Rebel FM
Rebel FM - Episode 11 - 03-18-09
Join us for the magic this episode as we're joined by the unfortunately curious Patrick Klepek and special guest and podcasting Svengali Andrew Pfister as we talk about the games we've been playing (there's a lot of talk about Resident Evil 5), issues of race in games (there's a lot of talk about Resident Evil 5), and close out with letters (which are blessedly free of Resident Evil 5). This weeks music is, order of appearance: Oh Mandy, by the Spinto Band; Patent Pending by Heavens; and Damsel of Death by It Dies Today.
You are now in possession of the rebel captain. Thank you. Now we're at a situation where you're going. True. True. It is Wednesday, March 18th, 2009. Welcome to episode 11 of Rebel FM. My name is Philip Kohler. Joining me this week is the staff of eat-sleep-game.com. Anthony Gallegos. And Arthur Geese. Trying not to eat another mic. Please do. Also joining us today, freelance writer Patrick Lepic. Yo. And man on the street, Andrew Pister. Hello. How are things on the street, Andrew? Warmer today. That's encouraging. Andrew is here to bring us the weather. Excellent. And drive time traffic. All right. We're going to be talking some very serious issues today. We're going to be talking about Resident Evil 5 and racing video games. I'm sure anyone who's looked at the site has already seen. And I'm sure anyone who's looked at any video game sites in the past week has heard lots of people talking about this. But hopefully we can provide a different angle than everyone. And I'm sorry, racism. But just race. Yeah. Just how is race? As I like to say, there's a difference between racist and racial. Yeah. You do like to say that. You like to say it on a lot. I do. It's just a dinner, like in the middle conversation. Totally unrelated to anything else. That should be in your Xbox Live profile, like your motto. I think that's actually what he said after we sang Happy Birthday to him. Thanks, guys. As I always like to say. Excellent. All right. Let's start out, though, with what we've been playing, of course, as with every week. We're not starting with Arthur, so we'll start with Anthony this week. I tried some Civilization Revolution last night for DS, and that was pretty rad. And then I'm looking at my levels and they seem kind of low. They do. You're correct. Whoops. Sorry. Anyways, so I've been playing some Civil Rev and then I also played some more Civ 4, but I actually tried the Warlords expansion. All right. And so when I first tried it, I started off as a Mongolian Empire. And it was on a really small island. So I tried to take out the Spaniards right off the bat. And I geared my whole entire economy towards nothing but war. Nothing, no economic advancements. We didn't even know alpha better or anything like that. But we warred. But we danced cavemen. But we had iron swords and shit like that. But eventually I had to back out and ask for peace because I couldn't finish the job. And then Spain did the smart thing, which was made good with America. And the Aztecs, they boarded me, and then they all three attacked me and wiped me out within 20 minutes of starting. So what's the difference between the regular Civ and the Warlords expansion? I'm actually not entirely sure other than like, there are certain more Warlords. I'm a little distracted right now because Arthur's cat took a smelly shit. I don't know if you guys know. So that is some powerful poo. Did you guys change the format of the podcast since I've been on last? Oh, you're doing catfants. Oh, catfants. Oh, okay. So anyway, sorry. Don't mind our podcast. But then I played, I played another game where I played as the Viking Empire and I expanded very fast. And I played nothing but really socially, like really nice towards everyone. Everyone wanted technology. I would give it to them. And then I got myself elected to the head of the UN and then I wanted diplomatic victory because once I was elected to the head of the UN, it was like, you could do all these things to help the world, like universal suffrage. And I would never do that. And it would be like me, Supreme Leader, over and over again. I always did that too. And I played so, yeah. You did a civic with one of fucking your way to the top. Yeah. And exactly. And eventually if like people would be like, no, no, no, we're not going to make you Supreme Leader. And I'd be like, well, that's too bad because here's fusion. And they'd be like, oh, well, maybe you're not so bad. So he murders all those people, gave us a link. Yeah. I always vetoed the non-nuclear proliferation, you know, just in case, like I needed it. I've never knew it to anyone, but I've always really, really, really wanted to. Skip Bush. I did once. I did once. It's oddly satisfying. So, so from what you've played of, uh, from what you've played of Saverab, is that, uh, as good for coming up with these stories and a civilization for? Yeah, it's the exact same game, pretty much, except there are more like aggressive leaders, like certain war, like there can be more fighting, like right off the bat. Because a lot of the newer leaders are geared towards aggressive early expansion. Yeah. Every game of Saverab that I played, it was immediately war. Off the bat with my nearest neighbor, on purpose or because they declared it? They declared it. They were always aggressive. Yeah. We'll see. What I like to do is I try and, I try and win a cultural victory. So like when, uh, when I was playing as the Vikings, the only war I ever gotten to was with the Romans. And it was because I kept on focusing all my stuff around like getting rock and roll before everyone and stuff like that. And slowly my like borders would surround their city and then they would have like a revolt and ask to join me and eventually that pissed the Romans off so much, that's why he invaded. So all I would do is I would like take it on the chin for a little while and then get peace with him by giving him shit. And then eventually again, I would just like start pushing my culture, building broadcast towers right next to his borders. That's right. Life is so much better with the Vikings. Join us. So. Do you always play with like wanting to win a victory? Yeah. I guess I've never, I mean, I guess I could just play like not trying to win, just trying to be like a random. That's how I was play cause I, it's cool if I get a victory, but that's not my ultimate goal. My ultimate goal is to like eventually build up my economy, eventually build up my army. And then it's total world domination, like clearing out my continent first and then building a navy and then like farming landing parties and all this stuff and invading Poland. Yeah, pretty much. I like to do that too, especially in the ones that there's like one little island that everyone can get to, like all this changed my whole entire economy towards nothing but being the first to get a boat. So I can land some fucking. Totally. We're going to colonize that. And it'll be like the most harsh colony, like every other city will be like level 20 and that one will be level two. Like I imagine the people that are like eating each other to survive. But you know. But it's important that you plant your flag there first. Exactly. It's like an important landing position. Exactly. So that no one else will ever be there. And I have like that is a little sight that I know anyone's in the ocean. They're trying to fuck with me. I'll have that early warning sign. It always, it always. Playing this makes me understand why America like raped other plants to navy bases and stuff there, you know. And it's figured it out. Yeah. It's called strategy. I'm just kidding. I can't believe I'm just Philippines. Yeah. Yeah. So, okay. So the difference between sive rev like handheld and console and so for is because I play, I haven't really played any sieve, but I've been. I don't know. Sive rev. I can't, I didn't play in a tutorial or anything, but it seems like, and sive rev, it seems like it builds units for you sometimes, like you don't even have to tell it to do that. Yeah. I think these are constantly producing troops. It'll build like the last thing you said it to. Yeah. See that, that's in the regular sieve. It's a lot more management. Every time a city finishes it, it takes you there, and it's like, now what do you want to do? Now what do you want to do? You have to do every single decision. And the game's in sive rev a lot faster that I noticed, and you can't keep playing after someone gets a victory. Yeah. That is a little disappointing. Yeah. Because that is the cool part of civilizations after you've already won, and you've clearly already established dominance, then you can't kill everyone and light them off the continent. It's a fun time killer on DS at the very least though. I mean, I gotta know that I want to play it on console. Yeah. I don't know. Maybe if I didn't have a PC, I might want to do it. Because it looked better. Because pretty ugly. I'm the DS, let's be honest. I mean. Well, it's a DS game. I'm just saying, there is a certain visual appeal of like playing Sif 4, and you see like this really beautiful map that goes from like being nothing before us, and then eventually you like fucking deforest that whole entire thing. And now it's nothing but little cities and buildings. And eventually though, you can adopt environmentalism, and people start letting the trees come back. I always think that that's funny. I've never realized the errors of their way. I've never adopted environmentalism. No. You don't have to. Yeah. So no, no, no non-nuclear proliferation and no Kyoto protocols. I like adopting like the certain positive ones if it means that it'll put pressure on the civilizations who aren't like that. It's like it's like adopt universal suffrage dick, because then everyone else who doesn't have universal suffrage, their people will turn against them and I'm like, yes, we will do the universal suffrage, and then once everyone is in my reign, then it's fascism. Strategy. Yeah. All right. Anything else that you've been playing? And then I played Rose and Evil. Yeah. Let's talk about that. Let's just talk about that. But we'll not even touch the race. Let's just talk about it. Yeah. As a game, whether it's fun or not. Okay. So I played through it. You played through it. Yeah. Anthony and I have played through co-op together. We spent a long time, like probably half the time that we were playing co-op through the full game. We spent just like with one of us on the door hitting B over and over again to do like the calls. And then the other person, like, I would, I would sometimes, if it was Anthony, like I would sometimes open the menu and say things back. I would usually just be Anthony screaming like, come on, come on. And I'd be like, thanks. Thanks. That's like bad memories of the outbreak games. Oh, that was the only way you could talk to him about the outbreak game. I never played the outbreak games online. How terrible is that? All I have played with the computer. It was so bad. I had to review it. And I think Mark McDonald was reviewing it at the same time. And he lives like maybe, or he lived three blocks away. He would call on his cell phone because there was no voice chat. So we'd be talking to each other on our cell phones, playing the game, trying to organize. Did you listen the last couple of weeks where they talk about their kills? And to shenanigans? Yeah, no. We use voice chat on the 360 while we play kill them. Because neither of us have the patience to get our Bluetooth headset working. So that's just lazy on your part, that is true. So Phil, how was your first co-op foray through a game with Anthony? No, I mean, we had a pretty good time. I enjoyed it. I want to do more co-op with Anthony. I will say that. Yeah. When I always feel like I'm like, I'm standing somewhere and I have my leg tied to the back of a horse. And then someone slapped the horse's ass, and that is how I'm being dragged through the co-op experience. Oh, no. There wasn't like, I'm always like, go, go, go, go, go. Yeah, he's always like rushing forward, and I'm like, oh wait, there's ammo cutscene triggered. No, we didn't have, we didn't have too much like that. There were one or two times where he ran by. I'm like, he ran through a hallway and then the cutscene triggered and I was like, oh, there was ammo in that hallway. And he was like, well, I'm like, I'm like the Leroy Jenkins, I'm just like fucking do it. I ran both six vegas. Like I'm taking a very careful shot and strategizing and then all of a sudden I see like shotgun blast. Because that's how I play like, yeah, when I try to be insane, when we play Rainbow Six and he'll wear like the lightest armor and try and use a sniper rifle and I'll just wear the heaviest armor I can with a shotgun and I'll just run in and I'll take like five bullets and then I'll take cover and I'll be like, it's cool. I got the boom. That sounds like the classic buddy cop film. Yeah, exactly. In a lot of ways, that's how it is when we play. Least can in the straight man. Yeah, exactly. So the funny thing about that is that, I mean, I guess you had the shotgun, but you also like when we had to use rifles, you would take that and you were doing like a lot of the slower stuff. Yeah. I don't know. I mean, we were always going. So I guess Phil has a good pace. Phil didn't really care too much about the documents either. Your saying is, I don't. No, I'm saying that you like to read all those documents and I'm like, oh shit. We would get to the documents and Anthony would be like, you read that and tell me what it says. Would you literally read it off? I would start. I'd say readers digest it for me. I would start reading it. I'll be back and tell me what happened. I would start reading it and then get bored and just skip it. Yeah. That was the thing. They had so many very few documents compared to the old Resident Evil games, but every single one was like 15 pages and I was like, fuck. I just read them in the library section last night after I played them for a while. I suppose I could go back and do that. Yeah. One thing that really bugs me is they won't get rid of that mechanic of investigating where you hit a button, it gives you like a line of text, but half of them were just, that's a shelf. There's nothing interesting there. Yeah. Like, really? Did you have to go? Why isn't it even there? I wonder what happened here. It's not even like the old games where it was like linked to a puzzle. Now it's just, it literally is just like, doors locked, but down the hallway, there's a switch. What now? You might as well say that like comma, there's a switch in the hallway because it's like so obvious. My only problem is like, I'll hammer on X to fit it to get out of it even though I know it won't work. We'll go back into it again. There's no way to skip out of those investigations. There are. No, if you hit square again on PS3, it'll go back. I don't have a square button. I'm sure there's a corresponding button on the Xbox until I've never held one button. My assumption would be. No, I, I thought I hit B and it just wouldn't back out, but... Try a different button. I will. Well, I mean, I would try the right button. I would try the right button. As far as A and X. Okay, that's all I do. I guess I went into Resident Evil 5 though. Because of the sort of, it's got a negative buzz going on line right now. Does it? I feel like it does. And just in the general gaming community, there seems to be a lot of people who aren't happy with it. But so I went in with sort of negative expectations because of that. That's why you never pay attention to the... I ended up having a great time though, like, I mean, I ended up really, really good. I thought the first third of it was really, really, really fun. And then after that, it was like, kind of fun, kind of fun, not so fun, not so fun. But overall, the whole game was still really fun. And you're talking about your co-op experience. Yeah. Like, I'm just saying, the levels where you're fighting guys that are wielding firearms and stuff aren't nearly as cool as the early part where you're actually in an area that actually feels like an African, like, shantytown rather than later on when you're just in factories and stuff like that. Then that could be anywhere in the world. There's nothing interesting feeling to it. So the parts where it's block-rocked down with tentacles. Yeah, but I actually thought the shanty, and Nick Sutton, or even said that having lived in Africa himself, so shantytown was actually fairly convincing. That's all I'm saying, is that I was like, okay, so it is, like, kind of accurately set in a way. And Anthony doesn't, like, going up against people who also have guns. He wants the odds. He wants the odds. He wants on his side. And in some way, I think it's not... It's not even... This is an Anthony's imperialist strategy. No, I'm just saying it's not even as thrilling to fight someone who's sitting behind cover shooting at you. Like it's thrilling in some way, like, if I'm playing Gears of War, that's why I'm playing that. But I'm playing a survival horror game. I want things to be like... I want to turn and be like, oh shit, he's like right in my face. And part of the problem is they introduce a cover mechanic as you go, and you have to start taking cover a lot more because the enemies have guns, and their guns kill you really fast. But you don't have regenerating health like other games that use a cover mechanic. So it doesn't work as smoothly. Yeah, I only played roughly an hour, actually, just before we came over to record, so I had some context. That's what I keep calling it. But yeah, I played a single player, but I don't... I almost have no desire to keep playing a single player. That's what I'm doing. It's so aggravating. I almost feel like they should have just taken the single player out and been like, listen, this is just a co-op game. That's what this is. Well, you can't do that in the limit yourself. I played through a lot of it by myself, and I still had fun. You just have to figure out what you need to do to make Sheva suck less, which is... Which is frustrating. I mean, you have like, not aim your gun because she'll stand right in front of you and then shoot you in the back of the head. See, friendly fire was never on for me. I turned friendly fire on, and friendly fire... Why would you give that? Because I was curious. I wanted to see how it sounded like something I would want to play. I learned very quickly to not have friendly fire on with anything. As far as I've noticed so far, friendly fire doesn't hurt you, it just kind of, you get the effect of it. Yeah. And that's weird, but okay. What do you mean? Like, you get the effect of it. It's like Sheva. It's like Sheva. Yeah. You have like, you... An animation. Yeah. An animation to break open something, you'll like, slice you Sheva's arm. Okay. But it won't hurt her, which is just kind of odd. But it's, again, I guess it's odd to like, hit her with a knife and have her not do anything, so either way it's just kind of weird. Why are you hitting Sheva with a knife? Because I'm opening boxes. That's how you open boxes. Just get the fuck out of the way. I really like it when you're playing single player though, and you hand around when she says, "Thanks partner." Does that make you feel good inside? No, I think it sounds kind of hot. That sounds... I should have introduced myself to that lady at the RE5 event, and been like, "Can you just say thanks partner to me?" I don't know what else to say, and then I'm disturbing. The bosses I felt in the game, there are a lot of bosses, and a lot of them weren't very good. They were all not very good. They were all too easy, too. Even if you didn't take a rocket launcher to fight them, they were almost all too easy. And then the ones that weren't easy were like, obtuse, the way you were supposed to beat him. Yeah, that was the main problem I had, especially near the end, is you get to a lot of bosses where you have to figure out some specific method to beat them that isn't very clear, and it's... I mean, they don't... You stumble upon a bad accident. Or you check... Back after you did it. Or you die two times, you shoot it out and re-doing it. I never felt like there was a boss that I couldn't figure out how to beat. It was always like, "Okay, so there's an orange part. I shoot that." Or... I'm talking more towards the end. Even towards the end. Although, I will say this, last night, I was playing in the other room, and I heard Anthony playing with you over co-op, and I heard you two try to strategize on the last boss, and going over it for what, like, half an hour. It was... I mean, it was on the very final boss has a couple of different forms and stuff that you fight him in. Yeah, and I one-shotted it with a rocket launcher. Which... I mean, the inventory system is nice, and it's something that's... No, wait. I don't want to spoil the final boss, so I wouldn't ask too much. Yeah, no. I... first... I mean, can I be abstract about it? I guess. I mean... It's like a rainbow. So you beat the crap out of it with a rocket. This is... Even with context, this makes no sense, but you beat the piss out of a rock at the end of Resident Evil 5. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that part. So I beat the piss out of a rock, which is a quick-time sequence. Yeah, I mean, honestly, when you see it, it's not going to make any more sense. It's just you beating up a rock. Also, there are a lot of... There are a lot of quick-time sequences near the end. There's like basically one of the forms of the boss is surviving a long quick-time sequence. Yeah, how long? Like five or six steps, any of which failing means death. And starting over. There were a couple of points in RE4 that were like the two, and when you would fight the... What was the... The army guy's name? The day... You don't remember 'cause it doesn't matter. No. But... Yeah, but he had a bunch of... to be fair, some of the times it is almost worth failing on the... 'Cause when me and Phil were doing it, like the final fight, like I won't say what it was, but there was just a part where it was like shoot, and it was like me to mash X to shoot, and I missed it, and the guy does a flip over Phil. And then while he's mid-air, he flips and turns Phil's head backwards, and Phil's character takes like three steps running while his head's backwards, and then just falls down. That was pretty awesome. It was pretty hilarious to see that. So sometimes it's worth dying. So I felt like... I mean, the shooting, what did you guys think about the shooting, since that's like the crux of the gameplay argument it seems like? I thought it was fine after a while. I got completely used to it. Yeah, I mean, it definitely took a little while to get used to, but it was very satisfying, in my opinion. It's the same shooting from RE4. How could... I mean, if you enjoyed it when you played RE4? Yeah, but I think the difference here, like, really is the... The other character. I hear almost no complaints about the shooting from people that play co-op, but I hear a lot of complaints from people that play it by themselves, because the entire game becomes dependent on you in dealing with this side character, as opposed to just focusing on some strategy or the fun parts of the shooting and get some friends. Yeah. Aw. Thanks. I almost feel like it was the co-op guys. I don't know if they said this on the show or just to us the other day, but basically like, instead of playing single player, just go on Xbox Live or PlayStation Network and play with a random person, you'll have fun. Again, like, I hear you guys say that, and I had a lot of fun playing through it single player. I'm not saying you can't have fun, but it feels like you're playing the game with a handicap for no reason. I'm saying you can't have fun. If you have to play something where you make a character suck less to enjoy the game... It's like that something is a little bit wrong. Dealing with poorly coated artificial intelligence or dealing with stunted real intelligence, I think I might actually do a little bit of fun. Wait, like, you're just saying that Anthony was busy playing with Phil. So, Anthony... So, this is really... You just jealous. You're upset that you didn't get to play with them. Exactly. I've cut to the core of the other... There's a lot of tension in the room, right? There is. Resident Evil 5, tearing friends apart. It's kind of warm in here, too. But bringing people together. Patrick, you can take your shirt off. I just felt... Dog next to me. The big component of the gunplay for me was less, "Okay, well, you're just going to shoot guys until they die and more. I'm going to shoot this dude in the leg maybe twice and then run up and melee attack him or knife him." That's what I'm learning, too. I never showed you a feeling. The game doesn't explain the nuances of that mechanic until almost halfway through the game. It never says, "Oh, well, if you shoot this guy in the leg, you do like a hook." Or if you shoot this... It is in the manual, but who reads the manual? Those contacts, like, is like punching uppercuts, that only happens when you take out their legs? Yeah, it depends on what position you put the guy in it if you shoot him. I thought it was totally random. No, if they're crouched or something you do in uppercut, if you shoot him in the shoulder, they'll like... To be fair, it's okay. Skip's right, though. It isn't the manual. It is. So it's... Yeah, but that doesn't work these days. No manual also warns you that if you're playing co-op and the other person leaves, it could break the game and you might have to restart. The one good thing I will say about not playing co-op, though, that you get, that we didn't, was like, that Shiva does give tips about like, "Oh, we have to hide from him," or something like that, during boss fights. Like, she'll give you audio cues about the cool little thing to do. She plays Cortana. Yeah, whereas me and Phil were just like, "We would never say anything except unless we match people." Oh, where do we go? I don't feel shouting like vague instructions. That's what we do. No, I'm just kidding. Thanks. Thanks. But yeah, I mean, once I figured out that... Shoot limbs melee attack, shoot limbs melee attack, and that and better inventory management, I was having more fun. And then I figured out how to break the game with the inventory system. Yeah, I was gonna say, I don't know, because me and Phil never had a problem, like, except once where we ever actually ran out of ammo. Like, that ammo isn't an issue in that game that you don't have to melee everyone. You can literally just go for headshots the whole time. And yeah, and I mean, part of it too, I think the inventory management is less of a problem with two players because we can just talk about it and quickly switch items if we need to. It's not like you're not trying to manage two separate characters and inventories. I never really had a problem with the inventory management. What I'm saying is that there is a way to game the inventory system to essentially get infinite ammo. Yeah. Anthony mentioned to me that you did this. What exactly did you do? Okay, so if you don't want the game, like this part of the game swelled for you or whatever, then maybe you shouldn't listen. But there are parts in the game where you start at a checkpoint where if you go in, the first thing you'll find is ammo or gold or treasure or whatever. Skippy is covering his ears, I just want to know. So after you get all that ammo or treasure or whatever, you save and quit and it saves your inventory and then you reload from that checkpoint. I'm not. I'm not spoiling the story. He's not going to say the exact spot where you can do it, but there are spots where you'll start a section, a checkpoint section that you can exit and come back into where you can get stuff and then exit and then it'll save your inventory and then you go back in and get stuff and save and exit so you just keep doing that and adding ammo and adding ammo. It just kind of takes more of the survival or element, but I mean if you want to go through it a second time, like I found out the game does allow you, like I thought those points you got at the end of each level were totally worthless, but you spend those points later on after you've beat the game in a bonus item store and you can buy it. If you have any weapons you fully upgrade, you can buy infinite ammo for them. So there are things other than offensive extra costumes. But yeah, it looks really, really, really, really good. The story is kind of kind of crap. The story is Resident Evil. I don't know. The story starts off kind of good. I actually thought the intro part was really cool and stuff and I've always kind of had a, like I realize that Resident Evil stories aren't good per se, but I've always had a soft spot for them, but I feel like this one doesn't even really capture the camp. Did you feel like they skipped a full game? Oh, because like the stuff where you have all the flashbacks and stuff. Yeah, it's like, it's, it talks about stuff with Jill and Wesker in a mansion and it's like, I, I've never seen that in any of it. Yeah, I don't think it was in Konronica. I think it's just stuff that took place in another world where maybe it was like one of the random like gun survivor or maybe, but I mean, like I even sat through degeneration and there was nothing in there about it. Degeneration was pretty bad. The funny thing is degeneration, the movie looks worse than Resident Evil 5, the game. That's bad. That's the sad thing. There was one part where the game, I forgot to, like I didn't mention this as we were playing, but near the end of the game, you're fighting the final boss and the final boss gives lots of, lots of long speeches and of course, and they're very generic like anime speeches. He says, he says. I am a rock. Stop beating the piss out of me. That's correct. He does say that. No, he says, he says like, you know, like the. I'm going to have a new world order. I'm not, I'm not trying to destroy the world. I'm saving it. You're only delaying the inevitable. That kind of stuff. And then at some point Chris says, do you get all of your dialogue from comic book super villains? And I was like, all right, Capcom, that's you making fun of your own dialogue. That's not okay. That doesn't make it better. That's not being like ironic or like noticing pop culture trends. That's just like. Yeah. We recognize there were a lot of places like that where you realize like, man, this is such a Japanese game. Like the part where like that masked person comes flying through the window and it does like all slow motion. You're like, I'm watching Metal Gear. Yeah, they go fucking to jail, Kojima on your ass and quite a few spots. And there's definitely a part where it's like, oh, Capcom has seen the Matrix. Yeah. And they like it a lot. All right. So that's what I was playing. That was the games I've been playing Patrick. I was in Las Vegas as we can't talk too much about it, but to see a red faction gorilla, which comes out, I think the summer. So I'll have previews and stuff on one up on Friday afternoon, I think. But all I'll basically say is that I'm very surprised by it and I think other people will be too. It's an open world GTA style game on Mars and it was it was very. I liked red faction one and two. You like two? Which one with you? I liked two. And it was so cheesy. It was so like so bad and cheesy. Nick's favorite games. Yeah, but Nick also likes like monster battle for PS2 or whatever that game was. He like made me check it out at one up and I'm going to play like I paid like 10 minutes of an hour. I was like, I must be doing something wrong because I kept playing because I was like, it's got to be great. Nick said it was good. And then I just realized Nick doesn't always know what he's talking about. Well, I played the crap out of the original red faction just not because it was even necessarily like a really spectacular game, but just like was it a geomod? Oh, man. Just being able to blow up walls was just like just blew my mind. Like, yeah, I really enjoyed that game. Sounds like total recall. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, it kind of feels like total recall the game. I know three boobies. Thank you. Well, I didn't beat the game. So I won't cross it out. Maybe it's later. Thank you for taking it. By the way, I was like, I don't want to. Come on. Tell me that's not like a pivotal part in everybody's mind when it comes to total recall. There's three boobies and there's like, what that's this. Okay. You know, there's a total recall references in both podcasts this week. Quatto. Quatto. Yeah. The smart little like how do you spell that? I don't know. Fuck. Martian gibberish. He was a little mutant, but he wasn't mutant. He looked a lot like Chuckie. I remember he scared me as a child because of that. Moving on. You were also a punk. We don't want to go to that dark place. No, we don't. I'm almost finished with the Prince of Persia downloadable content. I think. How is that? Is that out now? I don't even. Yeah. It's been out for a couple of weeks. It's interesting because it sort of directly addresses a lot of the concerns people had. It's much harder. The platforming is a lot more difficult, but it feels difficult in some really arbitrary ways that are contrary to what I enjoyed so much about Prince of Persia beginning with, which was the game because you could jump off and you'd be saved and you never had to worry really about jumping because you would always just get put back on a platform that was like three seconds ago. The way they make it more difficult is if you miss a jump, well, you're going to, you've lost like two or three minutes of the game. They warp you back very far, you're doing a lot more of not, because the checkpoints in that game were always just if you reached on any platform. There's a lot less platforms to jump on. You're doing a lot more of actual sort of platforming, which is fun, except that that's not why I enjoyed Prince of Persia. I enjoyed it for its simplicity and like exploring like these really beautiful environments and it's really dark and dank in the new environment and there's like the one of the ways they make the platform more difficult is there's just like this weird, gooey, spiked creature that they placed all over the binds you're jumping back and forth from. They also introduce, like in occasion, they had that mechanic in Prince of Persia where you would like, you were like breathing in like the bad stuff, the corruption. And now you can die from that very quickly. So if you don't move through an area fast enough, you'll die and then have to start that over again. So I think it's sort of, it's, it works as a response to a lot of the criticisms, but I think those people were off base and their criticisms of the platforming anyway. Do you think they were tailoring the DLC to get the more likely harder core demographic that would be buying it? I think so. I mean, those are the people that are buying it. So it couldn't be a direct response to their criticisms, just because it came out so quickly after the game's release, like it'd be tough for them to build that within two, two and a half months. So they clearly specked it ahead of time. So I had some problems with the, with the game, the actual gameplay, but I did really enjoy the plot as far as the story is this like a worthwhile continuation? Well, I mean, the, the, the plot in Prince of Persia largely, you could sort of ignore if you want it, if you weren't doing any of the dialogue and so far it sort of seems to be, I, I played, I think roughly two hours, I think it's supposed to be two, like three hours. There hasn't been a whole lot of plots. Even though it's an epilogue, it sounds like all the story about what's going to happen when I beat it. That's whatever cutscene there is because it really hasn't been a whole lot. So I, I don't even know if it's necessary if you were really interested in Prince of Persia's plot to pick this up yet, but if you want to, the reason I wanted to play was because I just wanted to do more Prince of Persia platforming and instead I've sort of got this weird, bizarre version of Prince of Persia that wasn't, wasn't the game. I, I really, really loved when, when I originally threw it. Are there new achievements? There are new achievements. All right. I'll down. Also, also the, the combat is improved. Oh, really? See, that's, see, that was the part I had a lot of fun. It made some interesting tweaks to the combat. The, making the combat more difficult, I think actually does work in the game saver. They make the amount of time it takes in order to, you know, like when you, if you miss enough times the, the enemy will pounce on you and then you have to press like A, B, X or Y in order to, to get back up or else Ella could use their magic to push them away. The times where you can hit that is much shorter. Okay. So it used to be, you didn't even have to think about it. You're like, I'll get around to hitting Y and you would save, you would save the Prince. So those are much shorter, but also when you did miss them, it was really frustrating for just the health to be arbitrarily added on to the, to the enemy. Yeah. And now that doesn't happen every time. I can miss it and it's, I don't know how it determines when it adds health, but it doesn't happen every time. Okay. Cool. Also, you can kill enemies a lot faster. I found myself doing those weird combos where it would take off the entire health right away. And so the combat, and also the, even though it's the same four bosses from the original game, you're, you're, they transformed between each other. So it's like this transforming creature that will switch between different bosses in the middle of the fight. So even though it's the same ones, it's a lot less repetitive because you're fighting different bosses in the same battle. So it avoids, which was essentially the biggest, most frustrating thing about Prince of Persia's boss battles was not so much that the combat was going, but it was boring when you were fighting the same boss the fourth time in the span of like two hours. So yeah, it's this really weird mix of, it's $10. So I think it is worth, I think it's really interesting, but you pretty much should be pretty hardcore to be into it. I was just thinking for a second, $10, and like how all of our perspective has changed on that now that we're all unemployed and stuff. Yeah. And then I put skippies. Do you technically have a job now? I don't know. No, sir. He's a man on the street. Absolutely not. Quite literally. All right. This is still, this is still the unemployed podcast. Just making sure. Oh yeah. I mean, it's good. He was about to uninvite you. The thing was is that if you had a job, I was going to tell you not to come on because last time we had someone with a job, i.e. Patrick on, they then it was laid off the day. Excellent. Oh, and the other thing I was playing, like sort of by accident, before I'm traveling to go see Red Faction, I was playing Moon, the DS game from Renegade Kid. They did a, it was Dementium the Ward. I want to play the Ward game. I remember talking to you about Dementium. Yeah. Dementium was cool. It was more like a really cool proof of concept than it was like a really excellent game. But it really, it proved you can do a really fun, like you could do a really, really fun shooter on the DS and the controls are just fine. And I don't know. Did you play Moon? No, I haven't, I haven't played Moon because I was like, I wasn't sure because Dementium kind of was like, Moon is a much better game. And it's got like, really, it's got like vehicles, a bunch of different weapons, surprising atmosphere for a DS game, but it's still running like 60 frames or second. It's really cool. Like I, it's more or less was largely ignored from what I can tell. It was. I think a lot of people blew it up. If you're, if you're looking for sort of like a fun shooter on the DS, like this is a really good one and, you know, continuing the unemployment angle, like I'm pretty sure it's been discounted since it came out. I mean, how many people are looking for a good shooter on the DS though? I think there are people, a fair amount of people that... I remember a shooter, but it's something different to play on your DS. I mean, I definitely know people like Nick, for example, bringing him back up. But people who want something to play on their DS, but want something other than an RPG or a puzzle game. Yeah. I mean, I played all the way through mech warrior on DS because I enjoyed it so much. That was a shooter. Yeah. That was a great shooter on the DS. Used a, used like one of the, the D-pad controlled your movement and then the other X-Y-E-B controlled your head like a look and you did it that way and then the triggers were the guns. And actually really cool. And it still had like all the cool games of like getting out of your mech to go steal other mechs and that were hacking mini games to hack into mechs. It was really cool. The only thing is that it doesn't hold up for like prolonged play. Like I really wish there was like a glove that clipped out of the DS so it was comfortable to hold to, to be using the stylus and cupping your thumb around the D-pad at the same time because there's only, you can only do that for about 20 minutes before you just have to say fuck it. Because like, I just, I really wish there was just a really disgusting add-on. So it would make it more comfortable for, for lengthy play. Yeah. I had the same problem when I was playing Metroid Prime for DS. I like wanted to play it but I was like pinching the DS with one hand, holding it with the other hand and using like my other three fingers to tap buttons. It was like, yeah. It's like it works but it barely works. It's your large unrefined brutish American hands. I guess so. Yeah. But, yeah, I guess I played an hour of Mad World which I'm really enjoying. Yeah. Apparently Arthur hates. I just played that for about 20 minutes before the podcast. So I'm just at the beginning. Arthur, you've been playing as well. Why don't we talk about it a little bit? And though we're barely started so this is, we'll probably come back to it. Okay, so speaking of, we talked earlier about expectations going to RE5. Originally I was really looking forward to it because our friend David Ellis, from one up, really, really enjoyed his time with Mad World. Mad, Mad World, yeah. But today while I was running, I was listening to the die bomb cast and Jeff Gersman-Man hated that game and was pointing out like every flaw that he saw in it and all of a sudden when I started it, all of a sudden I was seeing everything he was talking about. So I'm not going to point out all of that stuff now. The controls feel really anachronistic. Not so much the waggle which is pretty well implemented. The chainsaw attacks with swinging the remote feel pretty good because you basically prime the chainsaw and then swing and people get split in half. But moving around with the stick feels like an old school beat them up and not in a good way. You should just talk in the microphone. I know you're trying to talk to Phil. If I talk to the microphone, I'm looking at an empty chair. You should move your microphone just because we should print out a picture of Nick and just put that out there like you're talking to Nick the whole time. No, so that would be like the one in a place in the room that I absolutely will not look. Fuck, man. Let's turn to the hate Nick podcast. Or you left! You could just print out pictures of everyone and then whoever you think you're supposed to be talking to. I'll just hold it down. There's someone else that is flipping those cards so you feel like you're talking to them. I just write Phil in a note card and put it over my junk and stare at my crotch while I'm talking. That is technically something you could do. I'm technically very okay with that. Or I could just have Phil on my own, never mind. Never mind. So you're going to complain about Matt Wood like really like, I don't know, that just seems like smaller issue stuff. I don't know what you're talking about. I guess I see what you mean with the movement. The control is a small issue thing. I feel like control is a pretty fundamental issue. I mean, I see what you mean with that just from the little time I've spent with it if only because the way of controlling the camera isn't very good because you have to basically you run around and then if you want to reset, re-center the camera behind you, you have to click via whatever the button is to do that. The top small shoulder button on the nunchuck. That one. Yeah, that one. I mean, the combat stuff feels good, like the punching and the chainsaw stuff and all that. It feels fine. The waggle stuff is actually really good. Picking up a dude and swinging him around is fun. Or the one where you pull the guy apart and you take the nunchuck and then we mount you pull it apart and the guy splits in half. I haven't gotten that far yet, but that's something I look forward to, but getting the tire of everything feels really intuitive as far as the actions you do and the actions you see on screen and that's fine. It's just moving around. It's ironically the non-waggle aspect of the control that doesn't work as well for me. I think that game has terrible box art, too. Did you see that box art film? I didn't mind the box. I feel like the position design is really, really strong. For some reason, it doesn't come together as well as I would have liked. Yeah, I'm just not having a problem with the controls. I'm really enjoying the game. I sort of see what you're saying in terms of the way the controls are a little bizarre when I'm trying to throw someone at something. I have a little trouble lining up the targeting of that, so maybe that's where I'm seeing the same sort of control issues you're having in terms of moving as an old-school brawler, but I don't know. Whenever I have a camera issue or a control issue, it's not like, I don't know, I just punch a guy and then all of a sudden it's like realigned. There's not a lot of challenge involved. The game's pretty easy, so the control and sort of niggling combat issues, I find to be niggling just because it's not that hard, like I'm not really, I don't have to worry if I could throw it around or beat up because the camera wasn't working because you have way too many lives. Yeah, I mean, I'd like to make some kind of snarky response. Well, I'm used to games that respond well to what you're doing, but I did just play all the way through Resident Evil 5, so I don't understand why it's not jelling for me, but maybe if I go back and play it tomorrow. Yeah, and I mean, I can tell 20 minutes in already that whether or not I enjoy the game overall is just going to depend on how many awesome set pieces and random cool things that they can make you do throughout the game that are entirely based around ripping people apart. It's spectacle. In ridiculous ways. I mean, I've played, but it's so far, it seems like they are doing a good job of continuing to introduce them. Pretty much every 20 minutes, there's something different. Yeah, I don't know if that will end up getting recycled as I go further, but every 20 minutes there's a new event that they're encouraging you to get enough points that you can open up that challenge or open up that boss battle and if they can keep that going for six, seven, eight hours, I mean, yeah, that's going to be awesome. Yeah, definitely. All right, I'm sure we'll talk about it more next week, Arthur, is there anything else that you wanted to? I think I was an RE5 and Cive Rev and Mad World, I played way too much PEGL. Oh, yeah. I'm going to talk about PEGL as well. After you talked about it on the podcast last week, I went home and downloaded it and that night I sat down and played through the whole single player adventure. I'm glad that's the direction your story went, instead of I sat down and Googled PEGGING, which apparently a couple of people don't. No, I did not do that. Yeah. Let's not bring that up again. People think that I'm trying to trick them when I say something like that. No, I'm curious. It's like a racist term or something. No, it's not. It's not. I don't know. I thought when people were talking about us paying racist, my thought packing was part. I don't even know what packing is, but it's a racial term. I mean, I can tell you what it is, but like, I don't want to feel responsible for loving your innocence. Let's not. I'm going to let's be on the iPhone while you guys keep talking. Got you. I actually really get out of video camera so I can find this reaction. Make sure safe search is on. Why? Why would I look then? Okay. So you play peggle. Lots of peggle, which is kind of embarrassing because I had been holding off on playing peggle until now, and it's not because I didn't understand the charm. I just... I was dumb. Well, usually when I'm playing a game on a PC, I want to spend more time on it. And yes, I'm dumb, especially after playing peggle for seven hours in a day. Yeah. So I... Oh, I want to be honest. It's for packing my sleeve husband. I want to point out, though, that like, okay, so I sat down, I played through all of the adventure mode in peggle and then like two days later. Yeah, shit. If you're lucky. Pagging. Oh. Oh. Sexual practice. Of course. Yeah. What's that supposed to mean? Where else was that going to go? Yeah. The idea of a female penetrating a male's anus where they strap on a dildo in cribbage, the use of pegs to keep score. Like... That's where I've heard it before. Never playing. The first one. See also peg and pegged. Please don't say all of them. Peg party. Anyway. Isn't that what it's called when you play multiplayer? Yes. Oh, man. We're going pegging this evening. So... Please just add an L to that next time. We're going peggling this evening. I don't teach that. Pagging is private time. I don't want to talk anymore. Can we end the podcast now? I tried. No, okay. So I was saying, I played through all of the single player and then two days later, my friend Nikki, who's in the room right now, joining us, she's visiting and she sat down and played through all the single player. So like in total, and then she played a bunch of the challenges and grand total, my 360 is logged a ridiculous number of people. Have you played any of the challenges yet? I haven't played many of them, but Nikki played a bunch of them. So I think that might be the right of passage for any peg'll player, at least once you play through the entire thing in one sitting, because I definitely did that the first time I played peg'll. I could see doing that just even after beating all the adventure mode. But it's a, I mean from what I've seen, it's a really good port of it, even though you don't get to cheat the way that Anthony cheats and uses the player. It wasn't a cheat when it was made that way originally, it's not a cheat. When you see the mouse pointer shows everywhere, so even though it's like the arcing line, you can move the mouse pointer all the way down there, so you know your hands persist. Yeah, I mean it was, it was made that way, they could have made the mouse pointer not appear. True. Wait, well, I don't really know how that'd work. They could have made it not appear, that's easy. But even little things like I, I don't like the music and peg'll, that's pretty much the The only thing about Peko I don't like. - I know. - Bong. - Except for Odejoy. - Oh, no, bong. - Because Odejoy, Odejoy. - Bong, bong, bong, bong. - Bong, bong, bong, bong, bong. - Ode, bong, bong, bong, bong. - Oh, damn. - Oh, damn. - Oh, damn. - We're using Peko music for our breaks. (laughing) - That's sweet. - Odejoy. - Odejoy is the Peko money shot, basically, when you get the last peg. So I was hesitant to use custom soundtracks, and I'm like, I don't wanna miss Odejoy, but even when you're using custom soundtracks, they'll interrupt it to play Odejoy. - That's good. - And I was like, thank you. Thank you for that. That's like- - No, I mean, people ask me if it's worth $10 over the since between now and now. Actually, it totally is. It's worth $10, not only because the challenge takes a while, but then you get the single player, and then you have all the challenge levels, and then you have multiplayer. - And the multiplayer really gets the most robust version of Peko. - I wasn't gonna buy it until I found out that it actually had multiplayer. I'm like, oh, no, I have to buy it again. - The only thing that I'm disappointed by is that, because I know Peko DS just came out, and that costs a little bit more, but that includes all the levels from Peko and Peko nights, and then bonus levels on top of that. But the multiplayer kind of makes up for that, and the fact that it's cheaper, so. - To be fair, yeah, I mean, it's $20 more. And I'm sure there is a download content option on the menu on Peko already, so I'm sure that- - That's true. - Knights is incoming after they see how well it sells. But yeah, Peko is very good. Almost done with Halo Wars. I don't know that we have anything more to say about- - Now we said everything to say about that. Everything. - Everything, Andrew. - Mostly been playing Resident Evil 5. And because I know no one else here plays sports games, I'll just say go buy MLB09 this year. - I hear that's a beautiful, beautiful game. - One of the best sports games you can get right now, and it's a good time to be a sports gamer right now, because you have hockey, NHL is amazing, and now MLB is amazing, and FIFA is making great strides, and we have Pro Evo on the Wii coming out, and the first one was great. I don't know if you've played these, but I did want to bring them up to somebody who plays sports games, 'cause I'm curious. I just recently realized that EA has started releasing a bunch of sports titles on Xbox Live Arcade. - What? - Three on NHL, three on three. - Yeah, yeah. - Is that, and then there's an NCAA one? - I didn't like the demo of it. I heard a lot of people really liked it, but the demo turned me off. - There's like an NCAA one now as well. - Yeah, March Madness. - That looks like the full game. - It's like a download it? - Yeah, it's like NBA Jam or whatever, kind of. - No, it's like a March Madness DLC for the original, I don't know. - NBA Jam's like the last basketball game I got really into. - That's what they need to bring back. Someone needs to get NBA Showtime. - Well, that's why I'm asking is because-- - First, I want my fucking Mutin League football, and then we can talk about NBA Jam. - That's why I'm asking for this, is because I'm very curious about like-- - I will throw a cat at you. - If they were going to throw a dog, more casual sports games on Xbox Live Arcade, I would possibly be interested in actually playing those, whereas like a hardcore sports game I'm not as into. - Yeah, there are two different markets with some overlapping, more overlapping than other like similar games, but definitely like two different types of mindsets you gotta go into it with. - Is the bigs any good? - Yes, that's another thing. - I was thinking about playing that this year. - 'Cause with baseball. - You have the bigs on the arcade side and then MLB on the sim side. - Now you guys are all talking about sports games. I need to pull one out of my ass so I can play like. - I heard a-- - Oh, I have a blitz. - I heard a, yeah, NFL Blitz NFL team coach, head coach, it was cool. (laughing) - Slowly back away. - From Mike. - But I mean, I've heard that the MLB series, like the Sony MLB series is the reason that my friend Robbie bought a PS3. - Yeah, a lot of people. - A lot of people, yeah. - It's just a really beautiful looking game, too. - Anything else that you wanted to bring up? - Oh, no, all right, that's it. Have you played much more World of Warcraft? You're on my server now. - I made a character and I did the entire death night thing and now I'm back in the real world, the real Azeroth again. So I'll be logging on shortly and joining. - I need to know what your character's name is. Mine is Rob Cass, which is R.O.B. K-A-Z. - Are we gonna talk about your fucking character name again? - No, I just want him to know it so I can play with him, especially if he's death night. He's not that much lower than me. - No, I'm like 58 or something. - Yeah, I'm like 63. - You live a lot faster than those first, like death night. - It seems like fast. - Yeah, they have increased leveling anyway. - It's because they know what they need to do to keep you motherfuckers. - That's true. - And I've read something today about making the dual talent specialization easier. - I think that's really interesting. - Yeah. It's the only thing I have to bring up that we haven't talked about 'cause we already talked about Resident Evil 5 and PEGLE, which I've been playing a lot of, is I wanna talk a little bit more about Dragon Quest 5 because I've finished my review for it now, the review is up at geek.com. And I wanna go into spoilers a little bit, so there's no one here who's planning to play it probably, right? Even though all of you should because it's amazing. - Okay, that's what I thought. But if anybody's listening is going to-- - All of you are wrong and Phil is correct. - I'll play Dragon Quest 5 when you play MLB '09. - Deal. I would do it. You would-- - I would be making a lot larger for commitment. (laughing) - I don't know, you can start your road to the show character and work your way through double A-base ball. - That sounds fantastic. I will do that. - It's like an RPG for baseball. - But if there is anyone who's listening who's planning to play Dragon Quest 5, like absolutely certain, maybe skip ahead a little because these are kind of spoilers. But I discovered, I think last week I talked about the game skip ahead many years and I became a slave and then escaped, et cetera. - We talked about this last time, right? - Yeah. - The Conan, the Barbarians. - Yeah, that's what I'm saying. But then you get to a point, did I talk about the marriage stuff last time? - No. - I didn't think so. So you get to a point where you walk into this town and you happen to walk in just as this whole, this rich family that runs the town is basically, they decided they want their daughter to get married. And the way that they're gonna decide who marries their daughter is, you have to go get these two rings that are in these two separate dungeons. And so there's a bunch of different adventurers looking for these rings. And as you walk in the room, the daughter sees you and instantly falls in love with you. So you have to go get the rings, of course. But then when you come back, as you're getting one of the rings, you meet your old childhood friends. - I'm sorry, just as soon as I pictured you walking into the room and her falling in love with you, I just pictured the song coming up. ♪ I am the man ♪ - That's right. - That's essentially what it is. - That's what I'm actually going on. - No, that is definitely how much they were in the game. - And then later that time, it's really good drawing. - It's like little eight-bit tones. - Yeah, it's really good. - But then as you're going looking for these rings, you also run into your old childhood friend who you quickly discover is also in love with you. - And she's going to pot. - Exactly. - And then she's going pot? - And she's-- (laughing) And then the choice is queer. - Now I will play this game. She joins you on your adventure. She's like, I'm going to help you find these rings that you can marry this girl because she is so in love with you. And then you go back to the town and essentially you end up having to make a choice who you're going to marry between these two girls or that rich girl, her older sister wants to marry you two. - Are you sure you're not accidentally playing Harvest Moon? - Yes. - Okay, maybe. - It is still Japanese. - But it's just cool because you have to make this really difficult choice between which person is going to join you for the rest of the game. And then as you're progressing, it was interesting too because Amanda's playing along with me. You get to a point in, you're going through this dungeon, you're trying to find a town and your wife passes out. And Amanda was immediately, I had already passed this point by the time she got there but when she got there, the wife passes out and she was immediately like, oh, she's pregnant. And I had not figured that out. (laughing) It took me a long time. I did not figure that out until the game flat out told me. - I was going to say, what part of getting pregnant makes to like, what is that little like virus doing inside of you that's like stealing enough of your assets to make you pass it? - Well, I mean, to be fair, you're also scaling a mountain and fighting monsters. - See, that's what I'm saying, it just slows you down. Children, slow you down. - Girls, slow you down. - That is the lesson of this RPG. - Children. - But so, I mean, but it's the really cool part though, is then like you go and-- - But condom. (laughing) - Goddamn it. - Your condom broke. (laughing) - God no, that's a-- - I can't afford the repairing. - Give me the blacksmith. (laughing) - It's like, or the Oregon Trail sexual experience or something. - Well, it's like, we were talking, me and Phil were talking on the way here that like, like how I would do a lot for people if they'd just say thanks. But like, I was like, but if I went on Epic Quest for someone or something like Legend of Zelda shit, I'd want more than just thanks. And he was like-- - What a job. - And I was like, and I was like, always like, you get a triforce out of it. I was like, I was referring to sexual favors and I was like, so was I. And I was like, oh, that makes sense. And I guess I couldn't refer to my junk as a triforce 'cause separated, they're not that good to together. I form a powerful unit, you know, 'cause I'm specifically talking about my power. I specifically talking about my two balls and my penis. - Oh, thank you, thank you. (laughing) - Can you also put a picture on the channel now? - I was trying to draw a picture and it just didn't come together to explain it. - We just used the picture on your Xbox live vision camera that you send to everyone. (laughing) - I haven't opened my camera yet. - Yeah. - But pretty sure, and pretty soon it'll be like that Penny Arcade comic, RE, my balls. (laughing) So anyways, your wife got pregnant. - Okay, so-- - The cool part though is just that, you know, you get married, you have children, and then there's this red scene where you get turned into a statue, essentially, and then you're stuck as a statue and you watch years pass as you're like, just stuck in the statue. And then eventually, your children come and rescue you and you're adventuring with your children then. - And you're not fucking insane, Rick. Just a mess from being trapped in front of mine. (laughing) - 'Cause it sounds terrifying. - Yeah, you're just a scene. - At least I didn't know what the fuck was going on. - It sounds like a Twilight Zone episode. - We just saw you, oh, I want poop. - Yeah, exactly, I don't know. You could just feel like fucking insane. Like to see your wife walking by with her new husband or something while you're just sitting next to you. - No, she got splashed as you know as you can see it there. (laughing) - No, she got turned into a statue as well. - I'm just saying. Oh, she got turned into that kind of romance. - Oh, God, that is not romantic. - I'm just kidding. - No, but I just think it's cool. Like it's this really old, it's 17 years old RPG that they've remade, but it does all this stuff that I would never have expected from a JRPG. It seems very ahead of it just time. All right, maybe it's time for a break. I'd rather play go music. (laughing) (upbeat music) ♪ I had a moment in the backyard ♪ ♪ I put 'em right on the earth's mark ♪ ♪ It's about to show me where the money is ♪ ♪ Hey, won't you show me where the money is ♪ ♪ I got it all the back of my head ♪ - All right, Arthur, you may not be a piece of shit, but you could be a racist. - Wow. (laughing) - I have black front shit. I know black shit. There's no way to dig myself out of that hole. I don't think R5 is racist. I don't think there was any racist intent. - Well, I did say, and yeah, I did say in the news post for this "On Eat Sleep" game, what we really wanna talk about is not really just simplifying it to is Resident Evil 5 racist, because I think that question is oversimplifying the issue. I don't think that's what really matters in this game. Like, I don't think anyone here is under the impression that the people who made Resident Evil 5-- - Hate black people. - Yeah, or wanted to make a game that was hateful towards black people. - Yeah, it's not birth of a nation, the video game or something like that, but yeah. - So we, I think we all agree on that? - Yeah, I think part of the issue is that like the issue of race in R5 is sort of simple because it's playing on stereotypes. It's not like this complex discussion of race and the effects it has on people. It's literally the reason people have these reactions is 'cause it's playing on these stereotypes, whether intentionally or not. But it's not like this really deep discussion of race, so that's why I think people have such kickback reactions to it, 'cause it's playing off of stereotypes as opposed to just like having, it's not, the game is not having a conversation about race. It just happens to have imagery that is being, getting a reaction out of people. - I'm going to start my, the comments with a letter we got actually from Nick, Nick Suttner. - Who is he? - He used to be on the show, I guess. - We start with a low and then work our way to a high. - This really is, like, why are we picking up Nick so much? - 'Cause we love him. - Okay. - Why did you call me a piece of shit? - Because I love you. - Oh, I thought you were gonna say 'cause you hate me. - No, I was, I mean, it's the sexual tension. Nick says, regarding claims of racism in R5, I think I have a somewhat unique vantage point of the situation as a white Western gamer who was born in South Africa and used to visit their regularly while growing up. I've been to Shantytowns, I've seen several of the RE5 environments firsthand and though many gamers are up in arms about the portrayal of the black menace and what they perceive as racism, it actually hasn't bothered me at all so far. I think the problem is that for many people of all races, this environment is as far removed from their lives as a distant future or fantasy setting. Despite Africa becoming a popular cultural touchstone in cinema and literature for the last few years. But being a bit more familiar with it, this just feels like a new choice of setting and an interesting underutilized one of that. Sure, it doesn't help that you're playing as a white muscled out alpha male superhero, but that's Chris Redfield and that's the type of American iconography that has assumed appeal in all media, which is a much bigger issue to me, but an entirely separate one. Racism is and will always be, at least in our lifetime, a touchy subject, but I don't think that keeping some environments off limits in the media that we consume most is going to help that cause. So, yeah, basically he's saying it's, Nick seems to be under the impression that it's the setting that's really bothering people. I'm not sure I agree with that. I don't know, what do you guys? I don't really know what people are being bothered by. I've only played through the third chapter and I avoided most of the pre-release discussions about race and everything just because I wanted to see, I wanted to wait till the game came out and just kind of draw the opinion from that. Well, I think where we should, yeah, I think where the debate began was, of course, and guys' response to the original trailer for the game. But it's kind of progressed beyond that to some other parts of the game, which Nick hasn't gotten to as well. Nick mentioned to me that he's only through the first chapter at this point. But there are parts of the game where you basically, you get to African natives who are wearing like grass skirts and stuff. The grass skirts with shields and tribal masks. Tribal paint and masks. I mean, part of the game is you are breaking stuff and taking the treasure too, which is like this very colonial exploitation. - Beautifully crafted arrow on the wall. If I shoot it, I can take the jewel out of the head. - Yeah, exactly. So that, I mean, there's something questionable about that as well, I feel like. - Yeah, I guess in some ways, you could say that it makes us look bad too, 'cause we're there and we're like, we might as well get rich while we're here. Taking the gold. - I mean, and a lot of people have pointed out on forums and such that the game is, I mean, a lot of like the deeper message behind the game, if there is one, is that, I mean, it is saying something about colonialism, about exploitation of Africans, because the overall story is this. - It's a point of people testing pharmaceuticals on it. - Which does happen. - Yeah, I don't think that that message is in it, simply because they never give any context or that that's context that gamers are putting in to try to defend the game. There's no point where you even acknowledge that I'm killing all these poor people that are infected, it's all. Those people are, these are the dangerous scary monsters and I'm going to shoot them, it never contextualizes them as people. - I don't think it's really that planned. You have to look at it in the context of the series that it's in, it's Resident Evil. The first original Resident Evil stuff is testing stuff on Americans. Like it's always testing some sort of plague on someone. And just, you have now the Resident Evil trappings like get the jewel out of the treasure, solve a puzzle, buy something. - Right. - You're applying it to a new setting. - It just so happens that they clash in these interesting ways now. It's not like anything orchestrated. - Well, but the problem is that they're putting it in this setting with imagery that's extremely loaded and there was extremely little consideration beforehand about a game that's predominantly aimed at a Western audience because this is very much a game designed for Western audiences. That plays on images of that a colonial Western civilization used to demonize and dehumanize. - It plays upon them, but they weren't necessarily doing them intentionally. I mean, it's not like they were thinking, "Ah, we're playing upon this idea." - No, and that's the thing is, I don't think they were doing it intentionally, but that doesn't necessarily-- - Ignorance isn't an excuse. - Exactly, it doesn't get them off the hook because it's a bunch of Japanese people who had no idea that their graphical inability to completely render someone realistically means that all of their sort of streamlined imagery looks exactly like imagery pulled out of the kind of literature that was passed around in the South about slave rebellion. - Well, I wanna bring up a quote from Udaimo here. He says, "I have not played RE5, "still looking for co-op partner, "but from the demo in previews, "the imagery bothers me. "It trades on the colonial view of Africa, "the dark and scary continent, "which is what you were talking about, Arthur. "I'm also weirded out by Sheva. "I suspect she was added to cut off issues like these, "but instead she feels them. "Why are the natives Ashen and Charcoli to her? "Cafe a lot, skin? "I can't, I don't know, are they, skin? "Why does her accent sound European? "Well, the natives sound boogoo boogoo African. "Her unlockable jungle bikini "does not fill me with confidence either. "But I'm even more bothered by the game's defenders. "We gamers are tired of the jack-tomsons of the world, "blaming games for the world's ills, "but our reaction is always to fall back "on a knee-jerk attack against anything "that can be construed as critical of games "in a social context. "So any real discussion of the images drowned out "by bullishly-bullying straw-manned questions like, "so you can never have a game set in Africa "or with black enemies? "Far Cry 2 was released three months ago and I loved it. "I've never heard a single racial criticism. "Another favorite straw-man is, well, is it racist? "No, I have no reason to think "that anyone at Capcom is racist. "I think the game is a bit thoughtless and insensitive. "That doesn't make it racist, but doesn't make it right." - I think one of the things with Resident Evil is also the fact that you're in third person, like the fact that you're seeing, I can Far Cry's first person, like, yeah, there's a character you're aware of what that character looks like, but it's much different when the camera's pulled back and you're seeing this stuff happen, so I think that third person part is actually a huge part of that. - Well, also Far Cry 2 immediately contextualizes everything you're seeing. Like, your car ride into the city is-- - Well, and that's the only place where you ever see civilians there. - Well, no, because there's also the priest and the reporter, like the two main characters in that game that are important for moving it forward are black and they're not shooting at you. They're trying to find out a way to help their country and you're also going after someone who's selling weapons to the militia. Like, there's contextualization there for the violence that you never get in Resident Evil 5. You never see a black person in RE5 other than Josh later in Cheva, who isn't scary, even the uninfected people at the very beginning. They're still menacingly portrayed. - Yeah, I think the trailer was really poorly thought out when this game debuted and it's sort of been paying that back ever since. So you look at, they've actually made some deliberate decisions since that they've made the crowd for, you know, better or worse, more racially diverse. The enemies themselves have very specific red outlines or like their eyes are red and they weren't, they weren't like that in the original trailer. It was, they just looked like normalizer, a little fucked up, but it's very clear that like, something is wrong with these people and that was not clear in the original trailer. It had imagery that was, you know, could be very well construed and where we're getting all this discussion. But I think the game really has been paying for that trailer ever since. And that's, I think that still were a lot of, a lot of the discussion people are pulling from. Clearly, 'cause most people hadn't played the game before all this discussion was going on. - One thing, sorry, can I? - One thing I wanted to bring up to is based off of that last comment that I am really happy about. Like a lot of people are trying to just close off this discussion and say, no, this is stupid. There's nothing racist about it. We shouldn't even be talking about it. And I actually am really just happy that the discussion is taking place at all and that we're getting a lot of different viewpoints on it and people who disagree and that like, it's okay to disagree about this, but we have a discourse going, which I think is really, really awesome. And I think a lot of the negative reaction that's trying to close this off has been gamers just saying, anybody who is reacting negatively this game is reacting negatively to video games as a whole. But that's not what I'm seeing. I'm seeing people trying to analyze and talk about a specific game, which I think is a really important step forward for our medium. Like we're starting to talk about games as individual games. - Just about a game, a game can be racist. - Yeah. - And that means something? - Yeah, and it's not-- - That could be a problem. - And the discussion around this isn't are all video games racist or because this game is racist, we shouldn't play video games. It's let's talk about this specific video game and how it may or may not be racially insensitive. - Well, that's a discussion that we're trying to have but that's the kind of discussion that they're trying to-- - Some people. - Extremely vocal group on the internet are trying to squash. I mean-- - Well, I don't think it's that they're trying to squash as much as they're just having a knee-jerk reaction. They're not really taking the time to think about it but I don't know if they're, I mean it's just-- - Attacking people for making an argument is an ad hominem way to end an argument. - I think actually a huge problem is more that I just don't, people are uncomfortable and don't know how to talk about race. And I think that's actually a much larger issue is if you're uncomfortable talking about it, if you yourself, you know, I grew up in white suburbia, like I didn't encounter racism, like that was just not part of me growing up. So like, to me talk at length about racism would be tough 'cause it's based on what I've read, movies, what I've been culturally fed. And I think a lot of it is people don't, they don't know what to think. And so it's much easier just to not have the discussion rather than talk about something you don't know anything about and I think a lot of people are probably like me and just really have not had a whole lot of exposure to it. - Well, I think also a lot of people think that anyone who's saying that the game might be racist or have issues with race, keep talking. - Okay, oh my God. - It adds a moment of levity to them. - A lot of people who, a lot of people are hearing people say, oh, this game might have a problem with race. And they're thinking that what that person is trying to say is that the game shouldn't exist or that the game should be banned or censored in some way. I don't think most of the people involved in this discussion are saying that. I just think they want to talk about it. We want to be like aware of what is the game saying about race, whether on purpose or not, and how does that affect us? - Yeah, I mean, gamers have been asking for a long time now they want games to be taken seriously. Well, you don't get to take a step backwards and say, oh, you don't get to take it seriously because it threatens the way, or it threatens my ability to enjoy it. Like, we're not doing ourselves any favors blowing off the conversation. I mean, and the thing-- - That's that back and forth between some people who are saying, it's the people who are saying, games need to be taken seriously, but then when this happens, they're saying, it's just a game, lighten up. - And a lot of these people that are saying, it's just a game of the same people that get super pissed off when some like Roger Ebert says, I don't see very many video games that I could qualify as art. And I mean, you don't get to have it both ways. - All right, I'll do another comment here from Alfredo. He says, essentially, Resident Evil 5 contains, for the American cultural experience, for the past 100 years, some racially insensitive images. However, the game was made by Japanese developers and to quote a smart man, you have only achieved equality when you were a valid target for humor. Like, don't know what the humor-- Okay, anyways, I find the plot setting an images of RE5 to be totally devoid of any racist or bigoted intentions. I really doubt Takichi set down and said, LOL useless Africans. Guess we got a sense of white people to clean up their silly messes. And Guy Curl said, it's obvious black people weren't involved in making this game. Duh, we've spent 10 years shooting wasps and the past three shooting Spaniards. I don't think we have to discriminate against who we shoot in a game. After all, if we were not to include black people in some shooting games, isn't that just another form of discrimination? So, yeah. - I think one thing that might have helped Resident Evil a little more is that you get glimpses of like the people turning or being forced to turn. Like, if there was a little bit more set up with the town seeing the transformation of the people, like, you immediately go in when you first go drop into the game. Motherfuckers are just staring at you. Like, and you know they're gonna cut you. And like, if there was some context to-- - Like, why they're waiting to-- - Yeah, why, like, if there, I mean, this game has, you know, way too many cutscenes as is. Like, I wish there had been some set up. Or maybe if you, I don't know, so there's no law or some-- - There's no conversation at all. Like, they're not once do you see Chris say, I am killing a bunch of infected people. This is really sad. It's just, I'm gonna kill these people to do what I need to do. - Right, and I know that's in the context of Resident Evil, that's like an expected thing. - Yeah, it was in the context of Resident Evil. - Yeah, I was in the context of Resident Evil. - It appears to be like that. I mean, he's been doing forever. - But we're talking about things that could have helped add some context and maybe have helped a little bit. - Right, but a lot of the background stuff, I think. - I think if I'd seen the transformation of the town a little bit more, and like, maybe, I mean, the game, but it sounds like you guys have been and it doesn't really happen. - No, I'd never, after the third chapter, it might as well not even take place in it. - Yeah, I really think that would have helped if you had seen more of how they were exploited as opposed to just walking in after it's happened, and just supposed to take that at face value of, oh, that happened, you know. - But you can't really do that with like a Resident Evil game 'cause that kind of kills the tension of you getting there in an unfamiliar situation. - Yeah. All right, a comment here from FluffLogic. "Less a question, more opinion. "I can't help but feel the alt costume "of a tribal outfit for Sheva makes the whole thing worse. "In a way that it plays up the strong woman angle, "yet at the same time, plays up that old buck-naked, "nubian warrior stereotype that casts Africans "as pseudo Neanderthal tribal chasing beasts with spears. "It just seems a real bad move "after the storm merely revealing the setting caused." Yeah, it's really strange to me that Capcom included that at all. I mean, it does, it really, again, just plays up those stereotypes of dark cotton and African like European colonial. I don't know. Yeah, I'm not sure there's a lot of defense for the costume. Though as to why she is a lighter skin complexion and she has the English accent is 'cause she's from Australia. Yeah, that's right. Somebody did mention that. So she's Aboriginal in descent. - People should be offended that they're taking digital pictures of Aborigines. - That's like a big cultural no-no for Aboriginal peoples, like. - I don't think people should be offended by that. (laughing) - Well, you're wrong, Mr. Coer. - There is the other thing too. I don't know if you guys, I mean, I guess you finished the game. Did you see Sheva's other unlockable outfit? - The club in one? - Oh my God. - It was just as bad as Chris's though. Chris's like club in one was horrible too. His like adventure one was like him and his zebra striped outfit. Like it's terrible. - Okay, but that's one thing. But then Sheva's is like her in like this ridiculously short-- - She looks like one of the girls maybe. - I would also like to point out that the first time Sheva enters in the screen, it starts with her ass. It does. - It does. - Walking towards you. - It's true. - So, I mean, that's another thing. I think some people point out the comments that sex isn't in a way is just as bad. I mean, all the girls in this are always like titties. - In general, I mean, in general, like I think the game does a really good job of having Sheva as just the strong female character. There are just a couple of moments and those unlockable costumes that kind of mess that up. - And I mean, again, there's this archetype in literature that's questionable as far as race and the way it deals with it. The exotic, like the person that's of an ethnicity other than Western that's exotic because they're dark-standard, like they're the good one. As we put it, there's the character of Josh, which is pretty much the only other black character in the game that there's any interaction with whatsoever. He's quote unquote the good one. And at the end, like you'd see him again. And it's just, I almost gave a spoiler there for a second, but it almost seems that every turn they stumbled into another archetype of literature that's considered racist. I mean, like the third section of the game, which is where you're in the marshland and they're the people in full tribe aware with the grassroots and everything, that's very much like the reminiscent of heart of darkness and almost seems to channel a movie called Cannibal Holocaust. I don't know if anyone here has. - I'm seeing it. I'm seeing it. - My girlfriend threw up all the way along. - Yeah, it's intense, but I mean Cannibal Holocaust is basically where this European film crew goes into this. - It's Blair Witch before Blair Witch. Yeah, they go into this tribes area and they try to document them and they end up interfering and there's a rape scene where they end up raping a native person and all sorts of horrible Western imperialism symbolism kind of shit, but the only reason it's validated in any way whatsoever is because they're butchered at the end, like they're murdered. So there's never any sort of justification like that. There's never any sort of like, oh, imperialism is bad and here's why, other than umbrella slash tricell is doing bad things, we should stop them. - Yeah, Mitch Dyer in our comments says, something I see brought up a lot is inappropriate is the usage of native African tribesmen. This is totally understandable because RE5 does a poor job at telling you why these dudes are dressed up in leaf skirts. There's one document, a diary entry from a youth that brings it up. The kid is confused as to why everyone is suddenly acting so strange, increasingly violent, and in particular why they're dressing up like their ancestors. So I mean, I've heard this brought up on the internet a lot that they kind of explain this away through this one diary entry, but I think the fact is that regardless of whether the game says, oh, it's okay 'cause they're dressing up as their ancestors, it's still pointing to this stereotypical image that's not very factually accurate. - It doesn't seem factually accurate, but maybe they did go to Africa. - That's true. - That's what they say. - They did say. - And that sounds flippin, it's not meant to be. They did say they did go to Africa to do research and they consulted with people in Africa about the way the things looked. - Yeah, and there are still people that live in tribes and various parts of them including Africa. - Like Nick is vouching for the true-to-life imagery of the Shantytown. - Did we wanna bring to life African vouching for Africa? - That's true. - Did we wanna bring in the more general topic of like race and games, other games that you guys think portray race in interesting ways or deal with it at all? - Skip, you mentioned Grand Theft Auto San Andreas. - I remember back in the day when that was first revealed that CJ was the main character. There was some backlash on the internet. Not just like, I don't know about backlash, but like an odd reaction, an odd reception to it from some people and just kind of, that was the first time I remember being like race, being like a real major thing. - 'Cause they didn't like the idea that it was like a black dude perpetrating all these crimes and doing all these horrible things. - No, some of it was that, but also that it was just a black guy as the main character. - I think it's hard, it's not as identifiable instantly. Like if you're talking about base reactions. - Yeah, it's like Tommy. - Like, oh, it feels forced or like, why is it a black guy? Like, I mean, you see that in, you know, like TV and stuff with like inserting like gay characters, like, like, or putting gay character in a video game, you know, why would you put a gay character in a video game? It doesn't make any difference, but like, it's hard to do, when you do people that are not white, you're gonna have people that react 'cause they can't identify, and to them, it's gonna feel forced that you're doing something different. But San Andreas was the, there was another game around that time, I think it was the suffering, also start a black lead. And those, I think, were those really good two games, I think, that featured a playable, like, - They said it was somewhat, I was so mentioned, like a dreamcast game called The Shadow Man or something like that. - Yeah, yeah, that was a claim game, yeah. - So do you think, I mean, I guess sticking with San Andreas, do you think, how do you think that ended up playing out? I mean, do you feel like it affected people in the game at all? I mean... - Well, when I reviewed it for GMR, and I made mention of it in my review, saying, along the lines of, it's weird going from the parody of Vice City, like the mafia stereotypes, to like, the more, I guess, realistic stereotypes of like, inner city, gang culture. And that was kind of like a, kind of a waking up moment for me, like, I'm playing something that I totally could never, ever, ever completely relate to. And this is strange, but it's interesting at the same time. And amazing, amazingly, Rockstar handled it pretty well, in the end, I think. - It's easy to poke holes in all the stuff that Rockstar does, but one thing that they have done is they've done pretty nuanced images of different ethnic groups. And sometimes it's parody, but it's so clearly parody that it's not as offensive, I don't find it as offensive, but I feel like the way that they deal with race and say, "Grand Theft Auto 4" is generally fine. Like, it's not-- - It always fits the character. - Yeah. - If you like, that is just, that is who that character is, it's not, it's not a pallet swap. Like, it's not just a different race to be different race. Like, that is, like, the writing is so strong, the character development is so strong, that you just totally buy into it. - Yeah, I mean, dealing with issues of race in media doesn't automatically make it racist. It just, it's the way it handles it. I mean-- - Right. The wire, for example. The wire is a TV show that deals very heavily in race and archetypes and deals a lot with racism, but isn't racist, it's a nuanced view of race. - It's just the very, the wire is a very, like, interesting and realistic examination of how everything interacts. - Mitch continues in our comments. He says, "In general, I think games do a decent job "of portraying race because there simply hasn't been a game "that addresses the subject directly. "You could scare a GTA's thug life attitude "as this is how rockstar thinks black people speak "when it's really a parody of people's "African-American assumptions. "We've yet to see a game try and tackle any kind "of racial portrayal and probably with good reasoning. "I remember David Jaffe's PSP game was going to try "something like this with the option to murder "innocent Chinese families or whatever he's going to do "with heartland. "Nobody approaches race seriously, if at all, "because it's a sensitive subject. "At the point you start trying to portray race in game, "you might as well start picking from religion, "homosexuality or whatever other topic people are uncomfortable "disgusting in an entertainment context. "I don't think games can't address these topics. "I just don't think there's a reason to bother." - If games can't do sex, they can't do race yet. You know, you gotta take it one step at a time. - I mean, I would disagree with them in that. I mean, I think, I totally think there's reasons to bother addressing these English. - Well, you bother if it makes sense. Not, you know, let's do a game about race, do a game about race, or do a game about sex, do a game about sex, I mean. - There are games about sex. - Yeah. - But like, you seem very familiar with this topic. (laughs) - They're not like, they're not like NPD best sellers. And that's, maybe that's something that-- - Only 'cause NPD doesn't track them. - Right. (laughs) - I've bought a million copies. (laughs) - Just kidding, I figured there are probably a lot of DS porn games though and stuff, I'm sure. - Well, there is this, but like, in, I mean, the reason like people are reacting so much stronger to Resident Evil is 'cause it is a game that's gonna go on to sell millions and millions of copies and be potentially featured in mainstream media broadcasts about the game. The game has to have a certain amount of influence, it doesn't matter how well it handles the subject, if it's not gonna get viewed, it doesn't matter. - I mean, that's my concern, I think, with Resident Evil 5 is that I was talking with someone at the launch event about this, again, for like the 18th time. And my express concern is that it's going to end up on like the second page of the New York Times, or the Washington Post. And I mean, the granted the New York Times has avoided the story more or less so far. - I did the New York Times read a review and then ultimately the end said that it didn't view it as racist. - Well yeah, but-- - At the beginning. - Yeah, that was, I have so many other issues with that review that I don't wanna sit here talking shit about someone on the podcast, but I don't, it's not, it's not. (laughs) - That was a really weird way to not do that before the review was not for me. - I'll use Skip's rating system. - Don't drag me into this. (laughs) - It's not the game reviewer at the New York Times that I'm worried about. It's the cultural editors or just a reporter who just like Forbes got a bunch of shit wrong on the story they did about co-op. I mean, it's not gonna take much for them to mischaracterize even the slightest thing. And there's not a lot of mischaracterization that needs to be done about the stuff in Resident Evil 5 for people to freak out about it. - I think it'll happen, but what's important is that there are people in place to explain, just like with Mass Effect, Jeff Keeley did an admirable job when he was put on the spot to talk about that game given that he was sort of bum-rushed with it. We need, I mean, really more is just we need people that can go and explain the stuff and put it in context. And it'll be, I mean, it could be entirely possible that nothing happens. Like, I think people are just expecting this massive backlash and no one expected a backlash with Mass Effect and that's the game that got targeted maybe in Resident Evil just passed on by. - To be fair, the content that Mass Effect was accused of having didn't exist. I mean, there's nothing that someone is gonna get angry about in this game that isn't there visually speaking. I mean, taking out of context, just taking screenshots or video, you don't need to make up something to get freaked out about with Resident Evil 5. - I don't know, I mean, yeah, I guess if you take it out of context, that's true. - So, another comment here from John Roe, he says, "I honestly think that this is an issue "that really doesn't belong in a game discussion. "I don't think that the Enthusiast Press "is the location for the discussion to take place." - It's that yeah. - "If you're perturbed by what you see in the game, "discuss it with your peers and coworkers, "but having an open discussion with the gaming press "seems like a disservice to the issue of racism as a whole. "It would be analogous to a racial ethics committee "discussing which Mario game had the best 3D platforming "mechanics and then he has in parentheses galaxy." The problem is that RE5 is a game and we are presented with this problem. I think that end guy had some very good comments about the issue in the past. If you think that the game is racist, that's a valid opinion. We shouldn't shut out these viewpoints because we don't agree with them. Both sides need to approach us with an open mind. The bottom line of all this discussion is that if you're not yourself African or African American, you can't possibly have an opinion. You don't know what it is like to have grown up as an African American. So you have no clue how the imagery or depiction of the people in the game will play out. I'm not saying that you cannot have an opinion. People should be playing but I am saying that I'm a fucking idiot. Whoa, whoa. Come on. The people should be worried that they will never truly know what it is to be African American without experiencing firsthand. I know I would be perturbed if someone was trying to tell me that what I was feeling was wrong. I'm not, I'm not, I'm definitely never out of vagina and I definitely don't care about the way women are treated or anything either. So good, good. Glad we established that, yeah. I say this because from what I've experienced the gaming media slash press is predominantly not black. So I mean, I guess the first issue I want to like, obviously there's a couple of issues at this moment. Like Mario Galaxy, any social like racial committee would tell you that you're fucking stupid and it's actually Mario 64. Get the fuck out. Really? It's, it's galaxy. It's definitely galaxy. But, I mean, my first issue though is just that he's saying this discussion shouldn't be taking place in the enthusiast press and I absolutely think it should be. I mean, I think we need to be able to have serious critical discussions about games and their effects on us. But that's just my opinion, I don't know. I don't know how you guys feel about that. Yeah, I don't know, you're white. You can't understand. I feel like I'm saying you shouldn't have an opinion, but you shouldn't have an opinion. Is he saying that the enthusiast press shouldn't be allowed to talk about it because they are the enthusiast press or but because the enthusiast press right now is predominantly white. What you're basically saying, right? Your view is, right reviews and debate platforming monkey. There's no room for you to talk about any of this. Like anything that would be more substantive. Entertainment Weekly not being able to talk about race and books and movies. Yeah, I mean, that's why I'm reading from that, from his comments. Yeah, I mean, there might be a lot of like confused and not particularly good discussion happening about the topic, but that's just because it hasn't come up before. And again, that's why you need to have experience, not like I was talking about before. Like if you haven't talked about race before, it's gonna, you have to form an opinion. A lot of people are forming an opinion and figuring out what their beliefs are starting with a game like this. And again, that's why I think this discussion, the fact that we're having it is good for, it's a big step forward for the medium because we can have a serious discussion about certain aspects of a specific game without it being about video games as a whole. I mean, I hope it's a big step forward for the medium. Occasionally, seeing reaction to attempts to have this discussion are really discouraging to me. It doesn't, it makes me wonder if we're at the point where games should be taken seriously if we can't have discussions like this about what's in the game. I mean, if there's no room for criticism, then there's no point in taking games seriously because it's the same as the monopoly box that's sitting in your mom and dad's closet that gets taken out like once a year. - We Baden our comment says, "I don't take issue with Nigeria being portrayed "as poor and black as real life Nigeria "as by and large poor and black. "Catcom does deserve some credit though "for inadvertently reminding people of the fact "that real life pharmaceutical companies "are testing drugs and such on the poor in Africa "and exchange for food and water. "I don't know if they really do inadvertently." Well, I mean, I don't know that many people are going to be reminded of that or figure it out on their own, I guess, because the game doesn't really say that at all. It's kind of in the notes, I think, in the-- - Oh, it's in the library. - In the library. - Really? - Yeah, there's some stuff about it. - All right, "Cliffy B's depiction of coal and gears "is more offensive as it's very obviously a stereotype "that's supposed to appeal to certain demographics, "but it's obvious people would rather complain "about true to life depictions "than terrible media stereotypes that are retarded." - The fact that people didn't get offended-- - Well, please, sir. - A lot. The fact that people didn't get offended over only Spaniards being killed in Spain but got massively butthurt over blacks being killed in Nigeria. - The sky started strong, and then-- - Really seems to show how immature and stuck in the past a lot of American media is when it comes to race. I think the thing about a lot of people are bringing out the, hey, in RE4 you were killing Spaniards. Arthur, you wanna say something about this? - Oh, God, this makes me so angry every time I see it. Of all the examples you could possibly make, like Spain is the worst. They are the country that basically almost systematically destroyed the entirety of the culture south of Texas and to the west of Texas, actually. I mean, Catholic missionaries, the whole conquisador, like, raping of cultures, like all of that. - I think that's fair to say that they destroyed that culture. I mean, there's, I mean, obviously they did do a lot that is wrong, but it has a person that is half Mexican and having a Mexican family. I mean, the reason that they're there is because Spain did all those things and I'm just saying that Spain didn't completely eradicate culture. There is still a culture there. - I mean, Christopher Columbus, a Spaniard, is symbolic of Western colonialism to a lot of people. So the idea that saying-- - And we fucking celebrate is-- - I mean, that's fair to me. - I mean, exactly. And people get really upset that we still celebrate his birthday to the point where his birthday isn't acknowledged as a holiday. - The main thing for me too is that with the different strain African Americans in Africa in RE5 and the Spaniards in Spain in RE4 is that there is loaded imagery that exists for the African American culture that has to do with colonialism. And that isn't so much there for the Spanish. - So see the Spaniards in Resident Evil 4 doing normal Spaniard town life village kind of shit, don't you? When you walk in, like they're doing normal stuff and then like the bell rings or whatever and then they go after you. Like there's never any context like that. In RE5, like when you see a black person, he is doing zombie shit or doing Las Vegas shit. - I have nothing to say about. - True, true. Were there any other games that we wanted to bring up? I feel like there was something else that came up in email but I can't remember why. - And I just pointed out other games like... - Hey, right, you just gave it a red alert which play on stereotypes but in a humorous fashion. - Yeah, it's such a stereotype of Russians and stuff like that. - Yeah, it's just a point where it's ridiculous. - You can take it to the extreme, so. - Or it was George Takei's like the same variety. - And the same variety. - They got like bear troops and stuff like that. Like... - Russians ride bears. - Right, that's what Russia does. - So it's treated out of a rocket. - Yeah, I'm just saying like, you know, there's shit like that or in prey. It's like, you know, you're an Indian and when you die, you go to a spirit world to come back to life and stuff like that. I mean, there are various games that do with race and kind of not necessarily, I guess, the best ways but I don't know. I mean, I still don't think that people should shy away from using them. - We have a good comment here from HyperOnion. This will probably be our last one. He says, "Resignable 5 is not racist. "It's makers are not racist "but it uses incredibly loaded racial imagery "in an incredibly problematic manner. "To begin, there is a real problem "in that the game makers make no real distinction "between the uninfected and the zombies. "regular, uninfected Africans are shown to be "just as menacing as the zombies. "See the opening scene with shadowy Africans "culking in the shadows of cut scenes "and particularly the sack beating scene "which would be completely bizarre "even ignoring the racial aspects." - Wait, wait. - Those are all zombies. - Is that even in the game now? - Yeah. - I don't remember the same thing. - Yeah, that's right. - In the beginning. - Right in the beginning. - That is the first thing you see. - But those are all zombies. There are no regular Africans. That's the thing you don't see any regular Africans except for the one guy that gets changed. - I know we never once talked about the scene where you'd see the black eye pulling the blonde woman by her hair. - Well, we're gonna get to that. - But they've changed that now, right? It's no one. - No, she is definitely still in there. - He says, "Let's not get pulled by white people." - Yeah, she gets pulled by a white girl. - Yeah. - She says you pulled by white people. - I just waited all the same, yeah. - Okay. - Let's not even get into the fact that the uninfected are far more vocal than the regular villagers who are completely without voice. The use of the same character models is also rather unfortunate. Obviously there's good reason for it in the production cycle but the facial aspects that all accept, the face distorted by rage in human character models echo unfortunate racist caricatures. When the zombies can ride motorcycles and hold political rallies, I'm really not sure what the difference is supposed to be except that one is acceptable to shoot. The most interesting scene to me though is the kidnapped blonde woman scene. As described to me, I thought it was going to be the old black men crave our pure white woman nonsense but that really wasn't the case. There wasn't any sexual violence in the scene. Instead, what I found interesting was the way that the game visually establishes the woman as someone to be rescued, therefore good/pure with her skin color, especially reinforced by her blondness which really sets her apart from other characters. Considering how out of place the character looks and the fact that they had to make a whole new character model for her, I have to think this was fully intentional. - So I don't know, what did you guys think about that? - I guess I just, that the only thing I noticed when I saw it was that they had changed it to be non-black people that pulled her into the building. They very specifically changed to be like a white dude in the mix and looking dude, taken her in. - I only saw one guy pulling her. - I don't know. I guess all of us have false memories. You thought they were still black. (laughing) - I also think they randomized the character models in certain spots, but I mean-- - I'm sure they don't on that one. I'm sure they very intentional were like going in there. - I just thought it would be a fucking change that. So, yeah. All right, well, what have we learned about race today? - It's good to talk about it. - Yeah, it's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - It's good to talk about it. - Thank you, and we will be right back for our music. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] All right, Joel G. wants to know, are you guys ever going to bring back the Anthony on segments? Are they just being replaced with Civ 4 stories, Anthony? - We can do the Anthony on things at some point. But lately, I just seem to be getting myself in trouble with the things I say. So I feel like Anthony on segments are going to get me increasingly more popular. - Well, it's going to be Anthony Gaigas on black people. - That's the thing I really don't want to do that. - I really don't want people to think that I'm a racist or a bigot towards any religion or anything like that. I had to say shit to get a rise out of people all the time. But I don't want people to take it the wrong way, especially when it comes to things of religion and stuff. I don't know. I tried to email a lot of people personally that emailed me about it. But all right, so the question is, I don't know. You five people are too harsh. - We might bring him back eventually. - Anthony Gaigas on you people. Mark Johnson says, do you rub up on the crew? He says, I really enjoyed the discussion on gaming prices, use games, and whatnot. However, what you didn't bring up was the length of games is an excellent slash great 10 to 15 hour game that costs $60 the same as a decent, good 40 hour one. - Yes. - Should games be cheaper because they're shorter, longer based on scores. - No. - Just curious to hear your thoughts. (laughing) - Real-time updates. - I just want it to be good for $60. Like, if it's short and awesome, that's fine. - I mean, honestly, like I have so little time right now that I almost appreciate shorter games. - You can't put a price on quality. That's what I'll say. - I can. - You can, actually. - I mean, it seems to me like the longer a game is, the more likely it is to lose its way or become repetitive, including RPGs and stuff. So I've been appreciating shorter games more. - Eight hour games are like perfect. - Yeah. - I liked eight to 10 hour games as well. - Eight to 10 hours is just-- - But I recently figured out that I can't pay $60 for an eight to 10 hour single player game anymore. - Really? - I just can't do it. Well, a lot of it has to do with the whole unemployment situation. - Understandable. - But I've also been like shaken from my ivory tower of getting every single game available to me at all times. And it's just kind of, it's a wake up period right now. And I just can't, I went to Best Buy last night to get Resident Evil 5. And I usually spend a lot of time in stores walking around looking at stuff and like debating whether or not I can really get this or not. And I walked, I paced through the video game section for like 45 minutes, just like, okay, I wanna get this. I wanna get Chinatown Wars. I wanna get Kill Zone I still haven't played yet. And it's like, I can barely afford to get Resident Evil 5 right now. - It just sounded the first way you started this thing off. You're like, last night I was at a Best Buy. And I was like, expecting you to like go in the car and the fluorescent lights, they hurt my eyes. Like, this is what you people do with when you go in there. And then I had to ask a person, the blue shirt guys, the blue shirts, to open the case, to get me a game. How ridiculous is that? - And then they asked for money, the money for a game. - It's so, sorry, but yeah, I clearly did not say that. - I know, I know, it not at all. - We were very privileged. - And it's just where my mind took it. I'm an asshole. - But I do like to go into retail stores every once in a while and just kind of look at how they set everything up. - And now Anthony goes on the retail experience. (laughing) - And there's so much guitar shit now. There's so much of it, it's all over the place. - All right, Griffin H says, "Following people on Twitter makes me feel like a stalker, "but I still follow all of you guys and girls from one up. "Outed with me sending letters every week, "which makes me feel even more like a stalker, "but it's a guilty pleasure. "Am I freaking you guys out? "I'm watching you all." - I imagine that a lot of stalkers actually find that it's a pretty big guilty pleasure for them too. (laughing) I don't know, in the way that Twitter ain't be falling people on Twitter, I guess, to those stalkers, but at the same time, we're fucking egomaniacal, putting ourselves out there so that you can do it. - Yeah, I realized that there are a lot of people following me on Twitter who I don't know personally, like, I'm not gonna put anything on, I'm gonna want them to see. - 5,732 people? - I might, maybe. - It's a mutually beneficial arrangement. - I don't like telling people that I'm making biscuits and thinking that there's a few hundred people out there that are like, "Oh, Anthony's making biscuits." - What kind of biscuits? - Sit there in my chair and I'm like, "Ah, I drive some sort of fucking sick pleasure out of it." So now who's sicker? You the person that sends a letter or me the person that has some sort of fucking-- - You read my biscuit story, you read it. - Yeah, I'm gonna send something out. I'm gonna put out messages for him now. - There's my letter for the week. (laughing) - Anthony on. - You should put out one of the griffin, are you listening? - Yeah. - All right, Brett H says, "Completely unrelated, "I was curious about you guys discussing food and gaming." It may sound like a weird question, but it seems like certain foods get marketed to gamers. There tends to be stereotype that we all slurp Raman noodles and snort redbolt to poop sock our favorite MMO. - Wow. - To be fair, I'm an energy drink addict or fan. Anyways, how is gaming a fucking-- (laughing) - You know, I'll just-- - You're perpetuating the cushions. - Yeah. - How is gaming affected? You're eating habits. Do you guys like to cook still? Do you go for what's convenient? Do you eat and game at the same time? And have you ever skipped meals because you're that into a game? - A lot of meals for food. - The redbolt Raman stuff might just be overlapped with like, college goals. - Yeah, I think that's-- - Yeah, I think it's probably the demographic, but I also think that part of the problem with like, as far as eating shitty and stuff is, that's just, that's more indicative of being American rather than playing video games. I mean, not hardly anybody sits down and cooks real food. Like, people consider cooking a meal nowadays. Like, I got some of the other shows and cheese and some frozen peas and then a steak. - And I'm actually cooking a lot more myself. - Since a lot of pizzas, you may have time now. - Yeah, you have time now. I learned how to make my own pizza. Yeah, the thing about cooking is that you need time 'cause it takes so much energy out of you. - Right, that's what I'm saying. I mean, yeah, I wish I could, in some ways I envy people. Like Robert, who get to be like the stay-at-home person that gets to make all this amazing food and stuff. - I mean, I'm basically a stay-at-home person. - Yeah, I'm just like Arthur. - Arthur's out making the money, working the streets and you stay at home and cook his meals. - My ass is sore. - Hey, I'm taking, ah, we all went for it. (laughing) - Food, food, food, food. - So, I want to bring this one up. - Cue the pack of music. - Bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, bounce, boom, bang, boom, bang, boom. (laughing) - Oh man, I'm not even moving on. - There's a lot, this is a freelancer from OneUp. He took issue with your Viva Pinata story from last week, Anthony. He says there are better ways to make mad money in Viva Pinata than you brought up. He says he goes-- - You're fuzzled gums or whatever? - He says he goes with rare breeds method. Basically, I have one entire garden devoted to Limoseros. - Limoseros. - Limoseros mating. Pinatas with mating requirements that are just items of clothing are part of the environment are best, but all the rhinos need, besides a few clothing items, is to eat two coconuts, which are cheap enough. So, I have my two breeders, Mama and Papa in a pen. Outside the pen, I have six more regular rhinos. - Yeah, right. - What kind of space language are you buying? - Hold on, hold on, hold on. Since I already ate in the garden, every time I breed them, I get the chance to play the game for a wild card variant. Once you get good enough at the game, you can always pick up the twin bonus too. I don't know what that means. And if you fail the game, you can just crash on purpose to retry it for 50 coins. When the rhinos go into their adult state, they're worth about 37,800 a piece. - Yeah, you're a retort. - I already do respect Steve, 'cause he has limnoceros, which are like super expensive, so I do know the-- - My monstrous, for fuck's sake. - So, well, I don't know that you actually aren't what you're talking about, but-- - Do they look like a-- (laughing) - No, no, no, do they look like a fucking rhinoceros? - But that's what I'm saying. - No, you're not answering the question. Do they look like a rhinoceros? - I'm moving on, so I do respect Steve. - They're a limnoceros. - I do respect Steve a lot because he's obviously like an extremely high level gardener because I'm gonna say right now, I've never even gotten a limnoceros. I've never even gotten like, so he already is a lot better. - He said a little upset. - Yeah, I am, I mean, I am like a master gardener at the high level, you can be as far as like your title, but I mean, that is a really good way. The only thing that I don't like about Steve, though, is that he named two of them. Like, that's mistake number one. Mama and Papa, he's already formed an attachment, which is not a way to make money from them. - Okay, so the only reason you're hearing this is because there's a sad tale of Anthony naming pinatas and then dying or being shipped off and never coming. - Yeah, and the first game I had a cat named PP, which is like my real cat. And then PP got eaten by another pinata and blew up. And then so I finally got another one of the PP species. And so I named it PP Cop, like Robocop, but for some reason, PP Cop. And I just put like a helmet on her in Frankenstein bolts. And it was like PP reborn. ♪ Banana, banana, banana ♪ ♪ Banana, banana ♪ (laughing) - We just have a whole podcast that's just, do you like it? I think we've talked about this before. It really should. - That was Robocop music too. - You have to do it over the sky. - Oh, I did. - All right, this is from Anonymous, but he had a suggestion for the show. There's our final letter for the week. He says, "Since the cat is becoming a recurring theme "on the Rebel FM in Game Club podcasts, "I think it should make it a full-blown character "on the website. "When you put up the post for the podcast, "have the post be from the cat's perspective." Example, today my owner set up the recording equipment again. I started playing with some packing paper since they were talking into their mechanical devices, but then my owner took it away. Cat's at a recurring element to the podcast. Just branch it out, the cat and sirens. - I think if my cat could say the word mechanical devices in its brain, it knows that it's a microphone at that point. At the point where my cat started thinking and acting like that, I would smother her and kill her before she killed me. - I'm just kidding me. (laughing) - That letter sounded like entry-level furry fan fiction. (laughing) - That's what he's trying to ease me into it. And now, can Anthony talk about when he sleeps in bed with his cat? (laughing) - And occasionally she starts working her way down. (laughing) - No, I'm just kidding. - No, you're not. - That is an idea that would grow old fast. - I sort of want to give the letter of the week this week to our stalker. - Griffin. - 'Cause he does write a letter every week and we don't always get to them, but I sort of want to give him letter of the week. - That's fine. He does done. All right, follow me on Twitter. (laughing) - All right, please check out eat-sleep-game.com for all the latest episodes of Rebel FM. We're gonna be starting a new game club next week. Is it finally gonna be on its own? - They will be on their own RSS feeds assuming we can get the iTunes to recognize them. - All right, cool. - And that will be, we're starting bully next week. So if you want to play along, if you didn't play Call of Cthulhu, but want to join in for this one, we're gonna be playing through bully. - I just want to say really quick, all you people's bitching about them being on separate feeds might mean that you can't get them on iTunes for a little bit longer because we have to go through all that for a new podcast. - All right, all right, let's see where listeners can find us this week. Patrick, I was on this week's episode of Co-op in ways that you may respect me and ways that you may not. - That was amazing. I saw that against that, though, respect you and you left, but you should watch it. - I respect your comedic stylings. - It was beautiful. - It was a lead into the discussion. - I respect your courage to do that too, yeah. - Well, you know, I wanted people, you know, in the beginning to, oh, he has some real insightful opinions and then just to like, eviscerate that entire opinion of me. So I like that with balance, like, you're a fucking idiot and then, oh, I value you, you're a fucking idiot opinions. So, yeah, I'm gonna call it this week and then you can check out my newly launched blog at clubic.wordpress.com, K-L-E-P-E-K and at twitter.com/X-E-X-X-Y. All right, Andrew. You can find me at the corner of Gary and Masonic most days. - That's a rough spot. - No, it's nice. It's a Trader Joe's. Gary and Masonic? - That's how I bet you're rich. - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - I'll be shopping, give him money. - You're not talking about my neighborhood, are you guys? - No, that's right. - That's a little Heights, bitch. - Whoa, yeah, yeah, you-- - Trader Joe's has some good jobs. - You fucking brag about it while you can. - I know. - We'll see how much longer you live there. - Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. - There's a reason we live in Oakland today. - Yeah, it is, it's a $1,000. - It's a $1,000. - We can talk about the podcast. - Sometimes, clearly. - It's true. - I'd move in, but I'm allergic to your cats. - What's your Twitter? - Twitter.com/AndrewFister, my name. And then I also launched the blog, Okunoko.wordpress.com. It's easier if you just click on a link to it than that one now. - And you people should really thank Skip in the comments for coming on, 'cause he's hopped up on quite a bit of Claire and right now to do this every time he comes over. - The first half hour is a bit rough. I didn't chime in a lot, but I got over it. - Well, thank you for joining us, Arthur. - Same as usual. - It's shorter. - Anthony. - We're trying to cut it short for lost. - You know, Twitter.com/chefmoney.blogspot.com. And then I don't think I have any articles or anything. - You're on the hookup this week. - Oh, I was also on co-op talking about Halo 1. - Not as sexy though. - Not as sexy though. I talked about co-op and I probably came off as a hater the whole time. - Weren't you also on the @1up podcast? - Oh, I wasn't the @1up podcast this week. - I know better than you. - Jesus Christ. - Wasn't there another one up podcast this week? - I'm watching. - The problem is that I just keep forgetting like which week I'm in. Like that @1up thing, today's Wednesday, that was yesterday I recorded that. - But I... - One up has so many podcasts. - I'm just completely oblivious to it. - Yeah. (laughing) - Wasn't there another one up podcast you were on not too long ago? - I was on one. - Yeah, I was on the Good Grief one, which then Phil was on. - I was on this week's episode of the Good Grief podcast. You can find me at twitter.com/peakholer also. My Dragon Quest V reviews up on Geek.com and tomorrow I will have tomorrow or Friday, one of those days. I'll have an interview with the director of Pokemon Platinum. That's gonna be on what they play. - Nice. - All right, you can subscribe to Rubble if I'm on I Can and Zoom. If you use either of those services, please subscribe to this review. Thanks for listening and thank you guys for joining us this week. - Thank you. (upbeat rock music) ♪ I know what you want to do, what you want to do ♪ ♪ Our last encounter ♪ ♪ I know what you want to do ♪ ♪ I know what you want to do ♪ ♪ I know about the heart ♪ ♪ And all the stones and bricks and balls ♪ ♪ That stand in the way of my own man ♪ ♪ Lookin' back ♪ ♪ Why don't you kill for me ♪ ♪ You see the wind, the rock I think ♪ ♪ Promise you come for me ♪ ♪ The six of you bring you home ♪ ♪ You see what you want, see what you need ♪ ♪ Soon I did your best chance to reach me ♪ (upbeat rock music) (upbeat music)