going to read one last letter because we're already alone this is from glenn and it it kind of touches back upon i think our main topic in or kind of loose way readings are above them the topic of this letter goes back in time a little and may possibly open up a few previous ones for mr. gayegos but i would like to bring up that operation flashpoint dragon rice oh jesus christ i couldn't help but notice that tyler can i tell you a story the other day i was talking with anthony on ame and he told me yeah i'm going to bring home this and this and to bring home operation flashpoint so you can give it a try cool great something else i can ignore no so he said i couldn't help but notice that anthony could not stand operation flashpoint and made it quite clear on the podcast this made me hop over to game spy and check out your preview on it and man did i see a lot of people lay into you for it the biggest proportion of the comments ninety one today sounds like money in the bank are canning you for writing a bad i don't get paid for clicks and are canning you for writing a bad review and call for someone who actually likes the type of game to write the review for them i know from reading the review as well that it helped to crystallize in my mind that dragon rising isn't for me you said now said review and preview it was a preview difference well he was noting that the commenters were saying that it was a review also so for that i thank you for the preview see okay so he says my question is do you think previews and reviews should only be written by people who would enjoy the game being presented or do you think that this would put a positive spin on all games and therefore ultimately annoy gamers even more than a preview if they go and drop their money on a game and think it'll be good and they're just pointed with it one final thing i would like to commend you on the like the podcast i know you are sometimes conscious of how long it is but i enjoy a longer podcast than a short one geek box i'm looking at you uh can i make a comment about that about his inquiry well yeah and then i have some i think that there is a place for enthusiast reviews of genres but game spy is not a place for genre enthusiast reviews right i mean if if you want to get like a genre enthusiast thing that's like what you go to aside like massively for right they review mmorse that's what they do but i mean the whole point of this so let me be like straight up the reason i wrote operation dragpoint flashpoint not someone else was that no one else was there to do the demo and i got stuck with it now that being said i did not go into it thinking this game's gonna suck balls i i why are you rolling your eyes at me to give you shit okay i i don't ever do that like you know i i i okay anthony agonizes about this shit on a regular basis people talk shit about like oh well people don't know what they're talking about they don't care what they give reviews like it like i have personally watched so many people agonize over scores and grades and evaluations of games like you guys have no idea like when i went into see flashpoint like i wanted it to be good like i love going in there for a game that's like an underdog and being blown away like who wants to spend an hour looking at a game that sucks exactly not only that you like shooters i love shooters i love shooters so this was not a shooter no it's just that uh you know i but i that's that's the whole point i wanted to be straight up in the preview right was i didn't want to write this negative thing i mean the fact the matter is that things are written by biased people and so i wanted to put my bias right out there in front for the type of person that like look do you not like combat sims well then this might not be for you i mean that's the truth of matter is that a person might go to the store and see that it's a shooter and think oh this is for me but it's not it's for like a subcategory of people like shooters you know and the same way the armor was those just aren't the type of games for me operation flashpoint that sounds like a tom clancy game but you know maybe maybe there can be a game that'll change my perspective on that like you know typically for a long time uh i mean they're like i don't like i don't like like jrpgs right i don't but i'm not saying that there couldn't be one that someday like totally grab me in some way and right and totally in complete judge my mind i mean you seem to like crown trigger from what you played a bit yeah see that's what i'm saying i mean maybe there could be the operation flashpoint was going to be that game and i still it's a good game it's a good game break through those sorts of preferences right like for instance a game that i saw that uh i wasn't particularly interested in when i saw it but by the end of it i was like i could see the merits behind it was like this world of zoo game and all of this is like interacting and playing with animals and stuff i'm like yeah it's a really cool kids game like you know by the time it was done i was like uh it's a pretty cool game you know but it wasn't like a game that i definitely went into with the bias like oh jeez world the zoo here we go so there's just one letter removed from a previous game from another game title world agoo yeah i know i see what you did there world the zoo is made by like the discovery channel it's like really yeah i or sponsored by or not discovery channel uh the magazine national geographic you'd think that they would have someone available to write a better title well it's a pretty cool game i'm not gonna it looks it looks really cool has such cool art style i don't mean to hate on the title i do they didn't like my questions when i was in there and i asked him about it like well they they laughed i was trying to be funny and they thought it was funny but i but i when i asked the question if you could breed the animals in the zoo i was legit in Alaska i was just curious because you know breeding of eva piñata is like a such a crucial thing and if you're like working with pandas or something can i send these lines off to parties yeah i was just like you know can i breed them and like maybe introduce them to wild like you know maybe some of these other things like the zoo's trying to you know can i illicitly capture new animals from my zoo black market sources oh man all right uh so i'm gonna give the quick spiel and we're going to tell you where you can find us on the internet um be sure to check out our other hammer suit brother pod brother podcast hammer suit brothers uh be sure to check out our other man you fucked up and i fucked up anyways we our partners right our partners with hammer suit our geek box which can be found at the geek box uh dot net yes or no it's just geek box dot net there is no the and bit mobs mobcast at bit mob dot com you should check them both out and then you should also uh check out our podcast on iTunes and subscribe to it if you haven't your first new listener or something like that uh and if you're like first listener review say tell us what you think and maybe meadow metacritic will pick us up yeah podcast sorry and then uh and then you should also uh i would fucking tell them to deal with if you want to write letters to us it's it's uh it's letters at eat dash sleep dash game dot com um i feel like there's something i'm leaving out but i don't know what it is my tells from the fulsome street fair um one of our listeners from the philippines wrote in oh that there was a super terrible tsunami in the philippines i don't know if i know who's aware it's been a really shitty week for natural disasters actually i mean it's affected it's affected like hundreds of thousands of people and it's affected more than the philippines too like a bunch of different yeah um so i'm gonna put up a link in the show notes to to make it through that oh that's fine yeah no i mean i don't i don't think we should read that on like on the air just because it's yeah we're gonna put up a link of a site that is doing disaster relief for those people yeah so you should help out that might seem overly cause-based but it is a rebel FM fan that needs help so not only that but i mean you know we believe in helping your fellow man real they may live in the philippines but it wasn't like it's a war or something that was out of our control this was fucking god having his way with people so um i'm sorry okay it was the divine money shot is what you're saying yeah well i never mind i'm not gonna go there yeah so work in the internet find you arthur fucking bastards twitter.com/aeigites and uh work in the internet find you tyler uh twitter.com/dirtyt like the drink and so you can find me at twitter.com/chefmoney and uh you can also hear me on the game spidey briefings podcast as well as ryan scott from the geek box we're on there together giving each other a hard time for being nerds do you wear rubber gloves on a mask i do okay yeah ryan sits behind a plexiglass ball speaks to her speaker that's why we still have any maintain strict sharps etiquette yeah around ryan scott at all times all right uh you know thanks for listening feel free to write into us sorry if we didn't get to your letters this time around there was a shit done and they were all pretty good so and thanks for uh commenting on the middle segment all right thanks for listening rebel fam we'll see you all next week they won't see us oh so um and and if you're bored you can do something that i discovered like when i was in high school it's like if you're if you're just laying on your couch naked and your nuts are hanging like you can you can kind of like flub your nuts and they'll still like they'll like move and it'll look almost like until like an octopus like moving over the land or something uh you know what you should do you should make that the the optic