Rebel FM
Rebel FM - Episode 7 - 02/18/09
Nick bids farewell to the Rebels as he heads off to a new job, freelancer Tyler Barber stops by for a discussion on "Mature" content in games -- and all that implies -- and impressions are shared of F.E.A.R. 2, GTA: Lost and Damned, flower, and more.
[Music] [Music] It is Wednesday February 18th, 2009. Welcome to episode 7 of Rebel FM. My name is Smilt Kohler. Joining me this week is the staff of eat-sleep-game.com. Anthony Giyegos. Hey, you. Arthur Geese. What's up, bitches? And Nick Suttner. Good evening. Hey. You fucking fail already. Anthony Fells who's eating corn nuts into the mic. That's alright. Also joining us today, freelance writer Tyler Barber. Hello, thanks for having me. I mean, it's an introduction. You weren't excited at all. I mean, technically. Not technically. And from Houston. Technically I have never done that. Technically, I would just like to take an opportunity to say that technically I'm a freelance writer. As are you. Yeah, that's actually very true. It's like Tyler's just unequal ground. So Tyler was a regular contributor to one up in EGM for reviews and such. So alright, so for this episode, we have a bunch of stuff we're going to be talking about. Of course, what we've been playing and then we're going to have a big discussion on maturity in games and our feelings on sort of sex and violence. When it's used well, when it's used badly. It should be a good discussion. Some letters. Some letters used together. Yeah, I mean, that's how I live my life. That's how you roll. That's just, that's the color way. I hope mom's not listening. Well, John's dad is listening. I don't know if that is listening. I hope your girlfriend isn't listening. She will. Alright, well, at this point I would assume she knows. Right. Let's move on. Nick, why don't you tell us what the hell was up with the audio on our Rebel FM Game Club, which we released on Monday? Yeah, so that was our first kind of episode of our Backlog Top Show. And turns out that we recorded the entire thing through the internal mic on the MacBook. And really, I'm just impressed with that little mic and that we still had a show. Well, that it was still listenable. That you could still hear us and comprehend what we're saying. It's pretty amazing. And that we were in the middle of like a typhoon. So anyway, that's what happened, which I didn't realize until like, I ran it online on me like a couple of like a day after. I was like, I think I know what happened. It sounds like I was sitting like five feet from the mic. And I was like, yeah, you were. And during that show I was like trying to turn Arthur up the whole time. I was like up the volume, up the game. Yeah, if you listen. Yeah, remember how you were listening and they told me to get closer to the mic? That's because he was on the other side of the computer. Yeah. So sorry about that. Next week will sound better. This week we are doing it right, right? Yeah, everyone has a good quality mics and you can already look at the waveform and tell that it's a hundred percent different than it was last week. Like we got one email from a guy who was like, why don't you use some of your donation money to buy some mics? It's like we did. We should probably just use it too. Well, I believe the subject line is what the fuck is up with the other audio. Yeah, I mean, we have really good equipment. Honestly, it's like super nice. It's just learning to you. It's just that sometimes we, there's a big human error. Right. And regarding the living room, it's like no matter how nice the equipment is, you're still going to hear a bit of room noise as well. Yeah. Like right now there's some sort of tree thrasher outside it sounds like. I think it's a vacuum or a carpet cleaner. Okay. We maybe soundproof a little bit of that deal with it, I guess. Thank you, Tyler, for coming on too. We haven't addressed this much, but thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me, guys. That's my NPR voice. Nice. All right. Why don't we talk about what we've been playing out there? Oh, there's stuff. Why don't we give Nick a chance to? Oh, yeah. That's kind of weird. This feels very anticlimactic, but I should probably announce here, and I guess this will probably be where it is announced. That I'm unfortunately parting ways with the show, but because I got a full-time job. Well, the main thing is that after that audio fuck up, we were like, you're not welcome here. You're like, you better go get a job. Sony was his backup plan. And what you don't know is that it's actually already on Phil's Twitter that you have a job with Sony. Just now. So yeah, I'm going to Sony to be a product evaluator, which to explain very briefly, I mean, I got to find out a lot more about the job. When I'm there, because there's lots of little things to it. But the main idea is that this group that I'll be in plays very small group, but plays games very early on in the development cycle and works with publishers and developers like third parties to kind of give them feedback on the games to improve them and to make best use of the Sony hardware on their systems. So that's the idea. That's what I'll be doing. And that's kind of weird. This is my last normal podcast. I mean, I'm going to try to still do Game Club with you guys. We'll see, but I'm not going to be able to, I mean, understandably to do the normal show. So it's kind of kind of sad. Can you tell us about the new Ratchet and Clank? No, for multiple reasons. I don't know. It's first party. And I wouldn't be able to. I can't even imagine that. I mean, I know they probably do, but I'm just saying like a new Ratchet and Clank game. Going through product evaluator seems ridiculous to me anyways, because it's like Insomniac. Well, they do a lot of their own product evaluator. Yeah. They do a lot, actually wins. It's funny because I, one of the times I've been down to Sony's offices before, was right before I started working for OneUp. And I went to a focus test for Russian and Clank Future, and we were like the first public group outside of the developers to play. This was like what we really early on. So, there's that. Right. We are going to miss you, Nick, but we'll press on. Oh, well. Yeah. Tyler, tell us what he's been playing. Yeah. That seems like a good idea. So, last night, I bought and downloaded Flower, and probably played through, what do we figure out, three stages of that? Three stages, yeah. Yeah, three stages of that. Nick was telling me before we got on there that Flower is the best game ever. Did I say that? No, but I mean, now that you work from Sony, I'm trying to give you points. That's it. Trying to help you out. So, yeah. I guess it's fitting now that we're talking about a PSN title. But, yeah, you know, I was just telling Nick only over here. Um, it's one of those games that really reminds me about everything that I like in gaming. Um, just the animation of the grass, like house, you know, when you're moving very slowly through the environment, just the way, like, the atmosphere, and every, every part of the game feels like it's breathing. Or like, you know, it has like life into it. And it's just so simple. It just heals flowers, but it's like such a visual game, and it's like it really plays to the medium where it's like your symbol movements and visuals, like a role kind of immediately satisfying. It's true. Although there is a part of me that wishes that I could switch to analog controls when I want to. No, you don't. I don't know. I mean, think about it. You have to use both analog sticks to do the things you're doing in Flower. Uh, why would that be such a bad thing? I just think it would be way overly complicated doing it that way. I think it's much more organic doing. Especially because they'd be comparing it to like flow. Well, then I would like the option to figure that out for myself, that it was terrible. Because there are times that like, I can't relax in the same way when I have to sit there and move a controller as much. Yeah, it's a little hard. I mean, because it's a constant movement thing. Like, you know, you play a lot of Wii games that don't really require like, Zach and Wiki, it's mostly just a pointer, but this one, like, because so much of it matters. I don't know. It's hard for me to totally relax. I think something like, I mean, I talk about this a little on, um, I wouldn't tape the segment for co-op for their episode going up this week for Flower. So you'll see me talk about a little bit of the same stuff. But, um, I see something to keep in mind. I mean, are you talking also about a lot of the fine movements when you have to like, turn back around to get a flower you miss, that sort of thing? Because I'm guessing that's kind of the main thing. So I'd say, like, think about playing the game more in terms of like, taking passes at the different strips of flowers. Like, if you go and fly through an area and miss a couple, the level design is like done in such a way where it will oftentimes feed you back. Into that area, like, very naturally. So if you kind of keep the momentum up and just kind of make a bunch of passes at an area, it's kind of, I think it's ultimately like a better way to play it than trying to, like, slow down and go, you know, go back and get every little one you missed on the way. Because I think that's where the motion control could be kind of finicky. Yeah. Trying to make a really slow, sharp turn. Yeah. I guess that's what I've been doing. I've been trying to 100% it and not, like, flying through the level. I take my time. Right, right. I mean, even there's some levels, like in the third, like the wind will stage where you think that once you pass through the canyon, you can, like, that's, you can't go back, but you can. You just got to fly really high up in the air and then you can kind of go back to the beginning of the stage. But how far do you play up in it? Only the first two levels, but that's because, again, I'm trying to, I'm trying to 100% right. Right, right, right. So it's like, it's like, you played two levels. I just played three. Yes. I haven't played much, but I've seen all of it because my girlfriend's been playing through it. Right. So, I mean, I've seen what happens in later stages, and it is interesting. I won't spoil it for anyone, but it is interesting, like, the new elements they add. I mean, he told us last week that there was punitive elements added. Well, there's, I mean, it's interesting because there's, like, a narrative arc to flower, and you don't really get that from the first three. The fourth stage is where it kind of starts, and then, that's, like, the game taken as a whole is very different. Like, in the grand scheme of things, each stage, like, means something different once you play it all of it. We'll need to discuss this later because, like, next week or whatever when you finish it up, because I do want to talk about sort of the theme of flower. It's pretty interesting. But also, yeah, I also, the other thing I like about the game in really respect is that you kind of learn how to do everything just by doing it. Mm-hmm. And it works really, really naturally. They don't, they don't force anything on you. There's no tutorials or anything, so that's really cool. So, Tyler, what else have you been playing? Sorry, are we kind of talking about programming? We did kind of steal your fire. Well, that's because you played a game that Nick played. How's that? No, it's okay. That was a fun discussion. I think everybody brought up good points. But, um... Way to be pretty cool. In addition to that, I also recently downloaded the burnout patch, and I was just checking that out again and just really limiting the fact that I'm terrible at racing games. I'm, like, wishing I could be good at burnout and enjoy it because, like, I love the game when I jump in. But, I mean, with burnout made for, like, non-racing game people? Yeah, it's not really a, I mean, it is a racing game, but you don't need to be a racing game. I know, but, and, like, I'm not, like, bad at the controls and not, like, I was telling Nick about, uh, telling Nick about this, and I'm not bad at any of that. Like, I always just take the wrong turn and, like, end up in the boondocks, like, get lost on my, it's just... And what I was saying, too, I think, and this is something that's tough going back to the game, it kind of really only, like... So, basically, there's, like, eight, I think there's, like, eight different main points in the game that are, that serve as your destinations. There's, like, the ranch, there's the Wildcat Stadium, there's, you know, just a bunch of, there's, like, these eight main, kind of landmarks. And once you play, once you play the game for a while and you get in the rhythm of it, it's like, and you realize those are always your destinations, then you can get a better feel for, like, going between them. But I think it's tough coming back to burnout or just playing it in small sessions and not getting much of a hang of the city, because then you do take the wrong turns a lot. Like, because I had that problem, too, because I've been playing a lot recently, just coming back to it, and it's, it's tough, like, it's, it's also very different than previous burnout games where it was, like, 100% linear. Didn't you say you got all of your, uh, your games from my last game? Yeah, I did find my last game. That's an amazing... Yeah, that's tough. Such an relief. I mean, every time you guys talk about it, like, the other day I, uh, actually, yesterday, I hovered over it in the PlayStation Store. I was, like, 1999. I can do this. But I... Yeah, I'm 360, so then you can play with us online. But I thought, uh, John, but I thought it was, since I was PS3, so... I thought Peter Davidson said that the only way to play it was, was, uh, on PS3. Um, yeah, I mean, PS3, I guess, it looks a little better, and it runs a little smoother. I just depends where, where people you know are playing it, because online element is very cool. I like it, John. It's, like, a video game spirit to guru. So when John was, like, PS3 is the only way to play, I'm like... It's like gaming Buddha. John, no, John is the knowledgeable dad in the gaming neighborhood. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Okay. Papa, Papa, Papa, Davis... Papa, John, I really like this girl. What should I do? Maybe that was gonna be his name for what they play at first, Papa, John's. And he was like, I might be sad again. Um, but yeah, you think I should get it for 360? It just depends who... Is it 1999, or 360 as well? I think the retail one is... Or, or... You can't download it on 360. Yeah, see, that's, that's, that's kind of a, in its favor, though, because... You want a disc? I have a shelf for... No, I bet... I'd be willing to bet money that by November of this year, you'll see retail 360 games for purchase on the marketplace. You think so? I'm surprised that I haven't, I mean, surprised that I haven't done it yet, but I think it's... I think that they're trying to work on a way to do it that gets around, or that enables DRM, but also lets people install from discs. I think the bigger issue for me is that, like, I still just have my 20 card drive, which is almost full, even now it's tough when I want to download a demo. So, I'm not, like, I'm in no rush to upgrade my hard drive to, like, $100 per product. I bet it would be much easier to upgrade your hard drive if the 360 hard drives weren't priced insane. But what I'm saying, they're all, like, proprietary that you can't pop on in. They're ways to upgrade your own hard drive, although it's not something we can really discuss, but I do have a choice. Well, not only that, but it's not something that someone, like, Nick, would feel comfortable doing. Right, it's just a hassle. Like, I don't want to have to do that, you know, whereas, unlike, you know, on... Wait a second, did you just tell Anthony to get the 360 version of a game? Aren't you employed by Sony now? Oh, I already own it. I don't know. I don't think this is going to work out very well for you. Anyhow, that depends on who you want to play with. I mean, it's two months. If you're going to play with, like, David Ellis. Well, the thing is, is that I don't even really picture myself playing with anyone. Like, that's a thing. See, that's the thing, is the online portion of the game is really cool. Yeah, like, I just kind of picture a driver on the city and doing fun shit, and then that's it. But it's so, like, well integrated if we actually do it. Like, the, I mean, like, you and I and Tyler could hop on and do all the three-player challenges. For, there's two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight. There's sets of challenges where it's like 50 of them. Now, we know why he wants another 360 version. You need three-player achievements. I don't know if I do. I might need my mic. I guess what it'll come down to is it'll come down too. I'll have to find out who else has it. And then I'll have to judge which one of you on the friendship scale is worth more. So, Tyler, is it just that making your way around the city gets confusing? Or, I mean, what is it about it, if it's not the driving? Well, first of all, like, I tend to, like, slower-paced games. Like, I've, you know, I've said this before. And, like, I get anxious, like, with fast-paced games, like fast-paced shooters, especially, like, racers. So, I could be doing really well in a race, like, for the first two-thirds of it. And then I start getting nervous, like, "Oh, my God, when am I gonna screw up?" And then it's, like, self-fulfilling prophecy. Wrong corner. And then there it is. I'm fucked. Like, that's it. I don't know. You, uh, aren't you a big, like, rock band or guitar hero fan? Those are pretty fast-paced when you're playing on harder skills, you know? I enjoy those games. I've never owned them, so I've never been able to. Oh, you don't own them? I do not, sorry. I feel like we should remedy that. We'll get you a rock band hookup. I'll have you tired. And then I've been in touch with those guys for so long. 'Cause, like, 'cause I, I write for a, um, I guess, in addition to one-up. Yeah, popular stuff. Um, yeah. Well, yeah, I, I write for this independent newspaper in Houston called Free Press Houston. It's really cool. And, like, we're total, like, the mainstream market. Like, we're not a gaming-focused magazine in any way. Yeah. I'm sorry. Did they pay you? It's paid to. Oh, n-n-no. As soon as you said, as soon as you said independent newspaper, I was like, "No money." But it's a labor love. I love doing it. Oh, I'm also the art director. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna say you're dumb for, I mean, even before I got a job at- Yeah, sure. Like, Davis, I used to write for a handheld site. And I was truly freelance. Like, all they did is occasionally gave me games and I was, like, doing an assignment a week on a deadline. That was a big one. I like how the one issue you showed me at Free Press wasn't that the one that other cover us before the election was decided. It had, like, Obama and McCain, both, like, eating babies in the cover. Yeah, yeah. That, um, a local Houston artist, um, uh, Grayson Coffee, uh, did this amazing painting of, like, Obama and McCain. And they, they, they looked like zombies. And our whole thing was, instead of kissing babies, they were eating babies. So, like, Obama had, like, a baby's foot in his hand. Like, and the paintings were, they're amazing. Just to guess people are thinking, like, very conservative newspaper in Texas. This was not the case. Yeah, oh, no, we're, yeah, we definitely do crazy shit. Like, we seceded from the city of Houston and all kind of great stuff. I mean, yeah, well, Tyler did move out to California, so I guess there's something to be said about that. And working for that was probably a good way to get tickets to South by Southwest. Dude, I, like, I didn't pay to get into a concert. Like, I haven't paid to go into a concert since 2004. Well, now that you're out here, though. Yeah, I know. It sucks now, like, oh, God, I'm paying to go see shit. Well, I think I, in a similar way, some of us are feeling that, like, uh, the other day when I, when I went to the store, I can't remember what I bought, but I bought, like, a DS game or something. Oh, a Subaru. And I was like, hmm, I missed the days when I didn't like, I would think to myself, I'm not going to buy this, because there's a Game Give Boy coming up. I'm no order was borrowed from marketing my place. Yeah. And I desperately, I was trying to get, I was never, I was never, I went up long enough to get that lazy. Now, now I'm desperately trying to gather PR context. I can be like, hey, I'm like a free copy of this. Civ Rev, have you played the 360 or PS3 versions? I have not, but I hear that they're all very good. I loved it. It was probably that and Fallout 3 were probably the two games I played the most last year. I mean, I have access to the PC version, which is not necessarily better because it's a different game. Yeah, I want to play this. The 360 version is like, which is going to go as a Civ 4 update, which is a Civ 4 update. Maybe it's going to go back around. Yeah, it's going to say I haven't played any Civ 4 this week. So people are going to be disappointed. No. But it's just because I've, you could probably just make one up. I could, I mean, I could just tell you that I was the Indian Empire. No, no, no, we just talk about Anthony's dreams. I converted everyone to Buddhism and then raised the Buddhist army, which is, you know, kind of doesn't make sense. That would be great. It was funny until you explained it. And then, but no, I didn't play any Civ 4. I've actually, you know, not to steal Tyler's fire, but I've had all my time taking up by another game. So yeah. All right. Well, Tyler, any other stuff? Oh, no, no, no. That's all. All right. I don't have a lot of other. I mean, I've been playing a lot of burnouts since I kind of got back into it. Even just, I'm kind of going for my, I think it's elite license to one like above A. I finally got my license. And I mean, I have just been doing a lot of single player stuff. It's a great podcast game. Just almost in a podcast. I can just kind of mindlessly do a bunch of races and road ridges and whatever. What do you guys think about the, because they announced this week that's the first car pack. And it's the first paid content for burnout outside of like the party pack that came out. It's going to be eight bucks for four cars, which a lot of people are very upset about. And you can buy the cars separately and the car that everyone is especially interested in this new one. It's like three bucks. Yeah. I don't know. It doesn't seem like the end of the world. I mean, shit, if nothing else people should be like, uh, date bucks, but look how much shit we've gotten for free up till now. Yeah, that's, that's the thing that was like a, to me, it does seem pretty expensive especially. I almost wish that they would have like given the cars away for free and charged for some of the... See, I disagree. I mean, I think it's good that the content updates have been free. That's true. Yeah. I mean, this is like stuff that you don't need. Yeah. There's just, I mean, there's precedence for like fours. They're releasing cars really cheap and stuff like that. And I, I, you know, I almost feel like they may be kind of taking advantage of the goodwill people want to give them. Yeah. You know, like they, they know I want to give them money for their next update because I do, I want to support them. But I, I feel like I'd rather, like, if I'm paying eight bucks, I kind of want to get more, you know. I feel like in Forza car packs are so much more of a big deal than they are in Burnout. Like in Burnout, so much more of the game is about doing these crazy stunts and stuff in the city. And in Forza, it really is about like the way this very specific Aston Martin handles on the track or something. Like that, you know. Well, that's another reason. Yeah. And like, I mean, the cars aren't going to, like these, these four new cars aren't going to change the game in any huge way. It really makes me want to play Forza 2 again all of a sudden. I'm just saying, I mean, it's, it, I mean, I think I'm still going to. It does seem, it does seem like a little pricey, but I'm just saying it's not like, right, right. I mean, five dollars would have been a more ideal price. It's just kind of surprising like that after all these free updates and for like a year of awesomeness, that's suddenly the first big content. Well, it seems like it's a little too much. Yeah. You know, the economy sucks. Red, right. Yeah, that's like, I wish I could have been talking about Death Tank for XBLA because I really wanted to play because I love the version. I mean, I played a few months ago. That's again, I came out this week. Yeah. Phil, do me a quitter. Yeah. No, I just, I guess I saw Death Tank was coming out and I was like, that doesn't sound like anything. No, it's really cool. It's kind of like, how could you not, how could you even know whether it's going on? It's got Death and Tank in the title. Well, I think it's. No, I mean. That's my point. XBLA, like since the good season last summer has been kind of like, you know, you like know when the good releases are coming. They do shovel out a lot of crap in between. So I don't blame you for having fun. No one didn't. No one thought sea life so far it was going to be good and then it was. I still stand by that. That's an awesome game. I believe we'll leave you. Anyway, so Death Tank is 15 bucks, which is totally like I will never. This is crazy. Yeah. And that's the type of game that requires a lot of people to be playing. Like you and your friends playing on Latin together. That's like a great, like that works well on that game. Wasn't our type like a voice? It was also 50. What is Death Tank? Can you explain it? It's like worms. A lot. It's like a 2D thing where you're these guys. I used to play game school. I used to play game school. Like that with tanks way back in the day called Scorched Earth. That's why everyone. That's why everyone's getting different from Scorched Earth. So everyone can experience Scorched Earth. So like it's all for 15 bucks though? Yeah, probably. Really? And I cannot tell you how many hours I used to lose to Scorched Earth. I forget people are going to like want to correct me instantly, but Scorched Death Tank is actually. There was a mini game and I think some Saturn game which was Death Tank. And people loved it. And everyone was shocked when they announced this. They were like a whole Death Tank or something like that. So Anthony will tell us more about that next week maybe. So I wrote down though. I did spend like two hours playing a bunch of XNA community games. Just because like I was waiting for my friend Tom to download the burnout patch. And we were just chatting and I was trying them. So I tried demos for all these that I wrote down. Like R2 and which people have talked about before. It's pretty interesting. It's like a little it's kind of a puzzle game. And it's like the bouncing ball, the aesthetic and music is very like marble-less ultra kind of. But so you have to bounce on these levels that are made out of like this grid and you're bouncing on the different squares. But if you don't bounce on the same one twice you like build up a combo. That's kind of about figuring out like the order and we should need to bounce and going around these tracks. Margal madness. Doesn't that kind of suck you? I was talking to Arthur about this. I've looked at that store for the XNA thing when the new Xbox experience launched. And then I've never looked at it again. It's kind of hidden to me. It is. It's totally hidden. I mean especially for casual gamers like they have no idea it's there. Never mind the fact it was 150 games like plenty of which are good and really cheap. And not only is that both. Microsoft's not doing a good job of advertising it. And also like there isn't a good source online to that has like review you as or like looks at all of these games and tells you what's worth playing. I mean if they had like a dedicated like video game like a media site of site that just covered XNA games I'd go the record. I think there might be. Someone's not making a site right now. It's just there are a lot of there are a lot of things that haven't been handled very well. Like in XNA reviews.com. Yeah. Like what something I found out just not that long ago is that if you have parental control set on your 360 unless you enter the code you can't play any XNA community games. Wow. Yeah. That's a bummer because lots of good stuff. Couple of the games this game below this kind of cool like like side view puzzle game where you setting up fans to blow bubbles around the level. It's just like very very puzzling. That's kind of all I'd say about it. But groove which is one of the ones that bought which in a lot of people were talking about. And I guess this guy was actually a one up four. I remember who made this game. He left me a comment on my Twitter also how much did you pay for it? Two bucks or two fifty sorry two hundred points which is two fifty. Can they set they can set their prices slightly different. It's two hundred four hundred and eight hundred I think. So at most it's I think that's what it is. I think you're right. Or maybe it's six hundred so it's eight bucks at the most. But they're cheap. That's right. So anyway for two bucks all or for two hundred points I'll buy like you know almost anything I remotely like and grooves really cool. It's kind of set up a lot like geometry wars like it's moving around like moving and shooting in one set level. But this is going to be really hard to explain. People should just go check out the demo. But it's very like music based like you're building the music by shooting like when you're shooting it activates part of a soundtrack and hitting an enemy. It sounds a little like a. Another type of the soundtrack. What was the PSN one? Every shooter. It is a little bit like that. It's only it's much more sparse visually. It's more about just like creating the audio. But it's really cool. It's like you're building visually dynamic soundtrack as you play and it's going to sound different every time you play just by virtue of the structure. Yeah for two dollars man that sounds like a no brainer. It totally is. Again people don't know it's there. This is one called Hexothermic which is kind of cool. It's like setting off. We set checks. We're helping to sell you a game. And I'm not even going to describe that. Hexothermic is another cool puzzle game. Check out the demo. The other one I bought actually which is also 200 points is Johnny platform's biscuit romp. See this sounds awesome. I've heard this. I've heard about this. It's awesome. It looks a lot like Super Mario World like the aesthetic and colorfulness and everything. Is it a platform? It is a platformer. It's kind of a. I'm buying this. I'm buying this. It's kind of like Mario in a business suit. It's a. I don't even know. It's hard to tell how your character looks because it's like very you know very low pixels. He looks a bit like Rez from Psychonauts almost. Man that sells me on there right there. But it's really cool. It's kind of a single screen platform game. So you'll like play one screen's worth of platforming and then it'll take you to. You can all the enemies and go in the door and then it takes you to the next stage. But. I can't wait. It's cool. I don't know. There's like 90 levels or something. How much is that one? Oh Jesus Christ. See? I don't know. Recession gaming. Yeah. People should see it. Yeah this is a real recession gaming. The other ones were. Yeah. RC Airsome. There's a lot of these interesting experiments like this one was just pretty much like you're flying a little RC plane. All the game is like a little backyard. Very like low polygon. It's cool. It was a little runway and it takes off and the plane has kind of realistic controls over the runner and the yaw and all that. And you're just kind of flying it through the air and it's like it's satisfying. And I mean that one I don't think I'd buy because there's not a lot to it. There's just different planes and stuff. And then there's another one called Ocean scenes which all it is is like you pick a scene like various like an ocean with mountains in the background or like an ocean at sunset and then you pick how you want to view it like off the side of a boat or from the inside of a boat or over a deck and then you just like press go and it's basically like kind of a screen saver like this relaxing screen saver which like on a decent TV like mine like it looks nice. It's like I can see people wanting to see that up you know like fireplace screen savers. Back when the iPhone came out and their app store first opened up did you guys hear about the I forget what it was called it was like the I'm rich application. Yeah there was like $10,000 and like $9,999 because that was the highest price they could set it for and all it was is like motivational message that said like you're rich and you are worth it. And like a gym appears is your screen saver. Did they sit on it? They sold like five or so. Yeah. That's pretty awesome. I'm sure it was one. And then an apple like a dab or a soldier boy maybe bought it. And then the other one I don't know if I should talk about this now or in our second segment is a remote missus. Yeah. Let's see. Listen this for the second. Okay. Okay. I also I took a look at that. Good. We'll definitely talk about that. Oh my God. So make sure we bring it up. I have some I have some unique background to bring that conversation I think. Excellent. Okay. I don't think I played anything else. I'll interrupt you if I do. Let's see. I went out of town last week. And that happened to involve playing some sive rev on DS and how was it? Okay. So my problem with sive rev DS is that people at the console one just know I have that. So it's my first exposure. So I'm kind of interested in playing the 360 or PS3 version just to see what they're like. It's hard for me to tell. If I'm doing it right, I don't know. Is there a tutorial? There's kind of a tutorial, but it just it doesn't. Have you played a civilization game before? I want to say yes. Is your civilization getting stronger? Yes. My civilization. Is that you're doing it right? Well, I'm just not really getting attacked. The only time that ever really there was any drama is when I accidentally got boxed in by someone I declared as an ally. Did you read the instruction booklet? No. You know, war isn't always a big part of the sive games. I mean, it can be if you make it, but I prefer to win through cultural revolution. So much more satisfying when you've learned of a revolt of your people in one of their towns. It's like in my mind, I picture like a bunch of like my people moving in slowly and like all the people are getting pissed because they're like, God damn Indians are all fucking invading the neighborhood. Rinse going to go down and then before they know it and then I'm just saying because they hate my people because inherently sieve is very racist. You know what I mean? Like, when I'm in there, I don't think to myself like, I think you're projecting. I hate red. I'm like, I hate, I hate the English, I hate the English and I hate that they're close to my territory. I want to kill them. Because when you say you people are imagining like a town full of women and babies that look like Anthony? Well, mind you, I had the same visualization I was going to invite you, mind you, I'm playing is the Indians. So I, you know, I'm happy that the Indians are all moving in and taking over the block. And so it's like a, you know, but I love it when eventually there's like an Indian revolution and they lose like two soldiers because they had to put it down. I picture like all my people like rising up all of a sudden and just like clubbing some soldiers to death and then them having to like fight them down, but they know like it's only a matter of time before they lose that city. So they're just starting to plan their escape. I don't know. I like the idea that of there's being some weird cultural revolution where now it's like all their traditional Greek restaurants are being pushed out by my people's restaurants and... The Indian restaurants? Yeah. I like that idea. So are there. How's the guy? Anyway, so you don't know if you're doing anything for us. So yeah, I don't, I don't, because I don't know that it's really giving me feedback as to whether and what are, what I'm doing is good or not. I mean, I'm winning and that I have the greatest city in the world and I have, I'm like 17 to 48 points towards victory or something like that. Yeah. I mean, if there was ever a DS game you might want to read the instruction booklet for it might be a sibling. It could be that. But you know Arthur, I'm sorry. No. I approach the game the same way you did. Normally my habits I do read the manual but when I started reviewing games for the newspaper I thought most people probably do not read manuals. So then I, so that was one game I was like, wow this must be a really complicated game. Can I just put it in and figure it out? And I felt the same way you were talking about. Eventually it started to click but I did have to go back and like read some, some things as far as like resource gathering and like, because like the cultural victories are like much more difficult than like the military ones and like you really need to know a lot of the ins and outs of. Yeah. And I guess I'll do that. I mean, I only had a chance to spend about three or four hours playing it. And that was all in one game and I still don't know how close I am to winning. So at least there's that. I mean, it offers a depth of play for a DS title that maybe you don't see as much. Were you talking about the DS one also Tyler? Yeah. And every single thing that is in the DS game is also in the 360 game. Everything that's in the 360 is in the DS. That saves me some time. Yeah. It's pretty much one for one. I managed to play some goal fashion pinball last weekend, which I hadn't done in years. How's that? Adam's family is a filthy whore. Adam's family is one of Adam's family in like Robocop. Classic. It's classic, but it's one of the most unforgiving tables as far as losing balls to the sides. There's a little new pinball table. They are. There was a Dark Knight pinball table. But nowadays I'm getting out of hand. The Lost pinball table? Yeah. There was a CSI Miami pinball table, which apparently I was the only pinball table. If there's a CSI Miami pinball table. No, there was a dark knight pinball table in there too, so I mean, I'm sure that there's a lot. And you could like launch the tumbler into the table. Yeah. I was thinking of the last one. It would just be like the smoke monster is the ball. It's flying around the alley. And then all of a sudden everything goes black in a second later. Suddenly it was a big box. Yeah. We're not going to talk about burn notice, although I really like that show. I played some cast of crashers. Nobody really wants to hear about that. I finally got any kingdom for Keflings, and that's another game where I'm not quite sure what's going on. And I don't know why that is. Well, I know what's going on. All that you think is going on is going on. And that's about it. I think the thing is probably the kingdom for Keflings and you was that you were playing it with someone who already knew all the ins and outs. And so it's kind of like being thrown in to be the piñata. Oh, yeah. I mean, like you have to learn from the beginning. I felt relieved that the other person I was playing with Kathleen from Microsoft, I was relieved that she knew what was going on because otherwise I think that I would have just walked around kicking small people. Well, the game starts when I'm really slow, like that's a good tutorial I'm getting. So it's better to do it by yourself. Like the thing about kingdom for Keflings for me too is that, yeah, like I did start off by myself and really enjoyed it. But then I took a break and didn't play for a couple of weeks and went back. And it's really hard to get back into it because you already like have learned, I mean, it's been so long since I learned how to build all the other stuff. Was it going back into a saved game or? Yes. Like where I was already like maybe two hours in. I mean, lots of games are that way though because by that point, there's so much going on that if you're not immediately familiar. Yeah. Well, I mean, that's exactly it. I'm not used to that in console games. I mean, I forget when you stop learning, like once you stop learning new things, that's kind of where the game starts going downhill, I think. Like it's satisfying as you build up your city, but once you get to the point when you have a city and you're maintaining and just trying to make new buildings, like the whole end game and you're busy and all these good for me. People have to go read last night, 1,300 work review on one up. I mean, it's cute. It's 1,300 work so he says his next setner. It's a pretty chilled out game. I mean, it's a good late night. I need to chill out after playing Lost and Damn for a couple of hours kind of game. Yeah, it is definitely good for that. And like you said, like there are games that I play that I listen to during or that I played while I'm listening to podcasts and that could definitely become that. I'm curious, Ninja B, I think they're working on an iPhone game right now because I've been following Valerie Cope, who's their external PR. She's really cool. I've been following her Twitter and she's been talking about like, does anyone know about iPhone games? And then she's been talking about like playing an iPhone game right now and it sounds like they're working on one. So that's kind of cool. Doesn't that not sound like, doesn't that confirm that they're working on one? Pretty much. Okay. And last night, I downloaded Lost and Damn and got into that, which is my introduction to Grand Theft Auto 4. But we'll talk about that in the next segment. We'll talk about the game a little right now because I want to hear if it's worth me downloading it. So it's going to be hard because Arthur doesn't have the perspective as he can. No. And in a way, the fact that I haven't played Grand Theft Auto 4 and I wasn't interested in San Andreas, the loss of the dam to being its own thing is what drew me into it because it's a much more approachable amount of content. So I guess I haven't even bothered to look into this, but is Lost in the Damned, like, is it a standalone expansion? Yes. So when you start at the game and you've downloaded Lost and Damn, it'll say, we've detected Lost and Damn DLC. Would you like to start a Lost and Damn game? Well, it's not standalone. You have to have this. You have to have GTF. Oh, that's what I said. It's standalone and that it's not an, it's not additional content to your existing game. So much as it's an expansion in the way that say opposing force for half life was an expansion. It's something, but it's not standalone. It's an expansion. It's an expansion in the traditional sense. Okay. So, so you have, like, the whole city at your disposal. Yes. And it goes... I have a new area. It goes more into Alderney, which I guess... No, it is. You don't have a new area. It's just that you're playing it. It has more parts of areas that you didn't see before. And you're playing it as a new character within your meeting? Yeah. Yeah. And it explores, I guess, the least explored part from the GTA 4 proper, which is Alderney. But the fact that it's a smaller piece of content is what made it appealing to me because I wanted to get a new GTA 4, but I didn't want to dump 50 hours into finishing it. Did you not want to just go explore the city right away? No, I'm not interested in exploring Grand Theft Auto 4 cities. I'm interested in the character development and the story. And so far, I mean, the story is interesting. There's a lot of superficial conflict in that you're at war with another biker gang and you get shaken down by dirty cops and there's the stereotypical GTA cop-like hoodlum gun battle type stuff. But there's also a sort of quiet tension that's building between your character, Johnny, and the just released from rehab, chapter president of The Lost in the Damned Billy, who basically when he was in rehab, it seems like The Lost in the Damned were kind of chilled out like doing okay, like paying for all Billy's medical bills and legal bills and shit. And once he gets out, the shit hits the fan immediately. Had you played the previous GTAs? I played GTA 3, some in Vice City, some, and I just couldn't get into them. I have a lot of complaints, both philosophical and gameplay about old GTA games. Yeah, because that would, I mean, like, I think, like, on what level can I have an Anthony drawing on your legs? I think what level you enjoyed the older ones on really like them. It's distracting. I think the level on which you enjoyed the older ones really kind of affects your expectations coming into this one. I was like, if you're playing this one for the narrative and stuff, that's kind of the right way to do it, because I think one of the reasons I didn't enjoy GTA 4 as much as I should have is because I really enjoyed the free form aspects, which are really like downplayed now. And I just feel like if I wanted that in that kind of game, that A, I already have Crackdown and Crackdown did so much of that open world stuff with stuff I enjoyed better than the GTA series that I played and also their Saints Row 2, which I've been told does the open world go completely batshit thing better than GTA 4 did, simply because the consequences that GTA 4 added, the weight to your decisions that GTA 4 added, such as they are detracted from some people's enjoyment of the game. So how far into Lost in the Damned are you like, how long have you been playing? I've only been playing for maybe a couple of hours, three hours. I'm curious, I'm curious just about the length of the content. I've seen conflicting reports, but generally, I'm seeing that this main storyline goes eight to twelve hours. That's really pretty good, for like $10 at $20, okay, it's still pretty good. That is approachable to me, because I don't want to get into a 40 hour narrative, and that was one of the weaknesses of GTA 4 from what I understand is that it stretches too much out to the end. It is a bit long, but if you enjoy this, do you think you're going to go back and play the original story in GTA 4? I think it will just depend on what's on my plate at that point, as far as games to play. That's right. But yeah, I'm enjoying it, the motorcycle physics are largely fine, apparently they're improved from GTA 4, Anthony played it for a minute or two last night and said that it felt like the bikes were more attached to the ground than they were in GTA 4. And don't you get, I heard like you get a bike that you're supposed to have with you the whole time. Yeah, you can't ride. You can't ride in formation with the other, with the members of your chapter unless you're on a motorcycle, and it has to be either your motorcycle or something similar to it. The one time that I got killed and had to go back and redo a mission that required my motorcycle, it was there waiting for me, like you can call and have a motorcycle delivered to you. So yeah, I'm liking it so far, we'll see if that keeps up. I'm kind of interested if from your impressions so far, like you mentioned, you were a little adverse to some of the previous GTA's, you know, do you feel like GTA 4 has maybe remedied any that in any way or a lot of things are still there? Lost and Damned or GTA 4? Well, I guess Lost and Damned because that's what you've... I don't feel like I'm doing anything that feels out of character for the person I'm playing. I don't feel like he's doing things that that kind of character wouldn't do, and I don't feel morally reprehensible yet, so I kind of like that. You know what I think might be interesting about that, is that the Lost and Damned is sort of a small chunk compared to like the Niko, which is the third, the size. So they have to stretch it out less, so like there's less chances to where the main character can do out of character things. Yeah. Yeah, I think that's a much more interesting format than trying to stretch out one storyline. You know, for such a long game, especially GTA 4 with Niko's storyline, it really started to meander towards the end. And I think that that might have to do with just Rockstar near halfway through the development process saying, "Look, this is what people expect from a Grand Theft Auto game when we have to give it to them." It could be interesting if maybe in future ones they do it from like a multi-character perspective. I think that could be cool to be able to do it with, especially if you were like playing as the cops, you know, from one side of it. I'd like to see a GTA game where you play as a police officer. I think John Davison brought this up, I don't know if it was on our show or if it was on Listen Up or What, but I remember him saying it would be cool if they continue GTA. Like if they treat GTA the way that EA's been treating burnout and just continue adding to it, but adding these smaller stories to the world that's already there in Liberty City. I think that could be really awesome. Yeah, I'm more interested in playing that than I am in playing GTA 4 proper. Because there's so many interesting characters, especially in GTA 4 with the different gangs. I think it would have been interesting maybe if GTA 4 were subdivided into what we're talking about like four different gangs and you sort of play from all their different perspectives because the characters are really interesting and I think something like that you'd get away from some of the problems. I kind of miss in San Andreas how they had certain different neighborhood zones and you'd have to go fight out a gang war and then you'd expand your turf. I kind of like that idea. Yeah, Saints Row 2 has that. I was on the review for that with OneUp and they, you know, I love San Andreas a lot. So we might have conflicting interests there, but yeah, I love that aspect. We should tell a quick story about that review for OneUp, Saints Row, because the week that it was due for OneUp, like the EGM one you had turned in, but the OneUp, like a longer text was due and we needed a review, but you were busy moving out here that week. So it, so you sent me the initial draft from you email it from like a hotel or something, right? Like when you and your girlfriend were driving out here like on the road trip and then I had a couple questions for you and some edits that had needed. So I got back to you, but you were in the middle of nowhere and couldn't find a computer and I ended up taking dictation from your girlfriend on the phone to like update the reviews that we could put up live, the extent that we went through to get our reviews up in a family manner. It was great. I was driving a giant rider truck through the desert. But that's ridiculous. Yeah, that's, that's what I've been playing. That's what I'll be playing for the next week or so probably in that call could be a little bit. I look forward to hearing more about that. Yeah. Anthony. I beat fear too and it has the worst ending of any game I've played in a long time. You're a sexy man. But it's with a, I'm conventional with, I'm convinced they cannot end ending. They can't do ending. I like that. They need to form them out. Is it just literally there? Is it kind of like the game play as well? No, I mean, I enjoyed the game and everything. It's just like the ending story. It's just like, like I wasn't even like, you know, I was writing a guide and I didn't even take screenshots of the part right at the end because I assumed it wasn't the end. I assumed there had to be more. So I was like, I'm waiting. And all of a sudden I went to credits and I was like, what the fuck? And I made some weird observation about halfway through the boss fight that ended up being true against all logic reason or, or good sense. So it just kind of falls apart at the end really badly. Absolutely. Like I didn't read Garnet's review. I saw that he gave it an A- but if it should have been like, that A- was all because it should have been. All because of the end. Oh shit. It just like, it put such a bad. I mean, do you care that much? Like, are you planning that game for the story? The story is kind of interesting. I mean, they kind of- I liked the story in the original and I hear that they improve it quite a bit. Yeah. I mean, you have like, unlike the first one where you're kind of on your own a ton and this one you're constantly running into other members of your squad. The same people and working with them and traveling with them. I mean, is there resolution? No. No. Oh no. Not only that, but it muddies the water a little more, I think. Yeah, it's just like, it's like, wait for free three if we ever make it. So it's like, I don't know, it's just like. Oh, they make another condemn. It puts it, oh, I'm sure they will. It puts like a really sour like ending on like what I felt was like a, you know, I'll be on the co-op show as well, talking about it soon. You know, and I just said, it's kind of like the way I hear you guys talking about Kill Zone that it's like, it doesn't do anything great or like, or it just thinks great. I don't mean that, but I mean, it doesn't do anything like new, but it still like has like all the satisfying firefights like when you play a Call of Duty game that you're like, oh, that was a great little scene. This one does that same thing. There are plenty of times you run into an area and it's like an awesome little scene and you do a really satisfying fire. So if you just want like a really satisfying shooter, it does all that really well, but just like when you're playing it and you are kind of engaged in the story, and then it just like, it's all culminating into this one epic thing that doesn't turn into anything epic. It's like so into coming into it. Oh, I'll be curious what you think of the end of Kill Zone, which I don't know if you, I'm ready to talk about it now. So I played a, I played a, that and then I'm young that I've really just been, I've been trying to get the old Dawn of War games working 'cause I don't know, the real Dawn of War II is coming out tomorrow. So I'm in anticipation of that, I've been trying to play the old ones just 'cause I'm super excited. I want to talk more about Flower, but I really don't want to run it. What else do we have to say about Flower that hasn't been covered in the last two episodes? The last area. Yeah, I mean. Okay, once you've played all of it. No, we'll talk about it. Yeah. You won't be here. Exactly. In your comments, you can send a letter. You can post comments and we'll maybe read them if they're good. If I don't delete them. I don't mind leaving the room if you guys want to talk about it. Well, I'm not gonna know anything. No, I don't want to hear him talking about Flower. Anything else? No, I mean that fear thing's really taken over my time, but now that we've, we talked about like the Kingdom for Keflings, it makes me want to go back and play Black and White too. 'Cause, you know, Black and White too kind of plays, it looks like it plays like Kingdom Keflings. You got like one big old monster and that's another one where I never won by making like a really evil monster. I was one by making like a really, really benevolent society and then just making them want to leave their town and come migrate to me. There's nothing more satisfying than making a city so great that people leave their own freaking homes and drag their babies and oxen across the land. It's very validating to you. Yeah. So. That's excellent. Well, okay. I did finish Killzone 2. As long as you don't spoil it up. I will not spoil anything, storyline wise or anything, but I will say that, I don't know, it was really mixed at the end because the last few missions, the environments get a little more interesting for the most part, but also there are a couple more firefights where like it's, they do the Call of Duty thing of like endless respawns until you get to a certain point and that's just kind of frustrating, especially because it took me a while to figure out for some of them that they were doing that. So I kept trying to tackle this area from different angles and I'm like, oh, there's so many guys here. Talking about like the last big outdoor firefight, that, that I thought was awesome, like that for me. Did not think that was really like, I don't see that for me, like that's kind of where that was probably my least favorite part in the whole game, I was going to say that's one of the better like levels of any shooter ever like to me. Not at all. It was this endless. I mean, again, it was like the Call of Duty thing where it's just endless respawn. Enemies keep coming until you figure out and they, there's no way of really knowing you just have, because when you look in the, what are they called, the objective list, they tell you the description they give says, you'll have to fight for every inch of ground here. So my thought was, oh, so there's a ton of enemies because you just need to move forward very slowly, but it's not, you're just supposed to rush past them until you get to the point where they stop spawning. Yes. It is true. I think we've played it differently. Well, but yeah, I did go inch by inch and no, but I tried doing that and just kept dying over and over again, so I don't tell you about that, but it's like you get to certain points where the guys are like responding from multiple angles, right. And so it's really hard to keep moving forward in any way because then they're just attacking from the side. I do wish the checkpoints have been a little forgiving in that, a little more forgiving in that area. Where, where, where can we read your review? My review is hopefully going to be up at some point. I, I don't know when it'll be. I'm not going to say it until it's up. But yeah, so that I'm done with that and I'm working on the guide now. But I mean, there are some really great areas at the end still. The other thing is the, again, without ruining anything in this story, there are a couple points in the final missions where they try to make it a little bit more serious and it didn't really work for me. I mean, it was, it sort of felt like Gears of War II, like a couple of serious moments in that. I mean, it's a lot of characters so it's tough to care about. And yeah, there is this overall theme of, I guess the theme is kind of supposed to be about the futility of war sort of, but it doesn't come through until the very end and it doesn't work very well. Okay, so let me ask a question. I'm like, you don't necessarily care about the characters in Gears, but you do end up liking them? I don't know. I don't know. I think, I think you're in a minority when you say that. Yeah. Really? I like Coltrane. Everybody likes Coltrane. I mean, at least in the first one, I mean, there was a point where I did not want people to die. Yeah, like I don't, I mean, I don't want people to die. I don't hate the characters. I don't need to see you, I guess. Wow. I don't hate the characters in Gears of War, but I don't have any emotion towards them at all. Like they're just there. They're just dudes carrying guns at that. And that's how I feel about the characters in Killzone as well. They don't really have discernible personalities. See, I think in Gears, I like, especially the third person, like I, I like feeling like this big, hunky, like football player, badass and slamming up against things and shooting. But when it turns him into a character, like I don't care remotely about Marcus as a character whatsoever. Like he's not interning me at all. I guess Gilzone also you're playing as a character, but you're seeing through the eyes of him. So it's a little more like you, but there are, there are like a few moments in Killzone where your character actually has lines and those actually surprised me because he doesn't speak through most of it. So when there was a cutscene that I was like, oh, that's my actual character, Smithy. But I mean, even the parts where he does have lines, he's usually kind of ignored. And it just, I don't know. He doesn't. Overall you enjoyed the game though? Yeah. Overall, I think, you know, it's not the best first person shooter ever. But I think anybody who enjoys that genre should definitely play it. It's really excellent. Yeah. I mean, I think I was explained with someone who they're not. But it's like, it looks great. And I think to most people, the shooting, like the actual shooting is satisfying. So like, that's why if those two reasons are why people play shooters for the most part, I think so. It's a big action movie. Yeah. There's nothing really lasting about it. You might remember some of the cool firefights, but other than that. I'm really looking forward to trying multiplayer in a Tyler. Yeah. I really want to try multiplayer as well. I'm hoping that it works out well with like the class system that they have and everything. So yeah, that's about it for me other than that. It's just been some world of Warcraft and I've been focusing on that guide. So did you finish all your... I got my Valentine's Day achievements. Okay. I'm the loveful. I have that title now. Congrats. But then I realized that now that I have the Valentine's Day achievements, there's not a holiday event for quite a while, I think until Easter. So I have to actually like play the game now. You have to like hunt down some Christ. I hope so. Or what? What? What? I got a Christ Mountain. Is that your hope and dream with that pull you in the world of Warcraft? I have it. You actually get a flying crucifix that means... I'm pretty sure we just lost a lot of subscribers. So let's take a quick break and then do our main discussion once or twice. God, God has no place in this podcast. What are you talking about flying Jesus? So Audrey, you've been playing this, lost the damn downloadable content. Have you gotten to the scene that I saw in game videos? No, I haven't reached the penis threshold yet. I did see the video. Has anybody not watched the video yet? I watched it. I haven't watched it yet. Nick watched it a few times. Oh yeah. Slow motion. Full screen. Yeah, I mean I don't know. I mean Rockstar, like they obviously try to push boundaries. And you know I... Well here's the question. I mean this is where I want to start off this discussion on maturity in games. Is this just Rockstar, you know, pushing the envelope, trying to shock people? Yes. Or is this... Is there an actual reason for this? Is there a reason to see this full frontal male nudity in the game? I'm all about having like nudity in games when it's necessary. I think there should be like adult sex games. I have no problem with that as long as they're like, you know, sold properly. Arthur's really creepily nodding along with this. But I think that in this instance it is just, I mean it's lame that that nudity is kind of pushing a boundary in our culture. But how they did it in this, it's like yes I think it was just kind of like shock value. See I disagree with that. I mean I haven't played it yet so I mean, I've got to keep that in mind, I've just watched the video online. But I think there might actually be a reason for this being here. Like if you watch the scene carefully, if you try and get a feel for the characters, I mean the guy that you're talking to, I think he's supposed to be a politician or something. And he's, you know, he's this, like he's very cocky, and I think he's very arrogant. And I mean, it's a power play when he's standing up and he doesn't show. And then when it actually shows you, because you see a lot of the scene, it's just not showing his penis, but he is not wearing anything. So your character is seeing it. But then when they actually show it to you, the player, they're kind of putting you in the character's shoes. They're trying to make you feel uncomfortable like he's uncomfortable. And yeah, okay. So. But in the trailer, is it, is I guess maybe in the game it serves a purpose, but perhaps in the trailer. No, it wasn't. It's not a trailer. It was just captured from the game. They pulled the cinema. So I think it starts with the purpose. The fact that he's naked, yes, it makes sense of the character because the character is kind of a sleazy dude that doesn't care that you can see how dirty he is at that point. So it's very, it's almost philosophical and it's use of, of Pinor. I would say it's not even, not even that he's dirty, but that he's trying to show that he's comfortable and like in control of the situation, he's trying to assert his power. And I'm right there with you until they winger on the penis. And there's Pinis shake at some point, which, which to me, that's just realistic physics. That crosses the line from, from this serves a point for the narrative of the story to, hey, look, dicks, maybe, I mean, maybe they showed a little too long, although like the cutscene is, what is it like four minutes long and they only show, yeah, they only show his, his penis for like the last 35 seconds or so, I think it's like a little of both. I think it's a little of Rockstar saying like, hey, look, we can, we can do it like I got what you got from it, Phil. Like we can do this. And then at the last second, boom, but we're also going to like do this like funny little like cock thing like here we go, we're going to show you this dick for a little longer than you think we can. And I went for, I'm all for, so much cock in the last minute or two. I'm all for Rockstar pushing the boundaries of what we find acceptable, but at the end of that scene, it feels like that's Rockstar saying, hey, look, we've got penis, we're not supposed to show it. You can see it. Right. Yeah. I'm all for them like pushing forward down below because they're kind of the guys who do it, but they always manage to do it in a way that it's like, well, damn it, if you do it that way, people are going to find it. Yeah. Thanks for sticking your finger in the eye of the people that want to be really in this case, like if we were talking about, I don't know, like hot coffee or something, that would be different. But in this case, I really do feel like, you know, because there's a, there's a reason for it in the context of that, of that scene, like there's a reason they're doing it for the player. And that works for me. I just wish that like, I mean, I haven't finished GTA for put through like, you know, three quarters of it, but I'm assuming there's no like sex scene with girlfriends outside of the, you know, where the camera shows the outside of the apartment, you hear her. But you know, if they did like a, like a tender love scene with nudity, like, I think, you know, like, like a lot of films do, I think that may be a way to, to kind of push it in or like, what does it mean? I love seeing work in a GTA game. I, I think I would love to see it work in a GTA game. I'd love to see a story that resonated enough for a sex scene to work. But like, like, like a plot mass effect for you. Exactly. That even though it seemed like it didn't do it that well, but like, but yeah, I mean, that, yeah, you write it wouldn't work in a GTA game. I think that it did kind of work in mass effect. The effect of the love scene mass effect depended entirely on how much you invested in that game. If you blew through that game and didn't really explore the stories of the characters of their relationships, then if you saw it, it was just like, there's a lot of implied nudity in here. I just wish that other people tried to, to, to push the envelope because I think, like I said, Rockstar always does it worse kind of like, well, come on. Well, you do that. People are slogan that's like, think badly of video games. I think too, that it, you need a game where sex makes sense and we don't have a lot of games like that. I mean, you know, like a lot of the games are talking about are these just, uh, gory shooters like, you know, Gears of War two or Killzone, like a sex scene is not going to work in those games. This isn't, this isn't a complaint just about games. I mean, you can, you can expand this conversation to media in general. It's just the games happen to be what we're talking about. Well, I mean, games also like, I mean, there's tons of nudity in films. There isn't games like games are so much more focused on violence and even, I mean, we can talk about violence in a little bit, but, um, I think I actually ended up prophesy going back to that, which we, you know, played through for the backlog before, um, and that's, that's a part where like the sex scenes could have been, I mean, I never mind the fact that there were interactive. If you played, I was going to say, yeah, I mean, if you played the, the unrated pieces. That's what I was going to say that they were, but they were censored for the US and the console version, which is disappointing. It's like, that's one, I think maybe it's because they were interactive, but I think that part like where you meet up with your ex and you have that like a couple moments with her. And I guess I was the only one who ended up like, I'm in a bed with her. I slept with my ex. What's that? I slept with my ex. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You had to play her the right songs and guitar and then try and kiss her before. Okay. I mean, you gotta be smooth, but right, right, right, but I guess I'm like, I feel like I have to run the mandatory. Are we still talking about games? All right. But anyway, so that's what I do. I bring them up with like a guitar for them. That moment meeting up with your ex was like kind of very, you know, realistic and I was awkward and everything. And I think the back video and I'm going to bed with her like, that means something in the context of the game and the characters, but the fact that they cut that out for the US release, that's like that's disappointing. That's some, that's a time where it could have like, meant something. Well, we're still on the topic of sex and games. I didn't want to bring up this article I saw just before I came over here. This is on starpulse.com, which I do not read normally, but a friend linked me, I promise. The article's titled Kanye West designed X-rated video games and. Designed? Designed. Designed. Designed. Okay. Not does not do so. Like in a previous life. The article reads at 12. The forward thinking star would spend his nights creating quirky games with penises and ghost vaginas. I feel like this is just the equivalent of the self character and super bad drawing penises and keeping them in a lot of times. Hold on here. We've got a quote here from Kanye West. This is what he tells details magazine. I got into doing beats for the video games I used to try to make. My game was very sexual. The main character was like a giant penis. It was like Mario Brothers, but the ghosts were like vaginas. I'm 12 years old and this stuff is 30, this and this is stuff 30 year olds are programming. You'd have to draw in and program every little step. It literally took me all night to do a step because the penis you know had little feet and eyes. I have no idea what that quote means, but it is brilliant. Wow. It makes me think of Tracy Jordan's Tracy Morgan's game on 30 Rock. Yeah. That's what I thought of when I read this film. Like I'm pretty sure I saw that episode of 30 Rock, but like who hasn't like written down on a like a sheet of paper like their dream game or whatever that they wanted to create. Thank you for saying dream game. Thank you so much for saying dream game and not what that could have been. I mean, but you know for how many of these people does involve penises and ghost of vaginas? I don't know. I'm just picturing him ripping off like he basically like wasn't good at programming. He just ripped off Pac-Man, made Pac-Man into a penis and just turned the ghost into vaginas. That's what I was thinking the whole time. But so I mean there aren't really any AO games. The only ones that have come out have been like available on like online purpose only. Well, and that's because that's because the publishers don't allow those AO games on their systems. Which is certainly for consoles to me, I guess. And I think a lot of that is, I mean, one, there's a problem first of all, I think with ESRB being kind of you know an internal like too much internal ties to the gaming industry. There's problems with that, but mostly just the fact that you can, most people can walk in any store and buy in a really game in a matter of all there. And also just the continued perception, false perception that most gamers are below a certain age. But I think it would do well for the gaming industry if they were actually able to release and regulate more like adult games. I mean, you can, it's on the PC, that's right. And ironically, I mean, maybe we're moving toward that because there was a big controversy that Amazon removed Rayplay from their store, which was a kind of intense. What was the deal with this? That was like a story, but it wasn't like a rape game though. Yeah. And that's not so much the point, so much is at least it was in the Amazon marketplace to begin with. And that's a, that is not the game that we want representing matured sexual content and video games. At least there was a major retailer, you can find it through. And that's true. That's the reason that the major console manufacturers don't let AO games on their platforms, because they're afraid of the retail reaction or afraid of the reaction. Okay, so let's say they made an AO game and most retailers wouldn't stock it, I imagine. And let's say you could only buy it through the publisher's website. What's the problem with like, you know, Microsoft or Sony and Nintendo being like, share, make this game. So, you know, then I was only going to buy it. Retailers are upset at the prospect of their being unique content for purchase online. And you see the way people react to like, you know, an ass cheek and mass effect, like, you know, just think. That was a pretty, to be fair, it was a fairly involved sex scene in mass effect. And I, it was, as games go, it was generally more emotionally intense than a lot of other stuff. It wasn't just movies. Well, but that's not how it was treated in the media. I know. Well, that's not how it was treated by one outlet. And then that spread. Right. So it's not like the overall mainstream media had this giant heart on, no pun intended, about sex and games. I think it's just certain sources. There's a question I wanted to bring up to, which is, um, I mean, I think we see female nudity a lot more in games than obviously, like we haven't really seen any male nudity until we saw barely see female, yeah, I mean, but it exists a lot more. Um, and I'm just wondering if they, if you can think of any examples where it's been used in a way that's not gratuitous. Like I'm thinking, like God of War, Afro samurai, those games have, uh, super gratuitous. They have female nudity. Yeah. But it's just totally gratuitous. There's no real reason for it. Well, but well, I wouldn't say there's no real reason for it. I'd say the reason for those games is like, is the gratuity being the entertainment? I mean, along with the violence as well. It's like, if you're going to go flat, like, that's, that's fine. That's fine. It's fine. And God of War, like tearing the head off a minotaur and then going and talking to some like, uh, Medusa chick with, you know, with their nipples. Yeah. I mean, it's like, you know, like, Jeff, he, he said he wanted to make this crazy adult game and like, that's, you know, one of the reasons why I mean, it was also a good game, but it was satisfying in like a very adult way. I didn't see. I don't think that was satisfying in adult way. I think it was satisfying in a very prescient, well, I guess I shouldn't say adult way because yes. And that's, that's one of the problems is that adult has come to be synonymous with pornography and purrients, as opposed to, but I don't have a design for mature audience. I don't have a problem with all that. I feel like in the context of God of War and F or samurai wasn't gratuitous because the whole game is gratuitous. Well, that, that doesn't change the fact that it was gratuitous, in my opinion. But okay. Do you think that's a bad thing, though? I think that there's a place for it. Okay. Yeah. That's, I mean, yeah, I agree. I feel like it better be done in a way that feels appropriate to it, whereas what I've seen of Afro samurai feels less appropriate than the nudity doesn't God of War for some reason. Well, well, a lot of the nudity in God of War with the exception of the minigames is stuff that's just sort of there, as opposed to, hey, look at our naked chicks with snakes for hair. It's an Afro samurai. It's, hey, these are topless girls. Look at their boobs that you then fight and cut in half with swords. Yeah. And that's like a whole, I mean, man, feminists could go crazy on that. Right. But I think in games like that, I think it's, I think a game based on gratuity like that as long as you, you know, like I said, sell it to the right audience, like literally like make sure that the younger audience can't buy it is okay. But I think all point originally to get back to is like in a game like GTA, I think, I think it could be in GTA. Again, it's capable of a wider range of emotions and they have some touching moments like when you sit down with what's his name's mother. I wish I could remember the news. Obviously it's not back to bed. But no, they have, they try to have these kind of like, you know, emotionally interesting moments. It's like those are the games that should be trying to push, push forward in like any of these mature situations, but they don't. It's only the game. Again, I think Rockstar with GTA 4 on has, has done a fairly good job of that with the GTA series. Like maybe not with something like Manhunter, but a spirit of in our comments says, honestly, I think one of the best franchises at walking the tightrope between purposeful and gratuitous violence is the silent hill games. There's gore, but it's used in a more cerebral mindfuckish kind of way. It serves its purpose and helps give the player a real sense of unease within the game world. I know, Anthony, you're a big fan of Silent Hill. It's true. There's a scene in Silent Hill 2 in particular that kind of stands out for this, which is like the infamous pyramid head rape scene where he's like killing one of the weird like monsters made from mannequin parts. And it's like weird and sexual and violent, but it totally does like serve a purpose for just like letting you know like how fucked up that. Did you ever play a rule of rose and a way or more? I didn't. It's not that silly, but I haven't. Oh, really? Yeah. Because I know that is a lot of like like sexual undertones. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing is like a lot of it in Silent Hill was like like undertones of sexuality from even like the way the characters were made and stuff like that and the violence, but it always served a purpose of setting an atmosphere of just how like another historical to on a, I think it was by Leo Alexander on Game Set Watch that somebody in our comments linked to on a haunting ground. Yeah, haunting ground. I think I mentioned that a couple weeks ago, it's the game where you're playing as a girl with a dog avoiding this giant thing that basically seems like it's intent solely on raping you and killing you. Well, sorry. I don't know if you're. Well, no, what I was going to ask, Silent Hill 2's storyline, isn't it revolved sort of around the internal like insanity of a guy who had issues with his wife? I mean, would you? Yeah, but I'm just saying that it's a more of the Silent Hill, but it's more important that is trying to get across his like themes of like violence against women or no, just of like sin and stuff like that to like the monster that he's raping isn't even like inherently a woman. It's like has no face. It has four legs. But I'd say that the Silent Hill does kind of the mature vibe. It does it well. I mean, it's a very that feels like yeah, that feels like an adult game and things don't feel gratuitous because it is all in the context of this very psychological setting. Yeah, that's what Spirit Up was saying is like it walks that that tightrope because the gore is really disgusting, but it's it still serves a purpose. Yeah, there's no part in Silent Hill where you're ever popping someone's head and you're getting a slow motion because you did a really awesome headshot. Do you feel like Silent Hill Homecoming felt a little less purposeful and a little more gratuitous? No, I mean, it was it was more physical because you did you had more control of your melee attacks, but I didn't think it was any more gratuitous. I mean, I guess there's an interesting point though because it was done by Western developers. Yeah, it was less. The other Silent Hills have been very much the projects of their their team and the the strange shit, the strange stories that they wanted to tell where's Homecoming was an American team trying to do a sign. Yeah. And I still think that the Western guys did just as good of a job if at trying to tell a story like that. I mean, their whole thing was about sin and forgiveness as well and their only difference that might have made it feel more gratuitous to some people is that you just had so much more control about the way that you heard things. I don't know. Another quote here from Spiritove and I think he's kind of talking about what you were talking about Nick. He says, "As far as the game that is taking it too far, I don't think too far is such a bad thing. If it's done to help make the player feel like an action hero badass. The violence in a game like Gears of War or God of War is absolutely gratuitous, but it's an action and venture style violence of almost cartoon proportions and it plays so well with the testosterone and everyone's little inner Spartans." See, I think that's for me why God of War works and why Gears of War doesn't work. Because God of War to me is very cartoony through and through. There's no, I mean, obviously there's a little bit as well as here, but outside of the dealings with your family, there's not really any emotionally raised portions or anything. It's all just very in your face testosterone, whatever, and that's why it works. But I think Gears of War is a really weird line between like cartoony gore, but it's also like very realistic visuals and they try to have moments in the story that are supposed to be meaningful to your character and it's kind of weird and for me feels gratuitous as a result. And I think Gears of War had kind of a bad influence on a lot of the industry, especially with something like Ninja Gaiden where it's like even the first, Ninja Gaiden 2 of the first greens I saw, I was like, I don't really need that kind of gore and Ninja Gaiden, that's not why I play it. I don't think that's going to make the combat any more satisfying. That's kind of how I felt about the final product too, maybe made it a little more visceral. I don't know that I needed the gore and Ninja Gaiden 2, but A, the gore out of the gameplay mechanic with dismembering people and them still going after you. And B, that helped Ninja Gaiden go more towards what they had originally intended, which was a crazy and industrial type action game, as opposed to what the technical limitations of the original Xbox may have been. Yeah, I just can't help but think that that time has been, you know, putting that focus on the gore could have been put to better use it. There were a lot of problems. Yeah. Well, there are a lot of problems in Ninja Gaiden 2 and I don't know that the gore is what kept that probably game from being... All right, no, that's right. Before we get too deep into violence, there are a couple of comments on sexuality and games that I wanted to read as well. Jayzig says "The Witcher is an interesting case of mutual content. The use of language and sexual themes makes a lot of sense given the hard-boiled semi-realistic fantasy setting of the game. However, they also introduce the concept of conquering women by having sex with them, which gives you collectibles. The gaminess of collecting sex tokens fights against the appropriate realism and makes this weird hybrid where the only rational reaction is to think Eastern Europeans are kind of weird." That's an excellent point. I think probably, is that a European developed game? Yes. I think probably the way that Europeans and Americans and Japanese developers, how they all approach sex and maturity in games is probably very different as well. No, I think that's very true, although I don't think that makes it any better to have a... Oh, no, no, not at all. Maybe a game where you're conquering women. Okay, so my issue is that there's this association with graphic content with maturity and I don't think that that is appropriate. I understand that mature content has been appropriated to mean there are people being torn apart or there are boobs in this game or whatever, but the idea of maturity being attached to profanity and stuff like that just touches my last nerve. When Hayes was being developed and when Free Radical was trying to build up Hayes, one of the things that they would talk about is how we want a really mature story. We want to tell a really interesting adult-oriented tale about war and it's super mature. Their version of mature was dudes killing other dudes and saying, "Fuck a lot," with corn as an intro song. Right, but I don't think that that was originally what he was trying to say that they were going to do. I feel like with Hayes, they were at least trying to introduce some interesting story elements with drug use and stuff, but I don't know that it actually came out in any way that was satisfying. But clearly, that sort of stuff is more for more mature audiences as well. I think that's for older audiences. I don't know that that's for mature audiences. I hate... Well, here's what I... Well, unfortunately, we have a commentary about this. Sock Ritez, I guess, is as an interesting spelling of that. He says, "When I see a mature content sticker, I don't think of it as meaning this content is mature. I see it as mature people can handle this content. Not that they'd appreciate it or like it, but that they can deal with it. So whether it's tasteful or gratuitous, I don't think I can hold it against anyone. Unnecessary gore and sex haven't ruined a game for me yet." So that's his opinion on that. Another one here from Skavola151. "Sexuality always seems to generate the most backlash in our society, and games have been no exception. Although many games have explored this topic with varying levels of maturity as I'm sure you'll cover in the show. One area I've never seen games tackle in a serious way is homosexuality. However, as a semi-casual gamer with a limited gaming background, unlikely to seek out indie titles free of publisher influence and as a straight person, I haven't exactly sought out the subject." I wish that we had a fish here to talk about Persona 4, because that handles the potential for a gay character well. From what I understand, although it doesn't go as far into it as some people on the Internet who are gay would have liked. I think that in general, our culture doesn't very deal well with homosexuality. Again, I would say if you look at other mediums, though, there are movies and books covering with homosexual characters that are interesting and well-developed, where we don't have much for video games. I think a big part of it is that the reason we won't hear about it is because unless it's like a small PC title, the budget for going and making a regular video game is a lot more than making a book or even making a cheese movie. When you talk about indie movies, independent games, are there any indie games that have a focus on movies? I don't know. I mean, that's the problem we don't find out about them. When it comes to independent film and books and stuff like that, there is an audience there for that content that's interested, that is not even looking at games as an avenue for exploration of those kind of themes. And not only just the small games, but also the big budget ones, this kind of goes back to what you were saying, Nick. As far as Rockstar putting the finger in the eye, they had a gay character that comes along. And when you first meet him, he's kind of like this complex character, but then they put you in this gameplay situation where they completely, he's just so stereotyped and it's another one of those things where you're saying, "Oh, well, now that you do that." I mean, I guess in Bully, you could make out with boys, right? Yeah. There was that. There was a little fuzz over it for a while, and really, it's like that's such an extra step. And then, I mean, did Bully have a really developed relationship system or was it just that you could make out with someone or date someone in that way? I think you still have to, like, woo them and get them, right? Yeah. But that's good. I mean, that is actually a more mature handling of it by not... If you limit relationships in the game, if you limit relationships in the game equally for both sexes and that sort of automatically makes it a more... Everything in that Rock started both those games and handled it very differently. Different teams? Didn't. Also, in Mass Effect, couldn't you sleep at the moment? If you were a female, but not if you will, because of the male, technically, no, because the alien doesn't have the same. Yeah, they're omnisexual or whatever. Right. Before I forget, I didn't want to bring up that game. I mentioned earlier, Remote Misous, which we should talk about, so... I feel like Remote Misous is... Okay, so do we want to talk about what Remote Misous is? Yeah, so I was shocked that it was there and that I hadn't heard about it. It seems that at the very least, all the gaming blogs would have covered it. I actually did see mention of it a couple weeks ago. Did you? Yeah, I mean, because I feel like I'm, you know, I follow, like, gaming calls for pretty first day and I haven't... What have you just bricked? If they need to spill something. I knocked some Pringles over. Okay. So, it's basically like sex game for couples. If you have a solo session, it's basically, you move the analog sticks and the 360 control. All it is is this little application. It's like 800 A. It's a sex toy. Yeah, but there's... The visual presentation is just a menu. So you move your analog sticks and you can change the, like, intensity of the vibration of the overall. Okay, so yeah, so the 360 controller has two vibration motors. It has a heavy, slow vibration, which is located near the top of the controller in a light, fast vibration motor that's located near the bottom. Yeah. And also just to throw this out there, it looks like Resident Evil does a sex game and the menus for that game. That's really creepy and scary. Hold on, hold on. Okay. I just want to clarify. Both of you played this? Yeah. Well, played it in so far as it can be played. Is it on X and A? Yeah. X and A and... Hold on. Let me finish explaining it. Let's play it. Like... No. Yeah. Nick and I decided to talk a little bit. Well, okay, so... What do you get to know? I'm just saying that. How do you guys know if it's good? We're not saying it's... This is a shitty video. This is... I'm just saying that... This is a tool. The menu screen looks like a fucking Resident Evil menu screen. Hold on. Let me finish explaining it though. So you can set it on. You can just, you know, vibrate. You can set it on, like, a pulsing vibration. And you can do, like, the two-player mode where what you do on your analog sticks makes the second controller you have hooked up move. So this is like the couple who can play this together. Which did you prefer, Nick? And you didn't try this? I was at home alone when I discovered this game. That's not an answer, Nick. So when I discovered this game... But I'm glad this is out there. I mean, this is a cool thing for couples. Like, I'm dead serious. This is like... This sort of software should be on, like, entertainment devices. I mean, it's there. It's there. It's actually... It's something that's been sort of half-assed developed for a long time. It's referred to as teledildonics. Like, just the greatest name for any of that. I'm sure there's lots of, like, sex toy communication devices on PC, right? I just think it's interesting. If you look at games as a way for people to interact with each other or interact with the system, it's just another way for people to interact with each other. Does it have your online connectivity? Well, it does have online connectivity. The demo has everything but that. But if you unlock, if you pay for the full version. So, if there are any of my long-distance girlfriend that I don't have, she's like a way to call in. I can still be like, "Wow!" I can't be there for you. And with a voice chat. I'll be there for you. And with a voice chat. That's really... That's really cool. Although... I can do video chat with the Xbox vision. I think beyond is something. Although... I mean, it seems like it relies on very fine adjustments. It seems like it relies on very fine adjustments and I don't know how good XNA web code is, so there might be some... So, I want to... There's one right here. Like, combine your people and tend to do. I'm also... No, that's... You lose shit! I'm also worried about the player matching on that. I just... Oh... Right. I didn't see an option for public matching. Yeah. Okay. Can you prefer gender? I hate to drop it next, too, really. But next, too, really. Seriously, though. See, this is us trying to have a mature conversation about this and it being dragged around. Sorry. But I'm dead serious, so that's like a really cool thing. Oh, yeah, that is. That's interesting. I don't know, it's just weird that it hasn't gotten more attention and I mean, the demo is XNA games that haven't gotten attention, but maybe they'll develop into something that... I mean, once a lot of people find out that's there, that would be, yeah, used for longest in couples. Like, that's cool. Yeah. And I mean, I don't... Like, I was talking earlier about my unique background, which is basically that I've worked in an adult bookstore for a few years. That's why I know about Tella Tilda and I... I sold many, many a vibrator. And I mean, it's not, like, honestly, functionally and shape-wise, the 360 controller is not that much different than what a lot of people buy anyway. I don't know that you'd want to tell people you had it in case they come over and want to use your controller. I wonder if you can see it on, like, the last-played game. You know, when you go to someone's profile, you see a total of five. No, I mean, we should look at my profile and see if it says whether or not I played it. Right. But, uh, yeah. I don't know. You'd be like, "I'm good panda. I'm good panda. I'm good panda." It's all, "Kids go to bed, remote masseur, kids wake up coming through panda." You see, like, the arc of your children's waking cycle on your... Oh, that's terrible. But, um... And apparently, there was another similar program out there before. This is, like, the better version, I guess. If remote resur, it shouldn't appear in your... It should be like when you order, like, a porn video, it comes in an undisclosed box. It should just be, like, undisclosed game. Well, you can sort... I don't know. I mean... You can... You can buy almost any game, I guess. I want to know what it says. Like, if someone chose your profile while you're playing it. It's, like, currently achieving orgasm. I think it says community games. I don't know. We can run tests later, if you'd like. And it... Let's... Let's... Where's that, too? How they... I mean, we're talking about this for a while now, but... They also describe it as, like, you know, like, kind of a back massage game, essentially, which I know is how they probably sell a lot of, like, little... Yeah, I don't know if you've heard of the Hitachi Magic Wand. It's a hell of a different solution. Right. So... I'd be interested, though, if they, you know, if they actually sold it as, like, in the text as, like, a sex toy, if it would... I mean, Ethereum would still be allowed there, right? They're just peer reviewing on XNA. I feel like Microsoft can still take stuff down. Oh, I'm sure they can, yes. I wonder if that would be the difference. If it was marketed as a sex game, I'm pretty sure that Microsoft would take it down, which is unfortunate. I think so, as well. All right. So, why don't we move on to violence, focusing on that for a little while? Specifically, I guess I'm wondering. I mean, like I said, we talk about a lot of games that have, that are really gory, but... I think, uh... Like, let's, let's start with fear, too. I mean, do you think the Gory in fear, too, serves a useful purpose, or is it just gratuitous? Yeah, it's pretty gratuitous. I mean, like... Well, isn't that, doesn't that make the combat more satisfying? And some places, some places, it just kind of makes you laugh, because it's kind of ridiculous. Isn't that a shortcut to satisfaction? Like, like, early on, like, hold on, like, like, shut up, like early on, early on, just getting, early on, basically, all these guys that attack you, and for some reason they have, like, this tank that never comes into play on their backs, like, you don't know if it's like, 'cause they don't shoot any pressure, and it's like, they're just wearing like, scuba gear, basically, and then you shoot them in it, and it blows up, and their spine goes flying across the room, and you're kind of like, like, you're just like, man, is that really necessary, or, you know, it still has, like, the weapons, like, every other game starting to throw in, where you can, like, bolt someone to the wall, or you shoot someone with a laser, and they just pop, you know, but, like, that never really made the combat any more satisfying than me than just downing someone with bullets, like, I didn't know, exploding someone with a shotgun was just kind of like... I think a recent game where people tried to argue that the gore was justified, but I felt was especially gratuitous was Call of Duty World at War. I was gonna bring up Call of Duty, because, I mean, this is the whole other can of worms, but, like... Uh, man, that is... I mean, I've talked about this a ton with, uh, with my friend Tom, again, it works at GameSpot now, but, like, he doesn't play Call of Duty games at all, because of he feels it's just a, like, a really poor way to approach the subject of war, and it really, like, is really disrespectful or disrespectful to it, and... I can see that, and it doesn't stop me from playing them, but it does really bother me that there isn't gore in Call of Duty, and it really makes me respect brothers and arms more than it does at all. I reviewed both of those games. Yeah. And, rolled at war, I thought, was... I'm not talking about rolled at war, by the way, I'm just talking about the other... I know, but I'm just saying rolled at war, specifically, I thought was pretty respectful towards the violence, like, you kind of... Like, when someone died, like... But then, again, they threw it all out the window, and they're like, "Now, Nazi zombie," and you're like, "Okay, now that that's innocent game, I can't take anything seriously." I don't feel like the violence in Call of Duty War was that respectable, because it was almost big... It made gore into a spectacle, as opposed to this terrible thing. It was like... And I did feel terrible, because when you shoot someone's leg off, and you see the bone poking out, and they're dragging their way across the field, or... I think maybe that's just you then, because I didn't feel that it was just made into a spectacle. I didn't feel that it was respectful. For me, it's not even the violence in the Call of Duty games, so much as the... It's just that they handled the subject of war in general in a very shallow way, which I think is Tom's point. I don't know. I had so much research into getting the historical facts right, and talking to different generals who are in the war, and making the cutscenes, and the background they give you, really accurate. And then you go and shoot some guy, and there's no blood. World of War didn't have quotes. World of War had blood and stuff, but the thing is that they're also trying... I think part of it that maybe you have a hard time seeing how it's respectful is that they're also making it into a game. It has to have that feel like, "I'm still shooting at targets, hahaha. This is fun." So at the same time, they don't want you sitting there thinking the whole time, "I feel terrible about everything I'm doing," because that's not what Call of Duty is about. Call of Duty is very much trying to balance out wars, terrible/fuck yeah, I'm tearing some ass. Well, but I think you can have that kind of gravity to what you're doing without feeling bad about it. You can still be like this, you know, you just get a satisfaction of combat, but also get a sense of, "Wow, this is really intense for the people who were there." Yeah, I guess in my opinion, the first Brothers in Arms game did a much better job than that. The later Brothers in Arms game, the most recent one, kind of goes a little bit over the top of the slow-motion headshots and stuff. So like they have the Normandy Beach scene in Call of Duty 2, right? Yeah. And you know, you see your guys being shot down beside you, but just like I'm serving Private Ryan, it wouldn't be that much more impactful, because it's still a really intense scene. That's the enjoyment of that scene, is that it's intense, so it wouldn't be that much more impactful if they were being shredded the Brits, you know? Yeah, I feel like you'd think that, but the nature of film is that they can show things that are important, whereas just having 8 million guys be butchered around you while you're running up the beach isn't as impactful, or it doesn't feel as solemn or respectful so much as it's just spectacle. I agree, I think to some extent that's, I just don't know, I just think maybe that's the way you're looking at it, because at the same time it's like they do get across the same thing that film does at times, because at times when there's stuff that they want you to see instead of just you running up a beach, they do it through a cutscene, like they have like you staring around and you're seeing like horrible things happen, because they want to get that across you. But it's just weird that it's not there, I guess, it feels really like, it feels really surreal and they're really going for reality. Yeah, I thought that too, until I went from playing Suity 2 to Suity World at War, and I felt like one handled things better in that respect than the other. Which one are you saying? Well, I feel like Call of Duty 2 felt more respectful, and I mean, it's fine that people don't necessarily agree, but I just... See, I was glad to hear that World of War, like I said, that World of War had gore, I was like, that's a step towards kind of realism in the way it should be, but then again, then they have the zombie Nazi vote, and it's like, okay, well, now I can't take this process seriously. Yeah, but that was just because it was just a fun thing to have at the end. I don't know. You know what I mean? It was actually the same reaction when they announced that. The same reaction as Nick is just like, this does not feel right in a world war issue. I feel like the shitty industrial rock music that they played throughout a lot of the game did more than the zombie Nazis thing to displace the solemnity or the impact or the... Like I said, they're always trying to bounce the fact that they're making a game, and you don't need to feel shitty while you're playing a Call of Duty game about what you're doing. It was just the first time I felt that. I mean, of course I'm going to lament this, but I just say that we never got to see Jeffy's PSP game, which was about like, you know, that was about really the realities of conflict and having... I mean, see, I would want to play a game like that, but you'll never see it in a Call of Duty game because it's not made for people that want to deal with it. I would almost say, like I was saying with Killzone, I mean, I think that there are points in that where they are trying to remind you of like, this war is kind of awful. There's not really a good guy here. Both the sides are pretty terrible and it's all kind of futile, but they don't come across quite as well because... And of course, there's a moment on a fictional conflict in Killzone, there is blood. You can pop guys' heads in Killzone. I mean, there's a moment in Call of Duty 4 that I feel expresses the war as horrible. Like, this is not... There's no winners in this situation. I mean, in the middle of the fucking game, which no one ever talks about on podcast because there are still some kind of statute of limitations on COD4, but... You can talk about it. No, I'm getting the no. What? The guy walks up and executes someone? No. You're saying the bomb? Yeah. Where the bomb goes off. Whatever. Where you're essentially dragging yourself out of a helicopter looking at a nuked out city and then you die. I thought that was a more impactful anti-war statement than anything that I saw in any other Call of Duty game. Yeah, I know. I agree. That's cool. Cool. I mean, that was a great thing. Yeah. Well, let's bring out another game here. TD in the comments says, "Follow three gratuitous, especially when a perk you earn lets the enemies explode into a bloody mess with a critical hit, although it could serve as contributing to the atmosphere of Fallout, depressing, dirty, visceral wasteland of DC. The brutality can be thought of as part of this intense environment that just supports the beauty of the game and that interpretation is endless with your character." I mean, I loved Fallout 3, you guys know that, but I did actually think and I got that perk as well. And I did think that there were points where I was like, "Alright, this is a little bit much. The first couple of times, dude, I had to explain. I was like, "Oh." Yeah. I mean, I guess all you're ever doing. Yes. That's actually one of the reasons why I didn't get into Fallout if I had a couple of hours. I really want to like it, but like- You turn that off, can you? Turn the gore. Turn it off. I believe there's sliders. Not every headshot takes off ahead, I mean. No, I know, but just in general, like, I mean, I got out of the shelter or whatever and then I went to the first town and then I went to like close by, there's like a school and you go inside and there's like body parts hanging everywhere and there's all these people in there and you fight them and you're just like tearing them to pieces and it was just really dark and depressing. Like, I didn't want to be in that atmosphere. I hate this argument, you make this all the time, but you play a lot of games that are dark and depressing. I don't know. It's different for me in Killzone where there's still kind of moment to moment stuff going on to distract me, but just being in Fallout's world feels like theory to me and I get it. That's very subjective. But what I was going to say is like, I actually am okay with there being a perk to make it more violent. If you want to play the game and make it really visceral and you want to be this like badass that just tries to like destroy everyone in the game, that's fine. But I'd like to be able to play the game and still have combat without it being intuitive. Yeah, part of the problem too is that this perk is like, I mean, there's a reason beyond just the visual. No, there's really not because the bonus that it gives you is so minuscule as to make it worthless except for the fact that you want to see stuff blow up. Okay, well, I haven't looked at the actual numbers. I guess I'm just saying like it does give you an actual like, isn't it like 5% damage? It gives you like an actual bonus to the damage you're doing. So there's a reason to pick it up beyond the visual thing and that's the reason that I picked it. But then once you have it, it's kind of, it's just that. Yeah, I'm not here with the option being there. I just don't want the default gunplay to be this like hyper violent over the top thing. I don't know. Well, that's what. But in some places it feels kind of weird because I feel as though Bethesda put all that violence in the game because that's what Fallout's legacy has been. And it's almost as if they said, okay, these are gameplay mechanics, these are gameplay mechanics. All right, let's throw in the crazy over the top fallout shit that everybody's expecting us to have. I guess because I didn't play them, I mean, I have to play them like briefly, but because like my point of comparison was more oblivion, which is very fantasy and very like. The other, the other problem too is that the older fallouts, I mean, because they were this top down perspective and just a lot less detailed, like they were extremely violent, but it was also very. Yes, it's like playing all the oblivion. Abstracted violence. Creatures of Diablo are exploding left and right. Whereas now it's, yeah, now it's up close and very like good graphics and it's harder to kind of just ignore that. Also, I kind of think of Fallout 3 is this kind of like epic dark comedy. I don't know, like to me, there's so much comedy in Fallout 3. The violence and everything to me comes across as the comical aspects of the Fallout universe. I mean, just, you know, between the writing and a lot of the little side stories, there's just a lot of like really funny little things in there that- A lot of social satire. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Did you ever play Hitman Blood Money or Not Blood Money by Contracts? No. There's definitely just content in that game that goes into the disturbing Nick probably wouldn't want to play. Well, see, it's not- I mean, like I said, I like playing Sound Hill that's actually one of the few like- I don't like playing scary games and you're going to let us don't like tension when I'm playing games, but Sound Hill, I like it because it's very psychological. Like I said, it's very kind of, you know, adult, but yeah, I don't know, I guess like some of the stuff in Hitman for me felt a little, I don't know, a little over two of those. Yeah, I think there's kind of examples of games that sometimes use violent to like set the tone of like a theme of like how fucked up things are in a game, like the first condemned playing that like, you know, like you just see like how far things have really gone wrong that you're even like this cop and you're just sitting there busting out people's teeth and it's just like this really violent thing. But in the second one, it felt like they kind of took it to a more gratuitous place with like the- Well, yeah, there's like the scene where he feels like there are people in the TV and stuff like that. But you're the crushing people's head. Again, I mean, I can't, I'm trying to think like why, because condemned, I mean, the combat's really visceral, but it doesn't feel like gratuitous, I mean. That's crazy. That's the point I'm making. I don't think it's necessary gratuitous. It's almost because it's like, I think they really do set a tone of like how desperate and horrible things have gotten in the city that it's out to this point. Right. And, yeah, and the tone compliments the gameplay, yeah. And I think I think- I still think condemned too is, is pretty good. Condemned too. Condemned too. Condemned too. It's in places where it didn't necessarily need to go. It's like, no, it's about combos and like like literally parts where like you can put a guy's head into a- In a vise and pop it. Yeah, like that's exactly- That's messed up. They do go to a couple places. They made it a little less creepy, a little more irony in the second one, I think. It's just like, oh, look at our hardcore bum fights worse than the first one. John in our comments says, "As an adult in my thirties and a new father, I see mature content and gaming different than I did in years past. Grew some violence can be portrayed in a game in a realistic way that enhances the story in the way Scarsese might in a film. I think GTA 4 did that fairly well, but was actually torn when given the option of taking life in that game. On the opposite spectrum, when I see Marcus Pheonix chainsaw Locust who then explodes for no apparent reason, it comes off as absurd and ridiculous. I still enjoy gears, but the childish nature of the violence comes off as almost insulting. That's kind of how I feel about that. That's more childish. I don't feel insulted about the violence and gears maybe because it's violence going in both directions and anything that you're doing can be done. For some of it, other stuff like the curb stump, I don't really feel- It's just laughable, really, when you're playing gears with the whole violence, it's just kind of laughable. It's just goofy. I think the thing that bothers me- It fits in with that over-the-top dialogue that we always talk about with gears. It's laughable in the same way. It's just so macho and I don't know. To me, a lot of the executions and gears of war are kind of like shooter touchdown dances. That is exactly what I was saying. That's fine, but I mean, there are things like the curb stump that has a lot of social cash aid as this thing that's associated with American History X and not just that, but I mean like just racism and stuff like that and that kind of makes me uncomfortable. Here's another thing for me that diminishes a lot of whether or not violence is done well in a video game is like what you're talking about, how much they borrow from other mediums. We all played several shooters where they do the D-Day thing or been in plenty of war shooters where you walk up to an area and you see a line of the other enemies all getting executed. How many times have we seen that? There's just no impact. So it's like the frequency of the violence has a lot to do with it where I think games like heavy rain could have a really good chance of doing a lot of really fucked up violence really well. Think about how they get really close with the camera angle and I think that's... I was going to say like thinking in terms of you mentioning we've seen those war stuff so many times. I mean, I wonder if it's also just like distancing ourselves historically. I mean, will we, you know, like 50 years from now, are we going to see kind of games that incorporate like school shootings, if that's not happening as much of that? I mean, you know, like where... No, because we talked about this during the Cthulhu game club episode, but Violence Against Children is a plateau that games are having a hard time coming across. I mean, even... Next said 50 years, you know. Well, even when I got in college, I was like a college serial killer, like kind of like scream as a game, you know? See, I guess part of the reason that I think maybe violence comes off as more of a spectacle instead of something that like we care about is because violence is like something that in a lot of these games we're doing, so the violence is intended to be fun. So then when we see the violence occurring to other people, it kind of is still like in that fun sense. We don't necessarily take it as sense of... Yeah, I guess the difference is that it's... How horrible. So like I was thinking in my mind, the game I've always wanted to play is instead of playing like a war game where you're doing, like, shooting, like, what if you were doing a war game where you were like a platoon's combat medic, so the whole time the story's being told to it. This is the game you wanted to make. This is the game I wanted... I've always wanted to make. It would combine, like, things from trauma surgeon, except, you know, the whole premise would be is that you really do have like a connection with these people because it's like a safe and private rioting and your goal throughout the campaign is to keep as many as you can alive. You know what I mean? If you're like seeing this person's face and watching them die, hearing them say things, like, those are the things that would actually be violence into something where it's like, it touches you in a way. And what if you played half that game as, you know, as a shooter, like a sniper on one side of the army and the other as a medic on the other side? I mean, how much would that fuck with you and add some really interesting, like, intellectual stuff? I mean... Yeah, well, I mean, I just, I mean, what you guys are saying now, just, like, talking about Call of Duty games and everything, and Killzone and all that stuff, I just, I want to see people doing more interesting things with war shooters in general if there's going to continue to be... I mean, tons of them. I think that we're hitting a point where they're going to have to because we've got some of shooter saturation. I hope so. I also, I just want you to mention Americanist who reacts like that's something too. I mean, just talking in terms of mature subject matter, I mean, you know, we talk about that stuff like rape very briefly, but something like racism hasn't been tackled. No, and we are definitely going to be having some major racism discussions as soon as the Resident Evil 5 comes out, and that's not, I'm not saying that to be inflammatory message, message board douche, I'm just saying that when even... That's an interesting topic. I mean... Yeah, I mean, but will we? I mean, I don't know, they've still thrown in a bunch of other people. When even Taiko from Penny Arcade is saying that not only does the trailer not present it out of context, but it goes so much further in that direction than you have any idea that leads me to believe that there's going to be... Oh, that was going to be around for that. I know someone who's like spent time... Oh, I'm sure they... Well, you'll just have to watch it and talk about it. Like, I don't think of myself as a racially insensitive person, but I was not nearly as offended by everything as a lot of people like... It's not so much about being offended just by the visual images, but it's the subtext. I mean, it's... Yeah. What those images mean when they're taken out of context? Yeah. The context of the game and whatever the plot of the game is, like those still have a... Seeing, I guess... I guess you guys not feel like a lot of that's been remedied as far as... No. ...because by the fact that there's a bunch of... No, I don't. ...races. We'll see. I mean, I want to wait until the game's out and play for myself. I mean, just from what I've seen, I don't feel that that mitigates what they're doing. I mean, it almost feels like, "Look, there are white people. Here are black people doing terrible things to this blonde woman." That's... I mean, this is a discussion we're definitely going to have soon when the game comes out when we've played it. So we'll talk about it. We'll save it for then. But do you guys have any... Do you guys have any... Yeah. Deep hold or rundown, right? Exactly. Do you guys have any... I'm saying that that conversation is definitely going to happen and it's going to be way bigger than just the gaming community. That's going to spread. Do you guys have any last thoughts about the topic of maturity in games before we close out here? I have a comment that I'm going to read when we close out. I'll read that. Maybe that will spring us on. Well, this is... I want to close out in the most immature way possible. No. I know. I know. Well, I kind of wanted to say, you know, we were talking a little bit early about the prolific... ...prolification of, you know, indie games. I think that there's a lot of promise with indie developers, like doing mature so very well. Oh, yes. We didn't even bring up Raid, which is... Yeah. In terms of a way to mature the approach and narrative, just in making it very literary and open to interpretation. That's nothing to do with violence or sex. Well, no. But that's mature content, like that's actually mature content, which we could see more of. Right. That's not mature. I mean, that's one of the reasons why I resonated with so many people is we don't see games like that. We don't see games that... whose stories are... I mean, you know, we see stories that are told like with the transparently here is everything that happens throughout the entire time, that's it. I mean, not in like this way, that's, you know, I mean, Raid was about like a mistake in a relationship, that alone is like something completely different than we used to getting. And going back to what we started with as far as the penis and Grand Theft Auto loss and damned. I mean, it's... I think I desperately wait for the point where we can get somewhere where we don't automatically giggle where we see a penis in a video game, like we talked about Eastern promises a couple times before on the podcast, but in the bathhouse scene at the end of Eastern promises, the fact that he was naked was just part of the situation as opposed to something where you're giggling because you can see Viggo Morton's penis. Right. And it made it more intense because he was very... He was even more fault-nurable hole. All right, though, that is the perfect quote to lead into this. To end off the segment, call me Sarge and our comment says, "Penuses are always funny. Hell, I'm shocked we can all stop laughing long enough to actually do it. We'll be back with letters." Okay, we've got a bunch of letters to read this week, less than last week, so we should be able to get through them all. Let's start off with this one from Doogie, who says, "I just finished listening to Episode 6 and the discussion of Sessler's Killzone 2 review, and when you talked specifically about the dichotomy of people wanting games to be taken seriously, but being fan-boyish wankers about them, even the most minor perceived slight against their platform/franchise of choice, I thought of siblings and how they're all, "I can pick on my brother as much as I like, but you fuck with him. You fuck with me." It's a very similar juxtaposition of protectiveness and abusiveness, so it makes sense when you consider it like that. It doesn't make it any less ridiculous, but I look at it as the internet naturally bringing out the ridiculous in everyone. Okay. I thought that was a cool analogy. In that analogy, who is the person outside of the family that is picking on a sibling? The reviewer. The reviewer who says anything, anything negative about it. By someone reviewing your brother. Yeah. It's fine for them to play it and be like, "Man, this game falls, but I love it anyways." I think there's a difference, though, in, like, people--it's fine when you want to defend your own platform. I can understand that impulse in that context of saying it's like a sibling. The people get angry when things go well for another system. I think that's a lot of the problem is it's just this such widespread ridiculousness. I think it's kind of like the brother metaphor mixed in with racism. I think it's more like the wire. It's like the project mentality and the wire. Our project fucking sucks, but our project is totally better than your project. That's a good--yeah. I like that one, too. Because I like the wire. All right. This is about the wire. We're talking about--the man, the wire has the greatest short chess lesson I've ever seen in anything. I want to watch it. That's next on my--yeah. All right. It's next on mine, too. Later. This is from Kyle. He says, "Hey, fellas. Last year, a certain video game magazine, Game Informer, had a cover story about another--" Sir? See, I didn't correct this. He's had a cover story about another World War II game. Kind of a played-out setting. However, this was a stealth action game, not too common. This game was Saboteur. I've read and reread the story a number of times, but since then, I've had no new information. I was wondering if you could send someone down to Pandemic Studios to rough a few people up and get some new info. Nick? We're sending you to Pandemic. Will no. Velvet Assassin? No, no. It's a saboteur. Oh, okay. I was the one that-- I've been--I was way looking forward to it. I actually--I looked up info--I mean, I looked up Wikipedia info on it. I was wondering if a video game was originally going to come out second quarter of 2009. Probably isn't going to now, since we haven't seen anything about it for a long time. But EA is saying that they're going to release new info, presumably including a new release date soon. I kind of would be surprised if it ever comes out at this point. But that said, I have--because I've asked people recently, and I've heard that it is still very much happening. So-- Okay. Well, I know that a--and, you know, Pandemic has had some issues recently. I think their Brisbane studio got shut down. But as far as we know, it's still in the works, and EA says new info is coming soon. So, that's-- Yeah, I thought it was really cool as well. Yeah, I think it was kind of a different take on World War II. Sorry, one second here. And by the way, people--I don't know if you mentioned this on last week's show. I think just specifically, people want to send letters. They should send them to you, Pankolar@eep-sleep-game. I mean, I get letters, but I don't necessarily have them released. Yeah, mine are always more mundane, like, "Hey, Anthony, I've been thinking about taking my kids to go to a gaming expo. What would be the best one?" I'm like, "Well, they're asking for just your expertise there. They don't care about the rest of the game." I think if you want to send it, if you want to send it-- Eyes and hands. Packs. Packs is the best gaming conference ever. Is Efral even happening this year, didn't they? No, it's not. And it, yeah. Right up with Digital Life. If you want us to read a letter on the podcast, then put podcast letter in the subject line or something, so we know for sure. So I know that-- If you want it to be a letter, as well. It's the question, though. If you want to call me like a giant douche and read it on the podcast, then I need that in the subject line. It's just for my edification. You're Arthur, are you giant douches? Yeah. Eric wrote in from Minnesota, my old home station. It's on my hands. That's right. Says, "I first wanted to thank you for starting Rebel FM. I was worried that I would miss you guys after the whole one-up fiasco went down, so I'm glad you guys are back on your feet and providing content to an audience that enjoys your show so much. Except Nick." You're saying that's nice. I'm adding that. You're right. Yeah. I'm not sure about this, but it's really sad it's kind of stepping out of the gaming media. It's really sad stepping out of the gaming media, but it's really sweet having a salary. I'm just saying. Well, you're still being involved in games. I mean, it's not like you're leaving gaming. Right. And that was kind of my whole thing. I mean, that's what I said. In my one-up blog, the day we got laid off, I was like, you know, yes, obviously this looks setback, but it'll have to like drag me out of the gaming industry. It's really fulfilling the one-up destiny, which is start at one-up and end-up at a game company. Yeah, I was going to say, now that you're leaving, it feels like we're a real one-up podcast. You got to have somebody meet before it feels right. I'm sure that people are wishing it was someone else's in the neck. I'm excited personally, man. You know, if I could just say honestly, like when I started writing for EGM, like right when I sent in my submissions was around the time I think you got hired, Nick, Matt, you know, I really enjoyed your writing and just, you know, and there was a while there when you were reviews editor that a lot of, I mean, all my reviews went through you and we had a lot of back and forth. Yeah. Man, I'm excited to see what you're going to do, man, for real. Really? You know, it's definitely a pleasure. And it is sad. Like, I always liked your input, you know, in podcast. That's the sad thing is that though is that unless you talk to Nick on a regular-- Yeah. You're not going to hear anything about what he's doing. Yeah. Well, you'll see it. I mean, if it comes out on a Sony platform, then chances are you saw it in some way. Well, your name will be in the credit of games? I was actually wondering about that, I don't know, but I mean-- Is that part of your contract? Well, you can, well, we're going to say I fell, it'll ask me if I can talk about something. Talk about what? Your blog. Oh, yeah, well, yeah, it's fine. I'm going to start a blog soon. I don't want to say where it is quite yet because I'm still kind of setting it up, but I will have a blog. Probably, I'm imagining it like Jeff Green's only not only is it entertaining because I'm not Jeff Green. It's true. It's definitely not awesome. It's still like a place to just kind of, you know, point people towards-- Are you going to try and make it look pretty? Yeah, a little bit. I can give you some pretty assistance. I'm going to say to you, are you going to contract that out to someone at least? I'm talking to someone, but, yeah, I'll have a blog set up just so I can still, you know, I still have to talk about music and movies at the least, not so much games, and it's kind of what's going on in my life, and I still want a place to write publicly, so. To be publicly adored. Eric actually has a question here, so he says, "My question is how important is price when reviewing a game? For instance, does a game like Banjo-Kazooie nuts and bolts deserve any forgiveness and a review since it came out $20 lower than most games? Should new 2D platformers be compared to the 2D platformers available on the virtual console that may be cheaper? Does free DLC valves upcoming left for dead add-on or the updates to burn out paradise incline you to judge paid DLC by a higher standard?" Yeah, this is a huge issue. I don't think that the term he used for Banjo-Kazooie was more forgiving, because it's cheaper. I don't think it's being forgiving at all, like, I'm never like, "Well, if I think it's a question about these, is price factor in your review?" Yeah, I mean, personally speaking, I try not to. But it is really difficult sometimes, especially like, I know it's worth mentioning when it's something like Banjo-Kazooie that's like a 20-hour game and it's only $40. I mean, it feels like a great value. I think it's really different whether, like, how you're approaching the review in general. I think if you're reviewing it as kind of a consumer product, kind of more along the lines of how GameSpot does that. Yeah, but I think, I would say that none of us here are really interested in reviewing games. No, I'm just saying. I think it's because I think he's asking generally, I think as far as how you're approaching the review, approaching it as a product, then it is worth mentioning a price because then it is, you're weighing, but you want to buy it, you know, how much enjoyment, how many hours are you going to get out of it? Whereas if you're reviewing it kind of more, I think how it went up review a second, it's much more subjectively kind of reviewing the game on its own merits, then I think it's maybe not as relevant unless there's a stream case like the Orange Box. That's what I just think that there are times it's worth mentioning, like, if I reviewed a game that was a $60 retail game and it turned out, it could be beaten in an hour. You know, like, for instance, I think Shane might have mentioned that when he reviewed Jumper because it was a game you could beat in like two hours and I was like a full retail price. It was just absurd. Yeah. And it's always something that we take into consideration. I mean, if you look at a DS game, you wouldn't pay $60 for it. So. But in retrospect, the fact that people made a huge fuss about Brad being 15 bucks, like really what? I mean, if that's an issue now, remotely. Yeah. And I mean, there have been times where, like I said, I try not to think about it, but there's times where it's hard. Like, I think when I was reviewing a legendary, I kind of like realized as I'm halfway through with that, you know, this is a full retail price game and it's coming out alongside like three other really AAA shooters that are also going to be $60 and like that's kind of an issue. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, the question is ultimately like indicative of the solution. It's a moving target and you just have to like take everything by case by case faces. Yeah. That's true. I mean, Warhawk is another good example of a game where price sort of became a big sticking point in reviews or at least on one up it did. Yeah. I mean, I think we were waiting to hear on price because that was, you know, good effect on someone's score. There's some great stories behind the Warhawk process. Yeah. I mean, you know, we had a lot of talk about that all the time about how much we should factor that into reviews when it first came up. I think it's interesting, but again, I think it comes down to how you're pushing the review. I mean, if you want to have the whole games as our thing and review games as these individual experiences and review just the game for what it is, ignoring like other games in the genre and gaming as a product, then it's like not really fair to incorporate price. I think, yeah. I mean, like, if you look at like a book review or a movie review, they're not, they're never going to say like, you know, you're not getting your money's worth because this movie is too short. But yeah, before that's as far as the movie comparison, though, I think with movies, it's like a lot of people are, are willing to spend like 10 bucks or whatever, maybe take a cost them even if they even if it's a movie like, okay, you know, maybe I'll like this, even though it's getting better views. I'll still go see it. I'll still spend 10 bucks. But it's a very different proposition. When it's $60. Well, in the movie, the movie. People aren't going to spend 60 dollars. Yeah. But we're talking about like, I mean, because we're talking about specifically to be processed, that's what I was saying is, you know, if we want to review it the same way like movies or books are reviewed or, you know, other, other mediums, you're probably price isn't going to play as big of an issue. Well, I think I think it's going to play a bigger issue in gaming. That's what I'm saying is because it's a much bigger risk because you're spending so much more money. Again, like I said, I'm talking about the review process though, like if we want to review it this way, then we shouldn't do that. I think that value is such an intrinsically intrinsic part of our game experience because games are A, games, I mean, games in the grand scheme of things aren't necessarily expensive but 60 bucks is a lot to drop on something and B, I mean, shy of renting. We have to buy games to play them. I mean, games aren't free on TV. Games aren't in galleries. And I mean, as Billy speaking, for us in the room, like we want to play most relevant games that come out to be a gamer. So that's a lot of money I think if we were kind of more picky, I mean, when I used to work at EB and a lot of people who came in only for the biggest releases that really interested them. Because they have the most confidence in those. Yeah, yeah. And in that case, they kind of know what they're getting into and it's not as big a decision. All right. So that's it. That's all of our letters this week. And I'm actually, I'm going to go ahead and give Eric our letter of the week. Fair. Is that cool with you guys? Did we decide? The price one? I think it's the best one. Did we decide what we're doing for that? Yeah. We have all the pop games. We're sending pop-cap stuff and then they give me, what is my name? My pop-cap stuff. And you pop-cap guys. Amazingness. But yeah. I just say pop-cap dude. That is shit. It's a generalization. What what? Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag. Swag out. Eat dash sleep dash game. All of you listeners who are very intelligent. I was really impressed by a lot of the comments on that thread. And also in comments. Obviously, we couldn't bring in everything. We only brought in a few comments here. But I highly recommend going and checking out the story that we put up on maturity in games because there are over 100 comments, some really interesting stuff in there, some great links to other articles, lots of stuff to read and think about and yeah, check back sometime next week before our Wednesday and we will probably put up another story where you contribute. Should I open the comments for that again so people can keep having that conversation if they want to? Sure. Absolutely. Alright, I'll do that. So yeah, working listeners find us this week. Anthony, why don't you start us off? I can be found at twitter.com/chefmoney. Check out another podcast. chfmoney.blogspot.com. I can also be found on the Dead Robot Society podcast. They had like a 30-minute interview with me about my time spent with the magazine and went up. Cool. And beyond that, I just did a fear 2 guide for my cheats, which I have no buy line on, but you guys can all go get all the fear 2 information you need. Excellent. Nick, last chance. That's what he gave me, I was kind of sad. Last chance. What can you do? I mean, I'll keep my twitter up at least and I'll kind of like that's what I'm talking about. I'm not talking to you again after the show. I need to know where to find you on the internet. So twitter.com/unsutner, and I'll, once my blog is up, I'll mention it there. I should actually follow you now. I'll bribe you guys in a link, hang out. I'll follow almost anyone. But that's kind of all I've got for now. I mean, thank you guys for broadcasting with me. Thank you Phil for this podcast adventure that we've had for quite a while now. So, I don't know, that's all I've got, really. Alright. Tyler, how about you? Yeah, I have a blog at gameflipped.com or blogger.gameflipped and you can also find me on freepressheuston.com and I was on the Sports Anomaly podcast for the One Up Network this week as well. Yes, and thank you for coming back. Thanks for having me guys. Enjoy. I love the show. Thank you. Arthur, should I even ask? I should have some freelance stuff in PC World coming up, but I wouldn't mind that. Awesome. The usual. Go to twitter.com/pkolar as well as last week's episode of co-op. I was on talking about the Fallout 3 DLC. So go check that out at area5.tv and you can subscribe to Rebel FM on iTunes and Zoom. If you use either of those services please subscribe, leave a review, stay tuned after the music for information on donations and thanks for listening. Nick, take us out. We'd like to thank the following listeners for donations this and last week. Timothy A from Illinois, Leonard M, Seamus S from Ireland, Andrew S, Sheamus, Sheamus I apologize, I am dumb American, Andrew S, Thomas O, James Doe from Massachusetts, Richard H, Benjamin M, Louise M, Sion W, you got a cool name, Bernard S, Todd R from Australia, Nate C, Philip P from California, Salish B from wherever I'm sorry there wasn't a from on there. Daniel M, Ryan M, Monty K, Wendy S, Anna C, Charles A from France, Jordan B from Norway, Brock M from Canada and thank you for all your contributions, they are very much appreciated. This is the part Phil's supposed to be reading, I'm handing it to you. So yeah thanks everybody for your contributions. With Nick leaving the show we're actually going to be pulling the donate button for the site for a while while we figure out what we'd like to do with the podcast going forward but you know we might put it up eventually later if we figure some stuff out but definitely going to continue working hard to provide the best video game podcast possible in a week or so. Thank you all your contributions. [Music] [Music] [Music] [BLANK_AUDIO]