Rebel FM
Rebel FM Episode 26 - 072309
Gutentag! This week Anthony, Tyler and myself are joined by Matt from Area5 as we talk about Left 4 Dead 2, Dead Space, Ghostbusters, and more, then move on to how everyone's keeping busy during this late (and short) slow period for releases, and close out with letters. It's a shorter show since I had to leave about an hour later for sunny (kind of?) San Diego, but it just means the awesome is more tightly packed together!FAT PENIS IS GOING NOWHERE.This week's music in order of appearance:Nightmare of You - Dear Scene, I wish I Was DeafAudioslave - Shape of Things to ComeMy Chemical Romance - Famous Last WordsThanks!
(upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Peen is peen is peen. - Oh shit. (laughing) - Hello. - Peen is peen is peen. - Well, we'll go know it. Yeah, it's funny 'cause you know, there's a guy that says that at least you wrangle in the fact that I say penis so often. - So we just start with the penis trifecta from me. - And he also said that the fat penis meme needs to die. - Why? - I kind of think he needs to die. - I agree. (laughing) - Wow. - No, I'm just kidding. I actually heard a funny thing from a user. - He left them keeping it real. - I heard a user say something to me that was pretty funny the other day, which was a leprechauns don't have balls. They have bells instead of balls. So every time that leprechaun masturbates an angel gets its wings. (laughing) Wow. - That's funny 'cause I was gonna tell you that one of my t-shirt ideas for after the t-shirt that we're gonna reveal sometime this week I think is just like the logo with like a pair of balls underneath it. Just like two brown balls. But I could easily just make them bells I guess. - Like trucker balls? - Yeah. - And then only people that listen to this specific podcast would get the joke. - It would be compositionally sound though. - Right. (laughing) - So it's fun for the whole family. Balls for the whole family. - So, I mean, I think I guess associated her games by and post a verbal of fam along with co-hosts Tyler Barber and Arthur Geeze as well as Area 5.TV's Mount Changerine. - Hello. - Welcome to Rebel FM. I don't think we ever said that. - I did. Number 26. - And what's welcome in German? We were talking about Germany. - That'll come in. - That'll come in. (laughing) - Something like that. - For some reason, a lot of times when someone says something in German I just like have these flashbacks of Wolfenstein 3D in my head. It's like, what the dog? Do they say things like that? - Yeah, they do. They're tiny German voice samples. - I played this one day but I just don't remember voices. - Did you ever play the old? - You haven't had an inadequate sound card. - That could have been. - Did you ever play the old 2D Castle Wolfenstein? - No, the side-scrolling one now. - Well, it wasn't so much a side-scores. It was like you moved from room to room and you had to like try to avoid the German guards or they would ask for your papers and like, yeah. It was much more of a, I don't know what you even called these days. It was much less of an action game. - Almost like the first Metal Gear kind of? - Maybe. I mean, it just, it didn't have a whole lot of action to it was the thing. Anyway, it was crazy. I played it on the Commodore 64. - So, Tyler, what have you been playing? - I picked up Dead Space at the request of a user poll. So basically what I did was like on my Twitter house. - Did I Twitter poll? - Yeah, did a little Twitter poll and the user's voted and it was overwhelmingly for Dead Space, so. - Nice. What were the other options? - It's just Dead Space and red faction. - Everyone is very enthusiastic for Dead Space after they buy it used. - Oh man, you wanna, I'm glad you mentioned that. Because, you know, and I kind of blame myself for this and I feel really bad for it. So I wanna come clean, I went to GameStop and they didn't have a new copy of Dead Space. - It's not surprising. - But they had one used copy and so I had to buy a used copy. I wanted to buy a new one, but I couldn't, and really what I should have done is, I should have been patient, ordered it online or something, yeah. - It's on Steam. - But I wanted the achievements. - For. (laughing) My kind of whore. - I downloaded it on Steam and that's not the way to play that game because it's very clearly a console port to a PC and the mouse control is not good. - So use a controller. - We all have wired controllers. - Yeah, but I mean, like, one of the reasons why I download is because, like, in Dead Space, you have to be pretty accurate. I mean, like, you're trying to, instead of shooting the mass of the body, you're trying to shoot off these tentacle things. - I'm trying on them. - I was thinking, man, not only will it look awesome on PC, but I'll have mouse control. And it felt like-- - I will totally make everything my bitch. - Yeah, exactly. And it totally felt like it still had the stick acceleration mapped to mouse controls and the dead zone mapped to mouse controls. It was really bizarre. - But really the thing that shocked me the most about these games was that just sort of like stood back at the GameStop in San Francisco and looked at the Xbox section. So, like, all the new titles-- - What, I get it to, like, one shelf and all the use stuff, it's like four. - Portion. - Yeah, yeah. - And not only are the used games on four shelves, but they're stacked, like, five row deep of a game. And that's just absurd to me. And to me, it speaks to GameStop not refilling their stocks, just saying, "Oh, you know, we don't need to buy "X amount of Dead Space," because we know that that's a single-player game. - Well, and because if they offer you a new one, then you'll be less likely to buy the used one where they make a giant profit margin. - If you had walked up with the new one, they would have said, "You know, we have this used," so. - Right now. - You have to say that. - Yeah. - Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I guess this is a long, old argument that just kind of came really right in front of me right there and I was just like, "Ah, this belongs." - Yeah, it's the kind of thing I don't think about very much 'cause I don't go to GameStop that much these days. And I almost always get things off Amazon. - Well, there's no really other place in the city to get games. I mean, maybe Virgin-- - Yeah, true. - Best buy now, Virgin, so. - That's right. - Best buy. - Best buy. - Best buy is pretty much-- - That's right, yep. - I always forget it's kind of further than I would-- - Best buy is, yeah, it's kind of an inconvenient place on gaming for a lot of people. - But so, yeah, but anyway, beginning to the game, I spoke a little about this on the game, Spide Briefing that I was on with you guys yesterday, just about how so far my favorite thing about the game is easily just the ship, just the environment. - Yeah, it's been a lot of time making the ship look interesting and unique. - It's fantastic, so much so. I don't mind any of the backtracking. I don't mind any of that stuff, it's great. I love being in the levels, exploring, looking at every little detail of this game. I felt it's only the type of game that I like. I really like to take my time with games, I like to soak in everything, and there's so much in this game just to look at in the environment. - I love it when you go out into the, and I think it's one of the first times when you go out into a breach in space, and there's some water or gas, like this forming into little droplets going out into going out in space. - Yeah, it's totally amazing attention to detail. - Yeah, and it's right, it totally brings you back to elementary school watching NASA videos. Oh, cool, look at them put in there, you know, juice out in spaces, so this isn't juice, it's cool and linking or something. - Or when there's bodies floating around, the like, blood, you know, tripling out their body, all wicked like. - Yep, it's bad ass shit. - Yeah, good, continue. - I was just saying, and like, I've learned now that I came across this new enemy that any sort of corpse I see laying around on the ground, like I'm instantly gonna decaf, they're like, take off all their... - Cut them to pieces. - Yeah, it's like everyone's gonna run around doing that curb stomp probably more than I need to. - I feel like peeking like a motherfucker on the... - Only sometimes. - But yeah, it's a really, really good game. I'm glad you picked that up. - Yeah, yeah. - It's funny because there's a lot of snark running through the game's press and media about Dante's Inferno, and I'll admit that I have a lot of skepticism as well, but exactly the idea that all these people that I know like put so much work into Dead Space, like they did a lot of work in making thing and taking inspiration from Gothic cathedrals, like they wanted to ship to look like at the cathedral and... - And when you saw it, sorry, go ahead. - Well, I mean, they went to Morgz and like looked at bodies like for hours and hours to do the corpses correctly and stuff like that, so. - It's true when you see Dead Space originally, I know a lot of people looked at that and were like, that game looks really generic and they were just like kind of naysayed it and then they played it and were like, all right, it's actually pretty cool. And I know a lot of that same mentality's been going around about Dante's Inferno of men that game looks generic. Like it just looks like God of War, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. - Yeah, and with Dead Space, it's like, oh, great, it's doom, it's Resident Evil. - Oh yeah, a lot of people just got already four in space. - Dead Space was one of my favorite games of last year, though, I mean. - Dead Space is one of my favorite games of this generation. - Yeah, it's just that good. - And technically, like, they worked so hard to do a game that worked on both systems so well. Like it uses the same kind of... - Wasn't there, sorry. Man, I'm interrupting like crazy. - It's okay. But you realize it and you pull it back, that is the sign of a professional. (laughing) I'm not even being sarcastic. - Tyler, though, it wasn't there like you might know 'cause I know you were watching news and stuff today. Wasn't there something Dead Space devs like Left EA or something today? - Yeah, two of them, two of the senior devs on the team, actually, and one of the real important guys that got it pushed, that was a big proponent of Dead Space from the beginning before any of us had ever even heard about. - Right, they leave, too. - They actually left to Activision, Activision's forming a new studio. - To work on old IP. - Yeah. - They left Vistro games to work on old IP. - Well, I mean, you know, we don't know that. - No, they, Activision confirmed it. - Really? - Today? - What is it? - They haven't said the old IP. - They're just saying they're working on new projects with existing IP. - With existing IP. - What is Activision picked up recently that they could be working on? - It's existing Activision IP. - Oh, okay. - Probably something old. - Something they let die. - Yeah. - 'Cause I'm holding, like, a revision. I mean, uh... - I could milk every year. - I mean, it could be promising, I don't know. - I just hope it's not another music game studio for Activision, whatever they have been doing. - They would have to pay them obscene amounts of money to get those guys to do that game. - Yeah. - Not to mention, I just, I mean, honestly, like, in the future. With the way Rock Band's looking, I can't see Guitar Hero having a future unless they do some serious revisions, 'cause, like, we'll see what, but that's, but that's what people keep saying, is it keeps being, like, Rock Band is the best thing ever, and then the next Guitar Hero comes along. - Whoa, Guitar Hero's totally stepping it up. - Yeah, the only part of me that wonders about that is 'cause Rock Band did that thing where supposedly, you know, any band that wants to, like, if can hire their own programmer. - I mean, that's not supposedly that is. - No, but I'm saying, I mean, supposedly, like, we'll see, I just mean whether it don't happen or not. Whether or not, like, Motley Crue will come along and be like, you know what, we want our catalog and Rock Band. - I don't give a shit about Motley Crue. It's been, it's lesser known bands that I'd love to hear. - Right, well, that's you. - Yes, you don't care about Motley Crue. (all laughing) - You guys are the type of, you guys are the type. - Well, and Motley Crue is probably, I mean, there's already been extremely heavy rumors boring on confirmation that there's gonna be a Guitar Hero Motley Crue. - Exactly, let's see, that's what I'm saying. That's what Guitar Hero still is going for. It is that they keep releasing these band ones, like Aerosmith, Metallica. So if Rock Band could make it easy for people just to digitally distribute and, like, basically even have a higher profit margin and release whole discography, it's like, man, that's like where the big money could be. Like, they said, you know, I knew the guy was like, I'd love to do at least every song. I'm like, yes. - You have a Guitar Hero still has an install base. It's way bigger than Rock Band. - It has the name recognition. - Yeah. - But let's all not forget, I mean, the disparaging news that has come out and showed a trend in the decline of music game sales and people are comparing it to, like, sort of like the fat of DDR and, like, one of those machines. - I wonder if those are dollar sales or if they're, like, numbers of numbers sold. And also, I mean, something that the chart didn't take into account that I saw in news stories is that there was no retail Rock Band release. Like, over the last 12 months, I think Rock Band 2 came out last year and they haven't done anything since then. - Right, just a bunch of digital stuff, which is how they really, I mean, that's their bread and butter. - Yep. - So. - And doing the Rock Band network thing is a good way to just have it become an entrenched tool for musicians to market their stuff that'll, which will have people buy it because of that. - Yeah. - So what else have you been playing, Tyler? Or how do you like Dead Space, when you're even got to that? - Right, yeah. Well, I mean, you can always skim over a little bit. I'm enjoying Dead Space a lot. I'm finding that I'm not really freaked out. I'm not really scared by it because I find a lot of the monsters kind of silly looking. I don't know. I think that's one area where maybe I just don't have that sort of baggage as a child, like something I don't carry as a kid. - Like, I've done in your apartment, like the living room is next to this giant, to a window, isn't it? - Yeah. - Nobody even still like-- - Like, well, it's probably-- - I played Dead Space in the dark and I didn't think Dead Space was scary. It's more like a thriller. In my opinion, like the same way playing RE5 or RE4. Neither of those games to me are like horrific in the sense of when I watch like a traditional stream. - They're just intense, yeah. - Yeah, they're just intense. They make me stand on edge. Whether or not I'm being like, ah, it's more just like I'm like, oh my God. - Right. - No, go ahead. - Oh, I was saying, like, I definitely noticed my body posture when I play it. Like, I sit on my knees like closer to my intelligence and then I do for any other game, you know? Like, like little kids that don't say that's what it is. - That's what it is. - A lot of games will rip off the stylings of James Cameron in their sort of design or execution, but Dead Space is one of the few that have managed to take the feel of a movie like Aliens and really duplicated in the game. - See, that's what it is exactly. Aliens, you watch Aliens, it's not like a scary movie, but it's like, it's like way too suspenseful. - James Cameron said that his goal with Aliens was to make a terror film as opposed to a horror film. Like, the first one. - Yeah, and well, to me, actually Dead Space feels more like Alien than Aliens, even though there were multiple, I don't know, it just feels a little more. - Because you're alone or? - Yeah. But I agree. - Yeah, but-- - Because you're a space carpenter. - And, you know, at first, before I really got like the stasis power, so this is obviously very early when I was only using the guns, I kind of felt like, oh, I mean, the combat's not really all like great, then when you start getting the stasis power and the little telekinesis thing, and like you start realizing, oh, wow, like, almost anything in the environment, you can pick up and shoot at enemies? - Yeah, well, wait until you start, like, upgrading your weapons and shit, too, 'cause that's where the money's at. - Yeah, and I was curious about, you know, how you guys approach that, like, so far-- - The gun has a red herring. The gun, like, there's an actual gun in the game that you find it is a red herring. Do not upgrade it. - Yeah, the only gun that I was afraid of, like I said-- - All those motherfuckers you see dead all over the levels, they were using guns. - Wait, wait, which one do you, like, the assault rifle? - Yeah, like the actual rifle, as opposed to-- - Oh, yeah, that thing, that thing. - J-Fresh upgraded that quite a bit. - So did I, and he loved it. - I didn't know. - That was, like, my last ditch weapon, but honestly, all you need is your pistol and your line gun. Like, that's really it, and then that and upgrade your suit. - Yeah, that's all I have so far. - But actually, you know, the reason I think it reminds me of Alien more than Aliens is actually, 'cause it reminds me of the design of the ship from Alien. - Yeah, even the architecture of the ship ship. - Yeah, 'cause those ships were very gothic in a way, too, the way that they were designed. - I mean, it was basically a city on balls. - Yeah, yeah, so. - And the great thing, I mean, just getting back to the design of the ship is, like, as big as the ship is, I feel like there's no two sections that look the same, and yet none of it feels disjointed and disconnected. - They do a really good job with that, yeah. - Oh, yeah. - The only part to look the same are the subway stations, those all look the same. - Right, and understandably so, like they would. - I almost wish you could do a game club on Dead Space, but it's just too soon, and everyone has played it already. - Yeah, there's so many other games that are deserving before that, and the scheme of things. And ones that we all haven't played, so. - True. - So I played Left 4 Dead 2. That was the game that I couldn't talk about last time. - That's awesome, I played that at E3. - Yeah, so I got to finish the campaign that everyone played at E3. - Cool. - And the end of that campaign is the awesome part with the bridge. - 'Cause at E3, they only went halfway through the campaign. - They only had to play the first two, I think, or something. - Yeah, I think it was three. - I think that's what's going to be a Comic Con as well. - Probably. - A Comic Con they're also letting people play the swamp, but only, like, part of the swamp. Which I also played the whole thing of as well. - Red. - The Comic Con, they told me that the swamp is the only one that starts at night, and it does kind of start at night, but it starts more like when you wake up at four in the morning, and it's like night, but it's like transitioning today. - Great on. - So it's mostly dark just because the Everglade trees block out most of the light, so. But yeah, Arthur's right, that's a game that he was telling me that it looked bad in screenshots, but great in motion, and it's true, like the source engine kind of sometimes looks like, the screens look like crap when you see 'em, just as like a- - It looks like a five-year-old game. - Yeah. - But when you see it in motion, especially it looks great even still. - Well, this is the most updated version of the source engine we have yet to see, so. - There's still some awful screenshots. - Yeah, that's the thing is, yeah, the screen's gonna be awful, but if you look at the video, like which we have on GameSpy, like the video of, it wasn't me playing, it's one of the Valve guys. There were four computers, and they didn't capture off mine. - There was a player in one of the videos named Anthony. - Yeah, that was me. - Oh, that was you. - That was me, so. - But the one they were capturing from. - Was not me. Yeah, but you could see me running around doing things. Yeah, it was me and IGN's Jason Ocampo, and then Chet, that works for Valve, and then one other guy, who's the name I can't remember. But if you watch that video, like, there's like a badass part in that parish, at the level, you played it at E3, and there's like a part where you enter into this area, and it's full of nothing but cars with alarms in it, and there's like a bunch of zombies. So as you come up, like, and just before that, there's a shotgun that it's there, and you're not supposed to take, even though it's there, because people will be encouraged to take it. But like, it'll scatter and hit a car, so yeah. So the whole point is that you have to let zombies run to you and then like shoot them on their legs when they're like two feet from you, because otherwise they'll set a car alarm off. - Or beat them to death at the frying pan. - Well, setting a car alarm, but if you hit a car with the frying pan, it sets a car alarm off too, so. And it's like, yeah, the bad thing is, is that it isn't like you set off one car alarm, and then it's okay, you've called all the zombies. Each successive car alarm that gets set off if the shit goes thick, sends another wave of zombies. - Jesus. - So like, yeah, it would be like, someone would set up the car alarm, and then someone would just start spraying wildly, and they would summon basically, it's like the first car alarm would bring like 20. So now you set off five more, it's like, nay, it felt like 100. It's like, it's basically a quick ticket to death if you guys fucking up. - Okay, let me play the part of annoying internet kid here for a second, this is not my opinion. What's the big deal? Why is this Left 4 Dead 2, instead of expansion or DLC sold for Left 4 Dead? Like, what have you played so far that justifies this as its own retail game? - I don't know, five new campaigns and the engines completely redone, so I don't know how, I don't know if they could redo the engine like that on the 360 version, I don't know, could they? I don't know that they could bring a disc that would change the engine of the game. - I mean, they could have-- - Because they've done AI routines, so I don't, they could-- - That's the other thing, is the reader, they're creating, like, the engine-- - Ooh, revamped? - Yeah, the revamped AI directory, you know? He's like, totally different. Like, these are all things that I don't know that could just be patched in. Like, I think they might be a little too intense for a patch, it would be my guess. I didn't actually pose that question to them. - I mean, you can patch almost anything into the PC versions. - Right, I'm just saying the 360 version, which is also a large install base. I mean, like, you know, the things like a new weapons, new medic packs, new pills, like, yeah, those are patchable things. - I saw that a adrenaline is in there, does that take the place of pills? - Yeah, it takes the place of pills and the way it works is that when you stab yourself with adrenaline, you can run through zombies and you'll still take damage, but they don't, by punching them, doesn't slow you down. - Cool, can they slow you down? Can they stop you? - What? - Like, running into zombies, like, when they hit you, you stick in one of those. - Yeah, and that doesn't happen at all with the adrenaline. - The adrenaline, you push them out of your way. - Yeah. - And then you can also carry an ammo pack instead of a health pack? - Yeah, so that's like for people like to take the assault rifle, and if you run up on one of those and you don't have a med pack, you're like, I might as well take this and then you can patch. - So you can basically ammo on to someone or yourself. - Cool. - So. - No, the thing about like, should they have released left for dead to debate, the thing about that that I understand is that it feels like left for dead should have had more levels and some more content released for it, you know? It should have been a more fully supported product with DLC, but I don't begrudge the idea of left for dead to because it does seem like a big enough upgrade to warrant the purchase of a whole new game. I just wish that they had offered more and extended more with the original left for dead. - Yeah, I mean, I could have played the original left for dead with like two new campaign maps for another year before ever seeing the stuff that's in left for dead too. - Yeah. - But they did really, you know, like the new mode. - Right, well, that was one of the things, I mean, these are all things that the internet kids, of course, will justifiably argue that that new mode, along with a bunch of other stuff was promised. These were all things that were said would come out for left for dead one by Valve Origina. - Yeah. - Because they just couldn't get them done in time to release the game last year. - So. - But I don't know, I mean, again, I just feel like all these people are entitled little brats. - The thing is having played the two campaigns I've played and seen like the new infected I've seen and the fact that there are three more full campaigns and like these campaigns, in my opinion, take longer than the other campaigns. - And it doesn't look like they reuse any assets, virtually at all. - No, I mean, it's completely new environments. - And I feel like, to put a little bit of perspective on this, I think about the way, you know, the jump from Quake 1 to Quake 2, for example, or, you know, take any series of yesteryear, you know, we're talking, you know, eight to 10 years ago. Anytime there was, if there was a sequel that was as big as an upgrade from left for dead one, as left for dead two is to left for dead one, there'd be no question. People would be like, yeah, here's the sequel. It's awesome. Holy crap, how did they get this out in like a year? This is the best thing ever. The DLC equation has totally changed that argument in people's minds. And I don't necessarily think that it's justified to call that out. - Everyone complains that Valve doesn't release games fast enough. - Right, that's actually the words that came out of their mouth and they're like, we've put out four games in the last five years or something, that's what they said. And they're like, yeah. - Which is actually not that slouchy, all things considered. I mean, for a studio to release that many games, like on that cycle, is not terrible. - No, it's not. It's great. - A lot of them are episodes and not actual full games. - Well, in the episodes, they're still pretty-- - Are like three or four hours of content, as opposed to the 14 to 15 hour ride that is Half-Life 2. - I'm just saying. - That at points feels like longer. - That's not counting those, though. That's saying that they've released in the last five years. They've released-- - Half-Life 2. - Half-Life 2, Team Fortress 2. And then Left 4 Dead 1, 2, and Portal. That's five games. So, that's the thing. - I feel like counting Portal as a full release is a little disingenuous too. - Well, it really set it really up easy. It's still a full game. Whether or not you consider it a full retail release. Okay, but I'm saying it is a game on its own. Not related to anything. - And it's also when you look at the way that Valve works and their system of development, not that I'm privy to their internal workings or anything like that, but the whole idea of the Cabal system seems to be a kind of system that while it can produce better games, it seems to me that it would take longer to produce said better games because you don't have a rigid development process for every single game, for every single title. You don't know exactly who's gonna be working on everything going forward. And I don't begrudge them that at all either. - Yeah, I mean, the five games in like that much time and the fact that they're also running Steam. It's pretty pretty true. - And I think what you guys were talking about earlier is how this game sort of looks bad in screenshots is the lay person at home, the kid who's a leopard-ed fan looks at the screenshots and to him it looks no different than what he played. So they feel justified in their argument in that way. - At this point though, I don't feel like he is because there's just so, like we are at the point where video is a pretty much ubiquitous asset. It's not like only IgN insiders get to see really full length of the content- - Yeah, but even like YouTube, you know, a YouTube video would probably be, it's just sort of like those muddy screenshots of the motion. - Let me just say, I seen it and then when it's running it looks ridiculously. - Yeah, it looks really good. - And that's not even optimized yet either. - Did you play on 360 or PC? - No, I played on PCs for sure. The PC version is definitely superior. Like the, when- - Maybe technically, but I feel like experientially I still enjoy it more on Xbox. - I was speaking technically. That was not a gunshot. - Yeah, it was too quiet. - We have our front door open for some reason, but we're recording this podcast. - Yeah, it's fine. - I'll be honest. - Just in case there are gunshots. - Yeah, you had fun. I take it. - Yeah, it was great. - Awesome. - I mean, that game is gonna be, I will buy it for sure. Like, and I won't mind paying $60 for it. - What about 110? - What, by the 4-pack? - No, buying it on two platforms. - Oh, shit. Well, I have a Steam press account so I'll only be buying it on one. - Oh, fucker. - Didn't they do that with the first left for dead? Like, release a 4-pack? - Yes. - But it wasn't that discounted. - Oh, it wasn't ridiculous. - It's like, buy this and then gift it to three of us and guilt it in place. - I mean, I think one of the letters that we're supposed to read later on is about buying like crazy special editions and stuff. And that's not me. I mean, it's never been me. Like, the only time I've ever bought in special editions was in hopes of getting things early. And if I'm gonna buy a special edition, I might buy the $10 more special edition, but I can never bring myself to spend like $130 on a game. - I bought a couple. - Whoa. - That just ate his microphone. - Dude, I like kicked it into my own mouth. That was very interesting. - Maybe a Silent Hill special edition that was like really good. That's like one franchise that could push me into some serious boredom or like-- - There's like a statue of Pyramid head raping a nurse. - Or like all over that. Like maybe, I'm trying to think there's gotta be a couple of games like, I don't know. - For me, if there's a documentary included, you know, I'll throw down 10, 20 more bucks for making of behind the scenes. But then I learned from that and just sort of stopped doing that because they're kind of usually crappy. - This is all a conversation that we can have at the third segment when we read this letter, I guess. - Well, even if I'm saying if we do read it, but I just wanted to take a second and say fuck that Call of Duty specialty. - You know what? My impulse was like, that is too far, but then I thought about it and I have a Master Chief helmet in my closet. - I know, but it's just like, who wants the shittiest pair of like nitrogen goggles of all time? So, 'cause there's no way those are good. Man, real nitrogen goggles cost so much money. - Well, the ones the military use, yeah. But like Ryan went on Amazon and was, could win this announcement was made and was looking at night vision goggles that are out there like for hunters and stuff like that. And they're all around like the $35 to $50 price range. - Oh man. - So if you wanted to give us some money. - My dad's, but the hunting catalogs, my dad has a disaster, they're all like $400. That one's, it's like that, now granted, that's like an NRA sponsor. - Those are like the airplane store magazines. - Of course. (laughing) - The air, the sky mop, that is? - Yes. - I always read sky mop when I'm in planes, man. - What was your, what was your other option again, Tyler, for a game that you were going to go for? - Red Faction. - Red Faction. - Yeah. - That'll definitely be worth it. That should definitely, as soon as you're done with that space, you should be back in love. - Yeah, well, actually, like I have a listener emailed me and sort of planned out my next game already. He was selling me on a Sends of a Solar Empire actually. - Oh yeah. - I should let you borrow that by it. - Or Dawn of War, I think. - Dawn of War II. - Dawn of War II, he just told me one of those. I should do one of those. - And you know what Dawn of War II has, Tyler? Achievements. (laughing) - It's a Windows Live, so-- - And it shows up, like you'll show up on my friends listening to-- - Ahh! - There you go! - Go! - But the thing is, is that you probably don't work 'cause it's a lot like company heroes, but like I said, with like-- - Simplified, with loot. - Three units, so now you're moving around three units, and I don't have-- - I do some multiplayer. - It's because-- - There's co-op, but it's like really, the co-op's not very good 'cause the co-op's like, you just split the units on the field. - You know skirmishes that were fun. - Skirmishes are okay. I haven't played Dawn of War yet. (gasping) - So, I know she. - Dawn of War is a great game, though. The single player's got like RPG elements to it. - And it's fucking long. - It's fucking long if you do all the side missions, but a lot of the side missions really, you can boil down to like three formulas. - But they're fun. - But I still do. - I mean, there's like a good 20 hours or a single player in that game. - Yeah. Cool. - And how long is that space, what'd you say? - Probably about 15, 16 hours. - Whew, yeah. - See, here's 16 to 20 hours, depending on the difficulty you're playing on. - Here's the Arthur measure. Like any time he says it takes to complete a game, go ahead and like add like four or five. That's how long it'll take me. (laughing) No, I'm just gonna, I'm slow through your games. Like I always have to add. - Yeah, but I mean like it, you know, like on the, well what difficulty are you playing Dead Space on? - I just normal. - Yeah, you'll be fine. - Yeah. - I'm like many hours a day. Who do you guys play explosion, man? - I was about to say, Anthony, tell us about explosion, man. - That game is awesome. - Have you played a man? - Yeah, we covered it on the show that went up yesterday. - Oh, yeah. - I did not know that. - Someone sounds like an asshole. - No, he doesn't. - I didn't, I wasn't on that one. So, and I didn't know. - Oh, you know what's on when you're on. - No, I mean, I didn't get the email about that. 'Cause I don't, I don't have a single email. - I don't listen to every Rebel FM. I don't feel bad. - Yeah. (laughing) - The link to area five is coming off the site. (laughing) - It's shit. (laughing) - So, we, we, we didn't have, we had access to, I think, like half a dozen levels or something like that. - Okay. - We didn't play the whole thing. - Explosion, man. Yeah, I'm about like 30 levels. And at this point and... - That's cool. - Are you on, which section are you on still two? - Yeah, it's two at this point. 'Cause basically there's three sections. And I think they're like 16 levels of peace. And that game is gets, like it starts off and you're like, the first levels are like, oh, this is a cool mechanic. The later levels is like the world's most punitive, like rhythm game of all time. - Well, that's what we had, is we had, we had levels from various points throughout the game and like, yeah, the harder ones were hard. - Were there any points where you had to hug a fat man? - Yes. - And whenever you hug, whenever you hug the fat man, - There's a ton of songs. - Yeah, usually you're only having for so short that you don't know it, but if you just leave it on, it's like a three minute song. ♪ Everybody loves donuts ♪ ♪ You know I do, ooh ooh ♪ It's like this great song. - That sounds so, yeah, you donuts. ♪ You're gonuts ♪ ♪ You're chocking about ♪ ♪ You're not ♪ ♪ You're not ♪ ♪ You're gonuts ♪ ♪ You're gonuts ♪ ♪ You're gonuts ♪ ♪ You're not a guitar parker ♪ - It's like a, it's a, it's a. - You said it's like a ukulele. - It's like a ukulele. - Yeah, it is a ukulele. And it has like a Jack Johnson style sort of rhythm to it. So. - And I love the, like, explosion man himself. He has, I think, three or four different run animations. - They're all amazing. - They're all fucking lame. - Or sometimes when you hit a barrel and you blow 'em up and he goes flying through the air, he'll either like do something where he'll just like, like spread eagle, or sometimes he'll do like a flying kick and make like kung fu noises. - He'll be like Elvis doing karate. - Yeah. (laughing) - Or he'll just, as he's running, like he'll put his arms out into an airplane. It's so cool. - And sometimes there are little animations that are level specific that are so hilarious. Like there's this one where I ran up on this scientist and it switched to like over the shoulder camera and I was no longer in control. And as I ran up on him normally, whereas I would have blown him up, he grabbed him and, or no, he shoved him through a pane of glass and they were falling through all this glass together and to brace himself for the fall and the bottom, he grabs the guy and hugs him so that he lands on top of him when he they fall together. Stuff like that that are just so. - Talk about the cake. - Yeah, or have you found cake? - Yeah. - Every time you find cake, it's like a special hidden thing and he, it like slows down time and he goes, "Eee cake!" (laughing) - It is the most spastic video game character I've seen probably since like Earthworm Jim. - Yeah, but Earthworm Jim's... - With Sebastian. - With Sebastian-ness. I don't even know what that word would be. I never really, it never really amused me or, I don't know, I never really, it never really caught on with me at all, but explosion man. - Especially when it's great because the levels are so quick to like a, the part time is what term possible to get always like two or three minutes a level, but for me, most levels never take me more than five, six minutes. Like, I mean, it's a way you can just play it real quick and it saves after every level, so you're good to go. And the puzzles vary a lot too, like it will introduce a new mechanic, but it isn't like all of a sudden, you're like sitting here trying to figure out, like it just makes sense, you just kind of click with the way it works. - Well, 'cause you can only do one thing, you can explode. - Right, explode, move. - But I'm just saying like whether it's like, you understand that this type of barrel will blow you straight up, or this type of barrel throws you through the air really far. - Or that corridor you don't have to go down, and we'll probably have cake. - Yeah, so it's a pretty, I don't know how much it is 'cause I've been playing it on my internet. I don't know if it's a 1200 point game, or if it's an 800 point game. 1200 points I'd be a little, but 800 points I'd get a little. - Is it, again, is it a 360 exclusive? - I don't know, I think it's part of their days of summer. - Yeah, but it's true, it's true, it's true. - So it's terrible in time. - And so it's battlefield. - I'm pretty sure it is an exclusive, actually. - Supposed to man, it's 800 points. - And it probably is exclusive 'cause me, but I'd say people made them all. - And they had it in the Xbox booth. - Yeah, so that's, you know, that team has been batting pretty well so far. I didn't play them all, but what I saw of it, it looked really cool. - And that was another game that had a lot of personality to it, so that's a surprising explosion, man, would be the same way, but I think that pretty much taps me out for games I've been playing 'cause I've been playing Phoenix, right, but that's just 'cause I picked it up for the first time in a long time, so. - Word up. - Matt. - Oh, my turn. I finished Broken Sword for the DS 'cause it loves me some adventure games. - And part two is on Good Old Games, just so you know. - Is it really? - Yep. - Wow, that's cool. Okay, I should try to pick that up then 'cause I didn't even know there was a part two. - Yeah, apparently there is, and it's backwards compatible, so. - Wow, nice. Yeah, that game started out a lot better than it did. I mean, like it was a pretty decent experience all throughout, but I thought it was gonna be an amazing game and it turned out to just be a good game, so. - Yeah, I think I just liked it a lot more 'cause it was like a true point and click for the DS. - Yeah, it really worked really well. - Yeah, it does. But I was disappointed that you start out with what I think is a much better character, which is Nico, the French reporter. - Yes. - And then like a quarter of the way through, you switch to this dorky American tourist. - And you never go back. - And you never go back to Nico. I was like, oh, well, maybe I'm gonna be doing this simultaneous story thing where I'm switching between the two main characters, but no, you just stay with the American tourists throughout the rest of the thing. And Nico, who is the much better character, is just sitting in her apartment waiting for you to come back and report on your adventures every time you go out and do something. - The one thing I will say about the game though is that the animations I did confirm were done by the guy who drew, who did Watchmen. So. - Really? - Dave Gibbons? - Yeah, really? - Like the animations for the DS one, like the-- - I thought they, I thought they were moving the right animations. - Really, I thought they were, I thought it was a, they said like, oh, well. Now that I think about it, when I saw the credits, it said 2D art and it gave a woman's name. - Yeah, but it did. - It's the ones for like when they do like the top screen of their faces moving. - Right. - So. - The character art. - Yeah. - Right. - So. - So anyway, I like Broken Sword, I liked it and I would recommend it to people, but I'm not in this. I, it's probably the kind of thing where I would say like, game fly it, you know. - The game is like the worst box art of all time, too. - It does, it's terrible. - Like if I saw that in the store, I'd never guessed that this was an adventure game. - Yeah. - It's just like a cross, Broken Sword, okay? - Yeah, it's awful. And you know, I found the whole like night templars conspiracy thing to kind of start out well, so then it really ended with a whimper, I thought. So that was too bad. - Yeah. I don't know if the second one or deems it's probably like $5 on God. - Good old games, yeah, probably. Yeah, that would be, it would definitely be worth $5. And I've been, I beat Monkey Island, I downloaded the special edition. - I've gotten a little bit into it. What do you think of it? - The, well, I, I played it probably, I don't know, 10 times or so in the 80s, you know, like over and over and over again. And it was funny because like, I can remember, I could always remember little bits of it and I downloaded it and I started playing it. And like it all started coming back. And like, I blew through most of the game. I was like, oh yeah, I remember now I gotta go do this and this and this. And it like, it really, it really was a nice experience in that regard 'cause I didn't experience any of that old school adventure game frustration of what do I do now? 'Cause I, it was all coming back to me. And I still really enjoy this thing in the next game. - And there's a hint system in the game though now. - There is a hint system and I did use that a couple times actually. And it's a good hint system too. It's like, it's a really good one. - Yeah, like it doesn't give it away right off the bat. It gives you like, it gets more and more specific if you need it. - Yeah. - Yeah. - And so I did the, so I like, I played through that whole game and I really enjoyed the experience. I love the idea of the sword battles are still the best thing ever. - Insult sword fighting? - Insult sword fighting. - Yeah, the one thing Ryan didn't like about it, Ryan Scott was that he thought it was kind of, he didn't like the fact you couldn't skip through dialogue. - You can't. - I agree, no. - No, you can't. - You can't pull wide, a skip past dialogue. - No, you can't. You can't. - Back with the person that said that on our comments is wrong. - You cannot skip the dialogue. In fact it says, you can skip scenes. - You can skip whole sections of dialogue, but you can't skip lines. Like you have to listen to it. - Oh, you can't advance dialogue, okay. - Which is awful. Which is fortunately not a mistake they made in Tales from Monkey Island, which I also downloaded and started playing. And it's pretty good. I mean, it makes sense that it's pretty good, but yeah, I'm really liking it so far and I'm hoping that it has like multiple episodes. I'm hoping it has a long lifespan like the Sam and Max's did, you know? - I think didn't they do like a pre-order thing? - Well, right, but he's saying like beyond even five or something like that. Like Sam and Max has gone multiple seasons. Yeah, I mean, when I talk to the people at that company tell us how they said, you know, they're gonna keep doing that. They'd like to keep doing other ones like Sam and Max and then they said the ideal company thing would be that like within two years they would be putting out one game a week of-- - Wow. - Like so an episode of Sam and Max this week, an episode of Monkey Island the next week, episode of this, the following week. - That's so hardcore. I mean there, if anyone can do it, I guess it would be them. They're the only people that have really gotten the episode of-- - Well, that would not be with us. I'm sure that would not be with the same size company they are now, but it'd be like if they were selling well enough that they-- - I just had to figure that there'd be some kind of consumer fatigue if they're releasing that much product 'cause so much of the stuff they release caters to the same audience. - Well, if they did it, if they did it seasonally like a television show as opposed to like constantly, then maybe they can assuage some of that consumer fatigue 'cause I agree like I would get tired with it and I would lose track like I would not play for two or three months and I'd have so much stuff backed up I probably wouldn't do it. - I mean the games are, each episode is only like two or three hours long to rest. - True and they are pretty simple. I mean like the reason why they can get it done is because they're, because the worlds and the characters, they're very super stylized but they're very low polygon. - Yeah and they use a lot of it. - And they reuse a lot of it. So they're able to, they're able to, they do good work with the assets that they build for themselves. - But if people out there would ever wanna see remakes of the original Semimax, Day of the Tentacle Full Throttle, I really do think that how this monkey island remakes cells is going to determine a big factor in that. - There's a little disappointed with some of the special edition artwork. Like some of it was just kind of bad. - I guess but the environments are still like when you switch back and forth and it is pretty impressive that someone went in there and handed all that art for every section. - Totally agree. - And animation like there wasn't that great. - Oh well that's because it had to match frame to frame the existing animation from the old school monkey island. I mean that kind of wasn't the fault of the artist. - Yeah no. - I'm not. - I'm just saying that like the, if you take a still shot from a lot of these things and like look at it, let's say that's just badly done. - Tim Schafer did a lot of the writing on this. If that's what he's anybody did. This is back in the day when he worked for LucasArts. - When he was honing his craft. - It's funny to like see references from that time period like pop culture references in the writing. And some of the writing also reminds me of the kind of humor that gamer techy nerds would have had back then too. - They're one of their, I recognize voices from psychonauts as you were playing. - Maybe I mean the big thing was that they, they pulled voice acting from the later LucasArts monkey island games and actually brought those people over. Like they didn't really, they. - I didn't know that, that's awesome. - Yeah, like when I was at the telltale thing at E3 with Ryan, Ryan of course knows all those fucking people by name. So he was like his Dominic blah, blah, blah, returning to be Guybrush three foot and they're like, yes. (laughing) And you know, and you could tell they were like, fuck man, this guy's asking these questions like no one else asked. (laughing) So they literally brought back everyone. - That's so cool. - To do the voice acting. So. - So what else are you going to play Matt? - That's mostly it except stuff, Republic Commando for Gang Club. But we will talk about that in detail. - I guess it's down to me. I finished Ghostbusters and unfortunately it did what I was hoping it wouldn't do, which is sort of fall apart narratively near the end and feel like it got parts cut out. - Bomber. - Do you think it could still make a good movie? (laughing) - The story, like the premise and like the movement of the characters and all that could make a decent movie. But I mean, first of all, it's hard to tell because then they take the story that was written by people who do that for a living that are good at it and then they put it in the hands of a studio that I don't think was up to the task. And so it gets butchered both presentationally and their parts are like, well, there's all this script for a level that we just don't have the time or money to do or like we can't get this bug fixed. So it's just gonna have to go. - So. - Sometimes I think that game developers when they're taking on a project of that scope and scale, they need to start with the beginning and the ending and get those super polished. And then if they have to drop something then you can drop something in the middle 'cause sometimes-- - Somebody in the room whose name tag says gravity that like slaps them on the hand when they're like prototyping a game saying, no, there's not enough time for that. That will fail and you know it will fail. And that's gonna fuck over the story or all this presentation. It's just writing is such a small part of games like in the execution that that's the thing that goes. Like when I was talking to the guys from Neversoft they talked about how that was the big problem with the story and gun is that there was a ton of stuff that got cut out. - Yeah. - So Ghostbusters, more battlefield now that it's working a little better. I played entirely too much battlefield this weekend and hurt myself. - I still wish the, had you hurt yourself? - I don't know, my index finger and like down like the muscle in my arm toward my elbow. - Are there holds controller kind of weird to damage. Like if you ever watch him, he has a very particular way of holding-- - I have like this claw like grip where I will often pull the trigger with my middle finger and have my index finger that sort of dances across the face. - Yeah, Arthur uses his pointer finger for touching the face buttons. Like that blows my mind. - Wow. - I don't have to take my thumbs off the sticks. (laughing) - Isn't he? Nah, I won't even tell that joke. - You guys trying to try to try to wrap your head around that one Tyler? When I brought Tyler into the office the other day, yesterday Ryan was there and Ryan was like, I want to make Tyler play a PC game so I can just watch him try and use WASD in a mouse. (laughing) It's a foreign device. (laughing) - I'd go in like those guys, I'd never had a whopper before. - I told him I was like, it's not like Tyler's like computer disabled or something, I can just sit there and be like, (laughing) - It's not dyslexia, it's just like WASD. (laughing) I also going like sort of segueing a little bit into our topic for the next segment. I went back to my shelf for stuff that I haven't played as much because we've sort of exhausted new releases at this point, at least for the next few weeks. - You have? - I have a new time. - Yeah, I have a fair amount of games on my shelf that I feel like I need to go back and play. So first last night because for some reason I think I talked about it last week, I decided that I wanted to play it again, I was playing guitar and Metallica again and I feel the need to reiterate that that is definitely the best guitar hero that ever soft is ever done. And it's one of, it's just really good song selection and just really good note tracking and note charting and I like Metallica. (laughing) - Yeah, definitely like anytime we play rock band or guitar hero, like some of my favorite tracks were the old Metallica tracks from like Ride the Lightning or Kill 'em All. - And it has those. - Yep, so fun. - And it's just like you can tell that a lot of care went into it. Like this is the guitar hero game where they didn't feel like they were working on the chain gang. Like on a fucking 12-month-action schedule. - I don't think you better do that with Metallica, I mean. - Well no, it's not, it's not like they felt like they were forced, they weren't like a work gang. It's, they, they really enjoyed what they were doing. Like I tweeted last night and it's-- - This is all your speculation. - Well, so much from Activision QA like tweeted me back and said, yeah, we were all super into it. Like we were the ones that suggested there was a die chant during creeping death and I was like, exactly, because they're Metallica fans fucking everywhere. But yeah, so Metallica. - Cool. - Interim Metallica is the good guitar hero licensed title. - I realized, are you, were there other games you still had? 'Cause I realized that there was one I did not talk about. - What didn't you talk about? - I did not talk about IL-2 stromavic birds of prey, which is the, which is a little hardcore for a lot of people, but I feel like those IL stromavic games are super hardcore. - Like they are super hardcore, right? - I can't play them. - The ones that they were published in America by Ubisoft for PC. - Do we have time to do justice? - Yeah. - Okay. - So it's just like, you know, the PC ones were super hardcore realistic sims. So the 360 PS3 one, which is Birds of Prey, is kind of like they added an arcade mode to where it's closer to like blazing angels. As far as the flying goes, it's still way more realistic as far as like your plane can get shot like in the steering column. And then you can lose steering. Like just steering, like stuff like that. Like a, and then it has like simulator mode and then above simulators, realistic. So it's like in realistic mode, there's like no outside the ship view, only cockpit. And like a, it's hard when you're playing realistic to not fly like for like 10 seconds. And, sorry, so I'm just hock to look outside our door. - All right, boy, it could be the Buffalo absurd. - It's far, it's hard enough in a realistic to fly like a hundred meters without stalling. - Jesus. - 'Cause you'll like trying to turn into big. Nah, you turned way hard and this plane could do spin out. - You feel like the Wright brothers trying to learn how to fly their plane. - Yeah, exactly. So it is, it is crazy. But when you're playing on the arcade mode, I checked out the multiplayer and stuff. And the multiplayer has a lot of potential to be really cool. In the same way that you might like aerial battles in Battlefield 1943, like when you're doing like these multiplayer modes in Sturmovic, because there's like such a crazy selection of World War II planes, you can literally fly where like people are doing like, and their missions like take out the enemy ground targets and they have to take out enemy ground targets. So if you're playing with like a full 16 players, I could see how it could be really cool 'cause then like Arthur could be like really good at bombing and he could take a bomber. And then the rest of us could take fighters and cover him. Like it's just gonna matter like with how full we can. - And I could have gunners. I always wanted tail gunners. - Well, there are tail gunners, but those aren't controlled by you. Those are AI controlled, so. - Bomber. - Yeah, it is really fun. And the single player is kind of cool during the single player missions and stuff. I just think if you're into like flight sim style games like Blazing Angels and stuff, you could play this. And if you want to get really hardcore. - I'm just waiting for the inevitable complaint that always follows whenever there's a good flight multiplayer game that comes out, which is people bitch same. When's the next Crimson Sky? It's gonna come out. - So the only one bitch part I will make about this though is that some of the multiplayer modes aren't that fun. Like the one where you have to capture the airstrip by landing on it, which is like a battlefield like Ticamoy by capturing it, but the land. But once the only way you capture is by landing, so then you'd set the sit there in the airstrip and do like nothing while people are coming down and shooting you. And the other part about it is that it is the hardest game to land a plane in since the top gun for NES. - Wow. - So if that throws you back. - The top gun looks like impossible to land in. This game is easily like, you'll be like, all right. And you'll be like, I got this. I'm totally coming in explode when we're playing multiplayer. It was literally just a scrolling thing of so and so explode. So close themselves, so, so, so, because everyone was trying to land to capture the airstrip. And after a while, it just got kind of embarrassing. - I mean, you have to understand that a lot of the people that are into the aisle two games are the same people that like your old roommate, Brian, would like sit there and have a boner for six hours flying across the Atlantic and flight simulator. - Which is the weird thing to me because this aisle two thermovic birds of prey thing is not coming out for PC. It's a PS330, which maybe that'll do really well in Russia 'cause it's being published by one C who's a Russian company, but it's like here in America. It's like-- - Isn't there a version of it coming out for PC? - No, not that I've seen. - Wow. - This is a-- - There are gonna be a lot of pissed off people. - And there's a PSP and a DS version. But there is an aisle two game coming out this year for PC. I think it's caught aisle two battle Britain. - Oh, okay. - So-- - That's fine then. - Yeah. It's just that this is the one they were trying to get onto the-- - And the PC players will just like sit there in their little corner like rocking back and forth saying they're better. - And the game looks beautiful. I will say that like to me it looks like the program that they should be using to redo like battles in that dog fight TV show. Like it looks that good. Like especially when you're flying over like the French countryside and stuff. It looks like it could be used to do simulations like that. So that's what I'll buy it when it comes out probably just 'cause I kind of have a-- I like the single player a lot from what I've played, the multiplayer. - Fair enough. - We done for this segment? - Yeah, 'cause the only game I have left just plays them to the next segment. - All right, we'll wait. - Okay. - Bring it back. - Yeah. (upbeat music) ♪ Oh, the journey the future was alarming ♪ ♪ But now don't you go look so proud ♪ ♪ Just guess it's laughing now ♪ ♪ And we're running like this one began ♪ ♪ Where the weather's all right getting there ♪ ♪ So stop dragging the fields behind ♪ ♪ To carry with the folks all you need ♪ ♪ So run those things home in your car ♪ ♪ Put just a steering wheel to the media ♪ ♪ Shocking that we'd end our lives ♪ ♪ But we weren't talking all the time ♪ - No, we're not closing the door. Everybody started recording. - No, we're gonna-- - The background sounds are awesome. - Yeah, we're gonna have-- - We're gonna have some hits screaming. - Screaming shoulder neighbors. - Yeah. It just adds flavor. - That's what we're back. - Talk about flavor, flavor, flavor, flavor. I actually don't even know what our middle segment is today. I retweeted it. - You're a motherfucker. - I just didn't pay attention. (laughing) You know, we're here to talk about some shit. - You're a professional. - No, actually, I do. It's what we've been doing to fill the time in now that the big releases are out and we're waiting on more big releases. - Right. - So. - Do we wanna start our comments or go around the room? - Let's start with a comment because you know, like we began with all of us. - There's still two biscuits left. I just want everyone to know how else can I have one? - Yeah. - Matt, you can kill the biscuits if you want. I want them to you guys. - Thank you. All right, thank you. I have a white chocolate recipe. - This is a pretty good one. This is from Jason, who says the drought, which is, I guess, the word we use to describe it. - July is always the worst month of, for rain. The drought has been more of a blessing than a bad thing for me. I've been able to catch up on a lot of games I've missed, including the original Overlord, Mirrors Edge, Battlefield Bag Company, and Resident Evil 5. Really Resident Evil 5? - That's a good list. - I look forward to this point every year as it's my point to catch up from the overly crowded holiday season. Plus, most of those games are substantially cheaper six months down the line. That is correct, sorry. - Oh, mm-hmm. Yeah. - Good on you. - Where's up my home? - I'm picturing, like, I kind of missed summer vacation in a way. You know what I mean? - Yeah. - Right, yeah, it's like not, it's not fair being adults, you know? - I have to work through summer. - I don't look forward to any multiple months span where I'm just like, or even a week. Christmas break, kind of, but I usually have family shit work that I am doing. So, I just, I miss not having like an extended period of time where I don't feel bad laying around my boxers playing games for 12 hours a day. - I did, last year I did the whole family thing on Thanksgiving and informed all of my family that I would not be doing anything over Christmas, and it was made for a very nice. - Like, personal at home Christmas holiday. - You've been very intimate with that mic today. - Yeah, I know it. - Part of the thing is your chair. - Switching out the memory. - It's a nice clip in hardcore right now. - Oh, that's probably me, 'cause I was leaning into the mic on. (laughing) - Anthony's listening. - This thing I'm doing is making the mic act weird. I should do it more. - Goodnight. All right, okay. - But don't listen to mention that he was playing Resident Evil 5. That was the game that I passed up too. Did all of you play Resident Evil 5? - Oh, yeah, we got into the big race. - You haven't played Resident Evil 5? - Nope. - Oh, today you're gonna borrow Arthur's copy, and maybe we'll do that while Arthur's a comic comic. - He's playing Dead Space right now. (laughing) - Too bad. (laughing) - He's also got UFC and prototype. (laughing) - Which prototype don't care about? - UFC. - Well, bye, you can give it back to me, so I could not care about it. - I will. (laughing) - I need to, sorry about that. - Yeah, I'm actually an overlooked prototype pretty easily. - Yeah, I'm really glad that you have my copy of the prototype, so I didn't look at the wall and say, "Oh, I guess I should play the new one." (laughing) 'Cause I just, I didn't like, I'd see all these people saying, "Man, prototype is so good." And I just, I don't get it. - I don't see it. - Like, I understand the concept of people thinking that all this list of things that you can do in prototype is awesome, but the execution is just, I've never seen so much destruction be so boring. (laughing) - Well, especially when you've got red faction to play. - Yeah, although the destruction is fucking awesome. - People have been pointing out that this has become the red faction filletio show. - It's over. - It is, I'm sorry that the game is so good. I mean-- - Right. - I creeped into the top 10 last month. - Uh-huh, number 10. - Tread into the top 10. (laughing) Jason Wilson could be listening, and I don't wanna go. (laughing) - Yeah, I had a feeling prototype was gonna be really popular with just, you know, just the mask. To me, I looked at it-- - It's so targeted to a demographic. - Yep, has mask market appeal, and that's why it was number one spot on MPDs. - Wow, that's number one. - Was it number one? - Yeah. - Number one. - The 360 version. - Yep. - Well, I mean, like, I don't think it definitely doesn't deserve a number one place in terms of quality, but the fact that it was so popular might mean that, all right, well, the next one will have a bigger budget and a longer time to finish it, and the next one could be really good. - Yeah, I mean, Vellition's never made anything that felt like super, super high budget. Like, even Red Faction 2 kind of had that, like-- - A lot of people really thought a lot of Saints Row 2. - But even Saints Row 2 was a good game, but again, like, Red Faction, a good game, but it didn't, it kind of had, like, not the same polish that, like, GTA's-- - Oh, yeah, there were, I mean-- - They've always had a lot of technical issues. - That's what I mean. - In fact, when actions are always surprising, it's like their most technically solid game, while being their single most ambitious title. - Word. - Word. - Word. - Word. - What else does people say? What other-- - Explosion, man. Plain and simple. - Yeah, that's what you'll think, and then you'll play, that's a game that you can only play for, like, an hour to time, though. - Before you want to hurt something? - Me, yeah, I can't play it for-- Like, oh, and I also discovered that if you die enough on any given level, it offers you, like, the way of the coward. Did that ever happen to you? - No. - You have to die a lot. - No, no, no, no, no. - The one I want, I'll just let you go to the next level. - Yes. - Wow, that's awesome. - Ninja guidance you. (laughs) Does it make you wear a girly dress? - No, it just tells you. You can take the way of the coward, if you want. - That's what it did for me. - Are you saying that girls can't play hardcore games? - I know, I'm saying that there's a stereotype that girls can't play hard games. Like, in Ninja Guide and Black, if you died a lot, it would give you Ninja Dog mode, but you had to wear, like, a pink band around your arm, I think. - Oh, it did that? - Yeah. - I didn't know that. - It was an item you could put on that made you more powerful. - Well, hmm, yeah, that's nothing. - It's a gopey, a misogynist? - Yeah, who would have thought? - It's a second Connor's explosion man comment. Slow period, Pish Posh. Explos, when rocking it. Droplets, battlefield, secret, monkey island, and now explosion man. - Well, really, this is the best time that you can release games on XBLA, and not have them get ignored. When there's no retail releases coming, so. - And also, apparently, to have Microsoft really put marketing behind them. - Well, I mean, they're doing it at the right time of the year. I just wish that they were doing more with community game stuff. - Although-- - They're relaunching community game stuff. - Retail games are actually out right now. During this slow time, that little King story game just came out and heard, "That's good for we." - It is, I'm playing it, so it's actually good. That's new than probably 50,000 other people during its lifetime. - Yeah, maybe, which is sad. I'm hoping that more people want to pick it up, because it's kind of a cross between Overlord and Slash Pikmin and like a Siv City kind of game. And if you've got a Wii and you're not really, Wii Sports Resort is really good too, but Wii Sports Resort is the kind of thing that I can't just sit down and play for six to eight hours, but little King story, totally can. That game was a big sleeper hit for me. - Yeah, that's just like one of the only games releasing this month of note. - I have three words for you, Matt. Zach and Wiki. - Zach and Wiki? But Zach and no new copies of that out anymore, so-- - Well, no, I'm not saying to buy it, I'm saying that that is the fate that lies ahead for little King story. - Oh, okay. I don't know, little King story sounds better than and more approachable to a mom, I think, than Zach and Wiki. - Fair enough. - So, what about you guys? Tyler? - Yeah, Anthony, actually, when you guys set me up with a PC, sort of gave me an onslaught of PC games. And I guess with all the battlefield hubbub going on, I wanted to see what Battlefield 2 was about, kind of check out modern combat. So I sort of installed that on my PC and jumped into the single player. I was messing around with it, you know, adjusted to the controls pretty quickly and, you know, there's like six different classes which I enjoy and, you know, a lot of different vehicles, like all kind of really, really cool, you know, deep, battlefield gameplay, which I was really excited about. And so I tried to jump into a multiplayer server, but I kept getting kicked by the pump buster, saying I was cheating or something. - Really? - Yeah, and so I was like looking on the forums and, you know, I'm new to PC gaming, so I'm sure I'm gonna come off as an idiot. - What's in any file? - Yeah, right. And, you know, I was like reading, like a lot of the rooms would have stuff turned off, like, you know, you can't jump in the room or you can't pick a class that has C4. - Welcome to the dark side of PC gaming's title. - I was like, what is this bullshit? - That's why I went and jumped in a game? - Yeah. - You're gonna tell me how I'm gonna play? - It's because people would find the exploits, yeah. - Yeah, I'm not saying that these are people, these are just like, you're playing with the hardcore people that are still playing. - You know that point there, they're gonna crack down. - All the obnoxious shit that people do in like Call of Duty 4 or Halo 3. Now imagine if you could prevent people from doing anything that could even lead to that. - Right. - I don't know. I never mind any much obnoxious favor. - Right, obnoxious, not even obnoxious, like people going outside the level. - Excellent, right, yeah. - That's messed up. - I can understand, I can understand that. - So that's why they disabled jumping 'cause they're like, now you're not even gonna be able to sit there and try and get over that wall, fucker. I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying. - Right, so yeah, I think I tried about four times to jump into a game and I guess when I would get one kill, their system would recognize me and boot me. Every time I get one kill. - Wow. - Yeah, wow. - That sucks. - Did you not have the latest version of punk buster or some shit? - Me, man, I don't know, dude. (both laughing) - What the fuck? - Welcome to the dark side. - Right, I just wanted to play battlefield. - That's another reason why when I play multiplayer games, I love just playing them through steam is 'cause I know everything is gonna be patched up to the latest whatever and it's gonna work. - Yeah. - As well as it can. - As well as it can, yeah. Well, I mean, what you were talking about with those custom service endings, Tyler, that's the same reason why. I've been playing a lot of Team Fortress 2 the last couple of weeks 'cause I was like, man, I never did go get all those medic achievements and unlock all the extra medic stuff 'cause the medic was always my class. So I just started doing that. It's just as fun as it always was. And only now it's even more fun because there's the new maps and the experience system and unlocking new weapons and shit like that. And I'm having a really, really good time with it. But their new server browser, the Steam server browser, I hate it 'cause it just brings up the levels, the servers and it shows what maps they're loaded and their server name or whatever. But I can't sort by paying your number of players or anything like that anymore. I'm like, what the hell? Why did they take that out? That pisses me off to know in. - It doesn't make any sense to me. - But I always make sure that I'm only going towards ones that are stock valve map rotation and that kind of stuff. And I don't go to any of the custom servers and that kind of shit 'cause I never know what they've done to ruin the game for me. - Yeah, I mean, LeftoDead has that going on too. Like my friend was saying his problem with LeftoDead on PC right now is that he's having a hard time finding valve run servers at this point. They're all private run. And he says sometimes they do weird shit, like make the tank move at a million miles an hour. But he said some of them are really cool 'cause he did one where like you had the option of crawling when you weren't shooting. So like if you got downed, you could sit there and slowly move towards your friends to get revived. - That's so cool. - Yeah, but like sometimes those custom servers and sometimes like, and I'm sure that if I play enough TF2, I'll get bored enough with the valve maps that I'll start playing the custom servers again 'cause some of that stuff really does pop up and it can be awesome. - Like I understand that like user generated content is the current thing that everyone is trying to bring in but a lot of times I feel like I don't want this to be taken the wrong way, but I'm like fuck users. I want content the designers made because they made it knowing what was gonna be fun as opposed to what sounded good in chat. - Well sometimes, sorry. I was gonna say it's not just the current thing. I mean, when you're talking about games like Team Fortress 2, that's the way it's always been. That like, you know, as far back as I can remember there's been, you know, mutations in Unreal and the custom map downloads for the Half Life games and Quake games and stuff like that. That's just the way it is on the PC. So, I mean, if you're, if you have, I think that's probably one reason why they changed the server browser to be 'cause, you know, 'cause all of the maps that are Valve approved, they all load at the, that are Valve maps, they all load at the top and they have a screenshot associated with them and all of the custom ones have like this generic kind of-- - It's like the Wild West. - Yeah, exactly. And so you know what you're hopping into just by looking at the server browser. I just wish that they hadn't taken out all the features that I actually use, like my cuts and features and sorting my ping and stuff like that. - And to go back to what you said, sometimes user-created content does lead to developers taking that idea and refining it like-- - Exactly. - Like Rocket Race and Halo's a great user-created mode, right? And that's-- - Yeah, but I feel like those are so far, far, few and far between. And also the way that Halo enables user-created content is so simplified that their ability to break the game is set at a very low barrier, as opposed to, say, making the tank run 1,000 miles per hour. - Or a little big planet, that's another game that does user-created content, right? And so-- - I mean, just-- - There's just be an easy way to sort it when you're talking about, you know, games like Team Fortress 2 or Counter Shack, whatever. There just needs to be an easy way to go between stock and custom maps. And a lot of times, you know, if it's their custom maps, the server will be labeled as such. So you just have to pay a little bit extra attention. - What was that eye roll about when I said little big planet? - I just feel like there are a lot of levels and little big planet that are crap and then a few that are amazing. - Right, but that's why you sort 'em out by how many people have rated 'em great. That's how I find all my good ones. Or you find one user, one creator who's good, and you can look at all his levels. So that's a game I really need to play. - I need to go back-- - Especially now there's been some really good ones like the-- - They just crossed a million levels. - Yeah, you need to play the dead space version of a little big planet. It's actually really nice. - A little big dead space. - Yeah, sounds fun. - So. - Yeah, I need to get back into that. I need to finish it, I need to write it at the end. - I've barely gone into that game at all. I feel really bad about it. - Oh man. - Get up with another one, I'd say. - This is from Justin Allen. He says, "Slow period. I feel like I play games a lot and I can't keep up. I have several games from my way back. I couldn't start in May. I'm, God, basically he has a lot of games from way back that he couldn't start or never got to finish. He lists a few, he says, "Wanted." I don't know that that needs to be on your list, Justin. (laughing) - I have perfect, it doesn't. - Ghostbusters, lower on the list. Call of Juarez, I really liked. Armed and dangerous, yes. Yes, please. - Armed and dangerous. - Any game with a shotgun wins points for me. - That's Sam and Max, grand theft auto. Chinatown worse, also a good game. Fallout 3, that game is enough to keep you going through like a month. - Especially if you're talking about downloadable content. - Yeah, that's one of the things that someone else pointed out and I agree with is that one of the nice things about Fallout 3 is that there has been a consistent enough DLC schedule on 3.16 PC where I feel like I can keep going back to that game. I mean, mothership Zeta comes out not next week, but the week after. - And they got to fund all that reward development. - Yeah, a week and a half ago, I started two weeks ago or whatever, I started because playing the DLC because mothership Zeta's coming out and I was like, I don't want to be that far behind. So I downloaded and played. - Broken steel? - Broken steel and point look out. - Okay. - Both of those. - Those are the good ones. - They're awesome. - Yeah. - I really like the other two as well, but like broken steel and point look out are definitely a cut above. - Yeah. - At this point I'm waiting to buy Fallout until it comes packaged with all the DLCs. - Yeah, at this point if you don't have Fallout, then there's almost honestly not really much point in buying it unless you find it used for like 10 bucks. - Yeah, 'cause it's kind of, 'cause they're what, the other one comes out and it's like the same, it's like 60 bucks. - It's 60 bucks and it has all five pieces of DLC. - Yeah. - Yeah, so I'm waiting at this point. - 'Cause supposedly mothership Zeta is the last piece of content they're releasing. - Right. - But we'll see. - Yeah. - They got to get cranking on fucking the next oblivion. - They've got to get cranking on, get the PS3 downloadable content working. - Mm. - Wow. - We got delayed. A lot of people kept asking about Fallout 3 DLC for PS3. None of us can, or you and I can't talk today. And it's been delayed until, I mean, fall is the rough estimate they're giving because they can't get it all to work together. - I like that PS3. - Which is the same problem that they had with oblivion. So the same engine issues they're presenting themselves again. - Mm. - Just 'cause they deal with DLC, really weird. Like it loads, all of it always loads together with everything else and there's just not enough memory on the PS3 to achieve a playable frame rate. Like even a 360 version like Point Lookout felt like it was, the frame rate was not great in a lot of spots. - Well that was happening on my PC version too. And I mean, I play with all details, maxed it, at max resolution and everything like that. But all the rest of Fallout runs great, but Point Lookout, I think it's the fog, maybe it doesn't. 'Cause as soon as I got into Point Lookout, I dropped probably a good 25 to 30 frames. - Madam, have you ever downloaded any of the armor mods for PC? I saw some, just looking around mods for Fallout. - Yeah, there's lots of really cool mods, but like, I haven't downloaded any of the armor ones, 'cause they all tend to not be up to snuff. Like I'll look at the screenshots or like, and then they always do things like, the power armor is now weightless. And I'm like, I don't want power armor to be a bird. Yeah, it's basically just cheap. And like, I don't like that kind of stuff. But I, the one thing that I have downloaded is that I downloaded like a high res sky texture pack. I download one which puts a better sun. So like, when you look at the sun, it has like sun spots and it has a bloom around the sun and stuff like that. It looks really cool, it's sunset. - So, the DLC for Fallout 3 for PC, you pay for that through Steam? - It's Games for Windows. - It's Games for Windows, okay. So how do you buy it? - Through the Games for Windows. - Games for Windows. - Ah, okay. Guess what else has achievements on PC, Tyler? - Fallout, yeah. - Whoa. - You could even double up all your three seasons. - Double up! - That's why I'm tempted to play through the PC version so I can play as an evil character and get all those achievements all over again. - All over again. - I would like to play through. How is the PC version of Oblivion? - It's great, I have an extra copy or you can take-- - Really? - Do the achievements? - No. - Ah! - There's no, that was what games for Windows live initiative. (laughing) - Oh! - The thing, the thing what they did with, I haven't seen any of these kinds of mods for Fallout, but for Oblivion, I saw a lot of mods that were like, I have a powerful PC, why does this look like an Xbox game? And so there's a lot of mods for Oblivion which are, they take the, Oblivion uses thing called Speedtree, which is what makes their forest look so cool. And so basically, they increased the number of trees by like a thousand percent at distance too, so that when you're standing on a cliff looking out over the land, you're looking over a forest instead of on the Xbox version, it looks like you have a forest at your feet and everywhere else is like a dead zone. - Yeah. - Because like the trees just thin out. - Patchy blanket. Now let me ask you this 'cause I downloaded a mod for Crisis that I was trying to work. It was like another like sort of graphical enhancement mod where it sort of created like a shadow with muzzle flash. You know, because the muzzle flash is apparently going to create shadow in Crisis, but I was having a hard time getting it to work. I don't know, you guys ever find some toxic mods? - It seemed like such a minor thing. - Yeah. - I like to take a game with such obscene graphics to say, we need to put that up a little bit more. (laughs) A little bit. - I have another comment and this one should warm Anthony's heart cockles. I finally got her, this is from Adam Bird. I finally got around to building painting my first Warhammer army. Decided to roll as the batonians. - Not a whole army. - It's fun to build them, but I am having a hell of a time painting them. I've heard that it's better to paint them before you assemble them and I have also been told that if you paint them before you put them together, the glue won't stick as well. Yeah, I never painted them before I put them together. - You should always, you should... - Primer the pewter pieces. - You can primer everything before you put it together, but I wouldn't, you don't paint it before you put together. The only things I would paint before you put it together are things like a shield. You can paint the underside of the guy's arm before you put the shield on the back of the shield, but I wouldn't put things together as much as you can before painting. - Washes and dry brushing are your friend. - Yeah, if you want them to look like that, I'm just saying, it depends how much technique you're actually going to put and do it in how much time. - It's just easier to pick out details with dry brushing, like for... - It is, I'm just saying again, how much he's going for. Bretonians don't have that much to dry brush anyways. - Jet Set Lemming reminds us that Bethesda released Daggerfall for free. - Oh, wow. - And not only that, but there are detailed instructions on getting it to work. - Did they fix it? - Ah, what do you mean? 'Cause Daggerfall, even after several patches, was still buggy as hell. - Like, did you want to be specific about that? - It's just crushes. I mean, like the original Daggerfall was unplayable when it was first released. It had so many bugs, it was fucking awesome. - A PC game, you don't say. - Well, this is bad even for back in the day when Daggerfall was released and, you know, it was really, really bad. And so they released like a big patch for it, which fixed a bunch of stuff. And I think they ended up releasing a couple of others. I can't remember the total number, but like, even after all was said and done that game, still for some people, ended up being totally unplayable. - Is this in the oblivion universe? - It's in the Elder Scrolls. - Yeah. - Oh, I'm sorry, that's the Elder Scrolls. - It's the second one. - It's the first one. - It's the first one. - The first one was Arena. - Yeah, okay. - Preach. - It was Arena. - And then it-- - And then it-- - Three was Morrowind. - Yep. - And so on and so forth. - Yeah. - Man, it's just Oakland ambiance, nonstop today. (laughing) Aaron M says I don't play the vast majority of releases anyway, so I've just been playing games how I still finish this copy of Bioshock that's sitting on top of my 360 for shame. - I still haven't finished Bioshock. - I don't know, it depends. If you played up to a certain point, I'd say you could have your fill. - After meeting Ryan. - Maybe even a little bit after that. - I already know the twist in the game. - You can't exist this long without having heard about it from somebody. - Mm-hmm. - So what are non-game things that people are doing? - Reading. - What books are you reading, Matt? - I was reading, I ran out of free stuff to download on my Kindle app for the iPhone, but then they just put up a Star Wars book, so I was for free, so I was like shit. - Which Star Wars book? - That one. It's like something about the Sith, it's like the first book of some Sith series. I don't remember which one it was. And then they had this other book download called It's Free, the title of it is Free, and it's about how people expect free content on the internet and how the modern business way of giving stuff away for free is turning out to be far more profitable than charging for things when you give away stuff for free and then you charge for a different level of service or you charge for other kinds of services that you offer. So it's, I figure it's particularly relevant to what I do. - Was that written by one of the editors of the Wire? - Of Wired, yeah it was. - Of Wired, yeah it was. - Yeah, it's written by their E&C, I think. - Is it? - Yeah. - I think I heard an interview with him on Fresh Air. - Mm-hmm. - Yeah, it's like the old concept of razor blades, right? Give 'em-- - Right. - Give 'em the thing of things. - Yeah, it's funny because like in the first couple of chapters-- - That was an eloquent explanation. - It was like the first chapter of the book, it talks about the razor blade thing and how the razor blade thing is old school, but here's the new school way that you're still doing it. - Yeah, that was actually one of the first instances of that sort of business model. - Reading Star Wars, The Lost Tribe of the Sith book one. - That is not the only piece of disposable entertainment trash that Matt is filling his time with. - That's true. - True blood. (laughs) - I was watching, yeah, the first season of True Blood. - It's really good. - All right, I guess one time is your flight. - 9.30. - Yeah, we should wrap this up then, so. - I'm going to Comic-Con. - I am going to Comic-Con, which is interrupting me playing Fable, which was my Fable 2, which is what I'm doing to occupy the dry spell. - Which then Arthur can come back next week and tell us about like the two seconds of video game related stuff he got this year. - There are so many games on the floor. - There are some, but most of the video game stuff's actually going on today, so. - Have you been to Comic-Con before? - Well, I'm saying most of the video game stuff, though, is today and by invitation only. - No, but I'm saying that just on the show floor, it's-- - Oh, I mean, there are games, but it's stuff that everyone's already seen. I'm saying like the newer games and stuff a lot of times. Like they don't typically do like, like I'm saying, just from the PR blast things we get, if you want to see like the stuff that hasn't quite been shown before. 'Cause this is the stuff they showed at E3 that they're then going to show publicly, a lot of times, stuff like that, but today's Activision and EA's events, so. But yeah. - That reminds me of another game I want to play as a Sims 3. I haven't gotten around to play that one yet. - So old have seen me well last month. - Of course it did. It's the Sims. - Yeah, Fable 2 just feels like it's so light and pastel and pretty and exciting. - Especially after playing most of the other games. - Like everything else I've played this year has been so drab in comparison to where I'm like, yes, I will chop wood. - Yeah. - I think wood is fine. - Fable is an unbelievably delightful game. I played through that whole thing twice last year in the middle of the holiday rush, I enjoy it so much. - Man. - I don't know, basically the consensus from the listeners is that there's been so many games at the beginning of this year and the end of last year that almost no one is really feeling like they're. - In a glut. - Or in a, there's a set of things. - Right. - That's right. - Hey, take a break. Come back to letters. Even on the jet plane. - Really? - Really? (upbeat music) ♪ Hey, hey ♪ ♪ How many shape are things to come ♪ ♪ I'm the winner of the soldier ♪ ♪ And I say now ♪ ♪ When I say now ♪ ♪ That's my option for making ♪ ♪ The shape of things to come ♪ - Okay, yep. We should play games while Arthur is gone. - What are you doing, darling? - Anthony. - That's surprising. - So that you don't get lonely without Arthur here. - Ah, I'll be fine. - So we should play some games anyway. - What are you doing, Tyler? - I don't know, I was just wrapping my jacket around my phone. - So, this guy's name is Reginald. - Okay. - After a good start. - Reginald writes and it says, when you guys have to write a review for a game, do you write notes while playing it? Or do you remember with an out notes all the information you want to write down? I used to take notes when I started doing reviews and now I do not. I don't take any notes whatsoever unless there's like key things that I think of. Like when I'm doing them, like, gotta mention this part 'cause it sucked. - What do you think of something really clever that's biting from bad reviews? - I don't really, I don't take notes. - I always take notes. Everything I do, I take notes, I write outlines. To me, it just helps. - That's how it takes notes in the bathroom. - I guess it's like if you're gonna, however you would do it for a school paper or something, I guess. 'Cause I always took a lot of notes in history class and stuff, but when it came time to study, I never used 'em, so. - I did. (laughs) - Me too. - No, whenever I first started working at OneUp, I used to take notes and but the only, I never did written reviews. I only did the video reviews, you know? And after a while, I stopped taking notes and the last probably two or three months, I started to realize, "Okay, I need to start taking notes again," because I'm doing so much more stuff in my day-to-day than I ever was working at OneUp. That the, I play a game, I go through it, and then I haven't been thinking about it enough afterwards to have it stay fresh in my mind and talk about it coherently. - 'Cause you just got so much stuff going on. - Yeah, and like, I keep seeing myself in segments on our show and afterwards being like, there was so much shit, I didn't say, while I was on camera, that I knew I should have said, so I need to start taking notes again. - Greg D writes in. The other day I was talking to one of my friends and he asked me if I could completely obliterate one game franchise from existence, what it would be and why. For some reason, I couldn't come to terms with the answer. I kept thinking of all the goddamn chain reactions that would take place. If you get rid of Halo, what would FPSs look like today? If you got rid of Resident Evil, what would survival horror genre look like? So today, I pose that same question to you. - It's totally the, it's totally like a shit, why can't I think of it now? The movie that's always out at Christmas, all the time, where. - Are you talking like a Christmas Carol? - No. - Describe it, Matt. - Describe it, and I'll tell you. - The whole point where the whole point is the lives of the people that you affect around you if you weren't actually there. - Oh, a wonderful life. - Yeah. - It's a wonderful island. - Okay. - Oh, so embarrassing. - Santa Claus, too. (laughing) - There's so many games that are like that, you know. - One game franchise you could obliterate, huh? How about, how about Anubis for Wii? A fucking game? Yeah, exactly, you never heard of it, but it's, you know, we've talked about this. - Yeah, it started with Anubis, too, even though there was never an Anubis one. It's like a cash-in game made by this fucking cash-in company. - A cash-in on something non-existent. It's not like it's based on a property. - Right, but that's what I'm saying. It's just, they're just assuming, like if we make it part two and a part three and never a part one, people are more likely to buy it. So how about that? I don't know. I can't think of anything that I would actually just completely wipe off the map. There aren't any games that I hate that much. - Right, 'cause even a bad game is a good lesson. - Mm-hmm. - It's sage advice, too. - It is. - Yeah, it's really good. - Wise, wise men. - Maybe a Leisure Suit Larry. - There you go. I could kinda-- - Yeah, that we could probably live without, actually, yeah. - You can get behind that one. - The old franchise games were good. - They weren't really-- - No, they really weren't that good. - They were awful. - They were titillating, and that was it. - They weren't even titillating, they were just bad. - They were tits. - In Neil Pingo. - Or what about that one, the guy game? Sort of in the same direction. - Yeah, but I mean, if we eliminated Leisure Suit Larry, the guy game by-- - By extension, it probably never existed. - And maybe we wouldn't have gotten Playboy the Mansion, either. - Exactly like the way this is going. - Now you see where my thought process went. - Done. - There are many branches on the tour. - All right, so this is that guy that asked about collectors edition shit. - Word. - What do you guys think about that extra stuff that comes with games? I don't mean collectors edition art books or action figures. I'm talking about cloth maps or any item that is used while playing the game. A while back or at about a game called Neenokuni the Another World from level five. And I knew right away, there was very little chance it would ever come to America. It seems kind of gimmicky at first, but personally, I think more games should try and incorporate props to help draw you in. Or at the very least, go back to the old days of needing to look at the back of the Metal Gear Solid case for code. Is it a money issue at this point or is it just not a good business idea? - I mean, games are moving and that Activision is really pushing in that direction. Yeah, I mean, welcome to instrument games and Tony Hawk's Guide. - And the rumored modern warfare two controller, whatever that would mean. - You know what? I feel like that's like a special edition normal controller as opposed to these stupid rifle mock up that you can talk or put on you. (laughing) I'd like to take that rifle and smash someone in the face with it for coming up with that idea. - But wouldn't it be hilarious if they actually really set and thought it was a good idea? - No, it would not be. (laughing) - I'd laugh. - It would be annoying. - There is this old game that I used to play over at my friend Kevin's house where it was kind of like a choose your own adventure thing. It was mostly text driven within occasional graphics but it also had like two like 500 page books that went with it that were all filled with descriptions and technical readouts and stuff. It was a space exploration action, sim game kind of thing. And I remember thinking at the time how cool it was like going to these books and reading these things and then going back into the game and applying that knowledge. - See, I think that that's cool but at no point do I want to be like flying the Millennium Falcon and having to get out like my YT-1300 fucking freighter manual being like oh my God, how do I fix this circuit? - Oh my God, I can't believe you listed the make and model of the fucking Millennium Falcon right now. (laughing) I probably got it wrong. - But I, you made it convincing. But this was a, yeah, but that was the point of this particular game. The point of a Star Wars game wouldn't be to do that kind of stuff, you know. - Right. Toby writes in and Toby says, I feel better dressed to you. Okay, a couple of episodes ago you were saying how you would be cautious meeting people from MMOs while specifically in real life due to some underage shenanigans. That's actually not what I was meeting but I just wanted to chime in. Like you remember how I said like one wap, like that kid that was in our guild drove up from LA and stayed with us and I was like, Joe, what the fuck were you thinking? Like, 'cause-- - Friggly. - Like I was like, why would you have some kid come stay with us who was like 17 or something? - Oh, meeting people from the internet that you meet in the MMO. - Yeah, and you know, and I had spoke cautiously but when I used to play Everquest, there was this one guy that always wanted to come over to our house and by roommate at the time Ian and we'd always be like, no fuck that is not coming to our house. - Out of chat, I imagine. - So, yeah, so it was just like, you know, I mean, yeah, I sat next to Ian on our computer. So I was like, no, he's not coming to our house. But he writes in and says, I just wanted to chime in and say that while I do agree that you should get with it, with you, it should also be noted, sorry, it sounds like you can't fucking speak to them. It should also be noted things can go very well for meeting online friends in real life. Case in point, I currently live in a house with my wife and two other roommates, all of whom I met and while, my wife and I own the house, they are the renters. I would go so far as to say that these guys are two of my closest friends now before meeting and while they lived in totally different states, one was having life issues due to wow addiction and the other had just lost his job and was down. - Like a wow addiction? - I convinced them both to move up here with me and I'm happy to say they are both now gainfully employed in much better places in life. Guess I should have put that in the guilt recruitment thread will help with life repair post-wow. (laughing) Plus, I mean-- - No, 'cause then you'd sound like a guru and it'd be even creepier. - Plus it means it's meeting me and my wife has had things much better off with being married to me and all. Anyways, a couple of last little notes, I wanted to say you playing your cat last podcast like Backpipes with Badass. I did that with my dog, but that was a good tunal range you were getting out of her. And he says, he says tunal is what he wrote. I just literally read it verbatim. But yeah, tunals, what it should be. Also, I'm just curious if you think you'll be playing champions online. I was super into company heroes slash COV. - So you have the lens. - It's City of Heroes, City of Heroes. - So you have the lens. - For a bit until I realize there's nothing to do after a while and it looks like champions is just gonna be better in every way. Should tide me over on MMOs until Star Wars hits. - Isn't that sort of a thing with MMOs that after a while there's nothing to do? - It just depends. I mean, while it's done-- - With the exception of WOW, obviously, which is why there are so many fucking people playing WOW. - And you know, Everquest was good about it too. That's why people stuck with the original Everquest for so long. I mean, that game's had literally an expansion every year for like 12 years now or something stupid. Or at least one or two a year. So, yeah, I mean, champions looks all right. You should read Ryan's preview about it. Ryan knows a lot more about it. I actually didn't get to go see it, but I've heard it looks like it could be cool. - Yeah, yeah. I mean, I've read Ryan's preview. - Thank you, Beth, for having more on that comment. - Yeah. - I mean, it's made by some of the original creators of City of Heroes in the first place, so. - I didn't like City of Heroes. - Yeah. I mean, but the listener at least sounds like-- - And it's got Hellgate London staff on it. - Yeah, Hellgate London. That's so suspicious. - So, Ed writes in. - Oh, man. Sad face. - I wanted to be good, too. I did. - Never mind, I shouldn't even pick this one. Sorry. Ed. - Butly did. It's not that it's a terrible letter. It's just not good for reading. - Does it just consist of dick sucking? - Yeah. - We'll read that out. - Somebody did mention though that they said we should find another term other than dick sucking, that you've made the ubiquitous term for that. They just said we should find something outside on it. - But now all we get are emails saying, blah, blah, blah, dick sucking, and then they get to the question. - Yeah, like this one literally from Connor starts off with vigorous dick sucking. (laughing) - Hey, guys. - Hi, guys. - Or not vigorous, like, soft and gentle. (laughing) - Next time. (laughing) - Slow and steady wins the race. - Hey, guys. You sometimes mention playing games online with listeners. My question is, have you ever become friends with any of your fans? Do you think there needs to be this professional boundary between you and your readers and listeners? I've run into journalists, podcasters that feel there needs to be a boundary, while others jump at the chance to add a friend on Xbox Live. Personally, I think an enthusiast press it is more than appropriate to interact with fans. - I think it's good to interact with fans. I just... - I think it's good to interact with fans, but I typically don't add any one of my friends list that I don't really like know in real life. - I mean, a lot of us have a lot of people on our friends list that we know. Unfortunately, friends list have a limited amount. - It is a hundred, but yeah, I mean, I don't know. - It's just, I don't add people on Facebook or whatever are linked in that send me a request so I don't know them, 'cause they're boundaries. - Yeah, especially something like Facebook or LinkedIn, you don't want. - It's just like, it's not like, oh, I think I'm better than you. It's just like, oh, this is my personal life. It's like, there are things that I don't talk about on the podcast. - What I would... - Personal. - What I would prefer would be to have a gamer tag, a gamer tag, a public gamer tag, and a private gamer tag. You know, like the... - To share achievements. - Yeah, that share achievements would be nice, yeah. But like, a public gamer tag where I could play with, you know, anybody who wants to be my friend, I could play with them. But, you know, when I'm just trying to jump into a game with my friends, I don't wanna get a bunch of requests from people that I don't really know might not wanna play with and then have them have hurt feelings when I ignore the requests. - And that's not to say that we're mad when you send friend requests, it's just like, not at all. - Right. I can say like, after I joined the show, I probably had, like before I joined, I had maybe like 17 friends, but afterwards, I guess just being on a lot of, I have a lot of friends requests, so now I have like, 100 friends, and they're mostly listeners. And for the most part, I don't mind it, but, you know, sometimes even when I'm playing Battlefield online, if I'm not playing with my regular crew, I just wanna play by myself because a lot of times when we play with like listeners and stuff, they just wanna like chat about like games, what's coming out. And I'm like, man, I'm playing fucking Battlefield doing, talking about games, you know, like it's serious, let's call out some positions to move on some cat points, you know? - Yeah. - Like I don't wanna be fucking alone. - Oh God, I wish I could like get a plane in that game and have a fly a banner over the island saying, you're supposed to be capturing a plane. - That is a funny banner for that fucking game. That's a great idea. - I would be the guy waiting for the plane on the carrier if I could do that. - So, we'll make Jeff's letter lost on Jeff writes in and he says, I was hoping some of you could share your wisdom with me. I'm starting college this fall at the University of Minnesota and I'll be staying in the dorms. Me and my friend are rooming together and I'm really excited. I think it'll work great. However, I've heard from everyone that rooming with a friend is a bad idea while it's too late to change and I wouldn't even if I could. I was hoping you guys could give me some advice on how to make it work or work better or any advice or stories that could help. So, I will just say that I went to college and roomed with my friend that I have had since seventh grade and we never had a problem. We roomed together for all four years of college but me and him also had a very special chemistry where it just worked like that. But yeah, I think the biggest thing you guys will need to make sure you maintain this fucking space. If it becomes an issue, make sure that there are times that if you guys have a hard time living around each other, you should find hobbies that you can do not there. - Maintain understanding, like get it through your head that just because you want something to be one way doesn't mean that that's how everyone else does it and that it's not the end of the war. Like, you need to pick your battles. It's like a relationship, pick your battles. 'Cause I mean, like I think Anthony and I have managed to be roommates and remain friends pretty well but I have definitely had a friendship that was destroyed by being a roommate with them completely. - Yeah, the only experience, the only bad roommate experiences I ever had were living with people that I didn't know beforehand. Any time I've lived with a friend, whether it was a dorm on college or afterward, it's been great. So all those people that are telling you that you shouldn't live with your friend, I'd say that that's bullshit. You know your relationship with your friend better than any of those other people do. - I mean, as long as you have like compatible personality types too, like if you're an extreme type A personality wouldn't be good to meet up with an extreme type B. - Meeting and we're like equally reclusive and equally into playing EverQuest for hours of the time. - And your neatness level should be more or less compatible as well. - Yes, I think that's extremely important actually 'cause like the first person I moved in with was the singer from one of the bands I played in for a long time and he like me, you know, maintains a very like high standard of cleanliness and design. Like our apartment looked like I bet people thought we were a gay couple 'cause our apartment was designed so well and always so nice. - I just don't think you're a gay couple of times. - You should kind of fucking redo our place for us. - But yeah, it's, I mean, just judge your compatible, the compatibility, but the reason why I say, you know, not just because your friend's what it does that mean that you would make good roommates 'cause I have really good friends that, you know, I've traveled abroad with, you know, through Europe and they, you know, typically the extreme type A personalities are the ones that have the hardest, the most, the hardest part is time, yeah, to adjusting to like unfamiliar situations or, you know. - Like if you're the guy that doesn't like people touching his stuff, you are going to have roommate problems. - Yeah. - Yeah. - If you're gonna trip over like your roommate, like eating a biscuit of yours or something or like having something, you're basically, if you're gonna trip a roommate eating a biscuit once, that's a big thing. But like, if your roommate is habitually doing shit at the biology, you should talk to them before it becomes something that something so small blows up. That's it, that's it. So the internet can find me at twitter.com/chefmoney and on gamespy.com or my writing's a peer. Tyler. Twitter.com/drt and I also started writing news. Gamespy. And then Arthur. - Same old shit. Twitter.com/e-g-i-e-s. - Yeah, and I'm at twitter.com/talkingorange and area5.tv. - Co-op. - Area5.tv. - Watch that shit. - Area5.tv. (laughs) ♪ 'Cause I'll see you right next to me ♪ ♪ With words I thought I'd never speak ♪ ♪ Away, you'll run me and I'll pray ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll see you right next to me ♪ ♪ With words I thought I'd never speak ♪ ♪ Away, you'll run me and I'll pray ♪ ♪ I'll stay for a day ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll see you right next to me ♪ ♪ With words I thought I'd never speak ♪ ♪ Away, you'll run me and I'll pray ♪ ♪ I'll stay for a day ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll see you right next to me ♪ ♪ I'll stay for a day ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll see you right next to me ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll see you right next to me ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll see you right next to me ♪ ♪ That's what happens for a day ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll stay for a day ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll stay for a day ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll stay for a day ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll see you right next to me ♪ ♪ I am not afraid to walk this world alone ♪ ♪ 'Cause I'll leave this day up before camping ♪ ♪ Nothing you can say can stop me going home ♪ (gentle music) [BLANK_AUDIO]