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Rebel FM

Rebel FM - Episode 2 - 01/14/09

Duration:
1h 34m
Broadcast on:
14 Jan 2009
Audio Format:
other

Episode two finds us feelin' fine, as special guests Shane Bettenhausen (who tells us where the hell he's headed to work next) and Andrew "Skip" Pfister (King of All 'Casts) join us to reminisce about our best/worst 1UP/EGM memories, and chat about our favorite games of last year. Infinite thanks for all the support, and thanks Karen for the logo!
You are now in possession of the Rebel FM Podcast. You are welcome. Now let us enjoy some cake or pie. You may begin in three, two, one. [Music] Now. [Music] It is Wednesday, January 14th, 2009. Welcome to episode two of Rebel FM. My name is Philip Kohler. Joining me this week is the staff. New week confirmed. The heat-sleep-game.com. Anthony Gallegos, Arthur Geese, and Nick Suttner. Yellow. Also joining the rebellion today, we have two special guests, former one-up podcast producer, Andrew Fister. I feel awful. He's allergic to your cat. Yeah, not my, your cat, Anthony's cat. And former one-up senior editor and eternal man-god Shane Battenhausen. I was actually senior executive editor. Oh, my bad. My bad. Was. Was. [Laughs] Senior executive man-god. It was a pretty made-up title, I must say. [Laughs] All right. We have a bunch of stuff planned this week. We're going to talk best and worst one-up/EGM memories. And now that we have some people, I mean, Andrew and Shane, you guys have been around a long time. You've been with Zip Davis a long time. And we're going to do a little game of the year, 2008 discussion. Shane, you're going to tell us about where you're going next. I might be telling you where I'm going next, depending on whether or not Nick Suttner finishes the task that has been put set forth in front of him. What is this task? You have to finish that shot of delicious vodka. Nick's taking- I never drink. Nick's taking one for the team on this one. Shane came over and wanted us all to do shots. And I got IOUs from some of you for the future. Manning up for this. Yeah, you're good at breaking news. [Laughs] How are you doing the news out of you? We're the news editor, you should be doing this. I'm not interested in news anymore. I'm drinking it. I'm done with news. We're also going to be reading some letters from a beloved recently closed magazine. And it should be a good show. Some real letters, snail mail letters. That's right. From several of them from prisons. All right, so did we want to start it off with some of our- We should also briefly address, like, we probably sound better this week. Hopefully a lot better, but not- We're getting there. Yeah, we're getting there. That's the- We bought new equipment. It doesn't all work. You're getting by everything. It's the problem. And so, we're waiting on a couple more components from friends to help us out. So, we will have all the equipment we need. Thanks to everyone out there. And, but that's going to be in the coming weeks. It's piecemeal at the moment. Well, so you guys are pretty surprised by the response. I mean, I saw that you guys were number two on iTunes. Everything has been fucking incredible. Yeah, the iTunes thing, like, is ridiculous. Like, especially like telling my dad that. It's like, hey, number one on the country and he's like, what the hell? I mean, it's like, it's like I told you last week. But, you know, when I got laid off my first industry job, there were no blogs or podcasts and stuff like that. And there was nothing we could do. But the fact that you guys, you know, got your shit together that night. And the next day you had something out that's phenomenal in the response. And it just shows you how the grassroots movement has changed. Game of journalism. I like the idea of some more. It's inspiring. Well, thank you. I like the idea of someone going to iTunes, though, and like seeing that number one. And they're like, what the hell is this? And that's what I'm going to get? That's exactly what I think. We're immediately talking about something, like, because we didn't really explain what happened. We just went right into it. And it's like really that quality. And they're like, why is this number one? And you know what? Now that I've seen that today, I'm going to talk about Dix. A lot more. What about Dix? There's not an explicit tag on it. No. No. No. Does there have to be an explicit tag for me? No. I feel like there should be. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. 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I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I feel like there should be an explicit tag for Dix. I hope that was clear. Then we're going to watch that after this. So that E3, I was lucky to be at E3. James Milke who worked then for EGM. I knew him from-- What was he doing at EGM at the time? He was the west coast editor. He wanted me to help him set up his DJ equipment because he was DJing at the Ziff Davis E3 party. I was like Milke's-- Wow, is it David's team at E3 parties? Oh, we had some really good E3 parties. Very good. Milke's grunt who carried around his turntables in his records. I was lucky to be at this party. Then I was lucky later at E3. I had brought my copy of Legend of Zelda with me for NES. In case I'd meet Shigeru Miyamoto, it's like my favorite game. It was the last day of E3, I'm sitting down next to the Starlight Cafe where they sell overpriced shitty hamburgers. All of a sudden, here comes Miyamoto and his entourage. Milke sees him. It's Miyamoto. Milke's like, grab your Zelda. He jumps in front of Miyamoto and creates this distraction. He's like, I met you. I interviewed you two years ago. He's buying me time. I reach my bag. I pull out my Zelda. I pull out my marker. I give it to Miyamoto. Miyamoto autographs my copy of Zelda. The fact that Milke, you know, did that for me. It's funny because-- I'll never forget that. In the use to follow, you and Milke would have fabled autograph battle. Oh, yeah. For many years, we would wage war. Say we were interviewing you Suzuki. I'd bring, you know, one copy of Shenmue. Milke literally would bring, like, nine things to have signed. Because I thought I would never be able to beat him. You know, he-- Milke always wanted to have more shit. And Milke definitely has more shit autograph than me to this day. That's one of my favorite memories. So what do you think, in your opinion, were the best years of your time as if? Like, what was you-- what do you feel like was your heyday? It was definitely from when I started, which was in 2002, up until, oh, it's tough to say when did this issue. This issue-- Well, this-- by the end of '05, the magazine industry was starting to change. It was getting really competitive. And we had to start, like-- You started seeing regular emails of the competitive magazine business. Right. And to compete with, you know, places like Game Informer, and, you know, we kind of ended up making Egypt a little more maximum for a while. You know, there were-- like, I showed you this picture of, like, a hot chick with her tits hanging out. Like, you know, we kind of had to do that. We felt like we were maybe losing the enthusiast core gamer mentality that, you know, that came from. You were also perfect. You were also perfect. And there's ups and downs. But yeah, definitely the last two years have been hard. You know, we lost a lot of people, lost a lot of the spirit. But then, yeah, there was a resurgence. That first Japan issue when Mookie came on was really cool. And I got to do things in that, like, Mookie, let me do this Kenji, you know, interview, and you'll read the whole thing online. It's ridiculous on one up. It's one of my favorite things I've ever got to do, because it's just, you know, it's kind of obscure, kind of-- It's kind of obscure. It's a complete, you know, just me losing myself in my head, doing this interview with this guy I've always wanted to do. But Mookie, let me do that. And I felt like that was really cool. Very much since I've been there has been the worst you're saying about the last-- Well, you know, it came a couple months before John left. Right. And that's not a coincidence at all. Oh, no. I don't want to speak ill of the current one up. I wish it was the best or the last two years. But there definitely was a market change in the tone. You know, when, for a while, it wasn't reality. Like, you come to work and we had six, seven magazines. You know, skip remember this time. Back in the XBN game now, GMR Days. And there were just so many people there. So many different ideas. I mean, I was going to say, even when I worked there at first, it was like crazy to me that like, EGM and GFW were completely separate. Like, they were their own teams. Right. Yeah. Just imagine that with like six different teams and magazines. Plus specials. At the peak in like 2004, EGM had 13 editors on staff. I mean, right now, what entirety of one up has 15 editors, you know? And you were just completely cut off from reality. Reality has no basis. And our deadlines were miserable. You know, we'd be at work until midnight for a whole week. But you loved it. And you loved being there. You loved playing these games. Like, there was an issue. Back when I was still an associate editor. And in the first year that I worked at EGM, where I reviewed 24 games in one month. Jesus Christ. I brought the wrong issue, actually. I brought the issue before this. So your name appears in the reviews thing? Like, change, change, change, change, change. Well, five of them were for E card games. So they weren't, they weren't a by-line. But the rest of them were. And yeah. And like, I was so excited to have this job to be working with these legends. And to being taught. You were a yes, man. Well, you know, I would do whatever they told me to do. And working with Crispin and Shoe and Mark and these guys. They helped by writing and measurably. They were really tough at it. It's like Mark is a legendarily tough at it. He would, you'd get a page back and it was like, as if he opened a vein and bled all over it. And the amount, you know, the way writing, the writing was paramount at EGM. And a lot of places still like, you know, it's quantity and not quality. Every sentence, every word was poured over by many, many editors. And you know, and I think we took a lot of pride in our product and then an issue came out. It was something to be proud of. I can't imagine a negative memory here to do with that, actually, that I made it a point in my skate review actually to not bring up Tony Hawk by name, just because I thought that was kind of important to it, that I was trying to avoid comparisons wherever I could and kind of judge it on its own. So in my like 1200 word, one up review, which thanks to like Andrew here, let's go through. I didn't successfully, but in the EGM edit, I believe it was Crispin actually in the end. So sorry Crispin, but he added like, I mean, I said something about like the competition and he added that Tony Hawk dude in parentheses. And I didn't, I never saw it before it went to like print. So when I got that back, I was like, so upset that like one of them even mentioned it, but two said like Tony Hawk dude, which is just not the way I write. Right. I think as long as someone else, the other two reviews that mentioned Tony Hawk, you probably wouldn't have had to actually, but yeah, that's, that's a specific thing. I can, I mean, I think, I think like a lot of the positive memories are associated with just meeting like industry people and going on trips to, I mean, I was, uh, still in internment, I got to go to bungee with, um, shoe and Jeremy and Rob, um, and that was fantastic. Obviously, I mean, it was bungee. It was like going to play Halo three before, you know, most of the people. Well, that actually, that reminds me of another crazy memory. So back before I was an employee of EGM and I was on the west coast and those guys were on the west coast, um, they hired me to do freelance to fly up to Microsoft to play a bunch of them, the Xbox launch titles. I played, I was the first person EGM to play Halo. I was the first person EGM to play Oddworld. And I remember being at Bun, well, yeah, I was at Microsoft and playing Halo for the first time and being really impressed by the sound of the Needler. And I did, I, I read the first one EGM to play Halo, it's kind of funny. Yeah, because that's, I mean, actually kind of get used to being like the first person to see something, but there's still a few games, like when you first played Halo three of them, I came back and I wouldn't even tell my friends about it, you were all asking me anything and like, uh, GTA four, I was, I was one of the first people to do like a big preview. I didn't see a good portion of it. That was really exciting. Speaking generally of happy memories, it never got old for me when we first got in a copy of a game, either preview or review that none of us had ever seen before. Oh, yeah. And you're walking past someone's office and you, and you catch it in your eye. Like, oh, awesome. I got to watch this. Yeah. Or even days like when we first got our retail copies of Halo three and like how big of a deal was there? Or like, we hear that you could buy a leaked one through this so we're all on the internet trying to like scour down copies. Oh, but that, that mean back to good memories. Another, yeah, I actually brought the issue. My first cover story for EGM was Castlevania, Lament of Innocence or PS2, which isn't, isn't the best Castlevania game by any stretch of the imagination but it's a cover story. Yeah. My, my, my first cover story is it was the last cover story ever. Your cover story killed EGM is that's like, that's what it was. But so this, when I got to go out for Castlevania, I mean, a huge Castlevania fan. It's one of my favorite series. And that was my second trip to Japan and my first trip in like four years. And when I got out there and was hanging out with, with Kojigarashi, you know, the creator of something, of the night and of all the Castlevania games since then and the composer Majira Yamane and the artist, um, Kojima Ayami, we're at this restaurant and like they're all getting completely plastered. And I'll never forget Ayami Kojima, the, the artist, she's, they'd warn me that she's kind of a, you know, a mysterious figure and like people don't see her up and she lives way outside of Tokyo and she'd come all the way in to come out this night and we're all drinking like sake and beer but she orders a bottle of whiskey and she's drinking this bottle of whiskey by herself. In front of her, she's pouring in a giant glass of whiskey in front of her and downing it and I'm like, wow, this lady's intense. And then she's like, she's like, motions for me to come over and drink with her. This bottle of whiskey. I like where this is going. She's drinking me, she's drinking me out of the table. I mean, she's like, and I can, you know, I can drink up and, you know, whatever, but she is impressive and while I was there, I was like, I can't believe me, this guy who loved, who grew up playing Castlevania is here in Tokyo getting drunk with the amazing team behind one of my favorite games of all time and how fucking lucky I was to be there, you know, seriously. And I have three quick little, like, stories about meeting famous people like that. The first one is pretty vanilla, like, just sitting in a Miyamoto interview with milky and milky is just dominant in these interviews and you just kind of let him do his thing and let him. It's impressive to watch people learn what's dumb and what's not dumb and how to phrase things. So that was cool. The second one was getting fist-bunk from Kojima at E3 2003 at the Sony party. Was that what he was drunk? Was that famous drunk? Yeah. And at the end of the night, they're slowly moving the barricades, trying to kick us out of Dodger Stadium, and Kojima is having a good time. Good time. And then the third one was with Igarashi in Japan. We were there for vacation in 2004, I think it was. Was that the giant vacation with 13 people? It was a giant vacation. We all went and we all met up with the Konami people and Igarashi and I did a duet of Chicago's hard to say, I'm sorry. Was that the same karaoke where Akira Yomok and I did "Enter Sandman"? Yes, it was. Oh, that was good times. I thought the Castlevania cover story that you did. Yes. So like you said, that wasn't one of the best Castlevania games, so I was curious, like, how did you approach doing a cover story, like, did you know it wasn't going to be that good from the start? Well, it was really early when I saw it, and I was curious, like. But I should go back and read my story, because I think I probably said that the level design looked a little sketchy at that point, because that's really the huge problem with that game is the level design. The combat's actually really good, the music's excellent, the graphics are good, you know, but that's another issue. When you have to do a preview or cover story, it's something that doesn't look all that good. It doesn't ask for what, because I'm sure you've done a bunch of cover stories, like, what a game looked the worst. It's hard. I mean, like, I have this one here. This cover story was a Final Fantasy Advent children cover story, where I also did "Durgid of Sarabas" and "Crisis Core" before "Crisis". There was a "Durgid of Sarabas" cover? Well, it's this cover right here. It's when they announce... Oh, uh. Final Fantasy 7, you know, what they call this, the, uh, there's a name for the whole rebirth don't forget, but like, if you read this, like, "Durgid of Sarabas" obviously is not very good, you know, so I was, I think I was pretty open about that. So obviously, like, I've been around, like, the shortest amount of time of everyone here, so, like, I know that when I went into, uh, after we found out we'd been laid off, I went into your office chain and you were like, "I wish you could have been around for the good times." Well, that's, you know, I thought, I thought that when you first started, like, you know, things have already changed. And I remember personally, like, man, because, you remind me a lot of, of me and Christian a lot of my friends when you first started, you know, it's like, if you could have come up in the nurturing, wonderful family, safe family, surreal environment that, that Uncle Ziff used to provide, you know, it was, it wasn't reality, but it was better than reality. Well, I mean, I think, though, like, even in the, uh, even in the last couple months, which have been really rough there, a couple, a couple of good memories, one of my favorites is that, uh, Anthony, you got your, uh, you got your title changed, when, when did that happen? Like, what, you mean, like, when I actually became an employee? No, I know, you became Jeff Green editor. Yeah, that was like, uh, that was like five months ago. You succeeded, uh, you succeeded Jeff Green. I guess so, yeah, I succeeded, I succeeded Jeff Green and Sean L.E.W.R. and you were, do you have L.E.W.? Yeah, after the, uh, one of my, one of my favorite memories there is that, uh, Anthony, when that happened, Anthony got his, his, uh, desk moved over to right next to me. So I got to sit next to Anthony and we would, like, talk through the little hole. And, uh, sometimes when Anthony wasn't doing anything, he would come over with his guitar and he would serenade me and, uh, he's a, he's a great musician, improv music sessions on the floor next to my desk, um, which, which made the, uh, the hard times the last couple of months. It's a lot, a lot easier to get through. It's funny too. Cause I remember one of the songs that I sang when I saw like, uh, those CEOs and walking around was, I was like, please don't sell us and lay us off. And then, it was like, foreshadowing, yeah, I remember that song. That was an excellent song. He did this just to the fuck with you now. Yeah. Yeah. He heard me. He was like, that fucker, the plays guitar's gotta go. I mean, he just heard the please don't and he's like, that's not a bad idea. I mean, uh, man, I thought of a bad memory. So back in the day, I had to review Sirius SAM for Xbox and I really didn't like it. I thought it was not a very good game. I think I gave it a 3.5 cause it's, it's not a good port and Sirius SAM is like of a bygone era back when like Duke Nukem 3D was cutting edge and this is just coming out after Halo and like, you know, you're going to ask someone to spend 50, 60 bucks for this kind of, you're going to come and defend Sirius SAM. I think it was like a 1999 Walmart car to it is sort of its charm, though, was its simplicity. It is good on PC but you don't play the Xbox one or something. I just play the Xbox one. All right. Yeah. But it's, I don't. I mean, co-op. Don't you think it should have been a budget game, though, in a way? Well, wasn't it like a 35 or no? No, I think it was, I think it was cheap on the PC. I believe it was full price when it first came out. I remember my friend picking it up and not paying full price, but I just remember that. I mean, single player, it was sketchy, but it was one of the first co-op shooters on its own. It was co-op. I'll give it that. Other than Halo. Didn't just defend the PR. It offended the developer and they're from some Eastern Bloc country, like, it is, in fact, Croatia. So a month after the review, I got an, it's crazy email. I wish I still had from the president of that company about how my review was destroying the economy of Croatia. Seriously, about how, like, I had, like, declared one Croatia. How is that? This is a great memory. You are the UBO. Yeah, actually. In a way, I think memories like that are good. Like, I remember Arthur told me that he knew that the day I had made it was one of when I wrote a preview and a Namco PR person emailed me and demanded that I changed it. And that was, do we want to talk about when that was, like, when you got that email? Can we talk about that? I'm just saying it was, like, right after I pretty much gotten hired. It was, like, my first preview. So it's kind of scary. Like, when you get an email-- I was, it was, like, madly on-- Did you get it before you? Yeah. He was, like, a big dad for me for that moment. He was, like, I'll handle this. And I was, like-- You got it in the, in the press room. It packs is when you receive it. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. I didn't even know. That's kind of scary. I'm in trouble, which game was it? It was Ace Combat 6. Oh. I think the line that they didn't like was, I said, the ground serves little purpose, other than to crash into something like that. Sounds legit. It was one of the better things, actually, is-- I mean, that was kind of the worst parts, too, is sometimes I'd hear that something I wrote, like, someone got really upset about. And it's not because I was-- I mean, Andrew knows all about this because he was-- I mean, he was the one who hired me. But you can go back and see all my early, like, little scoring reviews. I mean, the lowest scoring game you ever gave a review to was Looney Tunes. I've got a one. I've got a one. Looney Tunes, that's the only one. Which was shitty. It's a shitty game. Okay, yeah. But so, like, hearing that people are upset over you for review, like, that's always kind of, you know, just makes you get that, like, you know, tense, nervous feeling and you worry about it. But everyone is really great about defending. There's no question of whether they're going to defend your review as long as you wrote, like, a soundproof review. And as long as your editor's above you back you up, that's how you get your skin thicker. And there are some cases where I know, like, there were times where I was even, like, completely blocked from it. Like, just a couple months ago, I remember sitting in a meeting and Milky was talking about how somehow Lego Batman came up, which I'd given, like, a seer. Which I think is completely legit. Yeah, yeah. And then, I mean, but then Milky mentioned how he's been-- he had been, like, fighting off Warner Brothers PR who were really upset about that review. And I didn't even know that they had contacted anyone. And I think that's probably my fault for looney tunes in the initial. I think this is a lot kind of part of the same conversation. But yeah, I mean, it's great though, and the whole thing with Ubisoft that everyone knows about, like, an Assassin's Creed, it's like, that's just, I don't know, seeing us be really honest about it and, like, standing by everything, that's, you know, what the cooler memory is always. There are a lot of situations like that. So I didn't end up re-reviewing Serious Sam because the review code was not final, and the final version was slightly better, and I believe I would raise my review 1.0. See, I like that other than that, we did have to do things like that, like, we'd get different review code, and that was perfectly acceptable, but that is one of the things that, you know, I've heard around the grapevine compared to other outlets and stuff that I always loved about that place was that everyone always stuck up for everyone. You had your back. I never felt like I had made some decision, and I was going to get overridden by some executive for terms of money or some other stupid shit, or because they were worried about a relationship with someone. So, but, yeah, really, a lot of my best memories are of the cover stories I did, because, yeah, as you found out, it's kind of a big deal, like, you're so used, you know, in EGM, they're all about this modicum of words, about, you know, writing review in 90 words and trying to make every sense really, really good. So, you know, we're not about quantity, about thousands of words, so it's something when you're given 12 pages to fill for a cover story, and every page has to be interesting. And I, like, kind of notoriously, like, over-right most of the time, and I'd done that for larger stories I'd done in EGM previously, so even that, like, it was great to have that much space, but, again, I had to, like, you know... Well, and especially with me, like, Crispin and Mark were such excellent writers, editors, so, you know, I always wanted to impress them. I didn't want to make something they think was bad, so, you know, like, a lot of these cover stories were real labors of love. In fact, the hardest cover story I ever had to write was Killzone, too, and they asked me, you know, that was last year, and Mookie had asked me to do that, and I'd never played through Killzone 1, and I'd played some Killzone liberation for PSP, but as you know, I'm not like Mr. FPS. That's one of my sad things about getting laid off, actually, is that right before we got laid off, Jason Wilson had arranged it so that I was going to be... I was going to... No, I was going to join a... I was going to join, like, a Shane Mentor Program, like, you have... Yeah, actually, I really wanted to take you... My big brother and coach, right? I really wanted to do that. I was, like, totally looking forward to that, so... So the Killzone to cover story was... I'm proud of it, and it was so much research, because I don't know the world of Killzone, and it's pretty complicated, and I had to do all this fucking research, and yeah, it was really hard. All right, so... Let's take a break. I was going to say, yeah, does anyone have any last memories they want to wrap up with, or...? I just have a couple. The highlight for me was the first year of GMR, and the second highlight was when we got our podcasts up and running that first year, especially when Luke joined. Dude, it's true, like, I need to interject, because, like, when we first started doing one-up years, it was seen as, like, this dally-ance, like, this thing I was doing on the side, because EGM was still, you know, a really big deal, and you got in trouble a lot. I got in trouble all the time for it. I had to, like, literally yell that for doing one-up years on deadline, but I loved it, and it was so much fun, and I felt like it was new, and we were connecting with people in a new way, and I'm really glad that I kept doing it, because, you know, it kind of... It probably ended up keeping me at, as if Davis for another two years, when I wouldn't maybe laugh. And that first E3 poolside podcast, we ordered a bunch of new microphones and a bunch of new gear for that, because we were sharing it with our PC guys down on the fifth floor, so we got all our new stuff on that Sunday before we left, and I had failed to realize that we needed to solder all of the connections for the microphones ourselves, no, me and Luke, burning our hands, and then testing it out, and then we, for like an hour, deliriously coming up with all these totally inappropriate, unpublishable promos that are now lost in the E3. You don't have this? No, no, no, no. We could not keep them. Did you get through one other end now? I can't remember that. So, like I've seen your call there being an extended, like... On Luke's last one up yours, I just, I've seen your call like a good 15 minutes of Luke fucking off. Yes, that was part of it, and we got rid of some of the other stuff, too. Why didn't you keep it? Well, I got two other small fun things, so these aren't, these aren't like favorite memories, but they're just little things that I haven't admitted to. Two before, so I'll admit them all to you now and to everyone listening. So, one is before I worked it one up, when I first came out of San Francisco to like check out the city, looking for apartments and stuff, I was staying with my friend Brendan Sinclair, who's the news editor at GameSpot, and the CNF building was like a block past our building if you're walking from the train, so the very first time I was walking to work with him one day, he was going to show me his office, he was like, he pointed out that that was the one up building, and I was like a, you know, a huge, ridiculous fan. So on the way back, after I went and worked, you know, he had the good work, I just went and sat in the lobby for like 20 minutes, 'cause I wanted to like see people let work than I saw. Yeah, oh, totally. Is that any art space? Is it art space? Yeah, the big bench. And just to go with Nick's story with that, me and Arthur went to GDC just to the party that was in the W, and we also lurked on the people, we were in that room that you guys were in, and we were like, we should talk to them, we should talk to them. I'm really creeped out right now, I felt like such a fucking creep. Well, I saw, and I saw you and Garnet, I saw you guys go off the lunch, and just from listening to podcasts and watching the one up show, I knew you guys ate lunch together. So I was like, there it is. I waited for it. This is less creepy. Okay, this is less creepy than Skip on Saturday at the Big Cry on revealing to me that he saw me in the airport like 10 years ago, like the night before New Year's on 2002 when I was first flying out here, I lived in Milwaukee and I had to connect in Midway. And then I saw Shane, because we had met previously, like because of an IRC connection is kind of like a casual how you doing, but we never officially met, we weren't like totally friends or anything, but I recognized him and I recognized his radio head patch on his backpack. I'm like, oh, that's pretty cool. And we ended up being on the same flight all the way out to San Francisco. You didn't come and talk to me. I did not come to shit. I did. I just wanted to point out, I was a huge one up fan too before I started working here, but I did not stock anything. So Nick, could you see any of us in the lobby or no? Probably I said I was saying I saw Andrew and Garnico in a lunch. Did you talk, you didn't say anything, man? I know, I didn't. I don't see anything. Was there one last thing you wanted to show? Oh, and then the other one was first day of working there, clogged up the toilet. Oh! Like the kind of where the water goes to the top of the toilet. My first day back at one up, I was moving Jason Bertrand's boxes because I was stealing his desk, and I bent down and ripped my pants, so I completely opened, it was like, welcome back. That's awesome. We're going to take a break and we'll be come back and we'll talk about some of our favorite things. And now, Anthony Gay goes on being laid off. So I always thought that I was going to have a job as if Dave was for a long time, and I don't know if I'm allowed to disclose the amount that I was waking, I can't write, I can tell people. I mean, I was making like over 40,000, that's all I'm saying, and I was happy with that. I mean, fuck, I'm just saying that because basically any job I had before that, I was making 26, like 26 maybe, before taxes, you know, I mean, like this was the first like, hey, I'm secure in life job I had had. So when I'm sitting in that room, and then I hear the words, like everyone that's sitting in here will be terminated. It was like the worst, like a few moments in my life, like I joke that it was going to happen, we all had gallows humor going into that room, but I figured there was no way it could happen. And I just remember hanging my head in between Nick and Philip and my shoulders were shaking all, and Jake, and the people kept on speaking about what this meant for us and shit, and I was just thinking, like, all the jokes I had made to Philip, like, ha ha ha, you know, with everything else that's going on, if I get laid off, I'm going to throw myself off a bridge, or I could really, like, mccobb conversations that have a feel about what do you think the best way to kill yourself is? And I would tell him why he was wrong, because each one, there was like a way that it wasn't going to work. Throwing yourself off of a really high building was the one we determined was the best, because all the others had their failure rate was pretty significant. This is head easily to present. But yeah, so then it was like, it was like, for those three few moments, I was like, oh my God, I really have been laid off. But you're fine now. It's going to be okay, it's just being laid off is a really scary thing. And not only that, but now I'm going to have, like, a story to tell the children I'll never have. Like, you know, the time when I was laid off during the second Great Depression, which we're entering into, but how Barack Obama made it all better. Jesus Christ. Self assassinated him or something. I don't know. Like, I don't know what's going to happen, but I hope that man can change the future. But I have to do it. Because I'm scared. Jesus is the second podcast in a row when we're talking about shooting. All right. Don't talk about shooting about it. That's not cool. I don't think it's cool. I don't want it to happen. You don't inspire me to do that. But more importantly, we have a wide reach now. You better be careful. More importantly, Anthony. So you think about your life now versus your life before you started it went up and how much and look where you've come and the people you've met and the relationships you have. Because I'll tell you this, you know, I've been in this industry for now for nine years, and it's sadly enough. It's 50% who you know, and the rest of it is talent and luck. And you have talent and maybe you have luck, but now you know a lot of people you didn't know before. Well, that one. Yeah. Well, the thing is that now I'm really counting on the persona of Jeff to carry me on. Well, I mean, you're in the urban dictionary now. It is true. Jeff it out, isn't it? I mean, the meteoric success of this podcast should not be discounted. But seriously, like think about the friends you have, like the people who are going to bad for you, like Jeff Green and Sean Elliott and all the developers you've met and people who know you now. Yeah. And you know, it's easy to think, oh, man, my life sucks. I got laid off. But really, you know, your trajectory just started. You're young. You're really, you're, all three kids are really young. And like, as I said, if I had had the opportunity to be out of podcasts like this eight years ago, instead of sitting at home, listening to Radiohead and watching event, going and feeling sorry for myself for like six months. Yeah. I was actually talking to Christian the other night about that, that our... Yeah, because Christian, not at night. You know, we were in off the same day. You were roommates. You guys were just hanging out playing games. And there was no podcast or anything. There was no way to keep going. There was no Twitter. There was no Facebook. There were no blogs. There was none of that. Can you reassure me that I'll be okay, too? I think, I think everybody in this room is going to be a-okay, quite frankly. Thank you. Except for Skip Pfister. No, you're fine. You're fine. All right. So... I got one more good memory real quick that I thought of. All right. And all more just worthwhile memories. And then games for you. Because Andrew just mentioned me right after we stopped recording that I was the only person that interviewed for my spot. Which I'm pretty proud of. But in that meeting though, I was being, this is also really intimidating being interviewed by Andrew and Sam and Garnett. And like, 96% of the time, Garnett was just sitting there with his elbows on his knees, putting his fists on his forehead, staring at the ground. He was thought that he like despised me. He was hungover. He might have still been drunk. You remember this specifically? Probably. And so then, I forgot what he asked him. But the only thing he said the whole time, he put his head up and asked me some hard-ass question that they could put me on the spot. And even for the first couple of weeks, I thought that Garnett just despised me. Because he's like the opposite of Mark for the first couple of weeks. But then he's cool. I was pretty sure a lot of people despised me. But first, all right. Moving on. What was your game of 2008, Nick? Like, if you had to put one. Let's each go through and do our top three. All right. Well, you thought about this earlier. Little big planet. Is your number one? Yeah. And it's funny because recently, like, I mean, I've had the level I wanted to make. And I started it in like the review build. And like, I have to still start it. Like, this is level I still want to build that I have like very much met out of my head. But recently, it's like a lot of like, I mean, this is going to sound ridiculous. Now, but it's like a lot of like fine arts in that the reason I don't do it is because a lot of the stuff out there already is so intimidating. And the longer the game has been out, the harder it is for me to actually make my level. Because all the other stuff out there, it's like, ah, I can't do that. Like, everything has done so well. Now you have time to really come back. I do. I know. I know. Were they paying people for that in theory? I wouldn't want to make your levels. So what are your other two games? Boomblox. No, Boomblox is totally great. But it's not like it's something that's going to stay with me. And it's which is really well done, I think. Number two, either braid, accessible of braid, or pixel-tongued monsters, which I still play all the time. It's surprisingly two or three or both downloads. It's totally fantastic. And actually N+ is up there as well, which you hate. And I'm Mira's edge I love as well. I mean, I don't know how much you want to talk about. You said five games. You get you five. That's true. That's my top five. It's our fucking podcast. You can break the rules if you like, next up. No, that's it. I mean, I could talk about it in for a while, but you know we can. Do you have any overlap there, Phil? Yeah, a little big plans on my list. I mean, I guess I was just going order as well. Well, a little big plan is number three for me. Because I also liked it quite a bit, although not quite as much as Nick did. World of Warcraft, Wrath of the Lich King for number two. I mean, it's kind of an obvious choice, I guess, for anybody who's a wow addict. But as an expansion, did it impress you? Yeah, it was a really fantastic expansion. And they actually went and improved the game. They didn't just do more of the same. They actually improved what they were doing with the game. I heard someone say the new stuff are way better than the original areas. Yeah, it's hard to go back to the old stuff. Because the new stuff is so good. I might actually try wow now, too, that I know they got some time. I always wanted to, and I know I love it. I will power level use that. You can do Wrath of the Lich King stuff only. Slippery Slope. And then a Fallout 3. Because I thought it was really, really awesome. The only game I ever won. The only game I ever gave an A+ to. That's your number one. Yes. Yes. So, Arthur, how about you? Shit. No, because now my list is all jumbled. I think that, man. You like Mirror's Edge? I do. Mirror's Edge is way up there. And I mean, I acknowledge that Mirror's Edge has a lot of problems. But I just, I loved it while I played it. And I felt like it was a very cathartic thing, which I went into last podcast. So I'm not going to go into that too much. I also really love Dead Space. I just felt like, I mean, the thing I hear a lot of is how masterfully it's crafted. And that really is pretty much the main appeal to me of Dead Space is that it was everything that so many other games have done right, put together in a really compelling way. And I mean, it's funny to me that two of like my top three games of the year are EA games. Like, if you had told me that two years ago, I would have looked at you were fucking retarded. But it's just, I feel like EA is becoming more like the EA that put out stuff like the Immortal in the early 90s and shit like shadow the beast and stuff like that. Like they were really well known for being this really innovative company that gave things a chance. And I feel like that was where they were going. I don't know that that's going to be where they're going now. Well, I mean, apparently only one of those games sold well. Yeah, and that really bums me out. Like we were talking about maybe talking about games that were overlooked. And I feel like Mirror's Edge didn't really sell as well as I would have liked. And that kind of bums me out. I'm glad at least a lot of like the like hardcore gamers actually played it. Even if not everyone liked it. Like I think that's a game that still definitely needs to be played. Yeah, it's it's polarizing enough. But I think that it belongs as part of the conversation of games. I think this year if we end up seeing I am alive and singularity like those are both too theoretically really interesting for us person games that aren't shooters per se. So we'll see how those turn out. And then I mean, I guess for number one, it would be a tie between Fallout 3 and left for dead. And for completely different reasons like Fallout 3 was very much about how much I enjoyed the world and enjoy exploring and finding completely random shit. Like the HP Lovecraft fucking hole in the ground that you go into and you see ghosts and shit. Which is something completely different than was ever in Oblivion. And you start hearing voices and your fucking vision changes. So much cool stuff in the game that I want to like play it to get to. I just don't want to wander around. Well the Arthur didn't want to be the game to see all the extra cool stuff. He did check out like a Fallout 3 wiki. Yeah, which was fucking amazing. I mean, like the only thing I would have been sad about is like if I actually did find the UFO without the Fallout wiki, which blew my fucking mind. Like I walk by this like completely barren stretch and I hear the radio go off. Like there's some kind of random thing. And I turn it on and I'm like, that sounds like stereotypical fucking alien gibberish. And then I go over this fucking legend. There's a crashed UFO and the radiation is insane. And I find like the most powerful weapon in the game. With extremely limited ammo. Yeah, exactly. And so shit like that like discovering stuff that you won't necessarily ever have to see or like going to Oasis and Fallout 3 was incredible. And then there's Left or Dead, which is, I mean. Beals. We're talking about Beals. And I mean, I am a person who along with Chef have scoped out the apartment complex as he has zombie proof it is. And we have plans like we have. That's why we live in the second floor. In case of zombie apocalypse, you should always have a plan. We could totally like break down our stairs and climb down. Like it could be done. And make holes between our apartment and the Chinese people next door so I could take their food. If it happens while I'm still in San Francisco. Or eat the Chinese people. Well, I would throw them off the second floor to feed the zombies to buy us time. If the zombies come while I'm still in San Francisco, I'm going to Denny Chew's house. He works at Sony. I mean, at Sony Sega and he has a lot of guns. Wow. That is what I've heard about that game. Have you played Left or Dead, Shane? I bought it at Christmas and I haven't let it yet. I was trying to see what you thought. I just got it over break. I think it's a pretty accessible shooter. Yeah, I like it because they don't shoot back. Yeah, it's not like it isn't really. It's true. You pretty much do nothing but shoot. But for me, it's not really like it's like a party game almost. I bought it with real earth money to play on max. That's like Anthony said before. That's the highest compliment you can pay. I bought Left or Dead with real earth money for both PC and 360. You double dip that series. I double dip because I have friends that play both pretty exclusively. I've heard Kathleen is a drag. I shouldn't have invited to my party. She'll die. Dude, Kathleen is not a drag. Kathleen is good. Really? I heard murder machines is undead. I got to be honest. Yeah, so in my list, Left or Dead tops it hands down. It's now just like Call of Duty 4 was for a while. Left or Dead is totally my go-to game these days. Every night when I just want to play, I'll just jump into that. Especially because you don't have to play a whole campaign. You can start a campaign or the fourth or fifth chapter or something like that. Plus it's just such a good thing to just have a conversation between. And again, if there's one game that really has done the whole replayability thing, it's Left or Dead because I literally have never had the same experience twice when I'm going into that. I really like Left or Dead, but for me it's like the main appeal is the concept, not nearly as much the execution. I mean, I certainly think Valve are masters of their craft, but I don't think they've... I mean, obviously the shooting in Left or Dead isn't not in the same league, it's like Halo or Call of Duty or anything, just in terms of how it feels. So I think there's a lot of room for improvement in-- The PC version feels a lot different than the game. Yeah, and I believe that. I think if I play PC games, I'm sure I'd appreciate it. But I think it's kind of like they came up with this completely brilliant concept. They worked really well because the concept is so sound. But I'd like to see another one where they kind of refine those little mechanics a little bit more. I mean, yeah, I guess that'd be good. For me, Left or Dead, the multiplayer is what really makes it. Playing as the undead beyond just the shooter part of it. And I feel like the shooting mechanic being a little weak is okay because of what was mentioned about them not shooting back. I mean, I don't have to worry about getting shot in the head because I missed a shot because I just melee and then blow something's head off. One thing I realized too with talking about playing as the infected is one of the most satisfying parts of that. I guess it seems like a very specific design decision too is that you don't just kill the people right away. They're on the ground and you're just hammering on them and they can't do anything. And that stretch of time, I couldn't really think of a comparison in another game. In other games, you shoot someone a couple times and then they're dead. It's tension on both sides. And they're not mobile, they're dead. Right, and it's like so satisfying to just be willing on someone when they're down. And that's one of the best parts about it. I agree with that wholeheartedly. So my number two game is also in the horror genre. And my number two game would be Siren, Blood Curse. I thought you hate horror games. It's not scary to horror games. Exactly, I'm scared about them, but I love them. So Siren didn't scare your shit? Oh, Siren scared the shit out of me, which is why I conveniently also got to play a large chunk of it in the one up offices. You know what I mean? Exactly, like normally, the tradition with me has always been like I get a Silent Hill game. I get together with a few of my friends, we play with the lights off all that, you know. But I don't ever play it by myself. I mean, I had this too much for my life. I love big scares. I'm not going to tell him to call me the other day. He's like, how did you play through Condem 2? It's so scary. And like, he's a big one. He knows I'm a bigger one. But I finished that for the movie. What did you do during the bear? It's so nice. Yeah, so I mean, Siren is like such an excellent game. I mean, like a thread on Gaff showed like how much love like at least there was amongst like the people that tried it. But it really did get underappreciated. I don't know why they didn't release it on a disc. I know every other region got it as a disc. Totally confounded. Honestly, you should do like what Mash coordinated like by the Chinese version or something. Yeah, and after working at EV for like two years, like main like, you know, like non-gamers who just like dabble in games. Like they love scary games. Anything I'll point them to like fatal frame, like to us, that's even kind of an obscure horror game. But they'd be all over it. They'd be like, sure, it looks awesome. Yeah, that's the thing is I think I think people are more likely to buy Siren if they'd seen a disc than a $40 download. I feel like it was sort of sacrificed upon the altar of making a point by Sony like putting it on the store by saying, Hey, look, this is an episodic game that we're releasing all at once. And that game also did episodic content in like a really awesome way. Similar to the way alone in the dark did it with like lead in trailers and exit trailers that would let you know it was coming up. I don't know, like anything you hated about the first game, like some of that's still there, but I think this game is like leaps and bounds. Like, and I think it was better. This reminded me that I have it. I have it and I've never played it and it was so overlooked, I'm going to definitely get a play. It is better than the most recent Silent Hill buy leaps and bounds in my opinion. And this is coming from a self-acknowledged hardcore Silent Hill fanboy. Yeah, but and I liked the new Silent Hill, but this one's even that much better. And my third and final game the 2008 would be Piggle Knights for me. So casual. I will stick with that by the end because that is my go-to game. It's on every computer I own, my two laptops and my desktop. So I can play it anytime I want. Behind World of Warcraft Piggle Knights is probably the game I've spent the most time with in 2008 just because like, I'll play it like randomly at night when I'm just like listening to podcasts or something. Exactly, and when you only have like five minutes to go through a level and I don't know, it's strangely satisfying. I'm sure that in Seeker Life, another life I was looking addicted to pachinko play or something, but I don't know. But those are my games. Shane. And now you talk about your number one on the computer. I've got them again. So my number three is Castlevania Order of Ecclesia for Diaz. That's like hugely overlooked. I thought you were about to say judgment for a second and I was going, that's not so good. How is it? Okay, so is that Castlevania just not selling? I think it's doing all right. But the fact there's a little bit of franchise fatigue because you know, there've been like seven Metroidvanias in the last eight years. But I played them all and I like them all for different reasons. But this is for me the best one since Dawn of Sorrow and Arya of Sorrow. In a lot of ways it's better. It's harder. It's a lot harder. Yeah, the pacing is really all over the place. It's creative. It is considerably harder. There are bosses where you get to the boss and be unable to beat it. You have to go back and grind or you have to go back and get specific things you have to use against it. But if you're a longtime Castlevania fan, if you like saving the night, you have to play this game. It just seems like the series is almost a little too prolific on DS. I mean, the first Castlevania game just affected us. Castlevania on DS was like, got so many people excited. But now it's like, all right, it's the third one. But I mean, like getting a 2D Castlevania approved for the consoles is a fucking nightmare task. Yeah, the worst thing I heard from someone at Konami was that IGA was pitching a high-res new 2D metroidvania for XBLA and PSN that didn't get approved. By Konami, I take it. Yeah, that breaks my heart. So instead, you know, he's trying to do a real next-gen one. Why isn't he done a PSP? Well, they ported the X68,000 one. It was a good port. Yeah, but that's not what I mean. I mean, like a new legit. Yeah, well, yeah, the DS is a larger install base and they've sold pretty well. I would love for him to do an original PSP one. Yes, it's selling on the PSP would be a competition. Yeah, if you consider yourself a hardcore enthusiast gamer and you haven't played Eclasia, go out by it. It's really, really good. My number two game of the year is Little Big Planet. I mean, everything you guys said and more. I think it's a moving target. It's only gonna get better. It's really, really new. Media Model Cool are brilliant, guys. And it's casual. It's hardcore. It's infinitely expandable. It makes you feel warm and fuzzy inside. I love it. But one game of the year is Metal Gear Solid 4, Guns of the Patriots. That's like the number one game I didn't really play. I played the first act and that's it. I know, I actually need to get back to it as well. I mean, I am a consummate Metal Gear fan. And if you're a fan of the series, you're a fan of the narrative. What Kojima and Marada have done with the script in this game is incredible. I couldn't imagine trying to tie all these games together the way they did and the way it's meaningful in a way that has something to say. The direction of the cutscenes is unbelievable. It looks better than a lot of action movies. How do you feel about the Western influence in this version of Metal Gear? I think, yeah, I think what Ryan Payton brought to it in terms of camera control, control weapons, it helps the game. The gameplay is better. I would actually say, like, I'm actually a huge Metal Gear Solid fan as well. And it, for me, Metal Gear Solid 4 wasn't, like, I didn't like it quite as much for the story. Like, I thought they did an okay job of tying everything together. But it was, the stuff they had to tie together was so complex. There was so much of it that it kind of suffered a little in some places because they wanted to tie all of it. Yeah, it was over to ambitious. But I thought that the gameplay, I mean, the gameplay for me was a fantastic improvement. Act 1 and 2 in terms of gameplay are, you know, some of the best gameplay the franchise has ever seen. And what it does in 3 is really unique and 4 and 5 are more plot-based. But I also thought that it had something to say about war and about PMC's and about what war has become. And, like, you can play as many Tom Clancy fucking games as you want, but it's not really going to tell you anything. And could you imagine something to say? Andrew? My number one is Metal Gear. I'm going to go reverse. And before I say this, I'm going to say that I had to disappear from the industry for a couple months. So I didn't get a chance to check out all the big fall games like Gears and Little Big Planet and Fallout and all these things. I think Metal Gear is still legitimate, number one. Yeah. Metal Gear is my number one for a lot of the reasons Shane just said. I didn't really see that much of a message in it other than, like, PMC's are doing this. But I loved it overall. It's easily my number one. Number two, NHL09. Well, I think I'm probably the only person in this room that would play the sports game. Yeah, is that true? Did we mail that to you when we mailed you games at least? I actually brought it with me and then you mailed it to me again. Sweet. So I kept that on open if anyone wants it. Can you stop? But I play that on a regular basis. It would be a promo and I named my player after me and I'm on the ice in my Philadelphia Flyers uniform. Is this where you can play as one position for an entire season? I'm a right-wing. And the only bad thing I have to say about that is your coaches, at least the Flyers coach. It's kind of an asshole because I've been-- It's my real hockey. Yeah, I've been promoted and demoted from the one in two lines like six times now. I have one bad game and he bumps me down and takes like ten games to build me back up again. It's like, I'm fine playing online too. Just leave me online too. Like I know how the guys play online too. Were you kind of a dick? Kind of. I hit after the whistle all the time. The truth comes out. And my number three is GTA 4. It might sound like playing safe, but I really liked it. It didn't deserve a lot of the backlash that it got. It deserves some of it. Yeah, I mean, some of the reviews really blew out of proportion, but also the backlash kind of went the opposite direction to the opposite extreme. It was still a very, very good game and a very good way to move for the GTA 4 franchise. And the point about there not being as much crazy stuff on the side as it was in San Andreas, that's a good point if you're looking for that. But that's not what they were going for, obviously. And they were going for a more serious zone and they pulled that off. Something really told their own original story. And I think that should be given a lot of it. Well, I don't know if I would say it's original. Well, they did create it. But compared to San Andreas. Oh, yeah. But it still borrows a lot from it. The biggest strength of the game, like because of that story and the character and everything, that's also like detracting the most from the people who enjoyed GTA for being the sandbox that it was before. And I think that's just kind of how it is. I feel like that's not that arguable. That's either going to make you like the game a lot more if that's what you want or a lot less if you want those free sandbox elements. My one hope for that game and that franchise is that they keep Liberty City. And they keep that as like a persistent thing, like the same way Burnout Paradise is going. Where you just keep adding the stuff on. And then eventually maybe you can build a Vice City and you can build San Fiero and all these other cities that were in the games and they just kind of combine together. And that way they can keep selling disc-based releases. But you can just tie in this entire world that you saw a little bit, Inklings of in San Andreas. I'm glad you brought up Burnout Paradise. That was my number four. Yeah, my honorable mentions are World of Goo. And something that I think fell off the radar pretty quickly at least in our office is Geometry Wars 2. I was going to mention that. My runner's up, Pixel Junk, Eden and Valkyria Chronicles. So waiting for that Eden patch. Can I make an addition here? Like I wanted to mention my most disappointing game of the year was definitely Ninja Gaiden 2. I agree 100%. It's not like I'm a Ninja Gaiden whore. You own it on every format and re-release. When Ninja Gaiden 2 works when the combat, when it's working and not broken, the combat is amazing. And you feel just as empowered as you did before and it's just as I wouldn't even say it's unforgiving. It's just like this is what you have to do. Like this is the bar you have to meet and if you don't then you're going to die. I definitely felt like after the game released and all this shit went down with Team Ninja and how it was revealed that they weren't getting the money they were supposed to and like how Edigaki was leaving, it became really clear to me that they didn't finish the game. It's unfinished. I mean the framerate problems alone will tell you that they just didn't care. But like I remember when I first went out, this is a crazy story. A little before the night we went out and saw Ninja Gaiden 2 TGS 2007 and I was floored by how much it was just the same game again with like nothing really added to it. And I would have been okay with that because there were actually some things that were fixed. Like the weapon selection was better and it was a little faster. But it still didn't have real-time weapon selection and I remember saying like, "Hey, Devil May Cry 4 has this, Edigaki, are you even going to try?" Yeah and I just like the part where you're on the staircase. And it turns into the fucking Matrix. Which is fun. I mean in a way, it's almost a relief when that happens because that was the only time I got a combo. But like when Ninja Gaiden came out for Xbox, it was the single best character action game I ever played. And Ninja Gaiden 2 wasn't even in the running. And I would honestly say that Ninja Gaiden is still the best character action game I ever played. That's something I got some people got in my back. I might be minus then. I completely have you. And I think Edigaki would probably tell you that the game was not what it was supposed to be. To be fair, most of the hatred and the comments were like before the game was even on shelves. Right. They were just as soon as you were more on Ninja Gaiden. I wanted it to be an A+ too. That's not what I mean. I don't feel like we should talk about your thoughts on the review score as you've gotten the most flag for. I think that's kind of interesting. Metal, Bonner, Heroes 2 for Wii. That was the one I got the most shit for. Yeah, a lot of the flow. You could talk about that. So, Tales of Aspiria. Shane gave me a lot of shit for them. Well, you know, I don't like Tales as much as a franchise. A lot of people, but I think it is a little overrated as a franchise. Mine's SSX Blur, then I stand by that score of a 6.5. And I think that had to come out with Wii Motion Plus, it would have been a lot better game. So, I did want to say, also, Valkiria Chronicles. That was my runner-up. I was thinking about it on the way here. Haven't tried yet. I have it. I've only played a couple of hours, and that's the reason it definitely can't be on my list. But, like, from the couple of hours I've played, I'm really loving it so far. And by the time I finish, it's totally possible that it could take one of those top three spots. It's pretty special. That's the thing I've got to bring up to, a little bit off topic. Just thinking about reviews and everything. And in terms of some of the comments, the lonely, really negative comments we've gotten on, it's the game right now. Are people calling us out for being... Oh, you're going about us hating Sony. For being biased and hitting Sony, because you guys have like a Cortana skin on the left. And this is something I was kind of building up towards either a big blogger or some sort of editorial, something I went up to write about. Because the concept of bias in a professional sense is so ridiculous for me. And I don't know how you guys feel about it, but like, being accused of just being a fanboy at one system in terms of actually reviewing things is just so like, it just, I don't think about it. I mean, just to address it really quick, there were two things that people called out. One was like the fucking Halo 3 skin, and all right, whatever. And then the other was, for a while, we started, we tried... Okay, so we, for a while, like, we wanted, or I was doing it. Like two years ago, when we went Eat Sleep Game was me and Arthur's baby. Yeah, like, I, one of the things I did this site for was like to practice my CSS and HTML and really get that under my belt. And like, one of the things I wanted to do was do interesting video game skins for the site. So I would do a new skin all the time, like I would do... Before Halo 3, it was Heavenly Sword. It was Heavenly Sword before, and I think it was a darkness, and it was another one before that. Like, I just, I wanted it to be visually interesting. And in last March, we just pretty much stopped doing the site. Like, I had, like, personal life shit come up, and Anthony was, like, going full steam ahead with one up, trying to get an actual position as opposed to my cheat's internship. And so, when all this went down, when we're like, "Okay, well, you guys can chill on our site when you're looking while we figure out what's going on." Like, it's, it literally hadn't been touched. Like, I had 2,700 comments to moderate, and they were awesome. The site, the site definitely didn't just get created, and we were like, "We definitely need to have a Halo 3 skin as we make the site for this new podcast." And then, and then the other thing was the, we tried to do a comic at first before I realized how fucking difficult that is. Um, and the last comic, uh, well, that's, that's good to hear. It was just way too much trouble. And the last comic that went up was, uh, was something making fun of, of, uh, Phil Harrison's... GDC speech, where it was him talking about how great the PS3 was, and instead it was him holding up a black shit sandwich. So, um, yeah. I just want to bring it up with the context of, like, I mean, a lot of people, like, gave one up, a lot of crap for, like, saying we hate the Wii, and just, like, things like that. Well, now that I don't work there, we have it, we have it, did. Also, yeah, but... I haven't even plugged in right now. Also, we have Shane here. I mean, Shane, you get a lot of shit for being, you know, the... Yeah, I just want to say, though, is on a satellite that we're covering what we're interested in, and if we don't find that there's games on Wii that we want to cover, we're not going to cover them. I mean, that was the last game that can offer Wii that the hardcore really wanted to play. Second Wii? I mean, this, this is a really, this is a really complicated issue, because, I mean, do I like Wii as much as I like PlayStation 3 and Xbox or 16? No, I really don't. Right. And, and you don't have to not have opinions as a person to be able to be a critic. Right, but now that we is the leading console in the world, I mean, it's the exact opposite. You, you, you have to look at it and be like, well, obviously this thing is popular and has a lot of fans, and, you know, the games, all the games for it aren't bad, but why is it popular, and what does this mean, and what does it mean for game journalism and games publishing? And, you know, we all have to think about these things. Right, and... But at the same time, I mean, when you say the idea of bias in the media is absurd, you know, I, I would argue, and I've said before on one of yours, and I would say, again, that... I think elements of bias are real, and there are, there are factors that contribute to that. I think there are factors that contributed to the one-up network, the Ziffdavis network, being partial to Xbox 360 for its first three years of life and versus the PS3. And I think, you know, whenever something's on top, whenever anybody's on top, when they come up next, people judge them more harshly. And I think with the next Xbox, with the next Wii, people will be... For me, people will have expectations for that, and like, you say you judge this from grounds, or you judge this from a neutral place, but maybe you do... No, but it's not... See, I think it's, if anything, it's us judging it versus the hype, and that's where, that's where expectations come in. It's like, we look forward to games like a lot of the gamers do, as press, and it's like, you know, people can be criticized if judging it. It's like, oftentimes you'll have really high expectations, and that will affect your review, and I'll totally say that does affect reviews, but you're reviewing it for the people who are reading it with those same expectations as well, so I think that's totally fine and appropriate. I'm just saying the idea of going into a review and being totally closed off to the idea that this game could be good because it's on this platform. That's better. Right. And that's so ridiculous to us, but so many people, like... Well, if you look at DS and Wii, when they were first revealed and the stats were shown, we were shown, the hardware were shown, the games, if you look back, we weren't impressed. You know, for a lot of reasons, we weren't impressed, and we wouldn't have guessed that these would be the consoles that take over the market, but they have, you know, and we can't change that. Well, let me ask you a question that I mean, I think that you're probably the only person in the room right now that can safely not be accused of not being a 360 fanboy or whatever, obviously. Right. Do you feel like the PS3 is being treated unfairly? Not anymore. I think at first it was, but I wasn't surprised that it was treated unfairly, because, you know, whenever you're on top, when you are the PlayStation D that sells over 100 million units, and your next console comes out, and it isn't instantly better than everything else at all. I mean, Xbox 360 is markedly better than Xbox One. And do you think the PS3 lived up to expectations? I think the price was too high. I think it's still prohibitively priced. But I think in terms of technology, it did. And, you know, there's a lot of factors. Like Xbox Live is a big reason why Xbox 360 became so popular among the press. If you're a member of the press, you got a free, free account Xbox Live. Not everyone, but okay. Well, almost everyone. And I was a freelancer. And, like, Microsoft did a really good job of giving most freelancers free consoles, a free debug, a free retail unit, free games, free Xbox Live. And, you know, you've been in this industry. You know, it's a pretty closed industry. All your friends are in it. And all your friends are on there. And if you're the average consumer, you don't have 40 friends on Xbox Live automatically. But we do. Right. You always say people on there to play. So I think for a long time, it was people's go-to place. You know? And then that's not surprising, and it's not wrong. But I think Sony was fighting that. Sony was fighting the games media being entrenched in Xbox Live. And I mean, that's Sony's problem of not, you know, not getting out early. Like, you know, there's an agreement of their game. Sony waited for what they, you know, they waited. They have this thing to fight. And I think they're fighting. I think it's a much even footing now. Much more even footing now. So my point is, I mean, like, you're known for being, you know, OSHA and PS3 lower, of course. But that, like, when you, when you sit down to review a 360 game, it's like, that doesn't matter. No, I mean, like, if it's a game that I love, I'm totally excited for it. But like, you know, my favorite kinds of genres traditionally are not first-person shooters and racing games. But when called septos on 360, it doesn't matter. I love it. And I'd just like to throw something out there that's been occurring to me lately. Like, the two things that caught the most scorn this console generation are proving to be two of the best decisions that console makers made, one being the Wii, and two being the arcade skew for the 360, which is allowing a pricing flexibility that Sony doesn't have. And I mean, everybody has talked a lot of shit about the arcade skew, obviously, or the gimp skew, or like, the tarred pack. But it's proving to be an extremely fortuitous business decision for Microsoft. Yeah, it is. Just like the Wii, I, there's not been anything that I've been interested in playing on this Wii since Zack and Wiki. And there's nothing coming out on the Wii that I'm interested in playing until maybe Mad World. But it's their decisions with the hardware and their strategy have allowed them to take the position that they are. Right. The fact that the Xbox 360 costs less than the Wii is slightly absurd to me, because the experience you'll have on Xbox 360, you're playing things like Gears of War II versus playing like Animal Crossing on Wii, you know, the audio-visual experience. At this point, though, it's overcoming the hype of the Wii, like it's just impossible. It's a mountain that they cannot climb. Yeah, I mean, if anything, 2008 was a year where the video game war became even more fucked up than we expected. And in 2009, it looks like it's going to be just as fucked up if not more. And I really don't know where this thing is going. I just wonder at what point all the people that want a video game system like casually will have one, and then what happens when it's the hardcore gamers that are left to sell systems to. Because I think that there are a lot of really hardcore gamers that still don't have a Wii. And in some cases, it's because they can't find one, in other cases, because they don't- There's nothing- I didn't try to mind the Sean Elliot first, because they're right. But like, yeah, I mean, my Wii has been gathering dust for quite some time. And I'm sure there'll be games that I want to play for in 2009. I think I'm excited from Bad World, and there's, you know, there's stuff from Nintendo that's just doing really good. But yeah, it's a concern for me. As someone who's been in the video game industry for nine years as a editor, and five years before that is retail, like- I really didn't think this was ever going to happen. The Wii was going to happen. And I know there's bias in the media, I didn't mean to say it like that, but I just think the idea of people looking at our side and saying, "Oh, there's more than 360." Between bias and opinion. I think bias shows that someone is out to get something like, "We're out to get PS3. Our side exists to fuck Sony." And I just don't think that that's the case. Right. Well, it's cyclical. I mean, like, I remember when I first started in this Biz, like, Sony computer entertainment had no respect for them as a first party. They were putting a lot of shitty games. Go back and look at what they were putting on on PS1 for the first three years. You have to build it. I like it. I like it. Jadmado. Well, no, Jadmado is that bad. We're talking about, like, Ocean Den. Well, like, Cardinal Sin, Jersey Devil, Blastos. There's a lot of things. Still harbinger. There's no harbinger. And, you know, I think Microsoft, the first, really, for all of Xbox One, they got really, really, really, really, really lucky with Halo. Because if you go back to Microsoft Game Studios, Xbox One output was 75% of it was complete garbage. You didn't like Azure? They spread a really wide net, and most of it was really bad. And, like, yeah, Xbox 360 is a huge step up for them as a first party. But if you look at the hardware, look at the rendering of death. Like, if that had happened to Nintendo or Sony, would they have gone away with the same way that Microsoft did? I don't know. It's as high as hard to say. I mean, what's it going to take for people to buy a Microsoft system when it comes out next time? Right. I mean, I think this whole generation has gone in ways no one expected. And it's exciting, because, like, you know, when a disruptive force comes in and changes everything around. It ends up, hopefully, making the whole industry better. Yeah. Hopefully. Hopefully. But we do not have PS3. I love my PS3. More than my 360 right now. Ouch. All right. Yeah. No. That's because of PSN, I think, primarily, right? I know you're a huge PSN fan. Yeah. What were you about to say, Phil? Oh, nothing. I was just going to say, all right. That was a cool discussion. We should answer some letters. Oh, yeah. I mean, do we want to take a break first? Yeah. Let's take a short break, and then we will answer letters. Here about where Shane is going. We'll be back. [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] [MUSIC PLAYING] Okay. All right. We're back, and we are going to read a couple of letters. We're going to read a couple of letters from a now deceased magazine. Magazines that were-- or letters that were never answered by magazine that were piling up. This letter comes from Bernardsville, New Jersey. And it was written in March 4, 2008. Dear magazine, when it was during late February to early March, I wanted resistance fall of man. When I was given the chance to get resistance, I went to a game stop a block away. Then I was suddenly disappointed on the way to the fact that it was still $60. Since it's released in 2006 through 2008, it was still $60. This problem was also on a few other games for the PlayStation 3 with the release dates from late 2006 through early 2007, such as the air and motor storm. I cannot understand how resistance fall of man is this much money. I know that this was possibly the PlayStation 3's first mega hit period. Yet, I find it odd to find out it has been about two years and still turned out to be $60. The really weird thing for me was that I actually went to every store mall I found and they were still $60. After that, I decided to go to Gamefly.com to see some upcoming games when I seemed to find resistance and I saw a subscription. I could not believe it. The price for buying resistance in Gamefly was $37. So in the stores, it was $60. And in the internet, it was $37. I ended up having to rent the game and it was amazing. I wanted more of it, but I couldn't purchase resistance. It is still $60, isn't it? Well, I guess I should still wait until my parents let me go and get resistance when it's cheap enough. Though, what I'm trying to say is that can someone please give me some way to make a reasonable complaint to get PlayStation 3 game prices, especially older ones? When you start over, I kind of lost it there. Good news, Letter Rider, because resistance and motion were both part of the players' choice series now. You should hire, like, a great person. I know, I love the stream of consciousness purchasing and brick-and-mortar versus on one a day. I just like that every other thing was like $60, $60. Seriously, I would like that guy to write for our site. Alright, let's get that tutorial. Shane's got one now, too. My letter is from Jamestown, Tennessee. And it's kind of a simple letter, and... This is Jamestown, one letter, really. Jamestown, Tennessee is a simple term. Says your grade F. That's pretty much just a giant F that takes up an entire piece of line paper and then says your grade at the bottom. I believe this might be in response to when EGM switched from numerical grades to letter grades, which, for the record, I was against. Ooh. I was, but at that point... Were you in there a big meeting about it? I wasn't in your big meeting about it. For the record, it was me leading the charge on it, so you can punch me or I can punch you after we're done recording. Mark McDonald was the person who told me to never allow the to change the letter grades because he believed in the Famitsu numerical scale. Sorry, Mark. I was actually surprised in that meeting that everyone kind of sat down expecting a ton of disagreement and debate and everything, and we were pretty much all for it. I had argued, because I really wanted F minus and F plus because Entertainment Weekly has used F minus and F plus very sparingly. I didn't even want minus as R pluses. I wanted ABCD. Because I think F minus and F plus are the two best grades anything can ever receive ever. Ever. Alright. My favorite soap opera of all time, NBC's Passions, was the only thing to ever receive an F plus from Entertainment Weekly. Yeah. Well, we just got our F. Alright, and Andrew's got a little as well, a letter. This is from someplace in New Jersey. Thank you for purchasing the LSS 3630 dual channel compressor limiter with gate. This cost effective gain control device, but it goes on for a while and talks about rear panel connections. No, everyone just knows what we bought. You're not going to read a real letter? You're donating a real letter. You're doing a real letter. Wait, no, that's not a letter. Congratulations on your new LSS product. We'd like to thank you. Oh, please. There. This one's actually a real, well, you'll say. This is from my home state of Madison, Wisconsin, and the city where I went to school, Madison, Wisconsin. Dear sir, or ma'am, sirs, I'm writing to you as a gamer of 20 years and as a recent graduate from the University of Wisconsin, Madison. You're a ra. That's me. Having read yours and many other gaming magazines through the years, my interest in a career in video games has steadily risen. Is this really another letter about getting into the games industry? Well, kind of, but I wanted to see- We didn't have enough of those on one I PFF. I'm so sick of this. So I want to see what we have to say about it now. Over 30 of us just lost our jobs. Would you like- But he's talking about being a programmer. None of us were programmers. Did you read this? I don't have programmers. That's one of us who addressed how it is- Keep coding. Keep doing test stuff. I'd just like to say that we got an email on the Italy game submissions from a computer programmer who hated it and wanted to be in game writing. Well, there you go. If there is any advice you could give involving experience needed/desire to become a staff writer for your magazine- Oh, okay. Or what may be the- So I just want to do a- I just want to do a- I just want to do a- Then I'm sorry I apologize because I actually started at UW Madison in computer programming. Oh. And then I- This is your letter. Wait. Oh my god. No, it's not. There's skip or meta. Yeah. I switched over because I realized that I really hated math and thinking mathematically I just couldn't do it. So I switched over to a more writing-based degree of political science. So I just want to say that I think with the closure of EGM and went up like shrinking down a bit, I think the state of games journalism has changed a little bit. And so I kind of wanted us to address that now. People still want to write about games. So what are our thoughts after the fight? Definitely. The rise of blogs, Kotaku enjoys to completely reshape the landscape. And, you know, what you guys have been doing here with Rebel FM is showing that grassroots kind of, you know, direct user stuff is what people are into now. Because it's a little more believable as things get more corporate, as you can't necessarily trust what the big sites are telling you anymore because they're part of these ad buys. They're part of these metric systems. Well, to be fair, one of yours was also a grassroots program within a larger group. And that taught on significantly. But you know, what you're saying is right now. Also the way you connect. We wouldn't mind some ad buys. We're not. If anybody's listening. Would you mind if they told you what you were allowed to talk about and what you could say? No, no, no. Well, I mean, we'll do whatever they want us to say. We'll say. It was a good email address. If you can send us a script and some and a check, like that would be best. You can pretty much do. Shuff money at eat-sleep-game.com. Just the people want to talk to us about whatever. Money. You have enough money. Well, not that donations are separate. You know, by the way, I was just kidding. We will not talk about whatever you want if you give us money. We will play your ads. But I will say, I am concerned about the future of game as journalism because I remember last year, D3, I witnessed a lot of sites. What they were running in E3 were direct feed demos of a game given to you by a PR person, or a producer, completely taking out the editor from the equation. Because the last thing a publisher wants is our opinion on a game that isn't out. What if we say it isn't the best game we've ever seen? Same thing with live blogging. It's the same kind of thing. It's a great technology. It's a great tool, and when used properly, it's awesome. But there's so much that can go wrong. If the publisher can reach you directly with a video or a demo or whatever and take us out of the equation, well, that's what they'd like to do. And even with basic coverage, like a news site, when they have their own blogs. When we have the PlayStation blog, we have blogs from like most major publishers now. Yeah, major Nelson. Does major Nelson have your best interests in heart? That's a question at the desk. All right. So, Shane, where are you going? I'm glad you asked. And that's also just to be clear, which you've now been public about, is this was in the works before we all heard about our jobs. Yeah, I mean, as I said, I've been thinking about my next step for a long time, and I've been in game journalism for nine years now. It was a really long time. And one of my dreams from the beginning was to make games. But that's a pretty implausible dream. To write an EGM is a pretty implausible dream. And when I realized that dream, I was incredibly impressed and very lucky. And so my new job is I'm going to a publisher, a smaller publisher, their ignition entertainment. They did a lot of games, a lot of Japanese games. They're down in the SoCal area. I'll be working there as director of business development, which is cool because I'll be helping to, you know, choose what games we publish, work on our games, promote our games, learn, you know, all these new parts of the business I've never been a part of before. So I'm really, really excited. What's some recent stuff that I published? The next game we're putting out is Blue Dragon plus for Nintendo DS. We already sang We, which is by, you know, Miss Walker. And there's a lot of really cool SNK stuff coming out later this year. I can't really talk about yet, but I'm incredibly excited. And, you know, I looked all over, had a lot of different options. And this one just seemed, seemed like it had a lot of potential. And then go and hunt them down or do they approach you? Yeah, they came to me, which was really cool. And I know it's not what a lot of people expect me to do or, you know, they're not on the map as much as some other big publishers. But I think, I think that kind of helps because I can help build it up and, you know, hope. We have more creative input, too. Yeah, I have a lot of creative input. Hopefully, you know, change the direction of the industry in some small way. And I'm humbled by that. And I'm really looking forward to it. And, you know, hopefully we'll have some sort of podcast where I'll be able to come on your podcast again. You know, I'm really excited. Well, you, unlike most people, like in the publishing side now, one might come into Anthony's living room. Anthony, is everyone was awesome? Can I ask you a question? Sure. I mean, did you have other offers on the table? Was this like one of many that you were entertaining? I got to say, I'm really lucky. And it was humbling because, you know, eight years ago when I laid off, I didn't know anybody had no offers. I was unemployed for 18 months. And, you know, having worked at EGM for almost eight years, it was cool to have a lot of offers. And, you know, I seriously thought about staying in journalism because the things I haven't done is a lot of great people here. And where are you saying offers like immediately once people knew you were like leaving or just offers through a 10-year? I mean, I mean, to offer through the 10-year, I mean, two years ago, I got an offer, like a PR offer, like a high-level PR offer. And I don't have any PR background at it. Can you say for who or? I would say that offers for Sony and I turned it down because I was still having a really good time. Like, one of yours had just hit its stride and I felt like, you know, journalism was, you know, we were breaking new frontiers and doing new things. One of us starting to do well for itself. Yeah, you know, we used to go to E3 and you felt like you're on Cloud9 because you're at the coolest place. You're at the coolest place where the coolest products and everyone loved you. I think the headlines now are just going to be skewed to, like, Shane turns down, Sony PR job goes with smaller publisher. Oh, so you see what I was going for there? Well, you know, but I considered Sony in a different, different things of Sony. And Sony is a huge company that moved really slowly. I was kind of looking to make it move quickly. But yeah, I had a lot of different offers. And, you know, some of the offers I turned down I'm going to try to help find some of my other one up friends, hopefully put them in some of those places. And, you know, this industry is close-knit. And, you know, as I said, like the relationships you guys have made are very, very important. I am quickly learning that. Yeah, and like, you know, I say a lot of people have brought up all of your names in the last few weeks. And that's really cool. And, you know, as a, I'm living a new part of the dream. And I'm really excited. And if you guys ever thought about, yeah, maybe one day I could make a game. Like, which I happened to Sean Elliott. I was so happy for him or Jeff Green, these guys, because, you know, people make fun of us. They're just going to review games. That doesn't mean you can make games. But when you've been reviewing games and writing about games for years and years, you know, maybe the acumen you've gained can help make a better game. It's kind of like you just have such a wide breadth of knowledge about what goes into the games that were good and bad. Right. Like, it's almost like you've read more books than anyone else, so you understand what makes it good. Yeah, exactly. You know, having been a critic for so many years, like, it's time to put up a shut up. And if I can actually make a game, that's good. It makes people happy. And, you know, I'm sure I'll be really scared when I read people's reviews of the games that I'm putting out. But it's, yeah, it's a dream. You can always come to us for an A plus. Nine months from now, Shane is going to be writing us an angry email. Why did you say that about Blue Dragon? Exactly. Exactly. No, and then, yeah, it's really exciting. And I'm going to miss a lot of elements of being a journalist. Like, you know, for the longest time, I've got to play every game that's coming out. And, like, the fact that I won't be playing every game that's coming out, go buy these games, it's going to be sad. Well, I'm excited to see what you do on that side of the industry, Shane. And if you guys have any ad money that you want to refer to, it's a podcast. We would love to remember Blue Dragon. You're going to end your fish? Dude, fish is awesome. I heard you play a lot of Japanese RPGs, Anthony. Yeah, all kinds. I love these games. And I heard you own a DS, too. Yeah, they're all those things are true. You lost your DS, right? I lost my DS on a plane, but Kathleen Sanders is mailing me her spare one. Are you serious? That's awesome. That is super awesome. Again, helping industry arm. Yeah. All right. Are we ready to wrap it up? Yeah, I just wanted to wrap it up with a big thank you to everyone that's donated. We'll talk more about that in the coming weeks. We've already purchased some equipment, which will make public what, like, once we have, like, our final setup. I'll tell you guys what's up, because we'll be pretty proud of it. Yeah. I just wanted to quickly say thank you to Joshua Woodson, a guitar singer, El Cerrito, who helped us buy some of our initial purchases today. Who was bombing when we told him he had closed? Yeah. So you can find it at youtube.com/zer01rr. But, Charles, speaking of guitars, I hope that when this outro from this episode, I want a, like, slow, contemplative, beautiful, melodic acoustic guitar ballad to encapsulate the nine years I've spent. It's not going up for two days, so I'll, we'll leave this set up and I, or I'll go into Arthur's room or something. And we'll all put something down. Come up with us. This goes up Wednesday. Yes. It goes up Wednesday. Yep. All right. Couple of quick house cleaning things. First off, I want to remind everyone to check out eat-sleep-game.com for all the latest episodes of Rebel FM, as well as writing for myself, Nick, Anthony, Arthur, and probably others as we go. Arthur, do you have something to add? Yeah. We're also trying to, I've noticed a lot of people asking like how they can keep track of all the former one on people. I'm going to do my best to try to make sure that it's updated with where everyone's going. Cool. Today we, we, we posted a story about Ryan's Geek Box. I was just going to mention that. Which I think Phillip is going to talk a little bit about. Ryan Scott is awesome. Yep. Once Matt Scatterday and Ryan O'Donnell have their, all their shit finalized for Talking Orange and where, and where their company is going, we'll go ahead and have that for me. They'll also be back on the show regularly, I'm sure. Don't think because they weren't on this week, they won't be back. It just, you know. We have just had a full house. I could get a full house and scheduling stuff. And so, well, it sounds like we have pretty good special guest lines up for the foreseeable future. We have an embarrassment of riches as far as podcasts. Yes, go. Also, be sure to visit TalkingOrange.com. You just mentioned to find out what's coming next from the Minds that brought you the one up show. And then GeekBox.net for Ryan Scott's new podcast. You can find donate buttons on both Talking Orange, any sleep game, and GeekBox.net. So, you know, if you want to send a little money to any of our projects, ours might be already worn out. You guys kind of gave us a ridiculous, embarrassing amount of money. Thank you so much, everybody. We'll talk more about that in the future. Starting next week at the end of the show, actually, we're going to read off a list of all those who donate as a special thank you. It's going to be a monumental test just reading off that number of names. A little bit of the end of the show, so you don't have to stick around if you don't want to. Yeah, exactly. We're only going to read the first names and last initials, but if you don't want your donation, acknowledge John Eyre for any reason. Just email pcholar@eat-sleep-game.com by Monday, January 19th. Also, special thanks. You're not just submissions to, like, not everyone on there. Yeah. Also, special thanks to Jonathan Mann. If you guys listen to his fantastic EGM Goodbye song, we're going to try and get him on the show eventually. Did you say Game Jew? Yeah. That was a hard phone. That was a beautiful song. We're going to try and get him on the show eventually. Also, thanks to Bill Mudron for his historic one-up drawing, which featured editors and broadcasters from all eras. And I hear he's making a bigger, more impressive version with lots more people. That's what I hear, too, and that's going to be exciting. If you want to keep up with day-to-day what we're doing, our musings, you can check out all of our Twitter's Twitter.com/pcholarforme, Twitter.com/n-sutnerfornic, Twitter.com/a-geese, that's A-G-I-E-S for Arthur. A-G-I-E-S. A-G-E. A-G-E. All of our Twitter's are writing on our page this week. Wait, wait, wait. I started-- I started up dating mine today. I was just going to say-- We saw that. --stay up to date with Shane at Twitter.com/ShaneWatch. We've handed it over to him for sure now. That's one of my fondest memories working there for sure. Yes. I knew about it the day after you touched it. I know, stupid gaff. Watching Chef Giggle as he talked about it was interesting. And Andrew Pfister at Twitter.com/andrewfister, that's-- Real original. P-F-I-S-T-E-R, and of course you can subscribe to Rebel FM on iTunes and Zoom, so be sure to subscribe and leave a review. Thank you all for listening. We'll be back next week with more special guests, more Rebel FM, lots of games to talk about. And everything is bringing me on the guitar, so we'll see what happens. Thanks for having me here. It makes a lot. And I'm glad I could be here for you. Thank you for giving us the exclusive. It only took half the donations. Might need to get you on here. Later, bitches. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. Cheers. [APPLAUSE] - Samuel Woods.