Rebel FM
Rebel FM - Episode 5 - 02/04/09
Our usual cast of house cats are joined by 's Ryan O'Donnell and Jay Frechette, along with freelancer Kat Bailey. We discuss the Dawn of War II Beta, RE5, and Afro Samurai, before getting into an epic debate about the nature of shooters (featuring Half-Life and Killzone 2). And, yes, we finally select the first Backlog 2.0 game, along with some listener letters.
[Music] Now let us enjoy some cake or pie. It is Wednesday, February 4th, 2009. Welcome to episode 5 of Rebel FM. My name is Philip Kohler. Joining me this week is the staff of eat-sleep-game.com. Anthony Gallegos, Arthur Geese, and Nick Suttner. You guys want to talk a little bit so that people know who you are? I am Nick Suttner. Yay! It's me, Anthony. Anthony is thrilled to be here. And Arthur is a little fluffy thing. This is a poor, poor intro. I am a little fluffy thing. Also joining the rebellion today, we have two special guests, three really, three special guests. Area5.tv members Ryan O'Donnell and Jay Freshett. You go first because I've been on the line. You have? Yup, that's me, Jay Freshett. Yay! I'm probably just going to call him Fresh. This is Ryan, by the way. Let's totally find that. Also in the background today, we have a freelance writer, Kat Bailey. Hi. I just stepped off a plane and I'm right here in a living room. How do you like it? How do you like San Francisco so far? How do you like the Bay Area? Ask me tomorrow. I'm pretty disoriented from sitting on two planes. And then reading and ragging you. Did you come from Japan today? No, I did not come from Japan today. I came from Minneapolis. Let's assume she came from Japan. That's not nearly as cool, but it is cold. Yeah, that's true. It would be a way cooler story if you'd come from Japan. Let's pretend that I came from Japan. Thank you. Well, you're on the right podcast. You might hear someone get shot or something. Get the real Bay Area experience. Excellent. What do we start this week? We're going to talk about what we've been playing, of course. We're going to do a topic on what makes a good shooter, I guess? No, it's going to be me calling you a goddamn fool, basically. I mean, that's the start of it. But I feel like from there, hopefully it will be something more interesting that about shooters. I think an honor of... Oh, sorry. There have been alarms at the beginning of so many of these episodes. Sorry. Is that a ringtone? You're a son of a bitch, Ryan O'Donnell. This is awful ringtone. I think I might have the Killzone shenanigans. Maybe we can talk about shooters. Maybe get Ryan and Nick to talk a little bit about Killzone too. I want to talk about Resident Evil 5. I want to talk about that. And then we're going to read some letters too. We're going to talk about backlog stuff at the end too. Oh, yeah. This is going to be a long end. I don't really know what we're doing for that. We'll have to talk about that during one of the breaks. It doesn't have to be long. We'll just... Very little planning. Be concise. And still like sharing, so... Yeah, that's Anthony in the background. He doesn't actually have a mic next to his face while he's tugging. Yes, it's forward. Okay, no, let's talk about what we've been playing. Jay, start us off. You and I were just talking recently. I haven't played a whole lot of new games recently, but I have played Maw. Yeah, the Maw, which Nick talked about a little bit last week. I have played now, so... You can do it. I did finish it. Andrew, don't they have new content that's coming out for it too? Yes, soon. I don't think so. I want to find out. Is everyone buying the Maw? I purchased it. Okay. Okay, I guess I'll buy it too. I'm going to go ahead and say it's worth the money, in my opinion. Nick was a little bit lukewarm, but I think it's really, really fantastic. Yeah, fundamentally it sounded. I mean, it's short. That's probably... I really felt like it ended really quickly. I don't mind the lines. So, what would you like about it so much? Well, I just think... Sorry, I'm kind of skipping your character. Oh, well, I mean, it just takes a lot of fundamental mechanics of game design. It rinded me so much of something I would have made with a group of people in my senior year at school. It was just a lot of really familiar things. I liked the characters a lot, and I think for an XBLA downloadable game, it was something that was a little bit different than a twin-stick shooter or just a lot of the stuff that you see on there. So, I just thought it was a step in the right direction. It wasn't amazing, but I enjoyed playing through it. Yeah, I mean, I really think that... The thing I liked about it so much is that the gameplay is really simple and nice, but you're still always learning new things. And the way that it teaches you new things isn't through long tutorials or big boxes of text that tell you what to do. It's just kind of... you learn by experimenting, and every once in a while, they'll have a little box pop-up that shows you visually depress a button to like spin a guy around or something. But in general, you're just kind of figuring things out on your own. And there's some stuff they just never even tell you, but you can figure it out if you play around. I didn't figure out that I could throw the little pink puffy guys to the mob by hitting an X, like lob them into his mouth. I had the same problem. So, there was like one level, the one where you're flying a lot, I guess, through it. That took me forever because I couldn't figure that out. I was just trying to like get him to walk over and eat it because there was no direct control over him. Like, I was going nuts. Like, I mean, I do really appreciate that aspect. You do kind of just learn by doing it in most instances, but that was something where I felt like they should have told me clearly this is the only way you can do this, and you can't, you know. The first time that you have to throw guys to him, there is actually like, like I said, there's like a picture box that pops up that shows you, you know, press X and it'll toss them. I don't know. I've missed it or something. Nick's not a professional game reviewer. Yes, clearly. What I didn't like towards the end is how Big Ma gets when he does get a little bit, a little bit more unwieldy to like drag him around. Yes. He covers up a lot of the screen. There's a lot of times where I had like, I had to rotate the camera around two or three times and fidget with it. Did you finish this? I'm sorry? Did you finish it? I did finish it. Yeah, the last level is kind of interesting. Yeah, I mean, it's very different. When we were talking before about mechanics where they just make you uber powerful for a short period of time and you just kind of enjoy like the momentum. It's weird because there's two levels, like the last level and kind of midway through a level where it's nothing but like shooting and it's totally different than the rest of the game. I mean, it wasn't as change of pace. It's just kind of interesting and they're also kind of like they're building all these mechanics and they just throw them all out for a little bit. Yeah, that's kind of the way I felt because like I noticed when I was doing it, like the enemies that they were dropping in front of you, they can't hurt you at all when you're walking around shooting. So you're pretty much, I mean, it took me a while to realize there's not really any penalties in the game. Well, yeah, and like there is no real, you don't die in the game. You don't ever have to go back and reload or anything. So that's, I mean, I liked that. I guess the overall thing, the way I felt about it is that it's sort of like the video game equivalent of a Pixar movie. Yeah. Just in the, in both the story and just the like cute, friendly gameplay. I don't know, it's like something I feel like- It's a buddy flick for sure. Yeah, I feel like a family could sit down and play through this together in like a Sunday afternoon or something. I really liked it. I don't know. Yep. I mean, yeah, I definitely appreciate all that. I think just kind of the, like, did you not have any issues with kind of like, even like sliding off ledges or kind of what felt like invisible walls? Like just the general kind of polish of the environment, everything just made, everything feels very frustrating. I think the environment was definitely a weak point in the game, but it's like more than made up for in just the two main characters and like, and how much character that they have and also like the creatures you're eating. If the main character could move at double the speed, like that would fix half the game for me. But I still enjoyed it. I guess not as much. I liked it. So they're A minus. Certainly not. J, anything else here? Other than that, the only other thing that's new that I've really been playing, I've just been, last night I downloaded the Field Runners update on my eye touch. I think it's the best tower defense game I've played so far on it. I love it. And then the, it has one new area, which it's sorely needed, because it only had two maps. So having that new drylands map is great, although it's really hard. And then they have two new towers, the flamethrower and the mortar, which you've played Pixel John and I were saying, it's pretty much a copy right off that. It's like, why can't they just add a couple things that are their own? And to be honest, I'm not a tower, tower defense otaku at all. I just have played Pixel John Monsters. That's pretty much it. And I really like that game. But it's funny to see them add just mortars and fire flame towers to this game. I'm like, what's next? What's next, Tesla towers? I want them to see them put the hive into. I want to see like special abilities, like they do a ninja tower, you can kind of like summon, like an air strike from another tower defense. I thought that's what they're all doing right now. Anyways, you know, I mean, because I like how it retains the original tower defense of where you place your towers, actually affects the path of the guys getting through. I really like that element of it. Have you guys played Savage Moon at all? Did you just come out? It just came out finally on PSN like last week. Is that any good? I wanted to check that out. It's interesting. It's incredibly bland looking at it, just this very kind of boring generic sci-fi look, like on a planet and little like, I don't know, different alien creatures that come. It's got kind of an interesting mix where you don't really create the path, but you can't affect the path of these blocker pieces you get to kind of like-- Oh, that's cool. --make them have to go around a longer path. It's interesting. I mean, it's just weird. That's been done. Again, on PSN. Lots of things come out that no one even knows about. That's true. Case in point of the game you just mentioned. Yeah, that's it. And I'm sure most people still haven't played Elefunk, which is great. Elefunk, sorry. So, should I buy Savage Moon? You should try it. I don't even know if there was a demo either. How much was it? Ten dollars? I don't know. Okay. I'll play it a while ago and who's supposed to come out in December. Well, maybe I'll wait till Pixel Jones Monsters comes out on PSP then to give my next fix. That's pretty much everything. So far. Word. Arthur. What are you hitting on this week? Well, I didn't play more Metal Gear. I haven't played more Metal Gear. I'm now 4-x and I'm on the beginning of Act V. Oh, I see. Is your angry Twitter about it? Yeah. I was also playing pretty late at night in my reserve of BS was like precariously low. But you said you actually did like? No, I did. I got a lot of Twitters and messages from people saying that, oh, well, if you didn't like Act 1 and 2, man, you're just going to hate the rest of the game because it just goes straight downhill from there. And I played Act 3 and sneaking around a very drab Eastern European town made me think, fuck, they're right. And then I got to the boss and the boss was fun if pretty easy. Did anybody else just breeze through the game by killing bosses with any tank rockets? Anybody? You're like a man but you're not having to play with this game? No. Yeah, a little bit. I think I did for some of the bosses at least. I, there has not been a boss so far that I have not used at least a couple of anti-tank rockets. That's kind of cool that you can do. Yeah. I mean, it's annoying in games when you just can't. It does make it, it made it a little anticlimactic when I was playing against, when I was killing a raging wolf, is that her name? Raging crying wolf? Crying wolf? I don't know. Which is a sniper battle in the snow, which is reminiscent of the battle with sniper wolf, et cetera. Right. I think that boss arena, because if you look around running around trying to find her, if you look closely, you can see the chopper that you shot down in Metal Gear Solid, which is a fun little. And so are you a Metal Gear Solid, like were you a big fan of the original Metal Gear Solid? I enjoyed Metal Gear Solid, but I wasn't as way into it as everyone else because I didn't like the controls. I'm just curious, like what did you like about the fourth area or the fourth act so much? Because like, that was, to me, like I actually did like the fourth act a lot and it was sort of that nostalgia. Well, first of all, it's the only mission in the entire game where I felt like stealth was an absolute necessity and it was implemented in such a way that it was fun because you're playing against robots that aren't particularly smart and that fits with the limitations of the stealth mechanic in such a way that I didn't feel like, well, I'm humping the ground trying to get to this area and they're going to be 17 guards that come across in culinary enforcement. So definitely like, puzzleier, like it was more like you're figuring out how to tackle each room, which was like the original Metal Gear Solid. That's the exact opposite of the way that I played it. I played through the entire first 3x as like a non-lethal stealthy sort of snake and then in that mission, on the little like roly-poly robots, I definitely use my shotgun and then with the on the bigger mechs, I killed every single one. See, in the rooms where there were a ton of the little metal gears, I don't even remember what they're called. The little ones I can't remember. They're made of hands. Yeah. The other ones are geckos, right? Yeah. In the rooms full of the little ones with hands, I definitely killed a lot of those things. But my favorite part of the game so far has been there's this really long sort of manufacturing corridor where there are sets of 3 of the smaller robots that are scanning and then there's the larger gecko that are scanning and it's all going in certain patterns and you basically have to identify their pattern and make your way through or kill everything. And that is the one place in the game where I felt like everything came together in a really interesting way. Like, I would go to a certain point, watch them stop, sink down, take a certain kind of cover to help my camouflage, move forward a little bit, watch their pattern, move forward a little bit, watch their pattern and I really enjoyed that in that part and I didn't necessarily enjoy it in the rest of the game. Did you do, but were you playing stealthily through the year earlier? No. I think I started playing stealthily but I just didn't. But you were using normal weapons. Yeah. The game starts with you running around in a war zone with a gun. Yeah. So the point of being stealthy was just lost on me for at least the first two days. I like the idea of, you know, it's kind of like the RE5 is the zombie movie but in the daytime sort of thing, it was like stealth in a war zone was more interesting to me because it wasn't the general like stealth setup that you're used to in most games. And I think that that mechanic would be interesting. I just don't, I don't find the way it's implemented in Metal Gear Solid for particularly interesting. Yeah, I see that. It's mostly just about finding the right path and you know, I mean, I like shooting things in Metal Gear Solid for because I feel like the mechanics and the tools they give me are effective to do that whereas I don't necessarily feel like the stealth is totally, which is why in act four, it was like they took the cuffs off and because at this point I knew that I wasn't going to get, you know, punished for killing anyone. Yeah. So I just like went nuts and like literally destroyed everything. It was really a blast. What's funny is I'm playing through the game like I'm totally willing to kill all the PMC troopers but I haven't killed a beauty yet and I don't know why that is but for some reason I just feel guilty so I drank the shit out of them. Yeah, I don't, I don't kill anyone, it's fun. But um, so you have the Dawn of War 2, what a Dawn of War 2, which I'm really enjoying. Chef, do you want to chime in on Dawn of War 2 since we played togethers? Um. And you were the resident company of Heroes Fanatic. I wrote a preview on it, it set one up, I don't really know what else, you go read that. Get me, get me my clicks. I'm talking goddamn little about it. No, I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm just kidding. I'm talking about clicks anymore. I'm just kidding. No, he does. It's ingrained in my mind. He has to care so much about clicks now more than he ever has. Um. No, it's fun. I mean, the multiplayer is okay but uh, playing, playing uh, like against bots and stuff is super boring and uh, playing against people is kind of a pain in the ass at this point because no one joins games. There isn't that huge of a player base and uh, the people that are playing don't know what they're doing, which makes them equally lame to play when you just stomp on their face. So, um. This is coming from someone who beat the developers and company of Heroes at their own game. So. So. Yeah. What, what exactly is D.O.W. II? It's uh. To quote Ms. Sanders. It's uh, it's, it's unlike the original Dawn of War where you had to like focus on building a base and it was very much like in, in some ways like a Starcraft clone, except with like the early benefits of like the relic team behind it. Like there was some cover and it was fully 3D and they had like crazy explosions stuff that Starcraft and those games just didn't do. Uh. You know, explosions that actually matter and make creators in the battlefield, that sort of thing. Um. Well then in company Heroes they added like cover mechanics where you can actually tell guys to move behind cover and they made, they increased the AI. And so it's kind of like gone from that and still built upon that where cover is now extremely important like and uh, but they've also made it to where like units are even more important. So like when battles occur you'll never see like what looks like a crazy mob like when uh, like a big battle involving space marines will be like six space marines versus like twenty things and that's like a huge battle in that game. It's not like there will be swarms of stuff. It'll be like it looks very manageable. But at the same time so much more of it is micromanaging like whether or not you have those guys behind the right cover, the exact moments when you use their abilities, the exact moments of knowing when to retreat, there's like a lot more thought that goes into it even if there isn't like as many clicks. So it seems like they learned some lessons maybe from Warcraft 3 and the hero units and these kind of smaller scale battles. Yeah, the heroes matter. I mean you only have one hero on the whole battlefield. Unlike in Warcraft 3 you could build multiple and the one hero can like turn the tide but he's not invincible. Like he's really easy to kill if he's on his own. Depending on the hero, even if it's the most powerful warrior hero, they're still easy to kill if they're on their own. As long as they won't run into a wall of gunfire, they're going to die. So it's like this big balance between using a hero and using your units but because there's like literally no base management, you only ever build out of one building the whole time. It just allows you to sit there and focus on the units you have in the field. You don't even have to ever click on that building back at your base to sit there and build. You can build from an icon on the field. So basically you never have to look at your base ever again. So let's say all combat and all strategy. What's all deployment? All strategy covers a lot more fragile. Maps are probably like in my opinion like one third of the size total that they usually were in company heroes. So like you retreat, you're out of the fight but you're back in the fight within like a few moments. Like if battles are pretty much like in company heroes is like if you're like a really good you can tell like battles are won or lost within like the first 15 minutes a lot of times you can tell. Unless you're playing really good people then it can actually teeter totter but in this it's like even more apparent like within the first few moments like oh this is like totally decided because the the battle is so small and like literally like spending like and because there's only two resources. There's power and like requisition and you share those resources between upgrading hero upgrading units and be filled and building new units. So anytime like every time you make a big and everything's expensive so there's no like little purchase here and there. It's like if you you always have to sit there and do cost benefit analysis against what's on the field. So there are definitely times that you'll be like uh I bought this upgrade from my hero and that literally probably screwed me. Now I won't be able to build this unit and I won't be able to counter what they did. So it is it's it's a lot more intense strategy than I think but if it's smaller scale it seems like it would work on console better. That's what that's my my sort of overarching opinion of the game so far is that it's the closest to a console friendly or RTS that I've seen in a long time I'm I talked with chef like a couple times over the last couple years about how I feel like company of heroes is probably close to an art and a console to much based building and just like there's too much base building. Yeah. Just like there's too much base building and Halo Wars really. I mean. How does anyone play Halo Wars? Yeah I've I've played Halo Wars and I've done previews and Halo Wars still has base building like this literally has no base building like this would be the ideal version of a way to do it. I mean there are actually so few commands that they might be able to map them all to a controller. But it scales a hell of a lot better than company of heroes did graphically and performance wise which is nice. The thing the company here is that they're always trying to make it look ultra realistic the whole time whereas with with Warhammer they can get away with a little like a more cartoony looking jungle at times and stuff like that and more cartoony looking buildings and stuff. And it doesn't look any worse. It's just a different art style. Which just allows them to be less graphically intensive maybe and still have it look real for the what the fantasy is like. I mean that's what Blizzard has always done and that's one of the things that makes them such genius developers is because they're always their games look good on the low end and they look pretty darn good on the high end but it's never because of the technology you know. Yeah. And the game is a lot faster than company of heroes is like you could probably finish a multiplayer match between from five to fifteen minutes whereas co matches can go for significantly longer between good players and I don't I don't think that the dawn of war matches will last that long. Yeah I mean I still have fun with it but I doubt I'll stop playing company heroes for it and I'm more interested in playing the single player of that than I am in the multiplayer anyways. I'm willing to go down on a lemon say it'll be more commercially successful than company of heroes was because well that's because it has the Warhammer name well not just because of that just because of that it will already be more successful but I think that there are people who don't care about Warhammer 40K. Yeah in America maybe but in the in the in the Europe and stuff that's where PC games always sell way better I mean Warhammer is insanely popular so of course it'll do better than company of heroes half the people in Europe are probably trying to forget the World War II ever happened. Yeah but I remember they're like fuck yeah I don't care about the European market or anything like I'm just saying they commercially it will be more successful because of the fact that it's war. Again though I mean company of heroes just had a lot of barriers to entry that prevented people from getting into it and I feel like a lot of those don't exist in this iteration so. Anthony if you plan anything else well while you've been talking. More Apollo justice. It's like your bedtime reading. Yeah that is my that's what I played before I go to sleep and that's really it I beat clock tower over the last week as well the original clock tower which is a pain in my ass I mean that game is like that game you can tell that that game influenced a lot of other games but the fact of the matter that I played three out of ten levels possible and I beat the game but I just got killed at the end like because I did one thing wrong somewhere all of a sudden I only got to play three levels and it ended like how stupid is that. I think that's kind of interesting that it's that flexible that they could happen I mean yeah you can you easily replay it in a different way yeah I guess if you could restart the whole game and just go back and make sure that you find the right thing. Yeah I mean I'd like to see kind of more flexibility like that more often where it's like a game can you know you can finish it in an hour if you do everything straight through but there's so many other paths. I mean I didn't really finish it because I'm pretty sure like what I got wouldn't be considered like a real ending. Right. I mean I keep like thinking back to heavy rain on this like how I'm thinking that's going to be is like all these different paths different ways to approach it and see but Nick the difference is all he got literally was like he died and but they made him play like four hours before he died. I like that. You see but no one else does there's a reason but then he has to replay the horror game now. Like that's such an anachronism. I think that's the key to doing it right is allowing is like once it happens then allowing people to go back to that point where they made that choice and like choose your own adventure sort of yeah exactly that's why I was thinking yeah and and just the fact that you know games like that it is cool that like the decisions you make or things you fail to find actually make a difference but that there's like no guiding hand at all and it like no there was no way that when I left the level like I knew like it wasn't like maybe I didn't find everything or something like that I was just like I assume I found everything. I think to a point you have to know what you're supposed to be doing and then if you go off track and do something else it should kind of reward you in a different way but yeah I mean if there's no guidance at all and then it turns out you're dead then that's just frustration. Yeah I mean like I said I think it's cool that they actually made it so your choices actually really matter in it and that there's all these different endings like a lot of people claim to be different endings and it's just like change of color of planet or like a different cut scene at the end of the game like that shit's dumb. Did Jay do that whole right above it? No it was me and Jay. Oh that was ugly. So where is that? That's at vlogspot.dustypixels.com. No Dustypixels.com. Dustypixels.com. Dustypixels.vlogspot.com. We'll put it in the show notes so people can find it and it's on Anthony's most recent Twitter. Yeah. Anything else you got? No. You got that? No. That's okay. Kat what have you been playing? It's all been pretty much Nintendo DS for me so next week the new Fire Emblem game is coming out and last year I picked up Fire Emblem in Japan and I really didn't like it so I'm looking forward to playing it in English and seeing if I like it a little bit better. It's a remake of the original very first Fire Emblem. It's the one with Martha in it so people can finally stop asking. Anything that happens to Smash Brothers? Yeah and the Mars from Smash Brothers. So that'll make people happy but... I have a lot of friends who are really into the Fire Emblem series but I've never been able to. It's a little bit too hardcore for me I feel like. It was the game that got me into tactical RPGs. So the whole thing for me is just the like when a person dies they're gone for good. Like I'm so obsessive that I would like if I'd been playing a battle for three hours and one dude dies I would go back and start it over again. That's what happened to me in Valcaria profile because you can lose your teammates. When I lost Vise I was like oh reset. Yeah. That's why I stopped. That's why I fell. I fell off. I fell off. Oh fuck. You're kidding. It's pretty rough but actually this one has kind of like checkpoints so in a map you'll have like two save points and a player can choose whenever they want they can step on this tile and save and then reload from that specific moment. Did you play the Wii one? I played the GameCube one which I heard is a lot like the Wii one. You know are those any more accessible or are they still kind of punishing like that but people can just die and stay dead. I know that people can still die and stay dead and that from my friends. For what I understood the Wii one was really hard but introduced the checkpoint sort of mid-level save system but it was still impossibly hard because your characters would die and like two hits and like even if you get to restart from a checkpoint it's still a pain in the ass and you don't want to do it. The GameCube one I really didn't like the graphics because the Game Boy advanced ones I knew I liked the 2D sprite based ones they were pretty I like pretty but the Nintendo DS so the sorry the GameCube one was all 3D and really bad 3D. Yeah that's kind of what happened with calls up like it was a really great link game with great sprites on PS2 and then the 3/6 and calls up Saga they're all like really ugly 3D models. Exactly. It's like the rest of the game is almost the same when I just do that I care if you do a straight port with online play that's fine. It was really like the animation was so stiff and I actually found myself like on the map turning off the animations and so my characters would just hit them each other on the map and die and then I was like you know I like graphics I like it has like your tactical efficiency like it got kind of boring yeah so I was really looking forward to the Nintendo DS one and when I played it I saw that they had kind of done a 2.5D rendered kind of look for it and it really doesn't look very good it really doesn't like a final fantasy tactics style. I think I was thinking Romancing Saga I remember PS1 used that I remember thinking it looks so ugly almost looks like a claymation sort of exactly that's exactly what they look like little rendered putty finger fingers like that look at all no so and the animation is still stiff and because it's the first fire emblem the story is kind of simple the characters aren't as interesting and one of the big things about fire emblem is that you can get your characters to you know do support conversations so you put them next to each other for a while and then they get to like each other and then you can get them to start dating and maybe they get married at the end of the game I didn't know this existed in fire emblem at all suddenly I'm interested a lot of people really like that aspect and it's not in the new one so like you get two characters that you really like and you kind of pair them up that sounds like there's zero reason to play the new one as you're listening the reasons off I'm gonna play it again in English maybe I'll like it I mean it does have Mars and I kind of look at how smart that's like the one that's this sort of an intent that I did from scratch I'm on the back of the box that's what they should put on it but just call the game that it works it works with all their other franchises going to say are they not doing this yeah burn that I used to be on the cover for sure I on the other hand I have the Game Boy Advance version with of the one with Roy so fire emblem six and that one's way better so I think I'm gonna play that one instead there you go any other stuff you can play pretty soon Valkyrie profile order of the plume is coming out I'm looking forward to that because Valkyrie profile is my favorite game on the PlayStation and also pretty soon oh god it totally slipped my mind but there are a lot of RPGs coming out really soon on the Nintendo DS like just in the next couple months just a huge um they're just spelling out into the market yeah one I like be enjoying my DS right now well RPGs like I was hoping you you'd say some other random not RPG game I guess the DS has become like an RPG machine which is awesome because I like RPGs but also like I don't have time to play them so it's basically just I buy a lot of DS games and then have them sit on my shelf in my backlog how is that different than anything else that that's true that's very pretty years ago or something though that the DS was just great that like so many releases of different sorts of games and I was interested in like something every month I think they've went out and down to what's profitable honestly like what sells in the market what sells here but the thing is is like now the now the install base is so massive it's kind of like the PS2 it's like anything is probably profitable but that's that's not the case though I mean like what sells on DS is imagine babies and like square RPGs I don't know if that's necessarily true someone described uh the my cooking coach or something like that to me and I'm not usually I'm actually pretty pretty harsh against the the non-games most of the time but that legitimately sounds like a cool piece of software to me and it actually has the thing that really sounded good is that it has a hands-free mode so you set it up on your counter it's got it teaches you how to cook good things I heard that the Italian recipes are are actually legitimately good and the Japanese ones are good someone made some good oconee Miyaki with it and anyway it's got this hands-free mode where you set it on your counter you you know do the the thing you're supposed to be doing right then you say next page or something like that it's just so hard every time I see in the store to like it's hard to spend twenty dollars I know I know it's just like this weird barrier that I can't for myself to do but I really want it's all probably correct mentally and I did like I said last week and I haven't played as much but uh Castlevania Order Order of Ecclesia is worth playing it is the I stopped playing Castlevania because I was tired of doing the same game over and over again and it's still sort of got that thing going on but uh the combat is the thing that gets the the biggest upgrade in this one and that to me is you know because that's the entire game basically that it's a big enough change that it's worth playing through if you like Metroid Vania type games one non-RPG that's coming out next week I believe is retro game challenge I believe and in Japan that was Game Center CX and I haven't played it but I'm really looking forward to it just because it's so clever the idea that you're what basically a Japanese kid living in the mid-80s playing variations on retro games and getting achievements and unlocking things and you're buying these magazines that are it's almost like you're living in the mid-80s and you're reading strategies and everything it's great it's like a sim it's like shim move who's releasing this game oh god I actually know I didn't know this was coming out in the States that's pretty interesting yeah it's coming out that's um actually actually over at one up they're doing um a whole like week-long thing about uh the retro game challenge over on the the blogs so yeah we're gonna bring in the Christian Vail soundboard you know that uh speaking of one up in UGO I mean we should what do you want to talk about that it's from UGO though uh we probably shouldn't talk about that on air if we're gonna bring it in I mean like we should probably cut this part no no man we get sued for that shit Christian Vail soundboard but by him possibly he would at least call us he's Batman he has the technology and maybe I'll scatter um I'm playing rock band and guitar hero for the first time first time ever you can't play him in Japan really because in I left it's illegal yes it's illegal no I left I left America right when the original guitar hero came out like right when it came out and so it kind of became a huge hit without me and so I was in Japan the whole time and in Japan there's no such thing as soundproofing so these music games just don't work did you play and also everybody was saying no I haven't because amplitude is so good like so much better than guitar hero as a game and that's something you might like enjoy and not have to worry about that you know plastic instruments I really liked oh and in on the DS just because an elite beat agents just because you don't need a plastic instrument right and it's so clever in the way that they use the stylus that is a great example of how to use an Nintendo DS to me definitely what are you playing around uh mostly the same stuff still skate so we don't need to talk about that anymore um and uh like I said Castlevania but the thing that I'm really playing right now if if you know when I have free time and I feel like I'm not playing something for a work is I've gone back to pixel junk Eden to finally finish up the last bit of it so I am playing uh so far I have gotten all spectra and and under grown all the seeds in gardens one through eight and I'm working on nine and ten getting the last few specter I think I have five specter left and uh I need to grow grow all seeds in those two gardens I really wish we had a camera so I could show the listeners the pixel junk romance it's happening in the corner between right now sorry I kicked the mic there uh no I mean I just that game is fantastic and the patch was really good like it's just a little difference is having more uh more times than the pellets like yeah this is like as it's fucking boring to me is when like someone goes off I'm like and uh the in the wow 1.1 patch notes they unlocked the new talents back in forever do you guys want us to leave the room we could give you some time alone anyway it's it's I mean it was a big game before but now it's like really really really refined it's just way more accessible now we're gonna start the second segment with not Ryan or with uh with Ryan and fucking Nick coming out of the bathroom looking all sweaty the camera I'm multiplayer now also like I still haven't tried multiplayer yet since the patch uh it's like totally perfect now like it always stands with the person who's higher up it's all down yeah wow like yeah and I was playing with my girlfriend before we had some troubles because like she'd go flying off and again with all her her but now it's like never a problem so it's like improves the game's accessibility with multiple people and um yeah totally great all I can say is it's made me feel free to hear is that game like this game I haven't I haven't felt so accomplished in anything in gaming for the past year or so as when I grew all grew all the seeds and got all the specters in guarded seven which is the one where I mean it's kind of a spoiler but if you're not playing now you're not playing it uh where the gravity changes you know it's like it's hard if you haven't played the game you don't know how awesome that is but I did it it's awesome I kicked the shit out of that stage and I felt really good I tried four times played about an hour each time fucking it up and then finally did it and it felt really good I still think the like one problem with the game is that just that structure like having to not oh you can't get all the specter the first time through that still kind of kills me because like going back into the garden multiple times like I learned the stage at that you know that's like where I'm learning where to get it just I feel like it's a bit discouraging in terms of like wanting to sit down play it for a long period of time Phil can you talk about wow for a little bit please talking about fucking wow and Warhammer and all this boring pc shit on the caravan so we're talking fickle down for five goddamn minutes every week point done now so yeah we're done but it's good um I still think you know if you like cool platformers you should play it I agree that's all I got yep it's all I got whose podcasts supported by pixel tone so uh less I don't know last week I guess um I was waiting for effort samurai to be delivered all day and I was like five to talk and I was like it's not coming so I finally seriously Nick was like messaging me on him and he's like where is it where's Afro samurai I was like freaking out I'm like something I do yeah I know you were wait did you review it or were you just getting it because someone likes you um well because someone doesn't like you but it was because I was writing about it for what they play dot com trying to have some side and because so good I talk about in podcast and I'm about to dude how do I get these these people to email the send me email if we you know we have a good audience and they want coverage of their games and it costs them nothing to send it out so ask people games if you want technically I think it does I should mention something to send it out but it's not I should mention that I will uh I'll also be playing Afro samurai but I haven't yet so I'll probably talk about it later because you were like you if you send Afro samurai when you saw I was playing it yeah I actually haven't played it yet okay I was just I heard things anyway so my story was just that I sat down with a middle of your finally and I got like two cutscenes and like this was finally I was like okay I'm gonna do this again so a couple hours later and well no like two cutscenes and I'm gonna draw ball rang you know the sped ax like latest L on the day it's then I was like fuck I gotta play so what do you write for john's side like pretty much don't let your children play this there's boobies in blood everywhere well gangster out the thing about it on john's side as you kind of present everything that's there and then it's up to parents to make their own right at hand but yeah it was funny writing about a game like that because there's a point where you're like fighting for topless women and chopping them in half while they're yelling fuck at you so you're writing what what they're not playing yeah it's about as mature as as it can get um but I really really like the game like it's I think it's been it's been reviewed pretty poorly I was gonna say you didn't you don't do you don't agree with Justin Heywald and his like sea might as it it's tough because I think about I've heard I mean I've heard that it's yeah I've heard some really mixed things about especially the camera is the main thing I've heard is an issue the camera is a bitch yeah but but in general though it's like I think if I were reviewing it like for you know for one up or somewhere it's like I would have to kind of take into account a little bit more that a lot of the mechanics in the game aren't as good as they could be the combat's kind of like a poor man's ninja guy but overall it's like so much more than like the some of those those different parts you are notoriously forgiving for bad cameras too you loved alone in the dark well I I didn't like ninja guy and for that reason for my truth actually I thought that the camera and ninja guy too is better than you gave it credit for it was just everything else that was a problem yeah like the camera in this it's not it's not a huge problem it's more that you can't invert the y-axis or the x-axis you just don't have a choice so you just have to get used to that and I never really can that's really that's so bizarre to me who developed that game but Namco Surge which is an American studio that they put together just for this actually then I think it was made that mistake like like stuff like the RE5 demo where you can't switch the fucking sticks that makes sense to me because it's a Japanese game no no well I was just going to say Surge is the name of the uh the label that Namco just started at first and I was in development way before that but Surge is like this new label that Namco started to release American friendly games because I understand it was just some guy who saw him from summer and had the idea to make the game and he was like I have to make this game happen and he kind of like raised the equipment awareness and got a team to get hunted down Samuel L Jackson and yeah and uh actually I mean I give play magazine a lot of love a lot of people hated but um it was their cover story again this month for like the first review and it's great now that they don't have scores in their reviews because I can it's a lot more you can take them more seriously well I can take it seriously reading a review that like half the reviews the story of how the game came to be in the second half is kind of review I mean I like that aspect of play yeah I do yeah yeah I think I haven't chosen as I was gonna say I haven't played after summer but I think it looks fantastic whenever I saw it it looks great that's the thing is it's the best soundtrack is great yeah this podcast brought to you by Namco and it's it's uh it's not just the way like the graphical style is kind of the cel-shaded you know graphic novelty look but it's really like the cinematography too and just the pacing of the scenes and like the cutscenes and everything just the presentation just like drippingly gorgeous totally like motivating me to play every second just to see what the next area or next like cutscenes it'll look like the voice acting is fantastic it's Samuel L Jackson he plays Ninja Ninja which is kind of like your uh imaginary companion that is what we walled you only went and it takes you while it realizes imaginary when you explained it it sounds way dumber than it probably seen in the game so and that's the thing too and I'll find something Justin brought up in his review and a lot of reviews if there's there's still little context for any context for anything that happens in the game like story wise which I can understand I've seen the anime uh I don't see a lot of anime that I did I did watch it and enjoy it uh this is to prepare for a preview like months ago that I did um but there isn't really any background it doesn't even give you kind of the basic structure up it so you don't really know what's going on so I can see that being frustrating but uh so I maybe recommend renting it first is there a good jumping on point in the anime to play if you're interested in playing the game it's only like a five episode mini-series that they did so there's another one since then but I haven't seen it oh really for samura then for samura resurrection okay I thought it was like a an ongoing series I think it is now I think they just started the new season or whatever I don't know I don't know well I know the original it was just like a five five or so many cities that's all I but um but the combat's like really satisfying it's really deep and you don't have to use a lot of its depth because it's not that hard of a game um but it's just really enjoyable you're just you know chopping guys it's kind of like this dynamic this an aberrant thing where you can slice them at whatever angle did you beat the whole game yeah how long is it um it's like six hours it's kind of short but I've been glad sometimes with action games like that it's kind of a good thing and there's actually one in our replay because you restart with like your fully leveled up character and there's like lots of hidden shit to find um so it's really just by virtue of the presentation and the combat being satisfying that's kind of all the game is is presentation and and it's also like very uh I mean it's soundtrack it's not actually by RZA which I thought it was it's like inspired by because I guess you kind of get them a bunch of ideas and a bunch of other people made the music but just kind of like having this really satisfying combat with like you know with the hip-hop soundtrack is not something you ever get in gaming really so it's just super satisfying I officially want to borrow this from me now I was actually going to ask you for a guess today and like I think I want to play this and it's like there's I don't know there's some little frustrations and some little like just mechanical issues and the other cameras a bitch but it's I think it's absolutely worth playing I like dismembering things dynamically they're accepting or being honest well maybe that's what I get an engine guide hey I like playing compare them just that's the thing is like the combat is like if it were if it were a lot harder it would be more comparable than engine guide because you would have to learn specific moves and counters and such and I mean talk about expectations for Christ's sake what did you expect to going in and after the samurai game actually happens after reading the original play forever story months ago when I cover story came I like send an email around the opposite was like everyone come look at this magazine and no one gave a shit except me but I thought look gorgeous because it's play well yeah they make everything look good to see a lot of different things in the cover story things that he'd never had yeah the bigger your the bigger number of subscribers and issues you have to write out the lower quality of paper you have right now yeah I didn't say it was a funny thing no okay which is why I like game informers and they have like a ton of things they just used to have a game in terms of you know the paper stuff anyway fun is I'm enjoying the game a lot but I enjoyed it a lot I know I'll be playing it again do you have anything else to talk about Nick hmm no it's more skates I'm so upset how does skate to hold up like a couple weeks later after actually playing a bunch of the online stuff like the larger scale with a bunch of people like doing objectives together and such so the cat's about the cat is about to pull a camera down it needs it needs a patch to make it not as awkward to like get into games and stuff but it's holding up I think I think of it just in terms of the amount of depth in the control and that sort of thing like you'll be able to go back to it even as a single player game you know it's the type of thing where you could put it away for six months and come back and have to relearn a little bit of it and have that be what drives you to play more it's uh it's pretty great game I don't think I'd need another skating game for a while now or I you know it's like you said yesterday when we're talking about it for co-op yeah well I don't know yeah I guess I don't even know I guess we'll be coming at it around the same time but yeah so we'll talk about skate on co-op this week but uh it's uh I don't know what I was gonna say it's great play it yeah I'm done I think you might know well I talked about them all already um and I played a bunch of wild but I don't know anything interesting to say about that so I'm just gonna skip over that but I did want to bring up I didn't actually get to play this but last week I went to see Batman Arkham Asylum which I'd seen previously for an EGM story that I did I did a preview on games radar um so I got to see it again and the big thing that's changed from the last time I saw it was that they were showing off a lot more of the combat this time which is good because the first time I saw it that was the one big kind of question mark was they didn't show very much combat and it looked really kind of sketchy um I wasn't so sure that that's going to turn out and it's it's looking a lot better at this point so that's exciting to see so what I mean what kind of game is it is it a stealth game is it an action game it's sort of a mix of both I mean the the big thing that they were focusing on this time was saying you know like the combat is kind of like it looks a little bit like a beat him up but it's not a straight beat him up and the the interesting way that they actually described it to me is like all the rooms in the game are kind of like sandbox rooms in that you go into this room there's guards in different locations and then different you know more guards will come in or not guards I guess but they're like thugs who have escaped from from prison right and um you can figure out how to take them out in this room in in sort of multiple different ways you can just run up and confront them if you want or you can like grapple up into the shadows and then jump down from the shadows and take them out that way sounds cool you can like hide you can hide under the floor I just got to see it I didn't get to play it yet so that's that's still kind of I'm not sure how it will control but it looked it certainly looked cool um you can like hide under floors and then jump up from the floors and take them out that way you can kind of like uh go down like um repel down from like a gargoyle I don't know there were lots of really cool looking little ways to take people out no I'm just curious out of all those options he listed to you which one of those sounded the most Batman to you I think that they're grappling people on the Raptors exactly all right this one to make sure we're on the same page yes that is excellent and then also like you know like you can you can just punch people of course too but like the the cooler like if you take them out in ways that are cool you'll get more um basically like experience points for it and then you can bat points that you put towards the bat skills the last bat or Batman begins I guess was like it's big problem is that it was insanely linear like every single thing you did in the game and this is like combat or this is what this sounds like if it's at least at least sandbox you within each room yeah that that seems like it's sort of like each room is its own little sandbox you can figure out what to do with and I I assume I mean they didn't make this completely clear but it sounds like um it seems like they're sort of going for a Chronicles of Riddick feel where Arkham is kind of this big place that you can explore a little bit if you want and there's like little side things you can do and it's all not just uh it doesn't just take place in the asylum too it's on like the Arkham island or whatever yeah so you you do leave at some point you can like kind of explore that whole island so I think as you go more and more of the asylum and more and more of the island opens up so it's I mean if that uh plays out as cool as it sounds and what could be pretty rad uh also where do I uh like Laura's is based off of this is like certain comic strain or this is brand new or no it's it's a brand new story it's sort of um loosely based around some of the ideas that were in Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum graphic novel that he did and then the voice cast from the animated series yeah that that was really cool too exciting that was another big big improvement because the first time I saw it they just had sort of placeholder voices that sounded awful and this time um by now they've announced that um Mark Hamill's gonna be the Joker and uh and Conroy is Batman so like that was nice hearing like Kevin Conroy's Batman was like it was it was a very very relaxing Batman to most people I just watched Batman Beyond Return of the Joker like the movie on TV so good have you seen Gotham and Gotham Knights I think it is I watched that the Batman anime yeah I did the Batman yeah uh I thought it was cool wait that doesn't work it has to have anime in the title Batman anime that man ever yeah I thought about half of them are pretty cool and I watched them on Blu-ray I was gorgeous so I did like I like the extra features the documentary stuff and that yeah that was awesome where they had like the kind of uh they talked about each Batman villain and like well that I watched set three times so didn't we had four episodes of the animated series on like on the Blu-ray that was making a damn sense did we want to take a moment right now and talk about Resident Evil because it makes more sense doing that now before the break sure so and we'll just do it let's break it down and like oh I guess I can also put my kills on now we're in like five to ten minutes I think we can talk about kills on next segment because we were talking about five to ten minutes let's break down Resident Evil you guys played it you obviously liked it I can tell just by the look on your face when I bring it up right which is dumb because I played it well I played it and I was like have you have you played can we start with the nay saying then yeah yeah wait I was like oh I just wanted so you've played the game no no I've played I've played it to be for my experiences so let me I'll let you guys go first but let me say that the name of this segment is that Resident Evil 4 or Resident Evil 5 demo does not equal Resident Evil 5 subtitle subtitle area 5 apologize this Resident Evil 5 subtitle subtitle area 5 has played Resident Evil 5 as you know we'll see it we'll see I guess well in some way I guess like that kind of invalidates my opinion then because it's I'm just not just off the demo the demo is like that's just kind of annoying that's all I want to come here to say is that don't let the demo color your impression of Resident Evil 5 okay if you want to stop the conversation right there that's fine well no I want to say is if the demo isn't indicative of the gameplay what the fuck were they thinking releasing that demo because they needed that demo like for E3 last year I was gonna say because that demo I can't even like invite someone to play co-op with me like the only way I can play co-ops is with a random person online it just made me think what did you learn Japan so I would tell you that what fresh and I have played which is the preview bill first three chapters three chapters and admittedly we played through system link in our house so it wasn't through Xbox Live still okay okay so and but we we could have played through Xbox Live we were playing through system link um the demo is two two scenarios that are two different combat encounters basically and it's good at showing you what the combat is like I suppose but what it doesn't show you is Resident Evil Resident Evil is a game that contains exploration puzzle solving you know combat as well but I would just would you say though that it's still like through what you played like just playing like the little bit of five that I did I was like man this is just Resident Evil 4 with some prettiness no because it's co-op you know like the the big thing about this game I really need to try real co-op I haven't done that it is it like it is all about the co-op yeah and it has you know Arthur and I were talking about this before we started recording today the question was well is it still fun when you're playing it single player I imagine it would be I mean it is definitely more fun than playing the demo single player because the demo like I said is literally you know the part when we got to the demo parts in the game we were like oh man I wish we could skip these parts yeah they've been absolutely ruined but even afterwards in context when we saw them we were like wow those were like nothing parts I feel like too in context of it I mean they just they blow when you're playing like the whole single player and it's you know they're bookended by the cutscenes and the exploration they seem like just these tiny small little nothing parts to it like you don't even remember that the cutscenes too are amazing Resident Evil okay well I'll over about that in a second but it looks like Kat wanted to jump oh yeah I just wanted to say that speaking as somebody who loved Resident Evil 4 I don't see Resident Evil 5 being more of the same as all that bad yeah I just think I think Resident Evil 5 was actually quite different from Resident Evil 4 from what I played and that's because of the co-op element it changes the gameplay so much just things like I only played it at Tokyo game show I'm from what I understand it's pretty much the same thing I think that is yeah that sounds the same build I haven't downloaded the demo but I'm going to assume that it's the same demo that we got access to it like the end of last year which is basically what was that Tokyo game show so I'd just like to confirm though that like and the build that you guys have played you can invite your friend to your game and that sort of thing like that's not gonna be I'm sure that'll be yeah I just I just want to make sure because you know what you don't ever know sometimes people make some dumb decisions about I don't know like that like not at like inverting camera control exactly I mean these are these people that don't typically do co-op games and stuff I mean you know it's like I'm like I said I'm just scared that I like I would imagine that that would be priority number one for a company like Capcom who's investing so much money more on my play ps3 well anyone actually play online co-op with random strangers because I can't imagine you know what we talk about we talk about like playing with friends all the time but there are a lot of people that have Xbox live accounts and PSN accounts they don't have a ton of friends on their friends list yeah I mean a lot of us do play lefforded with random people yeah like we we always a couple times we always have people to play with but I mean not everyone can say that my concern about the demo is that Capcom has been the master of using demos this generation in betas like from lost planet on like the lost planet vertical slice that they released sold people on that game sure the trial for dead the trial for dead rising sold people on that there are also just kind of the only good japanese developer this generation that's what I would argue bold statement um I in what way I bring up a counter example I think that like super relevant Japanese developers just this generation besides Capcom I think people would argue that namco's done some stuff and I would argue that they are they are they have had the biggest down there's the there's the metal I look I'm not saying that there's one game I'm not saying you're wrong I'm just saying I know it's not gonna argue um like they're all in Japanese company making the next gen games the only company that's employed are to make games Atlas serves one of the RPG developers but if we're going to talk about games that are in the same genres as western games right I think it's been there's plenty of good Japanese games but I think in terms of making things seem like current tech and on par with western games Jack got my things the only like outside of middle gear specifically the only the only like well and also everything the Capcom has done that's been successful in the west so far this gen has been something that a renegade at Capcom has been kicking and screaming with corporate to get put through like dead rising and lost planet or both examples of that but what I'm saying is that they've been really good at selling their games through use of demos I think had that demo gotten released when it was actually you know brand spakin new like before dead space well no no no now because it's so close to the release of the game people are expected everybody seen you remember how early the last planet demo was uh I do remember how I remember it was about a year during e3 but but that last planet demo was polished to shit that I think that if you had played the Resident Evil 5 demo around the time when people were playing it e3 or TGS of this year it would have been a and you knew that it was coming out so far down the line you would be like wow this is pretty awesome so why do you think they waited so long for it to release the demo then hey man I don't know their business strategy all I call them up let's call them up all I know is that the real true version of the christian bell on the phone is is much better was it concurrent development for 360 and piece of music on that game no right uh I wonder if that had something to do with it here's my thought on terms like the co-op thing just thinking about it it's like there's not there's not a ton of great co-op games as far as I'm concerned like dedicated co-op games that are built to be co-op there's a lot of games that throw co-op in and that's always nice but um so because of that like I'm looking forward to resident evil now as a co-op experience like I don't know if I need you know people only have more resident evil single player yes I think it's like gears to me is a co-op game I've no interest in playing gears single player I know you mentioned art that you that you didn't you enjoyed it and that's cool but like I have no interest in it I don't think of it as a single player game so you know when you put it that way it makes you sound like you're calling me an asshole oh you just hate co-op you had other people I want to I want to throw this out here I'm like I haven't I haven't played the re5 demo yet and I do really want to but um but I the one thing that has me or one of the signs that has me worried about it is I was talking to one of my buddies who helps run co-optimus.com which is very you know co-op focus site and he said after playing the demo playing through it co-op and everything he's not interested in the game at all he might not even buy it he has no idea what's in that this is what I'm telling you is and I remember saying this in December but probably on one up and somewhere over there I said please don't let the demo color your your ideas of what this game is because it is a lot better than the demo um you know there's there's people like Shane who were arguing that uh you know maybe this game won't be as good as RE4 or whatever and as a single player game we haven't finished it so I just don't know how far the game goes you know who knows I think that the the narrative is better I think the cutscenes are better but it doesn't you you can throw all that all of that aside because RE4 is not a co-op game and this game is built 100% for co-op it is the way to play it um if you don't play it that way I think you're missing out I'm not I think you would still have fun if you played single player all right all right so if you played the demo and you didn't like it maybe then the advice to them should be like give a second chance with like a rental like something like that I think to wrap it up I can just like my opinion is that there are going to be a lot of people that wait for reviews of this game that weren't before the demo came yeah but I think I think at this point right to completely writing off Resident Evil game before it's out it's just kind of stupid so I don't guess everyone should give it a chance I don't write anything off before I I see more of it no I know but a lot of people are I'm more skeptical of it than I've been all right so all right but let's take a break and I'll come back and shoot a discussion all right that means that means [Music] so guys uh Arthur is a dick and hates half-life discuss we got like 45 minutes dedicated to this I can kill you I'm a Christian Bale on your ass I was pretty great so we're gonna talk about shooters and I mean talk about half-life what makes a theater okay but okay this discussion is growing up for a lot yeah do we want to get the genesis of this conversation yeah it was just from the very first week before I wreck your shit with knowledge this is the first time I met Arthur I believe yeah no yeah it was the the day of the one apocalypse yes and everyone came over and we were getting ready to record podcasts we're talking about talking about shooters and uh and I think that came up that I love half-life two and Valve games and I don't think that the shooting in them is very good and that proceeded to you know I think they're good shooters I don't think they're good shooters I don't think that they're as well and I responded Arthur I don't think you're a good human being I just think he's crazy but well get to it I got your background there so all right all right I knew that you would see I've already had me here I was like well it's gonna be Arthur Nick versus the rest of us so let's get busy that's all right I'm I'm okay with being in the the right minority in my opinion it's just been invalidated to the internet minority so so why don't you think I'm a good shooter um I think that that it comes down to one of the things we were talking about a couple weeks ago when we were talking about Left 4 Dead was Shane um which is that the shooting in Left 4 Dead isn't especially tight but that's okay because it creates tension in the way that you're interacting with the zombies and the other team when you're playing a multiplayer etc etc I just think you guys are crazy I think the shooting is super tight in Left 4 Dead it's so tight in Left 4 Dead well I'm sorry but you're wrong in what way it describes uh the I mean are we just going to get right into it like do we want to lay down some ground rules or something I mean I think in the simplest way giving you a chance so here's your podium it makes sense I'm thinking in the simplest way possible just in terms of like well it's so in halo if an enemy comes up to you I can immediately aim and shoot him where I want I can't do that in Left 4 Dead okay can I can I stop really quick we're not saying halo is a better game not doing it in halo you can't in a halo in Left 4 Dead you aim just the same in halo you're just sitting there with your gun and you can do this towards him the same thing you look around the same way you wouldn't Left 4 Dead I would argue that I would argue halo is a bad example like you need something like Call of Duty where maybe you can zoom in like make finite little chills all about pinpoint precision you don't have and that's not a bad thing but like I don't think I know I I disagree with you I honestly think there is more pinpoint precision in Left 4 Dead than they're on console than there is in halo by a long shot and I think it's much easier to aim in Left 4 Dead than it is in halo it's much all right and and yes Call of Duty would be like a step above yeah but I think that no one does shooting on console like like infinity ward and I wish that Call of Duty 4 was an engine that everyone had access to so they could start from 60 frames per second and start from their shooting but second bet would be Valve can I just throw in here like are we defining good shooting as the ability to like aim no and and I'm not I'm not sure how how that tangent began but that's not a mistake okay i was only only responding to Nick saying that the you know we haven't even got to your half-life isn't a good shooter yet I was just literally just taking Nick's point to task on that you know you can pinpoint aim in halo better than you can and I would argue that in my opinion I can pinpoint aim better in Left 4 Dead than I can in halo when I go from Left 4 Dead to halo I feel like when I play halo like he's like moving in molasses like in comparison like just the turning and this like folks enemies it feels so much like slow yeah because the mastery from like a human being instead of a monkey with crack shoved up right he jumps like a human being too right oh he moves like a oh wait are we comparing like jumping in valve games and jumping in halo I mean aside from the fact that he's a robot essentially I'm just saying well the gravity is 100 totally different in halo you know like which is funny because they both use havoc it doesn't matter you can set numbers and change I know but again that's I wasn't talking about gravity but no I think what I mean is that the gunplay in in the general combat in the half-life series isn't as good as it is in other games um I don't feel like that's what I mean man um I feel like the the gunplay and interaction with other people um in an organic sense is better in the halo series so we're really gonna talk to you know I am gonna talk to you know I know and I'm not saying that halo halo is a better series or a better game I feel like the the interaction between you your environment and the other side is more fluid and halo because of the way that they react to what you're doing and the way that they react to your presence in in half-life I really wish that I'd written stuff down before we started the segment I think what the argument got to the first time this came up is that we were saying that half-life isn't the shooter and then we started talking no yeah the first shooter is versus adventure games etc yeah like I feel like crime is not a shooter I feel like half-life is is a first-person action game just like I feel like say the darkness is more of a first-person action game and I feel like portal is a first-person puzzle game and stuff like that whereas something like Call of Duty 4 is a first-person shooter and that is what it does and halo 3 is a first-person shooter with a sandbox combat element and that is what it does and I mean I definitely I understand where I think I understand where the distinction you're making is but I I still feel like I mean shooting is such a such a huge element of the half-life games and and I'm still so much of it and it's still out shooting it's still satisfying to me when I'm what do you mean when I have a big in big shooting I you him what do you mean it's not about shooting the entire the only way Gordon Freeman can interact with the world is with his gun or crowbar I think I think Call of Duty is a game about shooting it's every set piece is designed to make that shooting the center of the focus of the action everything you're doing and make that enjoyable I agree and that's why half-life 2 is a better game than Call of Duty but it's still a shooting game I do agree that's a better game but I'm just saying it I mean well I guess that's what I'm getting at it's like so what as soon as you start adding other elements for the game and for different reasons like yeah exactly it wasn't though when I played if we talk about half-life 2 it's something completely different because everyone was playing it because half-life 1 was like the coolest shooter ever and it was five years in the making but you might think something is you're talking about before we're like the world is so well developed and the adventure is great and the writing is great but when I played half-life 1 that wasn't why I was playing and I was and I don't was a great shooter I played the multiplayer because it was wonderful and I really really liked it and other than Quake it was the only other game that I did multiplayer but I think that's not the thing I mean I think half-life 1 what it did great was like scripted events which weren't a big thing exactly people talk about half-life 2 and reminisce about the way that the the story is told about the narrative and they talk about how atmospheric it was and how involved you felt in it they don't say man that part where the special forces people rolling on you with grenades was amazing like well let me let me throw one at it just because just because I talk about the story before the shooting doesn't mean it's not a good shooter that which means that it's a great shooter with a great story that's memorable as opposed to something called Dido it was like there were some explosions and I shot some shit it's fun but it's not like it's not doing the same type of storytelling as as half-life 2 does and battling with the stalkers is a great great battle that's a great firefight it's totally open-ended you know you get to choose to do it any way you want if you want to do it by throwing big things at them with a gravity gun that's totally one way to tackle it if you want to use your shotgun which I think is a totally fulfilling weapon that it makes a good sound you know it impacts the enemy in an interesting way you know has a good range like all the things that make great weapons in shooters like half-life has done that I mean those games are play tested to a tee it's not like they they missed the shooting you know what I mean are we talking about the what what part of half-life 2 like what part of half-life 2 episode episode 2 I understand but what part of episode 2 because they're like the end where you find a whole bunch of the introduction of the stalkers like that is a it's the part where you you know you're driving the whole game is like a road trip right so you eventually come upon this spot where you you know you need to open this gate that's in front of you there's a little abandoned house it's all destruct destroyed and stuff you do a little puzzle where you get this elevator we're going to the basement you come back upstairs and like you've seen these things streaking by you for a while now and finally it's like okay we're we're fighting them and what I'm saying is I don't feel like the the part that stands out to me about the thing that that stands out to me about that part isn't oh well it felt really good like with with interacting with that guy with my shotgun it was like this is really harrowing I feel like I'm trying to survive this huge attack that I shouldn't have any chance of surviving and I'm gonna I'm gonna hide here when that guy comes through the door I'm gonna waste him and I'm gonna try to do that but what part of what part of what part of what part of gears has ever made you do like I'm never when I'm playing gears I'm not like man my aim right now or the way I'm shooting this gun is totally bad ass I'm like no it's just the fact that they set up this cool fight and it occurred the way that it's the same thing because when I'm playing an encounter like that in half life I feel like I know my limitations a lot more in terms of what I can accomplish playing it like a shooter like I know that well I don't it's just my I mean maybe it's very subjective I feel like I can't aim as well or as quickly or as precisely and so I have to take that into account yeah I feel more empowered by weapons in Call of Duty 4 and in Halo and in a couple other shooters than I do in half life and I think that the half life encounters overall are still much better than most games because they do everything else so well so to me it doesn't matter that the shooting isn't as good but that's that's still standing feeling more than I feel like the shooting isn't as good feeling more empowered in Call of Duty because a guy dies from one burst of a gun as opposed to having to shoot things multiple times doesn't make one a better shooter than the other no but I mean it could be the thing I mean it's and I've played both the games on console and on PC but on PC like literally you are not going to miss aim you know because you just can't right it's around or whatever on speakers I know and all that's what I'm trying to say yeah and even I've played it on console and it still holds up but I that's actually one of the reasons why I prefer to play shooters on console even though I've been labeled a PC fanboy apparently which is kind of random I like I like the more organic feel of control of a game like that with a controller than I get with a mouse and keyboard I feel like I'm more physically interacting than I am when I'm just moving about so yeah I think we'll use the limitations of character to Mormon yeah there's that and there's I mean there's a tiny bit more struggle that makes it feel more like I'm earning it than just like moving my hand a little bit upward to get a headshot but I just I feel that the combat in Half-Life 2 and the combat in most Valve games is something that I'm surviving as opposed to something that I'm really enjoying although but that is enjoyable I guess if that's what it comes down to a subjective thing about you not liking the fact that you're just surviving rather than feeling like totally empowered then that's something but that doesn't make it I mean that does not make it a not great shooter it's still a great shooter just surviving is something that they play test the fuck out of I mean just surviving they literally you know every health pack every like it's all dynamic too based on how how well you're doing they want you to go into it to you know fear for an encounter have the encounter happen be next to dead and then are we talking about left or dead are we talking about no I'm talking about Half-Life 2 or any episode two any Half-Life game Half-Life 2 they like the places where they place the health pickups and that sort of thing are dynamic so you didn't realize that and I played through Half-Life 2 like four times and why should you have to know that you know like why why you know I think that not knowing it is makes the game a better game it's just really well why didn't I don't know that in the original and I say the original Half-Life and Half-Life 2 I ever felt like oh well I'm I'm about to die I hope I find health that's not exactly they don't want you to think that they just want you to think like wow I just went through a crazy encounter and then right after that you know you've survived it and lo and behold there's some health and look all right it starts over again they want you to almost die and then whoops almost die and then not that but the most compelling parts of action in that game the parts where there's the most gun fire happening the things that stick with you the most are not the parts where you're firing your gun like the biggest firefight in Half-Life 2 is when you're in a Nova prospect is the name of the prison right yeah that's when you're when you're in the prison and you're setting turrets to protect you from the people that are rolling into the cell block you're the biggest firefight is all of Ravenholm and that but in Ravenholm you're relying on your gravity gun and firing and why is that not a shooter I I don't I feel like that's manipulating the environment that's in that's almost split in hairs I I am splitting hairs but I feel like Ravenholm is almost a precursor to the way that portal felt as far as manipulating your environment your shooting things out of a gun like a projectile is flying away from your body from a first person perspective or a crossbow or something I just I just don't think as a console game at least I don't think these fellow games feel as good as other dedicated console shooters and that's the reason that I am shooting with the shooting itself that's the reason that I gave Orangebox a 9.5 instead of a 10 I gave it to your viewers just like the mechanics in Half-Life in all the Half-Life's on Orangebox you know as many great ideas as there were and other reasons to sure give it a 10 but like I felt like just the basic shooting still very still felt like a bit archaic to me never mind other things like climbing up letters and all that which would ever find I can dismiss those but the actual the actual way it plays doesn't feel polished to me when every other aspect of the game feels insanely polished and it's let me let him set doesn't make it a bad game at all it's an amazing game but I think that that's different for the reasons why I play what I would call a shooter and I understand that it seems like oh well that's our way of trying to back pedal but it's not my way of trying to back pedal I feel like valve games have consistently been great I just don't feel like that's the strong suit of a valve I just don't think we're ever going to get anywhere on this in this argument because we literally have opposite opinions like the shooting to me the act of pointing a gun at something and firing a bullet is like appealing to me in a valve game and even on console on PC you know and maybe it's because I've played them on PC and so I know how you know I don't know maybe it is my PC background that makes it feel better on console I'm curious like I mean have you guys played the original Half-Life? I've played every thing about it is my favorite developer yeah so it's you know it's obviously I'm going to argue for for valve on this one I think their games are insanely polished in every in every dimension I mean they I mean I know what the process is they literally playtest everything to death everything okay well let me let me ask you this what do you feel like the combat evolved in Half-Life 2 like over the course of the episodes yeah yeah I mean I think I don't think it's just stalkers I just think that the overall pacing in placement of enemies and the way that the encounters were were put together was I felt like episode two was the closest that I've been in a valve game to enjoying the combat immensely like I've always enjoyed Valve's games but the combat isn't necessarily what I enjoyed the most but episode two is where it became a good shooter instead of a competent shooter with amazing everything else I like the combat in episode one already and I mean we can go back to the base base-based level like I enjoy shooting an enemy with the pistol in Half-Life I think the pistol is one of the best feeling pistols in a game you know I don't want to argue about whether the halo pistol is better but I just want to say it's like well the halo one pistol is that's the one I'm talking about I'm just saying like it's a good like that pointing and firing you know one burst of the time bomb bomb having a guy go down after I've shot him you know twice in the chest and once in the head the sound that it makes like I'm totally down with that see I mean I've been thinking about this as we were talking and I think I think that's one of the as far as lefher dead actually getting off half-life for a second lefher dead I feel like is like completely insanely brilliant conceptually and every individual mechanic in the game like the way like the simplicity of having only a couple weapons and the health and all healing each other all that stuff all like the game design stuff has done so well but I don't feel like the shooting is satisfying it's it's fun because lefher dead yeah good amount of yeah played all the movies and played a good amount of multiplayer so I mean I've can we can we not make anything even resembling an ad hominem attack during this discussion but so I'm sorry I wasn't trying to thought here completely you were thinking you're saying the shooting was okay so so I'm not playing for the shooting it's it's still really fun obviously it's a fun like I think a bit more of the party game it's fine with myself like my friends and fun with some fighting comes away with zombies but the reason I go back to playing something like halo online is because the mechanics feel really satisfying to me I want to go improve my skill and be better at killing people and have that be satisfying that's not the case with lefher dead so that's why lefher dead is not I mean is okay well I mean that's that's kind of it it's like that's why I'm not going back to lefher dead for reasons I do when I want to go you know get online with friends and have fun playing with them but the what I'm actually doing doesn't matter as much moment to moment I agree but I think that lefher dead is not a you know even though there's a versus mode you're still I mean the the majority of that game is shooting AI zombies that come from every angle whereas so half-life two and half-life one the multiplayer modes of that where it is about skill and you are shooting other live players at every time I mean it's obviously I'm not playing half-life two deathmatch on console that really doesn't it doesn't exist so you have to have played it on pc but they are skill-based games you do go back for those exact same reasons that you mentioned and that you would go back to halo it's the same time I fully believe that obviously okay well going back to that I think that the difference between some of the games we're mentioning is that call duty the call duty series and I'm talking about infinity word call duty because I don't really I'm not a big fan of Treyarch stuff and halo are are both games that rely on a shooting mechanic that is very much well this needs to be really balanced for a multiplayer section like it needs to be it needs to feel just as balanced trying to avoid fires taking it it needs to feel like you're empowered in both in both manners whereas I think that it would be really I wouldn't enjoy a game that took the shooting from ruffordet and pit two teams against each other firing at each other what else there were zombies involved because that would actually be kind of fucking awesome if they're two human teams fighting against each other for resources I'm curious what you think of uh like then taking a a valve multiplayer game and what about team fortress i feel like team fortress two sticks out to people because of the every because of the different player classes because of the mechanics i mean but you don't think the shooting is satisfying in that either i i just think that it's different i think that the mechanics are different than they are in say call duty for halo focuses on the shooting yeah it's it's the interaction between player classes um like in halo everyone is the same everyone but the interaction between player classes in the game i mean you're still you're still shooting though but what i'm saying is that in in halo in call duty to a lesser extent everyone is the same everyone has the same abilities everyone has the same basic starting abilities team fortress two is very much about well this is the way that these different character classes interact and everyone needs to play their class tailoring their play style to that class's strengths so that we can accomplish this objective as opposed to we are all the same and it's all about i am a better shot in this so that's why you play counter strike which is made with the same engine and i don't i don't like counter strike at all so i understand what you mean when you say that team fortress two is about the interaction of the different player classes and i i totally agree with that but would you say that the shooting in team fortress two is inferior to other first person i would definitely i i don't enjoy this much like in what way like i don't feel like it's i mean god do we really get out of that precision so it's tough to judge that but i mean everything is a lot i mean it also put on the class you play like in when i when i did play uh deport sephlates the the demo man so a lot of that was kind of lobbying these charges on the ground in the general direction of the enemy so obviously that's not a class you know okay but if you're if you're playing as like a sniper or if you're playing i didn't and that's probably part of it like i didn't really like the snapper because i i was just gonna say team fortress two uncounsel really isn't the same as t_p_c it's on p_p_c it's i mean it's not insanely fun though it's pretty fun but it's like it's literally a completely different game there's not as many characters so you don't ever get the same like class the dynamic of the game if that is the key to the game which i agree well i'm not just talking about the console version though it's not like i know you're not i'm just making this i was just bringing this up it's for me you know yeah well i was i just wanted to say like team fortress on pc is like uh because you can just by virtue of the fact that you can have more players in the game is a far more interesting game and i'm glad you think it's fun but it also doesn't have the you know uh like latency problems that are in the in the console i don't think all these other shooters wouldn't be fun if if you took out the the main like enjoyment of the shooting i think like that's all these other like call of duty and hell that's all they're about like they're it's a purity of purpose i think like like half-life two has so many things going for it then make it amazing right um i i i feel like if you took this if you took the shooting out of halo if you if you made it a very tiny part of the game if you took the shooting out of call of duty four you would have nothing and that purity of purpose like this i think you're i i literally think that you're punished you know it sounds like it's i know you're gonna say i'm just gonna say like compliment develop i i mean it is a compliment to val but it's also saying that if half-life two was nothing but shooting encounters i wouldn't play it i would have stopped so if half-life two episode two was nothing but shooting encounters i would have stopped this is just out of curiosity and i'm like would you like half-life two more if it had shooting from like if it was like the same game exactly but then had call of duty shooting i don't i don't know because i think call of duty shooting is so dependent on their game mechanic which is like endless spawning enemies until you reach a certain point and eight million grenades flying at you and just crazy shit happening and that's very much not what half-life two really like the call of duty single call of duty four i guess is what we're talking about here right yeah i'm not one second i'm not that into call of duty four the single player game but the multiplayer game is is absolutely fantastic and that's where it is all about the the mechanics and i wouldn't even just i wouldn't i love valve games and i all i'm arguing is that valve makes good shooters as well but call of duty four especially on console multiplayer is is the pinnacle of shooting mechanics on console and that year when it came out last year i i think to i was going to play a multiplayer shooter on my pc i was playing team fortress too if i was going to play a multiplayer shooter on console i was playing call of duty four and i think that that just to throw this out there i'm not saying i mean i have played i spent more time playing left for dead online multiplayer than any other shooter in at least 18 months and i i mean i played it more than i played call of duty four and for a long time we were definitely playing we would go to on call duty four for a few months i'm just i'm just saying that that there there are certain things that i'm enjoying as far as a game whose predominant mechanic is shooting and i feel like what is happening in the other two franchises that we've talked about is more compelling in that regard than anything that valve has done and it went in a shooting capacity um but i mean i are there other games we want to talk about before we bring killzone to this discussion like there are other games that don't do shooting i thought it would be cool to just kind of talk about why we enjoy the shooters we enjoy because i mean i wrote that in a couple that i've enjoyed over the years i'm like what i mean i i'm like i guess something that i'm noticing as as i think about it is that like most of the shooters that i really really love i guess maybe i would agree with you and so far is that like the actual shooting mechanic isn't that unique or interesting it's other stuff about the game that i think about the old ghost recon games or rainbow six games those were less about shooting and more about tactics and and being sneaky and like making that one perfect shot as opposed to this is an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie from the 80s with tons of bullets flying i think rainbow six three especially has just really really wonderful shooting um the weapons feel great in it they sound the sound is outstanding that was an Xbox i was playing on an Xbox one and uh that's when it stands out to me fear one is another great shooter for just playing mechanics yeah a lot of that is down to the ai and a lot of the way their ai works is based around level design yeah like i know it's also one of the things i didn't like about the the feel of the game the way the shooting is great the things that i liked about fear were it would never like i didn't it was always the way that i was interacting with the ai as opposed to the way the guns felt like i never really liked the way that the guns felt in the fear behind me they felt strong they felt you know like there's a strong shotgun there's a strong yes there's definitely a strong shot there's a strong submachine gun but there's there's games like uh a few of the games i wanted to mention of like ones that i think i i really like that are first-person shooters but i don't like them not necessarily because of the shooting uh like Deus Ex um no one lives forever that's like one nobody talks about anymore it's because they need to make fucking three until they do i refuse to talk about no less forever sad uh maybe if we talk about it more they want to make you want to talk about it more no because bringing it up so many people have talked about no less forever forever no pun intended and no they just have no interest in making another one and i think one that you'd wanted to talk about was a bioshock yeah like i feel i think the shooting is i think satisfying and bioshock but it's it's not the main reason i like the game yeah i think bioshock is an amazing game i don't think the shooting is especially good and i think that that would have come up if they had done a multiplayer mode i think the shooting is often kind of awful in bioshock if we're talking about the console version but it but it works because you're shooting at things that aren't as versatile as you are i'm just curious what is awful about the shooting is it that it's inaccurate or it doesn't feel powerful yeah for me on the console it feels inaccurate like it it's a it comes down to aiming again i i mean i know okay because that might not equal anything to but to be because i'm playing it right now for the first time uh on my computer my pc oh you're set then you're fine yeah and like it keeps going back to the consoles is this a flaw with the console not the pc i don't know i mean like my girlfriend is playing it right now for the first time as well on the console and like she doesn't want to play shooters but she is i mean she can do it just like i don't know easy because um because of that like it just doesn't want to play shooters but i don't know that it's awful i think the the combat for me in bioshock was satisfying and i played on 360 it was satisfying not necessarily because the shooting was super satisfying but just because there was so much interesting stuff you could do in the combat there were interesting ways some guns there were interesting ways to kill people um by mixing your powers with the guns and it wasn't necessarily because the guns were actually had your thesis been is it uh bioshock is a great game but not a great shooter i would be 100 probably oh so yeah that was because i believe that i mean bioshock is still like my number two game of two thousand because it's inaccurate because okay and this is the other thing it's like i know we've been talking about this for a long time this this this thing moving around on a console again console moving the crosshair around it it's it's really complex you know you have things like like the actual sensitivity the the acceleration of the sticks based on how hard you're pushing which is something that the bungee has got managed to get right in all the halo releases and i feel like the acceleration in the stick sensitivity is one thing that people aren't paying attention to as far as what bungee does i think they do it pretty well but i think that no one does again no one does it like it's an infinity warning call of duty like for some reason they have it tweaked to a tee it's also hard if you go from bioshock or call of duty four to bioshock you you would notice instantly the difference between the the way the game controls and you'd be like why am i over shooting okay well let me adjust the sensitivity okay why does it feel like i'm not moving at all let me just adjust the sensitivity and you'll notice that you'll never it never it will never feel the same maybe this is a good way to a good point to bring in kills them because i one of the things i've heard about it and i haven't played it yet i actually have a copy at home waiting to check out so hopefully i'll talk about that you should bring that over here i can do that but uh one of the things that i've heard about it is that um you need to play with the sensitivity a lot like every everybody who has played it that i've talked to has said i had to mess around with sensitivity for like 10 minutes before i got it i'm right that's a game that that really did like grow on me and i know that happened to Davis Vividal as well who just reviewed it for one up and he gave it an A like a lot and i know early on especially in like playing the previews i think it's not so much again you have to tweak the sensitivity do because i i didn't change it at all and final version that i played it's a game that you just really need to get used to because it doesn't feel like any other first-person shooter it's structured very much like call of duty in the way you progress through levels and fight the little pockets of enemies and such um that's very reminiscent of it but the actual mechanics couldn't be more different i mean there it's very much like a sim in terms of a shooting you have to like adjust for recoil and just the way the weapons feel so it's just kind of you know kind of jar mix initially and i think playing the preview build helped me get used to it and then i've kind of quickly picked it up in the review build and then it ended up like i ended up enjoying it because of that um but it's how he wants his own i guess i was just gonna say that um you know it's it's great for games to have their own distinct and specific feel and from what i played of killzone i did tweak with the sensitivity a lot and i never was really happy with it and i guess that's just it is like people talk about how killzone's different and everything happens and you know in this cone of action in front of you and it's not about turning around fast and all these things and to me it kind of that's kind i don't know it kind sounds like a cop out you know this is a game a shooter played from first-person's perspective and i kind of just want to be able to aim at things and let me let me ask you something all the other games that we talked about until right now we're pc 360 shooters how do you i mean do you feel like that has something to do with the ps3 controller now as an input mechanism for shooters i think it does to an extent yeah i struggle with ps3 shooters versus 360 ones i think it's a lot of it is just down to a lot of people don't play that much stuff on ps3 because i play ps3 shooters quite a bit and admittedly it's different than when you're playing on xbox but i have no problems apparently with ps3 controls i did when it was just the six axis there was a problem with the dead zone on that controller but since the dual shock three has come out it's actually a much better controller i think for me it's it's resistance in stick position and i think they've adjusted it slightly in the dual shock it's much better than it was in the six axis and i mean i mean like when i first got my ps3 and uh played resistance like it took a little bit of time to get used to the controller but after like 20 minutes with the game i was fine i don't know i i only remember bad things about trying to control it is resistance because again only six axis was out at the time there was a dual shock and it was it was frustrating to play the game and i ride and i play or be the ones who play kills on like i don't know how much oh i should start off with the original kill zone or no no our star kills on two the the only i've played the preview build this is the one we had a really long time ago it won up uh so i haven't played the review builds that most people are basing the reviews off of right i haven't seen the cutscenes properly or any of these although to be fair the review builds of people have been playing are not finished builds of the game like they came with documentation saying well this is broken this is broken this is broken we have to fix this uh that's all the stuff i've been reading online is that like kataku won't put up a review for kataku won't put up a review because of multiplayer i thought it was well no like brian cresnte wrote an article specifically saying i think it was cresnte i was either hammer mcwarder saying specifically that there's there's documentation that came with this that says that there are bugs present in this game that aren't fixed yet that's weird a because like i mean the version i have with all the document that didn't come with anything i know they did eventually get newer review builds which is weird but b it plays on retail systems which is yeah oh if it's a green disc it's it's yeah pretty much done the only thing that might happen is uh like dual layer burn bugs that they do we want to tell people what green discs are for those nails and don't know green discs exactly what nik said it's a burned version of the game with no artwork on it it'll just say you know kill zone written in a marker whatever but it plays in your actual um display ring bug as well that's actually that's weird well everything plays on pf3b bugs it's weird uh except for movies yeah yeah so in game two so that's the thing too is like i think a couple months ago i i mean playing the review build was it was different because like like i said you're getting used to the controls but also uh first of all the second half of the game is a lot better than the first fn twitch helps as well playing through the entire game um it kind of really comes together in some of the latter encounters like really well like the second or less like big scene i think is maybe like the best single kind of you know shooting scenario i've like played in console game um just like so much stuff going on it's gorgeous it's intense like it all really comes together nicely but also even even having i mean there's a really great cg intro that's online that people have seen you're even having some narrative intro to like the context of the space station you're on and everything having was a little bit of story even though i don't care about the story as it's progressing through the game having a feel of like like a sense of place and setting off the bed really kind of approaches how you start off the game and just you know the little relationship with the squadmates and everything like that that is kind of different playing the full game and having the review build to play it through versus the preview build we had i think that was kind of a preview build that was it was tough it was tough previewing that game i think because of that you didn't get all that i all i know and it's funny because we were just talking about this when we're talking about the Resident Evil 5 demo is that based on the preview build that i played i wasn't sure that i should play any more of that game um because to me the the controls feel a bit weird and it doesn't make up for itself in any other way except for that the this is based on the preview build that the graphics are awesome if someone walks up behind you when you're playing Killzone 2 they will be like wow that is impressive looking game you're playing that's i was still in the same boat i think that's the first comment i had after the first day of playing okay man told david i was like i don't feel like i need to play anymore yeah i was like i wasn't fun but that said david else who david else who hates Killzone 2 according to the internet well not well give me not a word yeah not not anymore but yeah so once i brought on the review build and started playing it and and getting it with use of the controls like i i could really put it down like it was really engaging all the way through to the end and finish it like two with reason which is interesting which is in direct contradiction to the uh the tom chick non non review for killzone 2 that went out today before we yeah yeah i mean his main criticism seems to be that it doesn't do anything creative or interesting and i i think more where it sounds like he's coming from is that it's because of visually impressive game if like they put a lot of time and focus into that and there isn't focus on making the encounters unique and they're not really i mean they're like i said they're very much called duty it's finding pockets of enemy it's or enemies it's you know the placement of them and how they come at you and like ryan said the cone of action or whatever um it's not a very creative game just the mechanics they're like they take some getting used to but they really work and the cover works really well and um i mean i think it's a good game i haven't played multiple there at all not even the beta so i can't speak to that but single player like i definitely enjoyed it i think there are more people than than people are aware that play shooters just for the single player content so when uh and i i have really like zero interest in the multiplayer and if i actually forgot the game was coming out as soon as it is and it wasn't until nick and i were talking about this game just before the recording today that i remembered that oh i should probably give this game another shot because you know nick had a similar experience to me with the with the preview build um so i guess that's that's the thing is like i'm glad that nick had a great time with it it makes me want to try it out again but my experience with the preview build was it is not fun to shoot things in this game and this game offers unlike half-life for example this game offers me nothing but shooting and the pacing seemed really not that great for those first few chapters so it was like what what what will this game offer me besides good graphics yeah that's weird that's what i can really argue with any of that it's still not really fun to shoot per se but it is engaging that's a problem so i i wouldn't say it i wouldn't say it's after the conversation we just had next sutner you need to clarify that statement i wouldn't say it's fun to shoot for me in college duty it's satisfying but it's not fun but i mean you know i thought i really dislike you making that distinction i don't understand that distinction i think that's a huge distinction between games in general is like i mean i think like most like sims aren't fun like i mean like i don't know i no no taking it taking a shit is satisfying playing a video game is fun or it's not well it's the difference it's the difference i mean polar opposites kind of you know burnout versus grand charisma you'd say a lot of people play both and love them but they're completely different like but it's fun in a different way that's not i mean it can be satisfying as well but i'm just curious what makes kills what what is fun shooting to you what is fun i think halo is fun halo is fun why can you can you do really it's fun without having to use any video game you can't talk about halo in a kill zone conversation we just lost subscribers you son of a bitch i think i mean there's a lot of the design of the weapons and like the i mean like i think the plasma gradient is probably the single like most satisfying anything to interact with an enemy worth in games like i think it's the design of that because it designs on the on the combat that's what the focus is but um i'm a big fan of melee attacks and first person shooters post halo but i'll i'll give you that i think team fortress 2 is one of the funnest shooters i've ever played yeah and i i i'm definitely not nacing that comment yeah no i mean that that's the thing for just great as well i mean as a console gamer it's like it's yeah all right well and as someone who doesn't think that halo is the best shooter i would agree with both you that melee combat after post halo is almost a necessity and there are still developers who aren't doing that right and also with unique that the plasma grenade is just one of the the best grenades ever in a game i feel like halo gets shit on a lot but halo has changed shooters for the better in a lot of ways i wrote down a couple of the shooters i enjoyed like last generation like time splitter is i loved and red faction i loved both of them and wow god which red faction what's that red faction one was so bad i loved the first one i thought i liked a lot but like i played all the way through red faction one yes before but like make us spend more time in red faction two than any other game ever multiplayer yeah because i used to have like you play red faction multiplayer the first one not to oh you just invalidated every argument you made it was you played no it's fun i mean it's it's got boss that run the same route it's got a lot of like problems but it's just it's back it's something about the we're not playing red faction for back halo so i am vetoing red faction for back halo like the the half-life arguments were it's like those those games i mean time splitter is i thought the mechanics were really great up to 60 seconds all that was good but i still enjoyed that for more than the shooting rarest socks man rare yeah like the rarest rarest i mean yeah gold knight i just i hate the amount of gun shake in those games that's like the the i feel like i'm swimming when i'm walking can't you turn it off and time splitters three oh yeah i don't know if i i don't know if i gave three a chance i had already i remember for a long time the original the original time slitters was the best shooter on playstation two yeah i mean time splitter is totally goofy like refreshing aesthetic and red faction was just like fun geomotic stuff i mean these were games that were really fun shooters despite their shooting so they were fun games i just want to say that over and over again it's been qualified that a um you like half-life too not necessarily just a shooting but everything about it you like like over and over and over again for all these different shooters i think it's because it's a case for like a lot of different games where it's more than just that one mechanic i mean when i'm playing a tactical rpg i don't just like moving my little character across the grid there's more to it than that i think the reason is that for a long time first person shooters have been lumped together as this one genre whereas rpgs have had 17 different sub genres for like a decade and a half just like action games have had different sub genres whereas i mean you know the same could be set up platformers back in the 8-bit or 16-bit era that it was the type you know right now engines video game engines are built to run first-person shooters i think there's so many more interesting things happening in first-person games now than there were happening in platformers during the 90s well i mean they have the benefit of all the time of the development you could argue we will be arguing next week we will be arguing about what makes a good 90s platformer so i just want to say that i agree first-person shooters have evolved a lot and we are a long way away from something like do which was just shooting from the most 10 years ago we could even have this conversation because every first-person shooter played identical to each other like i love that there's that much variety in it i mean i think i think taking taking away from its software what they did right i mean there was a long time i still i feel like quick three arena still has some of the best shooting mechanics that that have ever been in a game are you in the quick live beta i so yes i mean the i was actually wanted to mention that yes i'm in the beta in so much as i have an account but i don't have a pc to play it on i have a Macintosh so i can't actually participate in this beta right now but as soon as i can find a way thanks to the person out there who gave me the code i really really really want to be playing that game and i will play it as soon as i can just play on matt's pc or something he's sick right now he's in his room working all the time it's hard to be the president it's hard it's hard it's hard to share president of a company you got to work along here is he president yeah he's mad is the president of area if sony could figure out a way you could have the titles we all got to come up with our own names we want to call each other yeah i think that's what we're going to do if sony can figure out a way to get that shit running in the playstation 3 browser ips 3 tomorrow i was gonna say engineer fun or fun engineer engineer engineer that sounds like you're dealing with fungus all right i think we we've talked about this a long time we should probably take a quick break and come back and do some work almost it was subjective stuff there's not really right or wrong here yeah it was it was a fun conversation we got to talk about some shooters we like and we'll be back in a minute to read some letters all right so i think that for our first backlog thingy whatever i think we should just do bully because i really like that game most people here haven't played it whoa whoa whoa whoa it won't be special edition which comes with a free ball or something like pull the dicks the dodge ball pull the dicks out of your mouth okay we we're not jumping right into bully why because we're gonna have a talk we're gonna talk about this that's right absolutely i move for bully i move for bully so thank you for the we got it oh thank you for uh i fucking hate you guys well we can have a discussion let's talk like lots of people who gave lots of feedback lots of feedback on this i got to call this chaos come up the century he failed pretty usually his recommendations were beyond good and evil wind waker bulbous kid and pheronite so basically half you already did yeah like we can't do wind waker i got banned from gaff because of wind waker wait what what was that story can you repeat that here because i want that okay i'm now first of all we should we talk about that off the air i know i i earned a ban on gaff because i didn't read the terms and uh there was basically a threat about uh emulation uh for gamecube and someone's like how the when the fuck did gamecube emulation get so good and people were talking about gamecube emulation i was like oh that's cool i saw some gamecube games laying around and then they were like this is picture these are pictures of wind waker from emu from an emulated system and it's like it it's higher res and it looks so good and i looked at it i'm like fuck that looks amazing and i never got to play through win waker after buying it that's sort of the moral of the story other than me not reading forum rules um so anyway i finally like it was like one o'clock in the morning and i i think i posted in the thread and said fuck you guys now i'm gonna have to find this emulator and acquire my copy of win waker and uh about 10 minutes later i tried to go view a thread and gaff they're not allowed to imply that you're gonna fire no they're they have very strict uh pirating rules in gaff which i understand because i mean it's also banned from our podcast now by the way i forgot to mention that for just mentioning that again you know you know what our next podcast will be taking place over you're dead fucking buddy um so i tried to hear okay okay let's get into this talk now of what we want to do uh so i i suggest bully uh there's also some other good suggestions here uh one person brings up uh will in our comments says eco or or eternal darkness or yakuza those are all really good ones those are good ones uh those are all ones that i'd come up with um with backlog um one of us we all uh i mean it was a coin flip one very close it was a good game too my argument against bully is that i played like maybe half of it and it was really great for half of it and then i started to think that uh that it might not be fun to complete any for any more of it so for a game that you know for for a structured thing like backlog where i really feel like part of the fun is making our our way entirely through the game bully might not be the best choice or any open world way because you decided that no i'm just i'm just throwing my hey you said bully was the game i'm just saying like a game that has a very structured narrative sort of like you know easy to chunk up into four weeks might be a better choice bully bully is is already chunked up into like it's like four acts so i know i know but it's very sandboxy it's sandboxy you know you can spend it a lot or as little something a big little because our experiences would vary a lot i mean they they did even in a little bit of a sandbox that beyond good and evil ones i i agree that that's that's true but i think that there are other games that we could also have different experiences yeah and dances uh we should try out half-life starcraft or warcraft three all choices that i would happily play again though i've played all of them is there anyone in this room other i mean is there anything of course that what you're gonna say yeah sure is there anyone in this room who hasn't played through all of those i haven't played i've never played starcraft but i've done the other two i've never played half-life but i don't know the other two backlog will they work with starcraft i mean what would be what we'll be talking about like this specific i mean that might be like can't make some art hey there's a there's a class devoted to it so that's that's more of an article thing where like a couple people play starcraft and talk about it then then i think a back wall i kind of suggestion Spencer says i like Anthony's idea of rebel fm cribs i really want to know what's in your fridge it's not back but really now no i was just thrown that out there these are comments from the last part i don't want to hear any of my couple ones that are there were a combination of some of head on my own shelf plus like people reminding me in that in that in the comments um call it Cthulhu is one i think i put him in the wedding before i had to do that i funded it backwards compatible it's on pc and truth and that xbox um just like a first person psychological thriller based on the elder scrolls three engines wasn't there one up show segment about it i yes and i own this game and have not completed it so it would gladly play coke i would like that though i remember exactly why i stop can you find that game now i love scary games you should be able to yeah i definitely do i like game and scary i love them i think i don't like scary games but i don't want to play that it might also be on steam i think being able to find it on steam amazon or good old games is sort of one of our criteria right now for back all games just like so people can find it on amazon for sure yeah wait that's a so that line to look at what is that disqualify i was thinking like eco potentially that would oh no i i think uh like console games are still it yeah i don't know like i think the last generation console i think it's finding eco might be a problem is my only concern i think it's like twenty bucks probably i think as long as people are willing to go on to an internet site and and i'd say a lot of gamers on it already too so call duty two really that's that's those those try so hey i i chose that is why i i mean i want to finish it i never played that one oh really you never finished it i'm i'm like halfway through it's going to go through the rest of my list real quick we just mark of kree this is one of my favorite games i read through my bus good i know i i looked for it i tried to find it but apparently it's not what's the sequel going up there and they're like three ninety nine at ev like i haven't seen any like i've i've looked around a little bit online i didn't see any i i saw a couple on ebay you could you could feel i would love to play that because i've never finished i was really like him on amazon there were third party sellers selling it for way too much i know you can get it for five bucks yeah it's a minor game but uh did anybody play the sequel just real quick i was gonna put them on there rise with like a sigh yeah right because i i do and i've never played and i want to but i feel like as for discussion purposes it'd be better to talk about the original i just wonder if anybody thought it knew if it was good or like apparently i mean the problem was it got it got actual co-op pulled at the last second so i was only caught with the AI that it was what was all built around it to be a co-op game and it's interesting because those guys have uh splatter house coming out soon that same game oh cool but uh there's that sly cooper like i've only ever played the demos of them because i know i love them so i want to play those and i want to play them before the infamous yeah but it was on my list turn of arcana's dream fall a couple people suggested which i'd like to do a new fall launch or not even take more than a week that's an xbox original we could split it and see i just want to say that uh i can compare 61 new and used offers of mark of crease starting from two dollars to 40 to 40 99 yes i just love having that i phone out i love it giants i think would be cool i know Anthony yeah i was citizen kabuto it's interesting too because that team now is making uh like casual wiggoms i know they also have real games in the works but they made uh smarty pants i know well yeah someone wasn't listening to the ea conference call but yeah they made smarty pants on we have to make like arm and dangerous smarty pants is fully fucking good yeah yeah full man they made arm due dangerous he said yeah yeah that was like a big underrated time oh arm in dangerous is so fun that game sharp that yeah that game had made sharp i would love to do strangers very happy until it's compatible i think that's too much of a hassle yeah it's an awesome thing uh lots of lots of love for yakuza showing up here so i think that's that and bully are my my two primary choices uh Anthony's so many like uh giants was my main one that i would have suggested just because it's easy to get but uh i'm not opposed to doing bully only because i did never play it and i always wanted to some people have suggested um like some people have suggested vampire bloodlines and hitman blood money and i mean i'm those are two my favorite games of the the last five years or so i'm just not like i'm vampire bloodlines is one of the buggiest pieces of crap in history so i'm going to submit that uh we play called the filo because none of us have really played it a lot of other people haven't played a bit want to as well and it'd be cool to have a totally fresh experience i'm cool with starting with that as our first uh backlog choice i think you'll be for those who don't know anything about it you'll be pleasantly surprised by some of it at the start does that make up some good first theme i bow i want to say that i believe that it's on steam but i cannot bear one i think you want to say that i believe but it's it's um you said it's backwards compatible on xbox oh nice all right well let's let's just do that let's let's do that how do you feel about that guy i guess as you drag a mic over here as well call it because it was fine i'm just saying i'm down to play whatever i wish you could get a particular picky but call it because it would be good cool i wish you could get mat chander day on speakerphone and get his opinion on that can we uh call him i could do that before i'm on the phone yeah you guys talk amongst yourself for a moment sorry are you guys cool then with starting this four next week uh if it's on steam yeah what should i be uh as long as you go online and find a good stopping point for us yeah i'll figure it out guide i'll figure that out and uh i'll try and post something on the side about it as well let's see what he says we're not going to get like an embarrassing message are we this is mad not too busy clubbing to come with the phone hey how's it going you're on uh rebel FM right now uh it's call of cathulu gonna be an okay game for you to start uh backlog with um yeah i do that i wanted to play it they just never got around do it so that'd be a good one perfect and also uh feel better are you on are you on steam right now by chance can you check and see if that is available on steam for us if you're not that's cool i'll hang up with you we are the way miss podcast ever um see it's not like you're dying mat is sick let him be i am sick this is the definition of finding it in literally um i don't see it on the press account side so it might not be on steam all right well thanks anyway and i'll see you and we'll yeah i miss you matt everyone misses you bye matt okay so before the podcast goes up we'll look online we'll we'll come up with avenues for people to pick it up um we'll figure something out we'll put up an amazon link just to tell people like if it's on amazon through amazon it would be awesome if they could buy it through our amazon link but uh and uh third of a send per copy awesome like that all right so let's let's jump in we have got some emails uh if you guys want to send a letter that you want us to be on the show send it to p-cholar at eat-sleep-game.com we'll run through these really quick like p-k-o-l-a-r yeah that's right there is a contact page on the website yeah people have a good check there too all right uh so this guy says hey dudes this question is directed more toward nick but i'd like to hear everyone's input i noticed that skate too's initial downloadable content is a patch that basically beats the game unlocking all the skater spots etc i was sort of baffled and slightly annoyed at this proposition the beauty of skate is that your success in the game hinges on your ability to physically execute the tricks which is also where its satisfaction comes from it's definitely not possible to button mash your way through this game like a certain other skateboarding series i played for years and years that said you do need to sink some time into the game to become proficient enough to beat it and lots of people just don't have that kind of time just wanted to see what you guys thought about it as the game brought up anywhere this is Ross from pennsylvania wants to know i'm totally fine with this i think this is fine for pretty much any single player game if they want to if they want to ruin their own game by paying more money and unlock everything in the game that's fine as long as there's no multiplayer component which in skate when you play multiplayer it's all down to your personal skill so that's full stands if people want to do that from their game that's fine i don't mind them but i also i also don't think you're ruining the game so much is in unlocking everything in an open world game and skate too particularly is a good example of where i think it's okay because in skate one you learn all of the mechanics you know you everything it's it's very similar in terms of the the way that you play the game so if all you want to do is unlock all those challenge points on your match and be able to fast travel to any of them i don't see any problem with that i wouldn't do it but if you have whatever five dollars suspended that's something that's cool to you file means we have so much cat going on right now all right so art asks i enjoyed episode four's discussion about plot and story and games but how all of you not discuss braid i think there's something we start to discuss braid we start a day right at the end uh i think jonathan blow is discuss braid enough for all of us he says besides probably being my favorite game of all time it provides one of the best plots actual story along with narrative way story is told of 2008 it's the only game i remember to make a story not just a series of events that explain what you do the plot parallels the gameplay with the exception of the amazing last level which in which a huge plot twist occurs so yeah like we we definitely brought that up at the end but we had just been talking for so long i think that we didn't want to spend any more time on it i think he kind of hit on a lot of a lot of it and it's the fact that it's tied into the gameplay and the actual like the narrative and the way the levels progress you can find a lot of parallels in them and the fact that it's just very like literate and you can you can you can draw some meaning from it which is just not you can't say that for most games and that alone is something we said for he he also says it's uh he's he thinks it's one of the most overlooked games of 2008 do you guys agree i don't know if i'd say considering the like i'd say it would be overlooked if it came out on a lot more platforms maybe but considering the only way to require it was through xbox live i i know it didn't really well through xbox live i mean so i say it wasn't it was hard to talk about games at the end of last year without like stopping for someone to pull braid stick out of their audience that could possibly acquire it i don't think it was a lot i mean nick uh nothing i didn't did nick like fillet braid a little bit never been that close i think braid dang braid is a very worthwhile game that everyone should have played there are many things to take away from it not the least of which is how the narrative is intertwined with the rest of the experience and like when we're talking about half-life and about games just it's the sum of all the parts that really make it great and you can tell that the team one guy spent many many years thinking about how all this stuff would kind of work together gameplay narrative everything and particularly why it's interesting to me is because it's it's not so straightforward with its narrative it doesn't show a very candy like bite-sized story down your throat you actually have to be engaged with it i mean you could just think that it was a mario in a suit hopping around if that's what you want to do if that's what you wanted to take away from it and the gameplay i think would still potentially hold up i don't know i mean i think the time mechanics are are good enough but for those who are looking for something a little bit deeper it's there and uh if you really want to understand what's going on you got to think about it a bit and still there doesn't paint a an exact picture at the end it's still left open and i think that's rare in games and i think just really quick like narratively speaking like it also the fact that it's a 2d platformer means that they don't use the shortcuts of the filmic vocabulary that a lot of modern games do to tell their story like there's no there's no roadie run there's no jump cuts there's no quick quick camera turns as we see in a lot of games that are trying to mimic movies it has its very its own voice because of it's yeah play it so officially not overlooked can we say that oh yeah man if you want to hear Jonathan blow talking a lot about it with myself and Sean Elliot and Rod humble old girl listen they were all one of them uh like i was back in like september he just said a really long interview with gone i'll see it's special we spoke to our discussion which i thought was interesting he did a really long go to interview a couple i feel like i feel like i should mention um if you guys if any of the listeners here like Anthony or Arthur will somebody else is talking whispering shut up shut your mouth they're not talking to the person who's talking they're talking to the cat um because i just want i don't want to people think you're like uh ant like Anthony was telling Ryan that he should shut up unless it's Nick talking unless it's Nick but uh that actually goes well with this next letter which is from michael he says hi guys you are now instantly my favorite podcast because you have cats in it this may seem strange but i love cats more than any other animal and indeed 99.9% of homo sapiens i'm with you so my question has been doing this if given the choice of video games or cats i would choose cats i love video games a lot but my ps3 360 we psp ps2 ps1 xbox pc um and indeed my sega game gear would instantly get the boot in favor of cats so which animal in favor of my cat so which animal would you sacrifice your gaming stuff for if of course you don't like animals you can pick something else women or men is too obvious an answer so get your minds out of the gutter cheers what do i sacrifice music to me is more important maybe the games or possibly film or at least they're all on the same level uh approximately but i think if i lost if i had to lose music i might die yeah me too so music would be what i would not want to i it would be like writing or books for me i guess if i had to be serious about it um my non-serious answer would be world of warcraft yeah um about that for a while no i don't think about it be painting or writing easily traveling i already kind of did that's a good one and i went to japan and i couldn't bring a lot of stuff with me yeah so it makes sense i mean it's it's a kind of a weird question because i can't imagine that ever happening where i actually i haven't ever had to think of like needing to sacrifice something else but um honestly i mean we're talking to everything nothing off of my head to be completely honest really no really i don't think i would video games is it i think pretty much it's always been that way with me that's just been my number one i mean you're not you're not playing the game though because i wouldn't jay keeps it real but if i did i feel like if i didn't couldn't play games or didn't didn't have games i don't know what i would do if i didn't do like traveling let's say for instance i could like i don't like if i couldn't like pursue career in games or play games and like kill my functionality i think we actually figured this out before you'd be dr do little uh yes you need to interact with entertainment that's like the that's just what i just i mean it's just from the time i was 13 years old and i first put it in it clicked and it's just been there's been nothing else actually i'm with you i mean the first moment i saw super mario brothers when i was five years old i was like i don't know why this is the best thing i've ever seen but is the best thing i've ever seen and i'm doing it totally i guess actually i like think about it i could give up music now just because there's so much music i haven't heard that never here in my lifetime or i was like you know i've played like a lot of the relevant game do you see what you did you made everybody qualify their shit yeah i'm not saying that's where i mean like the questions we're because it's not saying like you don't enjoy other things i don't think it is i'd still give up right still give up games for writing yeah i i end our world of warcraft i would give up games Anthony Anthony answer your question i don't know i would i would kill people before i'd let anything happen to my cat yeah so i guess uh i'd give up games as well as like systematically murder everyone in this room like before i gave up my cat yeah if you're talking about personal pets that is a different story for sure that's like talking about the pope i know cam asks uh i just wanted to ask you all what what was everyone's favorite game the pope before i gave up my cat what what was everyone's favorite in game character of 2008 i'd probably exclude characters that didn't have a predetermined story for example your characters and fall out three and fable two um but he says personally i absolutely loved Isaac clark and dead space even though he didn't speak a single word throughout the whole game i always felt like he had a slight position what is he excluding like uh he's excluding um are you are your own character yeah basically where you create create your character and make your own story and everything around them or they don't really have a quick list of games from 2008 that i came with that there was a lot of games i liked i like faith i mean like flag being in her eyes i think that's a good potential character but maybe not execute and every time you heard the theme song didn't you know i like a little dude from bread i liked him he's like mario in a business suit alica that was my favorite in game character of 2008 it's a good choice yeah never annoying perfect example of a great eight years i mean even though i didn't like prince of Persia that much i mean i had a lot of problems with it but like the prince and alica were both really interesting characters that grew on me that's what we're talking about but i mean like if you're just saying design like sec boy is like my favorite you know design of a character oh sec boys were great yeah i mean there it is yeah i guess if you're just speaking to like aesthetic so to say or just yeah yeah right right are you still you're speaking there's like something that's not a little less than funny yeah i i'm trying to think of i mean a lot of the ones you've said i don't think about games where you know i i guess i don't think of a the character as as an important part of a game usually to me it's like if there is a game that has character it usually has an ensemble cast of characters that make it good there's almost an app like nathan or not god not nathan hell um nathan drake thank you um i think he stands out as a like in a very linear like told story it's not like he's the he's less interesting than the the girl in the name you're fucking uh lena yeah lena what did you shut your fucking mouth about nathan drake about nathan drake yes i don't think i think wait who does the voice for nathan drake yeah the voice of nathan drake was another character he's a prince of Persia and i almost like the prince of Persia better than can i just say that the reason that chiff likes nathan drake so much is because it's like the video game equivalent of nathan philian who is just man crush yeah well it's okay when i played when i played uh uncharted i thought why aren't i would like this game so much better if it were nathan philian i i mean honestly that's what i was playing that's what i was playing that's what you're gonna get god damn it yeah all right that's not okay no that isn't doctor what else is he doing okay what the fuck else is nathan philian working on it i don't think there were a lot of games this past year that stood out because of characters like that yeah i'm just gonna throw that out there i would say that as well i mean nico i guess was a good character but he kind of had the beginning for a lot of people internally okay i i have you all beat fox and fallout three is my favorite nice choice that's a really nice choice he i like him fox is a girl first of all what that's right fox is female i don't believe you it's in the fucking game okay where where do you meet this character uh you meet you first meet fox in uh one of the vaults right is this are you saying this like guy guy fox uh that's where he takes his name from her he calls himself herself fox when do you find out that it's on one of the computers in uh that vault that when someone gets turned into a super mutant they lose all secondary sex characteristics okay fox was a female anyway fair enough anyways uh one one last letter here um greg says hey guys i've always thought that psychonauts would make a great show for the cartoon network what are the games that you think would let themselves well to an animated series so i could read these beforehand yeah okay i mean that's a good question but it's something i'd have to um the odd world game we can do that if uh if somebody would make a uh letters at eat sleep game dot com i got one i'm sorry i'm busy making website eat sleep game persona you can make an animated series about them going to school and doing their whole thing that was there's not an animated series there was there's probably an anime out for persona but i bet it's not good okay she just lived in japan i i feel like she would know about it i bet there's i bet there's one at least based on the i didn't see anything like that so movie or mini series or anything i mean i i just i'm sure that i must have some sort of i'm sure that chimingami tensi fans could find something and call me a complete idiot but to my knowledge there are no animated series it's cool we'll just we'll delete their comments i mean even like wretched and clang i could see being a bit considerous i agree with that there is a persona anime i just looked it up slightly cooper isn't that i bet it's awesome jack and bags there i mean those are all like the cutscenes are they're kind of all ages enough and they're like you know well done enough and well i think enough that i could see watching oh we're talking about spris you know a comedy or a cartoon network specifically no and see because i i think beyond good nievo has great character and that would be a side group that would have that could do they could do and that could be such a good movie just just even the plot of the game would be awesome as a movie yeah and i'm going to throw like it like i mentioned earlier i think the maw could make an excellent cartoon series or animation design and everything if i can accept them all man you don't like the main character guy i'm so cute sure i got this video he's adorable he has lots of backstory to i found out i'm looking on the website oh god the psycho nazi is really great like i just thought i was like all in here that's actually i wish we had talked about psycho nazi last week because that's definitely a game where i feel like the story and the narrative all tied together really well all right let's wrap this show up everybody's listening please check out eat dash sleep dash game dot com for the latest episodes of rebel fm as well as writing for myself nick anthony arthur and others i also wanted to do special shout out to bill from california sent us this rad picture of i don't know they were like wolves standing on a giant and yes foxes i didn't really understand what what what it was but it was awesome it was awesome it was awesome also there's this uh skate to rebel fm board that you can download josh s was that yeah that's right josh five josh made it um which will put a link in the show so people can go download and then you can put that in the game is i don't know if people online playing against you can see it i'm not sure okay i think so but the limits of console gaming all right uh let's find out uh work in yeah i don't know i don't even say that i don't discuss things like cocks everywhere in my level i'm fine with that where can listeners find do you just never go on the internet at all like we're just saying i don't want that in my console man oh god so we're gonna listeners find us on the internet this week j wait wait would you just say he's never been here before yeah we're gonna anybody who is listening find you on the internet this week what where's your twitter account what any any websites or onset anything else uh you can find me if you want to show that i know nobody needs to go to that pet site um it'll be in the show notes well i'm looking at ryan too uh swear to god i will cut all your mics right it'll be in the show notes that's fine you know i can't stop it it's the internet why am i exactly right let's just learning family of pets dot net kids go ahead and check it out thank you i'm just gonna own up man up for it right now uh twitter is j for shit j ay f-r-e-c-h-e-t-t-e all one word it's like a song and uh regular updates on area five dot tv we're doing photo blogs and uh area five snacks and yeah the snacks are awesome yeah we're doing a lot of it is a new snack coming new snack coming also uh new blog me and erin and i'll even working on for a long time called splash damage we'll be launching this week as well which we're really excited about it it'll be an area five dot tv as well arthur uh same place as usual i i stick to each of you you can find me in my twitter account the cat bot the underscore cat bot k-a-t-b-o-t and if you want to check out some of my writing i do a lot of work for one up and jeremy perishes personal blog uh game spite dot net cool ryan i'm in the same spots as j area five dot tv and twitter you can find me at uh ryan o donnel at twitter so that's r-y-a-n-o-d-o-n-n-e-l-l and uh last defam digital underscore taco you know come check out the music i listened to since i talked about how much i love it yeah i'll throw that out there too actually because i've been getting some left left yeah someone found me recently yeah like i've been getting some uh which is i think anyone there's just nix sattner all spelled out um i know it's like original so send me for front requests on there and i'm sattner twitter i guess Anthony uh you can find me at uh my username on twitter's chuff money and uh yeah i did want a preview of uh of uh dot award should be up in the in the previous queue there still um but beyond that that's really it i mean i know dusty pixels dot black spot oh yeah dusty pics sorry jesus i'm a failure sorry dude dusty pixels dot blog spot dot com where i just recently did a clock tower thing as well excellent all right and uh i'm on twitter dot com slash p-color also last week i appeared on the sarcastic gamer hump day update podcast it's on sarcastic gamer dot com that's such a better name than ours i know and uh i i did a batman arc of a style and preview for games radar i'm an ever review of the mall going up on games radar that's will hopefully be up by the time this is up otherwise soon and also in uh a gm retrospective on igm that you guys can go check out good job it was very good by the way thank you thank you uh all right you can subscribe to rebel if i'm on iTunes and zoom if you use either these services please subscribe leave us a review stay tuned after the music for information on donations and thanks for listening everybody we'll see you next week bye so so we'd like to thank the following listeners for donations this week michael b from austria kevin k latisha r from pennsylvania steppen k from austria metayas d from sweden hannacy kenith h from denmark christy dave s thomas e from germany travis b brock m uh arol b from germany i hope i didn't mangle your name christian f from australia james t tim v adam c from pennsylvania george p adam z nithaniel o richard c samty and some very special donations from yorn unicorn chimney lightening cat tut rinfield splork clod tula lord cinder bottom warren r marina and master who thank you for all your contributions fell me faster no it's not those were contributions and pop game games you you you a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a a