Hello, I'm Jeff Kursman from giant bomb dot com. What you're about to
listen to is a podcast that we recorded in our office during the Game Developers
Conference. This was recorded Wednesday night, March two, twenty eleven. Had
a cavalcade of guests in and it was a lot of fun. But you
know, I keep mind as a lot of people in there, so it's
gonna sound a little rowdy. It's a little difficult to keep all those guys
under control. So with that in mind, you will hear a bit of
an audio skip about thirteen minutes in I think thirteen sixteen when we're talking about
Battlefield three. That's just my laptop couldn't keep up and and died there,
so we lost about twenty seconds. Uh nothing, nothing too serious, but
keep that in mind and with that enjoy the show. All right, what's
up everybody? It's the Game Developers Conference twenty twenty eleven. Right, that's
if you believe it is okay? All right, twenty eleven, and we
are here in the Giant Bond offices, back here in the bar with a
cavalcade of stars. First of all, we're missing Ron one Ryan Davis because
he has a one hundred and two, one hundred and two. All right,
So I'm Jeff Kursmon, I'll be hosting uh this madness, we rotating
people in and out. I think it's the time goes on, So I
think people are gonna come back here once the word gets out that we're in
our bar. Why don't we start? You act like everyone in the game
industry is an alcoholic, which is true, which is of any industry,
Jeff, of any industry that I can think of, inspires functional alcoholism,
quite like in the video game industry. Why do we start at the end
here? Chris Ramo? What you kicks off? Introduce yourself, say where
you where you work, and we'll just work our way down the line.
I am Chris Ramo. I worked for Irrational Games, Irrational Video Games in
Boston, the Rational Games the United States States, you know video games.
That's Brad Shoemaker. I work here. I'm gonna turn him up a little
bit. Check check check check chick. You go ahead, Oh cool,
I't do that now, you know. I think you know who everyone is,
though I don't know Brad specified I'm John John Drake. I'm from Harmonics,
also in Boston. Boston representing Big here. I'm Jeff Gersman, as
I said before, just to confirm, I'm yeah, I'm Adam Cessor.
I'm the cafeteria manager for NBC Universal. You really got demoted. Yeah no,
actually in the NBC universe, it's actually a step off. Ah yeah,
Adam Sessor x Y G four, that's uff. I'm John Pearl.
I'm from a Video games in Austin, Texas. Patrick Kuby, Senior editor
over at EGM. Chris Tilton, I am a freelance composer. All right,
so let's kick it off. Probably just going on the same row here.
You know, everyone has these different experiences at GDC depending on what they're
doing. I mean there are a lot of talks going on. Of course,
the media ends up, uh you know, stock stocked away in weird
meeting rooms seeing actual games instead of seeing people talk about games. So I'm
gonna go, Chris, what are you doing during GDC? But it will
keep starting with me. This is just going to keep all Chris, what
do you DODC? We have Chris is at both ends, so it can
go either way. You see why I was so carefully first U this year.
I'm just I just kind of I didn't really plan anything. I just
kind of came up here. I didn't even actually look to see what the
panels were before I even got here. So I'm just gonna kind of you're
lazy. Is that how you pick gigs? Is that? Is that a
contract? Is it money? All right? I mean you've been doing television,
composing work with cringe and stuff like that, so you don't necessarily you're
not necessarily out looking for a ton of game work, right or well,
I guess I would always do more like I would like well, I would
working on one show. Is it's all right? You could do little things
here and there in between. Certainly summers are completely free. But yeah,
I haven't done a game in like two years, so but I still love
coming here. I still love games, love the game industry, I love
the process. I would I'm still interested in doing music for games in the
future. Uh so anyone out there looking, Yeah I will. So you
know, I like to like I don't go really go much that. I
did go to one audio panel today for Dead Space too, but I usually
don't like going to those because I like going to the ones I don't where.
I don't know anything about how things work because just because you're better than
them. Have you ever done that? We're like, oh, I want
to go check out that panel. It's you know, you know, something
on pixels, and I'm just like, I am the dumbest persons happening here.
I can't review anything. I don't three words like session title sounds really
amazing, and then it's just lines of code. Yeah, but you don't
want to everyone else like you don't want to be an asshole who gets up.
So I always the ones. I'm sure if I was sitting near the
back, so I can just sneak out and not realize I don't understand.
Well, it's always amazing. Whenever they mentioned something like an upcoming platform or
game in the session titles, you're like, oh, well, I'm definitely
going to this uncharted three panel, and then it's an hour of a guy.
I want to like, here's how the animations, here's how this blends
into this, and you made me see like two seconds of this upcoming game
agile into our development. Yea scrug method as it applies to the MT.
Yeah, I would say the the you know, I've come to chet GDC
about the last five or six years and I would say the general rule is
if the game is not out yet, don't go to that panel because they're
not going to tell you anything. So post post mortems definitely. Yeah,
postmortems a lot of fun because they can tell you pretty much everything, and
who wants to see on how they did something to a game you never even
played? That's true, that's that's also you might if the game hasn't come
out, but it'd proably be like, yeah, we're gonna really this part
of it is that we're going to fuck up the animation. Yeah, we
compared with this against real fire. Patrick. Have you been to any panels
or I've actually been to a bunch of panels. I mean Days one and
two of GDC used to be kind of weird because they were like, it's
the serious game stuff where they're talking about how to apply like game mechanics to
like teaching you about like what's going on in Africa. It's mobile stuff and
indie stuff. But they've they've they've really it's been interesting in the last a
couple of years ago, the indie stuff was a bunch of guys saying,
you know, fuck yeah, we're indie and we're we're out we're starting our
companies and then but now they didn't know what they were doing, and now
they're much more confident. They some have succeeded, some have failed, and
some have come back with lessons of how not to make the same mistakes and
what they've done with their success. So it's been really interesting to see indies
go from uh trying to figure it out to kind of have figured parts of
it out and to pass those lessons on. They're much more confident, so
it's not just two days of people saying like, we think we're gonna be
the next Minecraft. Yeah, although that is probably the most like the most
name dropped game I have heard. It got mentioned at the EA Partners thing
when the guy was up there talking about Rango. He was like, and
you get sucked in an arcade machine for an eighteen world straight out of mind
Crafts. I'm like, dude, you have never even someone must have told
them that ahead of time, Like that's gonna give you credit. Yeah,
yeah, that's because well then they showed it and it looked like an N
sixty four games and I'm just like, ke being straight out of like Super
Mario was sixty four, because it's this platform room with these all this blocks
GYM three D. Yeah actually, yeah, yeah, I'll give you that
one. I'll give you that one. Harsh Now I'll look at a phone
call. Oh they're not sending these copies of Rango after all? John,
How about yourself? What's what's GDC been like for you so far? One
of the direct x eleven stuff that was kind of cool. I was kind
of surprised at some of the stuff they were showing Battlefield dragon Age that was
pretty cool. They broke it down like the first day of just some of
the stuff they're doing with dract x eleven, which it looks pretty nice.
So that was cool. And is there is there? Are you getting like
a lot of good takeaways and actually learning things that you'll then be able to
go back and apply. Some of it's real specific like like this is how
we figured out how to render dragons or something like that, where it's like,
oh, that's cool that that's that's really all just implements speed Dragon coming
suit. I would love to know if there's middleware for dragons and they would
like I would license that from myself. I look the middle for dragons and
mate dragons fun movies too, what is it about dragon means you will have
a bad time. It's like we were dragon that make him sound like Sean
cot I mean, be friendly. No, it's a fucking dragon. It
breaks fires people. You're very passionate about the subject as a slider and speed
dragon that breathe fire, No, breathe fire. Was like, is there
a Sean Connery tick box? No, that's that's a slider two. If
you want like partial Connery, you can get like a slight like a fifteen
percent con This dragon should have a mustache. Yeah, exactly. Has there
ever been a game with dragons that's Has there ever been a game that feature
dragons where the dragon part was fun? That's deep posting the Figure Adventure for
the Atri twenty six hundred, you get that dragon stomach. Yes, maybe,
then dragons have to look like ducks and dan it will be good.
There's actually a duck slider, So I really hope somebody goes in trademark speed
Dragon right now, but I might have to go do that off. I'll
be right back, you guys. The only game that comes to mind is
like Panzer Dragoon or anything like Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a dragoons
gonna say layer, but you said fun. Uh. Now, Adam,
how has it been knowing for you? Have you been on the show floor
all batch? I don't have a badge either, because that would require me
to go to the show. Right. Everything is on Fourth Street. Yes,
it's either at the Saint Regions, the w or some other place,
right. And I mean it's what's nice is And I'm saying a lot of
people this is a GDC where I'm doing most of my interviews. I actually
give a shit and a lot of times, you know GDC, there's there's
not And that's the first is not the first for you? In like eight
years, I've worked it at my home and a laugh for pills that makes
me care, Lets in sight, you know eat yesterday pretty much they were
just showing stuff through the day. And it wasn't like, hey, here's
two big games. You know a lot of stuff that we're gonna make you
watch to get to those two big games. It was a rather impressive catalog
today. It was very very showny heavy and it was it was it was
similar to that. It's it's been quite nice, actually cool. All right,
let's mover, John Drake, what are you doing so I've decided that
this g DC is the GDC of iPhone games. And that's because I've yet
to go to a panel. We're fifteen minutes and I'm not playing a game
on my iPhone the panel. That's not entirely true. I mean, so
I go to some of the talks and we you know, have you know,
lunch and dinner and hang out with people. But uh, it's part
of the Harmonic Street Team. You're not necessarily I'm like firing. Yeah,
I am wet putting stuff under people's right and like I'm putting QR codes on
everything so you can just scan them and know nothing about the game that you're
being told to advertise. So we're we're just around. Is we bringing punched
people out to learn about their different tracks and designing. We did two talks
about one of about Dance Central, one about the rock band Squire, which
just came out in pro guitar. Uh and uh, I don't know.
It's fine. I went and saw the micro talks today. It was a
really good there. And that's the thing where they basically give you slides advance
every sixteen seconds and you have like six minutes to do a talk about a
huge concept, like what was this your's topic? It was, uh,
how you how do you play with the with the topic and really start and
you I don't play and drop the mic that was I think that was players
don't play. Davy Jerry's was like, I play games on the shitter.
He was like my I played, like, fuck you, I played games
on the toilet. Please buy Twisted Metal awesome, and yeah, he hit
all the talking points. Yeah, that's just like any interview. That's fun.
Interesting that David Jaffey was here because they were supposed to show Twisted Metal
and they were also Guardian and that half of their games from this thing.
Yeah, yeah, like wet like yesterday he were talking about you guys were
talking about seeing that like two days ago, three hours And apparently that wasn't
just us. I talked to other people waiting out in front of the Battlefield
event last night and asking like, so, did anyone tell you Twisted Metal
wasn't happening. I'm like, no, we didn't, so yeah, exactly.
So that seems super last minute. I think it maybe it was enough
to come or something. If Twisted Metal is going to be shown, I
was gonna have an eleven PM interview from Battlefield, which I'm old go to
bed anymore, So I like four pm, seven hours. It ended up
working out really poorly for me because the timing of everything was such that with
with Ryan being sick and so his car broke down. On top of that
it was leaking coolant and he had to come back and get me in his
other car in the middle of a fever dream. Yes, many cars just
Ryan ham too. Now he just he just got this same the fever dream.
It's four yeah, yea. So he had to go switch cars and
then come back and get me. So I ended up actually standing in front
of the Battlefield thing for about forty five minutes and then left. It was
really awesome, like they were they were just starting to let people in when
when he pulled it up, and I was like, well, you're in
no condition to come to this event because he has been on a lot of
cold medicine, so like he had like an hour of conscious at the time,
and yeah, pretty much. So I was like, Okay, we
need to get home before I die in this car with you. So yeah,
and then so I'm like looking at Twitter the whole way home, and
like as I was getting home. People were like, I just got into
the battlefield thing. I'm like, okay, well maybe it's for the best
thing. I didn't stand in front of that thing for another hour. Though.
It sounds like that demo was amazing. It was, Yeah, it
was impressive. It's I know, there are some people who legitimately like thought
that the game was felt like it was chasing too much africol of Duty.
But the thing that I found so remarkable, and I never considered this before,
is that in a lot of the Call of Duty games and a lot
of the military shooters, you're either in some sort of deserted wasteland mountains,
and if it's true that you can actually go through and destroy any of those
buildings, like if they give you the firepower to do that like that,
you know, because a lot of games employee destructibility, but you don't,
you know, you see in the Red Faction where you just go wild with
it and well it's like it's sci Fi destroyed. Yeah yeah, ouah,
you lose that look yeah, and then it's just it's just Call of Duty
again. Brad. Did you make it to that thing? Oh? I
did, okay, because I saw him there when I left. You were
at the you were at the pop cap party. Yeah, for about twenty
minutes. The thing was packed. There were dancing zombies on portabilidy, and
then I had to get out of the work. That's how long you expected
to pay a pop cap game though it's a very casual. Good. But
I could go to that party on the toilet as for yes, yes,
and they gave me like the double like artiller Ychelle can so okay, good,
good efficients good to be making social and then you you've been also making
the rounds to another another member of the not yet picked up a badge,
spend all my time at the Saint Regis in the W Club. I remember
those days. It was Yeah, it was pretty much all Ea and Sony,
I guess for the last two days. Yeah, just just one one
a pointment after another and then Warner tomorrow. Yes, yeah, yes?
Is it good? Are you guys like excited to be seeing games this week?
I don't know. It feels like a small E three like they heaped
it on so heavy this year. Yeah, it's and it's it's not what
GDC is supposed to be about. It's this weird sort of you know,
everyone realizes that there's press here, so that they're just gonna have all these
events and give a shit if it's not what if it's not like about the
concepts of design talks, what you do, don't go to anyway, or
does it? I actually would in the year, I would like to go.
I would love to go to stuff and and be able to kind of
just know a little bit more about the inner workings of the industry some sense,
and again gain a deeper understanding hopefully of that that's how you make your
silly little dancing good. That was the that was the working title before they
I take some solid the guys like John and Chris can still go to that
stuff. Yeah, but then again there are guys like like the Naughty Dog
guys that were showing off on Chart of the day. We're not in sessions
because they were in there given interviews for that game. So yeah, like
they aren't losing time to to all this promotional stuff that's going on. Well.
I think it's also like a word of attrition where it's like, you
know, like, hey, I'm gonna show this game. I was like,
oh, we have to show game, and they just piles on,
piles on, and like no, one's actually kind of checking themselves, like,
is this really nacessary? It seems like Dice has become the yes,
the place to go for for that sort of stuff. Folks aren't necessarily as
good were the exceptional rors. Of course, I say moderate hot topics.
Okay, sponsorship, sponsorship credit for that. But if we could get whoever
makes hot pockets hot pockets, you know, I thought you're gonna say,
if you can only have the hot pockets on hot topics, if you were
like you can wear like a Paramore T shirt, and then I would watch
you do any interview in that. And Chris Remo, you've just been walking
around with the build a BioShock infinite on you at all times? Right,
Yes, BEDD just displays out of my red runs on Mac right, so
just looking up, Well, I just displayed out of my eyes onto a
wall. It's pretty sweet, all right. So yeah, it doesn't show
up on video though it's good. People on the stream camp probably see it.
But whoaa, I know it's that fucking rad that girl. That's pretty
good, that girl. There are crows everywhere. Oh my god, that's
a murder of the happening and achievement. But yeah, this is the showpen
going for you if you've been yes, we go through the world. This
is actually my first GDC in eight years that has not been as a member
of the press, so it's been it's been nice sort of not having to
go through what you guys, I know I have to go through for you
know, three days or five days, depending on it ends up being three
days for us or four ish. I guess we're not really going to the
talks, right, right? Is it bad for us because we just go
from thing to thing to thing, but all those things are different. And
I think about who's giving the demos. They're doing the same thing, right,
Yeah, you don't know the pains. You don't know the pain of
doing the same thirty minute script. And because like Game three getting a demo,
I'm like, I understand that. I know you think that they're doing
the same thing. But it is fun something you worked on and created and
showing to someone for the first time. It is it's a it's a cool
feeling, even if you do it a whole bunch of times. If as
long as it's different, people and it's pretty cool react well to it.
Like you resent an audience who like you're like so excited. They're like,
all right, I mean, I guess it's just sort of like modern warfare
two plus it's like a funny hat and you're like, it's really shut up.
Yeah, so it's Dance Central, but it's got like call of Duty
perks in it. Now like great, we got alright, I'm in for
this game. So I imagine you've given demos for days at a time when
it is you know, rock Band or Dance Central or something like that like
that, that probably becomes a little more grueling than the standard. Yeah,
it's it crosses a line where like part of the demos that I always have
been given, like, I guess part of the fun of them is that
people don't mind when you're doing rock band if you kind of curse a little
bit, because it's sort of a game where that is it's acceptable, it's
part of the culture. But by the end of the last day, I
basically have I ended up telling every audience to go fuck themselves. They're like,
oh, that's so funny, and I'm like, no, I'm serious.
I have everyone behind me and choir. But it's you. I mean,
you get excited about it. You just trying to hit, but you
turn off your brain at some point. It's when you've seen twenty demos in
a day, I'm different games, You're like, I can't these separate.
I just kind of become a note taking, which E three is actually one
of the few occasions where I do actually write down notes. Typically when I
when I'm only seeing like one or two games or something like that, Like
it usually kind of remember the stuff that matters, and you know, the
fact sheet will provide the release date and that sort of stuff. But yeah,
at E three, you definitely get to a point where you're like,
I need to write all this stuff down because there's no remember even the names
bass games in three hours. But that's what I mean. I think the
GDC is turning a little bit into that, but it's not. And the
crush is bad for you guys for three days, but it's not like the
Mayhem if you have to traverse a giant floor for you know, four straight
days of cris. I think it ends up being a little weird for me
personally just living here, that it ends up being a little different because I'm
going home at the end of every night every night, like sleeping my own
share it makes it hard to get up in the morning. It's like and
then along goes off and you're like, I stay with ye you involved.
It's not like E three where it's like I'm gonna get in this cab,
I'm gonna walk downstairs this hotel and go. Yeah. Then it becomes like
I'm in my house. I need to make this bed before I can sleep.
I'm sorry, Jack, you make your bed before you sleep in it.
Yeah, I think it's tough. Very I'm trying to. I'm trying
to establish a new level of class in my life. It's been a very
long time. Exactly why didn't she started doing more of these from your bedroom
so that the world can appreciate it a lot. I get a lot done
in my bedroom, and you know, I was gonna see that. You
know when I moved down to La for G four, tell me living where
E three was happening became really surreal. Yeah, I would go home to
a quiet house when it's when it's in a different city, the whole experience,
Like we good example of Russ packs versus packs East because we're in Boston.
It's like when you got to pack, it's like three days. It
all feels like one big, crazy reunion weekend where you're doing this stuff straight
through and it feels like one crazy dream and you go back and it's like
normal life again. But when you go home to your house and like see
dishes in the sink, are like, oh, it starts all over the
next morning. It's like a terribles. I lived in the I lived in
Berea for the last ten years, and now I live in Boston and coming
back to g DC. It's rad because I'm like, I'm staying with friends
who are off camera, and like every day it's just like sweet just talking
a little bit, like if people flying in from all over the world to
see me from my perspective. That's what it feels like. It's rad.
It's completely awesome. That is is very cool. Let's talk about games for
a little bit. I know, Adam, you've been uh seeing demos,
rad you you you saw some stuff. What's the what's the hottest passion you
saw? Before? I think before we get into that, I have to
comment on how many of these things are embargo until next week earlier. We're
trying to do it, dude, Like, okay, what can we actually
I saw Arkham city. That is saying, Okay, it's the same.
It's the same demos is at the Microsoft Showcase last week, with the exception
of the one part at the very end. The last ten seconds is what's
embargo until next week? In ten seconds embargo, it's the same demo.
Do you mean the point where the UFO showed up. Yes, yeah,
we're bad, gets abducted, he gets probe, there's a connect support.
It's are they still reversing the weird piece of a Yes, they're they're still
reversing the two piece of dialect and then they play all koy when it happens
because it's related to some secret character that we'll get announced. So are they
allowing audio recording of that demo? I recorded it, so I don't know.
I'm gonna upload it to you. No, I'm just saying you should
spend some time with that clip. Yeah, you probably could just reverse the
audio and figure out what it is. Yeah, it's Arkham City. Looks
uh. You know, it's interesting because it's they were smart, and it's
it's a bigger landscape that you're exploring. But they've also sectioned it off,
so it's Arkham City. It's not Gotham City. It's a piece. You
know. One of the reasons that that that Arkham Asylum is great was because
it was very you could go places, but it was very focused. Like
that's why you know, it run into the tropes of open world games where
you gotta fill everything with minutia that is really not worth anything because you got
to see something every you know, a couple of seconds to maintain your interest
as you're exploring. So you have a bigger landscape, so you can jump
in building to build into building, but it's still very confined. So they
have a defined area, but it's bigger, so you can bet, you
know, jumping all around and like you know, they have a new mechanic
where you mean, you're gliding and you dive down so you can dive back
up. You can attach to helicopters piloting around the city. I mean,
it's no pilot weight, but it's good. Now. I mean, I
was, I mean, I was excited for it, but it was it
did all those things that I felt Arkham Asylum was hinting at. Yeah,
and I was like, okay, And I think also it seems to be
more complex in terms of how it's gonna use villains, that it's going to
have that air of mystery that you know Arkham has sided at the get go.
And I love that game. It's like it's all about the Joker,
right, and that when you were getting those cars, you're seeing Clay Face.
It's like, oh, I kind of want some of that too,
but it was like, no, it's all about the joke. You'll be
curious if they run into like the kind of the problem that happens with like
superhero movies, when like for a sequel you have to add more villains,
more villains, more villains. You could easily run into that problem where you
have to like the reason I loved you know, one of the reasons I
love Darkham Asylum is because the Joker was just such a I mean, Mark
Camwell played him so well. Yeah, but the Joker factors in Darkham City,
but it seems like they're yeah, like Catwoman's in there, two faces
in there, and I'm sure there will be a hold any of others,
all more Riddler stuff this time. Yes, yeah, I was. I
was fascinating because unless those last ten seconds, which I didn't see and I
couldn't even talk about it if I didn't see it. I'm dying to see
if they actually show the Riddler, because I think that's a very challenging character.
I mean, Jim carries interpretation, it's Freeman interpretation of the Beach Blanket
Battle on presentation of the Riddler. I do fear though, that if it's
not in the comic book, you almost always have to end up doing it
that way. Yeah, it tends to be. It's a weird character that
s that's coming down on Batman and that you see if that they can get
around with, I think it's like a big challenge there. And I thought,
you know, it's something that that Brad and I talked about before.
It was some of the stuff like you know, you're you're finding frequencies and
tuning into different types of communication, and it's like it seems like mechanically there's
a lot of interesting stuff they're doing now that it's a bigger city with multiple
factions and that sort of stuff. I was I didn't get a chance to
ask them if by Steady actually knew they had a hit on their hands when
they finished. Well, I mean, what's what's amazing is how you know,
I don't know if you saw that they had baked in the story for
the sequel in the first game. It was hidden behind a wall. Yes,
And so I think they knew. The way they've explained is like they
knew they had something good, like you know, you never know two it
gets out there and like what the word of mouth is. But they knew
they had a structure in place. They knew the game was going to be
good, and so I can only and no one found that before the game,
Like they had to eventually pointed out, Okay, guys, we'd hid
the sequel inside the game, the Ghost of Arkham stuff. No it's no,
no, it's there's a hidden wall that you have to like blast like
three times with the goo and then when it opens up, there's an outline
of Arkham City and they outlined the whole premis sequels in there, And so
I guess last three times go. Do you want to know about video sequels,
you gotta go. That's also the walkthrough for the second game. He
just blasts everything three times with goo. It was six six times in a
sequel. I looked these guys up on a certain video game database, the
catalogs such things, and their track record is almost non existent. I mean
rock Setting. Yeah, they made they made one first person shooter on the
Xbox One that I've never heard of, and then they came out with Arkham
Asylum. What was that's what was the name of the shoot? It was
Urban Chaos. Yeah, yeah, of s I think that was a Yeah,
okay, it's not the like weird like Laura Croft. Yeah, yeah,
it was like, No, that was that's that was mucky Foot that
did that. That's maybe mucky Foot. That just sounds made up Urban Cass.
I know what desk. I was shitting at tech TV and they just
when games Spot was inside of tech TV, right, yeah. And if
that computer could player and chaos, it could not have been a very good
game. I know I was playing. So maybe it wasn't Urban Cam,
but I'm pretty sure I think it was. Okay, I don't know.
I guess they they have Tiger Blood and Adonna's DNA because these guys are showing
everybody else had to do it. I remember when Arkham Asylum was coming along,
like we hadn't seen it yet, and when we were kind of cold
on on the concept of just like yeah, all right, you're doing a
Batman game, Like there's been plenty of like bad comic book games, but
you know it's it's a license property, like it had a lot of strikes
against it, and everyone that was seeing it, like you started seeing like
the exclusive cycle come up and people are this is the most amazing game ever
based. And I was like, basically, okay, so your exclusive story
is saying that's the most amazing game ever made, but I'm still not really
certain on it. And I hadn't really seen too much of it until we
actually got to review this, which was kind of a word very quickly.
It was a preview guest that was sent out about the first quarter of the
game. Yeah, and I grabbed him like I want to try this.
I'm like, I'm high right, And it was like a really good metric
game dealt with the biggest problem with Metro, which is always like some of
you Sammy's has to lose all our weapons, was like, why can't you
keep her shit together? But in Batman, because he just kind of drove
out as arker for Social Vision, so he didn't think to bring everything with
him cause he didn't. No danger was a way to use I thought it
was. It was clever device to just kind of slowly upgrade the character throughout
the course. I think there's there's still room for the the abilities of starting
out with everything and stripping away. Darksiders kind of did that sort of thing
where you start out with with all that stuff. Was that like a good
decision really, just like you do you feel I worked out for that game
tutorial wise? Just think with everything? Yeah, I definitely think so.
It was just a big like your Horseman and the Apocalypse, you have to
you have to come in and be a badass, and then it's and it
was. It definitely played into the story. I think it was always playing
in that way, and so it's I think it worked out for the best
because you end up getting kind of in a lot of ways more powerful because
you pick up stuff, just like Metroid, you pick up stuff that you
probably wouldn't have had, and then you get you start kind of mutating the
character what they were, so you get all these crazy kind of artifacts and
such. So it definitely I think it worked out for us. I think
the mythical settings it works easier because you know the powers that they're kind of
blessed with. Yeah, like exactly, And I think in the case of
it's just like I don't belong. It's also how they justify like the expansion
of the weapons, like that's why our other m Like it was so frustrating
because it was just like random commander says, sure, you can use your
missiles. That was probably don't use your missiles, okay, because you understand
it as a game. They can see. But like when it's just like
you have to shoot something three times and so they're like, oh, by
the way, I guess, yeah, turn up, you can't go to
the heat section. Yeah, I guess turn on your heat visor. Like
why it's like why you've been giving clearance to use it? That's probably the
big like most contrived. Yeah, liked his character's name was Adam. Was
a particular insultant to me. I'm like, you know what, I'm a
horrible person, shady use the missiles? Is that what you say? I
thinks whatever she wants? Is that what you're saying. Yeah, she's don't
tell me, so it's I don't know it's coming. That's all so Dan
Central, same deal. You start out with the jazz squares and then those
those gids go all the way back door step touch, step touch, build
your way back up, you bust your hip and then you slowly try to
rebuild it. There, So I have to ask just because I mean,
you know, we're gonna go see Batman tomorrow and we'll probably see those ten
seconds. But did you guys see Mortal Kombat as well? No, it's
also in three D on the show floor, is what I was told.
Yeah, apparently are in two D, so if you don't have to assign,
you can still have to see the fighting action, yes, which is
pretty rad. Yeah, yeah, it's it's a pretty interesting execution of that.
And also it works better because they you know, the three D set
works better with a fixed perspective, so it's like it's two D so the
designers can better control your what you're doing, like you know, it's other
games I've seen where you have your you know, control of the camera.
It's tough because the designer can't control everything. Those those things. I thought
was really interesting about the dishwasher vampire smile, Like that's another like they're doing
that in three D. And that was the showcases and the same the three
D was more combat was was was fine. Yeah, I was just like
why, okay, I mean, you know why I changed the game.
I was kind of looking just like, settle me on this. You know,
I probably won't believe it, but it's like, yes, it will.
It will make your peas bigger something you just sell them to. Straight
up. You're gonna put that on the back of the box. Now,
it's gonna say, will be our people, this industry long enough there when
I think I've been told the truth, I get anxious. So no,
Adam, this is just a poor implement implementation of three D. Just accept
it. No blight to me. My Dick's gonna get bigger. That would
probably sell me on again right now. Just they've gotta give clear the last
few steps. It's actually specifically right now, it's only when you use scorpion,
but they're looking to get it. Yeah, so okay, obviously three
D hands does it. How many of you actually own a three D TV?
I think monitor you could play things in three modern three ding? Okay,
that counts. How many bought it because they wanted to get it or
just because it came with their TV. I bought it because I will,
we bought it because we wanted to get okay both. I bought it because
I felt that I should see that stuff in three D if games are gonna
do it, and I want to review stuff, right, I live with
a designer and he and he was particularly interested in being like we should just
have this around because we should experience it is right, and it has not
paid off yet, Like I'm not like playing a lot of games at three
D. Be I'm like, Wow, this is a totally different experience.
I'm so excited. We have a three D TV. I'm like, all
right, I guess I'll turn on my battery powered glasses and play this two
D side scroller that has like a really annoying depth of field all the time.
But it's like, but it's an interesting thing to add on top of
stuff. It's just it's it's it's really interesting. Is something I was talking
to to Will about last week, Will test it. Will Smith was about
how it's it's crazy that all the tech companies keep ramming three D down our
throats and no one seems to actually be legitimately excited about it, not even
the people that are implementing a Yeah exactly, it's like it's just the thing
you do. Yeah, it's just like, well this is this will be
a good bullet point. And Sony happens to be paying us in three D.
Good I I've actually got in the game. It works reasonably well,
like from a technical perspective, but I would I didn't want to play the
game that one because I was thinking, you move and three D. It's
like the first time I were I'm gonna run into my television and I try
to actually with with move and three D. Not only did I look like
a complete fucking jacket, it look like, yeah, really really confused holding
a fluorescent gildoye. What is it? The context? It just was like
the worst worst game dildo part of the best best Yeah, it's it's it's
uh, you know. All I can really say about it is that it
works. But at the same time it's functional. Yeah, it's functional,
but it made me like the laser mist player in your car. It works
work so I can watch Yeah, well so for the him and see the
original ending the fatal detraction one lit the Discover and you can watch the half
of the move. No, I upgrade. I got the one that auto.
Yeah they haven't. They haven't implemented any games that I really want to
see three D and like I want to see like a subtle three D effect,
and like Fallout or Skyroom, you know, just something that just kind
of further brings me into the world, just a little bit. Something I'm
not like sitting here, Look it's three D, you know. It's something
just really subtle that doesn't grade in my eyes, but just brings me into
the world just a little bit. Yeah, but in something that's not fast
paced, like Call Duty or Kills Nauseous. With both kills out of Call
of Duty, I felt nauseous. And also I found that, like hut
elements were really hard to make out like it because you have to kind of
focus on the core of the screen beare carefully Like so, I've never played
a game without three D and thought there's something missing, sure, or the
real least they say, oh, I need to see deeper into this.
Television ideally, developers are coming up with things that we don't know we want
yet. Well, yeah, this just seems like we're like heading shoulders,
shampoo it to find it, nail out there because it's problem. Yeah,
well that's the people aren't gonna love three D. Like three D until you
don't need glass, until you don't need glasses. It needs to it needs
to be implemented as subtle as surround sound. You don't think about it,
you don't even realize it's there, but you would notice it if it was
gone. So the three D s then, like we were just glossing on
the fact that we're talking about three D TVs. Meanwhile, there was a
press confidence this morning basically about say the three D I mean, I don't
mind it. I were excited about the processing power I'm looking at in two
D. Yeah, I'm excited about my playing seems further from the background and
pilot wings I'm gonna land. Yeah, it doesn't look very specific. Put
that on the back of the box, right, Oh, the rings further
way? It makes your penis look Adam, got that your das just point
you cannot wait for that past for three D videos coming right literally? Got
I played Scorpion and that is the worst game. The bad part is now
as soon as I get a three dys that's exactly what we're you just accepted
it. Yeah, that's sorry, Adam. You ruined my life. Think
about all those photos you can take. Yeah, that's true. I've been
sending out all these two D photos and I'm not getting a lot of callbacks.
On the two D pictures, the ones that just like it's about the
girths about then see this like a beer can where will the first Congressman get
busted? Saving like three might eat with the Dreyes finally becomes usually magical as
soon as we all get like the Matrix bullet time rigs in our houses and
just do full body rotations. And I can't always see what rock starts doing
with their BOC for this. This is the worst giant don cast I've ever
listened, I've ever done. So if we talk about I mean, dan
Central too is obviously is slipping games. So yeah, it's Strip Central.
So it's we're actually working with Gearbox on it. Sort of, it's a
it's a in between Duke Duke Nukem and the next Dance Central game. They're
sort of a middle where it's maybe an XPLA title called Strip Center. Very
exciting. Yes in the Indian channel already yes, next ye And I heard
that the dawnloadal packs like Mommy needs money or something like that. Yeah,
I mean, you know, you do what you gotta do. That's that's
what that's what the message. That's Yeah, Central Place, Yeah that cats
that cats will be making a peripheral pole that when you can put in your
house sometimes doesn't cut. It will be a grade upgraded fold like the equivalent
of the Fender guitar. Yeah, and it's not that Mad Cats does bad
stuff. There'll be a plastic PVC pole and then it'll be a metal pole.
Tell stage, I kind of get a fog machine or we're just the
rock stage. This is not cribs like we're talking about it. This is
is it going like like a wipe to clean it down? You know when
he gets a little dirty, squeechy. What are you offering for strip club
DJs? It's there's a DJ here, a peripheral link up every lessons that
technology. We should really beat this joke into the ground. Beat it.
But the whole soundtrack just Toto by Africa. That's it. Yeah, bonus
points. If the connect sees you crime three D S three D video beat
it some more. That's I think. If the Atoms is a tag on,
it's gonna be. I'm bringing it back to his dick all the time.
You sure are constantly you sure are, Uh, Brad, what did
you go and see this? We can actually talk about we haven't covered already.
I don't think anything anything, Yeah, everything, I don't. I
don't know why. I guess we would say we saw like usually we saw
Alice going up. I mean, usually you can't muzzle the press of these
things because there's such a volume of information and volume of people. That's some
European journalists is going to invariably go out there and post it immediately. Yeah,
he's gonna nobody, He's gonna get off his shuttle bus, nobody,
bargo is anything and these things. But for some reason, I don't know,
everything is next week? What is happening this week that like they don't
want to make Like if we made it was just we don't I'll hear about.
It's like the iPad two, Like what else is happening that people don't
want to? Yeah, I don't. Sometimes embargos can be nice because you
want to be able to, Yeah, you want to be able to actually
have time to write instead of just like I'm sitting in a press room,
Yeah, like banging out three sentences. They're like it has there is man
with rock look good uh stolen or mini game? You know, it's like
you're looking at your notes going I don't even know what this means anymore,
but story the next five minutes. Yeah, exactly. But if we don't
have a story the next five minutes, then obviously no one's gonna click on
it because they're clicking on someone else's. Yes, the media, do not
get me started on that will be here. So you're seeing everything and nothing
basically pretty much. Yeah, everything or nothing too was here finally, get
right. If you guys play nidhog, I've seen the name people talking about
it by name. That game is hot Shits is awesome. Yeah, holy,
I played that game. It's the IGF Booth. It's it's basically it's
a two player competitive like eight bit looking fencing game. Essentially, yeah,
no bear with things in each other. Each player is trying to run either
the far left or the far right, and you just stab at each other,
You jump at each other, you punch each other. If you lose
your sword, you can throw your sword, and it's basically if you die,
the other guy gets to run past you the next screen, and you
respawn the next screen. So basically you're both playing like the infinitely spawning enemy
to the other guy, and it just keeps going until one player manages to
run all the way to one side and then he wins and then and then
gets eat by a dragon or something. But like it, like, yeah,
exactly, it looks like that too. It's got that Katica Principersa style
fluid animation. The characters are basically like stick figure. Yeah, yeah,
yeah, it's like an eight bit start, like even preate bit kind of.
It's it's fun as a hell. It's you. You just get in
these like hard bitten battles, you know, where you get. You get
two screens ahead, and you shank the guy a couple of times, and
then he jumps over your sword and throws a sword at you and it hits
you in the face and you die and then he runs back. That sounds
really complicated from control. It's not. It's not. There's two buttons you
control. It looks much more complicated than it actually. Yeah, it happen.
So it's very contact sensitive, right. It's like if you're already jumping
and you press the button, then you throw your sword at the guy.
Like if you don't have a sword and you press the thing, you pick
up a sword if you're next to one. Like, it's it's very it's
very intuitive, really fluid. It's one of those games with very simple mechanics,
but you feel yourself just like getting better at it as you play it,
and you feel the depth like it's like just a really good fighting game
with really stripped down mechanics. Would you say that this is Peter Mullin,
Who's one button fighting done right? Yeah? This is great, like seriously,
like for being a game with so few controls, the amount of depth
and just crazy situations is amazing. Like I got in this extended battle with
my friend Jake who's over there, and like we we you can come on
it wave real cook, I do it. That's the Yeah, we we
were gone by. It's one of those games where you get in the back
and forth and if you're in a place where they're you're in an actual booth,
you know, people come gather by and people get invested in it because
you can just see you can see the like back and forth play out really
easily on the screen. That's cool, It's right. I would recommend anyone
go play it on the IGF floor. Yeah, we were. We're doing
our four times. Tomorrow we're gonna shoot there and try to talk to as
many middleware developers as we can they do the whole package. You've got some
good looking stuff now, really okay, I'm looking forward some news speed Tree
s speed Tree interview last year I thought would pretty well see an exact any
of the other IGF stuff. Not IGF, but I will. I went
to the last pie I went to today was I'm blanking on the designer.
But he's the like the one of the lead designers. A right, he
was off Montreal and he did, uh seven ways like games can better incorporate
morality, and so it's gonna be really depressing, but he so he but
it made me chuckle, which just sounds bad. Let me get to it,
let me get you, I know. So he was he was explaining
explaining game about morality, and it wasn't He was giving examples of like games
should look at this and see how ways to incorporate this. And so there
was a game called Train and Train is. It's a game where people try
to figure out how to best get trains to this destination and you're trying to
get like the most passengers in and then like get them to to somewhere else
and has them handsome, like let's go really bad if this goes where I
think it is, and you're packing on steeling the trains, and then you're
trying to get them destination and then you flip over a card and then there's
a different concentration campus and ye, and then but here's any part of the
game. I think that was their I think that's not that's not the end
game of it. The end game. You can at that point choose to
try and derail the trains, try and like you've realized that, like,
oh my god, I've been trying to pack people into trains to go to
a concentration camp. And then there are ways in the game to try and
save the day, or you can just be like I was efficient, but
that yeah, yea. Behind it was to try and like introduce situations where
like the player, you know what, you know what was it bad what
you did even though you were efficient for the gameplay concept, but then you
were tricked into doing something that is really terrible. No no, I mean
I chuckled at that because they shocked me, but I felt bad. But
that really doesn't happen much in games. Yeah, it's that idea, like
right I am, I do? I feel the game is testing me enough
that if I did something that kind of implies that my subconscious and it drove
me to it. It's right, I'm a little rattled any anytime a game
deals with you know you are actually a bad character. It's only so that
you can have the revelation of oh wait, I've been bad this whole time,
and then act for is you turning on the people that you've been working
for you Act one and two joke? Yeah you evil? Oh no,
you win time. Order of the game just says you can be good or
bad, but it's just way more fun to be gameplay wise just to be
bad, and so you're just like like infamous, like I thought it was.
It's more fun just to hit triangle and like make cars go everywhere.
So that's what you And as long as that is the signifier for badness,
and if they made it rainbows, then no one would want to be bad
exactly. I actually I can't play games Evil the first time through. I
always really yeah, I always do. I always. I told Clappic this
before. It's it's like I called the manager's fantasy. I've had it fun
to try and force yourself to do that, like if you but if you
go with the attention, like I'm going to go against my natural instinct.
And I think part of it because the game plan, like hooks aren't enough,
Like why should I go bad? Like I think it'd be interesting if
you were good, like you're you're not going to get as many things to
do, Like if there was a reason for you to go bad, if
you were good and they treat you like a big pushy and if you were
bad, you were completely ignored and alienated and you didn't get missions because like
you really lost a lot. You killed the crystal. Some some people,
some crazy people praised Fable three for doing that because if you played that game
as a tyrant, it was a lot easier to get the good like they
quote unquote good ending. Yeah, I was gonna bring that up and they
played it because you guys talked about it a lot. It's it's just kind
of crazy that, like, because games, especially like just adventure games are
always teach you like I'll just take the golden path, be nice and everything
works out in the end, except all your people die and they had a
fable and it's just like, wait, I was good. Why did I
get punished? You weren't good enough? Like that sounds awesome, Like I
haven't played it, but that sounds it was like it was surprised guy didn't
happen to wait sho than the game, and Molino was always onto something.
I think he'd was have a fummer caustic view of the world. It's very
kind of mighty Python British view and all your people died. But I mean
once again in the game didn't convey that in a way that was I think
satisfying or like, wow, I really kind of spent all my time to
screw myself, which I think it was used Suzuki. What's fantasized about You
would die in a game and the game itself wouldn't work anymore, but you
have to go back to the shop to buy it. On the one conceptually,
i'd love that idea. It's a businessman, Yeah, it'd be great
to just eracism. That's all. A pretty good talk today by Kent Hudson,
who's starting at LucasArts, and he was talking about how in one thing
you really admired about Moral Wind is that you can just straight up go and
just completely systematically just within the same game rules as govern every other interaction of
the game just kill the main quest giver who drives the entire storyline, and
the game just pops up a little dialogue box and it's like you've completely doomed
this world to keep going. And it's not game over, like nothing happens.
It's just like you're just giving you a heads up that you fucked everything
up. But hey, keep hanging out beyond guest, why do something crazy
you'll happen, I see the thin Yeah, right exactly. But you felt
like you played for six more hours and finally you get some kind of cut
seen or interactional, like, well, there was this incredibly important man.
It's probably got to say it was cut down today on the camera work,
it's running him over and over again. Is out? I think that'd be
awesome though, if they bothered to support that that right, Yeah, I
actually do all the work to make that. Yeah. Also, I think
the others and they still remember from the original Cochor because there's that first mission
in the beginning where the woman's been I think it's actually assaulted or something like
that. You can be really evil in regard to that. I like,
well, what happens to like it evil? I did it, and it
was so kind of dark out resolved. It had a moment of panics.
I'm like, oh, I'm connecting Xbox Live. What if they're reporting me?
And like that would have anxiety. I think it was so thrilling because
it was just that like, Wow, I just made this moral transgression,
and can I really do it in the safety of just this game? And
no one knows what's not covered under the Patriot Act right profile somewhere exactly that
maybe that's where you know that the games need to go finally, is get
to that point where they're actually judging us and coming back and saying like in
all these games you played, like like make that a part of your Xbox
Live. It's not your pic. You're not picking the pro zone. You're
picking the sexual predator zone, or it's getting picked for you based on how
long you're looking at certain models. We recommend the sexual predators, right people
Xbox, A lot of person within the fifteen block radis like, hey,
just you know, don't mean bites. You over to play some some play
and if you put in the game, and if you put in the game
that gal gun game, you just automatically are the sexual preder and you can't
change it back. They already unless you pay, Unless you pay five hundred
Microsoft points, change your name, clean your refusation off. Now that's a
micro transaction. I might have to get behind. You're not buying things to
make you better. You're buying things are just become acceptable. This is digital
soap. At that point, some violations won't come clean in the shower.
You gotta wait for something else. So this morning was the keynote? Uh
Storo Wada came out press conference? Yeah, I guess actually what so was
it just actually build as a press conference or was it built as a keynote?
But was really the game a press conference? Yeah? When Reggie came
out and now Netflix for three DS? Like, how does that help developers?
Right? Dot dot dot? How be bloody Netflix? Who was it?
If I catch a kid watching Chitish and Kana the goddamn three D?
Yeah, but unless you watching Citizen Kane. Well but when I when I
gave a three D version, I can't he who said on Twitter? But
Zone was like, uh, you know what I came out? I was
like, this is a machine made for gamers. Now let's talk about how
you can watch movies and that and that was kind of it, like you
know it, you know, but the thing is, you know a wat
if you read any of it is a while to ask interviews like the guy
is insightful, transparent, like likes to talk about Antenno's process, but it
just does not come across. And and I've talked about the process in the
past, like they've come out at g DC, but it seemed like all
they're talking about the process was you should just iterate forever. Yeah, you
should just take it if it works out great for us. It's just you
should just push it back. Like that's the answer from the blizzards, the
valves, like everybody who has the liberty to do that like been like it
duh, just yeah, like it takes six years later the game, you've
done everything you wanted. Maybe have you ever worked for someone they're like,
wait, don't get me done with that? When it's done work in the
business, No, that's that's when you just go to like businesses like you
know, auto repair or you know, any kind of repair anything, and
they just have a thing up in the back and that's like someone laughing,
And it's the cartoon that says you want it when like that's of all these
uh three D realms and and you know companies from that era though, and
there there aren't any. There aren't any people like that left. Like you
think after Rage it's gonna be able to pull that, I imagine, but
that's at some points and be like no, you guys, you didn't make
it. Do you get one more? You'll get one more. First,
it's the first time where they announced to release date like a way ahead of
time. Yeah. Yeah, so that's I think it was on purpose to
say like, hey, no, no, honestly, it's it's real a
we are owned by a corporation. Now, didn't they say the Rage was
gonna come out last year at some point, Yeah, but I have pushed
it, yeah, exactly. Yeah, but to give a date is big
for that like that, that's against the mantra of since since they were formed.
So one of the other announcements this morning was of course details on the
Nintendo E Shop and you know, I love the letter E. I for
one to get it. I for one super excited about the future of downloadable
properties on the Nintendo platform. Which podcast are we on? Do we just
switch or switching parallel? So does anyone think that that's actually going to be
any less of a ship show than it has been on the Weed. Given
the curation Nintendo different. I'm really excited that they're gonna give me an entertainment
channel with comedy and drama. I really want to see Nintendo's comedy shorts.
Yeah, finally they're adding three D to comedy, which has just been you
know, I can't deal with all this two D and so I'm glad it's
not funny. I'm on my funny. I'm on my laugh tracking three D
Herbie Circle. He's a fucking sphere and I need to see it and then
I will finally enjoy single Booper. So yeah, that was laugh By the
way, I've ever heard one that was a terrifying Sorry, sol is a
sexual predit, so, Jeff. The question on everyone's mind, and I'm
sure it is. When is Ninten Download Express coming in three D? Yeah?
You know we're gonna starting out. Oh yes, this is a it's
an award winning podcast. The thing where you read all the things, the
podcast where you just talk, you know, a microphone by yourself. Like
I said, I get a lot done in my bedroom. And so the
interesting thing I actually reading over the announcement, they announced virtual console support for
like game gear games, Gemographic Graphics, game Boy and game Boy Color.
Obviously that's all those game gear games you've been dying to play. Soundic spin
Ball. Yeah, here's the bad version of soffing like some really stove.
Well, no, it's not as it was meant to be. Play That
stuff is two D. But they're also they have a three D or the
three D Classics label four things that they're going to remaster in three D.
Classic games remastered in three D, like Dino Crisis. Yeah, no,
I imagine it's gonna be what did you did you see? The game was
called Dino Crisis. They couldn't smelled dinosaur. They have to re emphasize the
crisis albumic. I mean, it's a lot going. Well, they could
be friendly dinosaurs dinosaurs, you know, I don't think they're vegetarians. They
makes an easy in your face, but you know, yeah, but what
were you saying about? Yeah, well, they had that one cart like
one demonstration at E three when they have the three DS where they had like
sixteen different nes games that were converted to three D. And actually the thing
is they some of them look kind of badass because those games were all built
on like various planes, right, so for them, the definite field is
real simple strolling and yeah a scrolling like that stuff looks really It's it doesn't
apply to every game, but like one game look great, was Super punch
or not Super punch Out, a regular punch Out, like because you have
a really giant sprite and so and you have a smaller sprite like that works
really well with the look Like, huh, does it all just end up
looking like paper Mario, just all these like flats? Yeah, yeah,
yeah, but like I mean, I don't know if it would be phone
over like a long period of top of like, but like like punch Out
looks really nice in three D. I also don't think it's strange your eyes
as much because you don't have these polgonal things in these various fields that having
that one flat image. It's like, okay, I know where that is,
Like you just put field at tension forming right here. Look at It's
also I feel like I'm straining and then I don't know why because I'm like
I'm trying to find my plane through a ring. Are you playing it?
Are you playing it on the toilet or not though, because I thought,
yeah, are your pants on the craft like an iPhone game? Because I
feel like I just say it's like about the game, I'm saying, what
am I committing myself? I story on the toilet a fair amount. Yeah,
same hair. Are you trying to avoid it? Because then you feel
like you're working at your most personal moment games on the toilet. I compose
the final paragraphs of reviews in my playing the game. So the one thing
they did not announce was new software, like like like dswear in three D,
So they didn't actually come out and say, like, we're doing full
on three D swear as part of this announcement. I guess it's something they've
kind of applied in the past, so I expect it'll get it. But
yeah, the only thing that really said today was that you know, in
this late May update, it'll do that stuff plus the ability to bring all
your great dsiwaar purposes over to the three DS. Nothing great, Yeah,
everything else that's just like this machine is being rushed like so hard, Like
the fact that you have to update your store in a pack three months after
launch. Yeah, like well, hopefully store, you know, hopefully that
I'll give developers time to actually make decent downloadal games because they're like seven dsilware
games that are maybe if they actually just act as curators this time, which
they didn't do. They just they're not gonna do that. Look, this
is this is relates to online and Nintendo. They're like, I don't know,
we got this microphone, three games will work with it, and then
we're gonna come with another microphone and work with it. So my grandmothers were
comfortable with the Internet than Nintendo. Is it really phenomenal? I like that
web thing. I'm like, yeah, it's It's also kind of crazy that
the we the three DS is coming out here just a year after we even
heard about it. Yeah. Yeah, well, and and they were going
to tell us when they when they even told us that we're gonna wait till
EAT three. But I mean, like, that's that's rare for Nintendo console
to even just hear about it all of a sudden. Now we haven't.
And yet they're still shipping one last DS bundle with with Pokemon Black and Pokemon
this weekends. I got one of those. Looks very nice. Well,
they're just releasing it now because they know all the hardcore people are gonna buy
it, and then they're gonna have a big marketing push when it comes to
Christmas. Do you guys think there's gonna be a big shortage of ds of
three DS? Is? I mean, I'm trying to figure out why this
launch like that is so phenomenally weak. Yes, March twenty seventh is three
days before the fiscal year end. But I'm wondering if it were kidd at
christ and is held up, why put it out if you don't have enough
three DS is out? I think it because they can sell out day one,
week one. They can launch with no games, right and that thing
would say because people wild be like, we'll buy it, and the games
that you're talking about will sell. Whenever someone buys the three yes, that
will be a game that they buy. It doesn't really matter if they launches.
I mean I think they should just should joke put out the Nintendo thing.
That's just a piece of clay. It's like, don't worry the games,
it doesn't matter. All right, we're gonna take a quick break,
but before we go, you're we're gonna a three DS game? Right?
Uh? That was life three time? Employ No, I just just HARKing
back to when the Harmonic's logo was shown at that press conference. Yes,
that was the first time I had seen that slide as well. All right,
we're gonna take a short break and we'll be back after that. After
all break, I'm fucking take me to the shop. In twenty one twenty
five, I was on a mining calling me as just requiet back water episod.
I'm on the stars. One day was my day, my own business.
I was minding the spurs Sassa in a trust, flying off a bridge,
spurs Sassle smashing through a bridge, and as he landed off chemis hammer
smashed my buss right in the bus spurs Sassa lighting churches left and right,
spurs Sassa. Oh he does is annihilate fights. I didn't sign up for
them. I just wanted dead away, somewhere remote, just a place where
I get on my side the days pay without being smoke. But every time
I didn't say every time I think it's gone, I'm long space as comes
out of nowhere to destroy space, as auld wat and donnage to all get
join now all the rest are dead space, as all as prevailed. Only
I am after loss of space a soul sharpshoo's ashoo space asshole one. We'll
hear this in the art and we are bad. All right. It's very
excited. We got we we did some swapping around here, were swapping.
We had to we had to swap some spit behind the camera to figure out
who's gonna come in for part two? Here joined by a couple of new
guys. Go ahead and introduce selves. I'm Sean Vaneman, I'm Jake Rodkin.
We work at tell Tale Games, and we did a podcast with Chris
a little bit a Chris a little bit, a little bit, yeah,
once in a while, a couple of years. All right, well,
thanks for coming to look over here. Like we have the same people over
here, right, yeah, don't worry. Just so as we were were
as we were also lamenting, we kind of talked about a lot of what
you talk about for GDC. There's not too much more to cover. How
is your guys GDC experience as tell Tale were There a lot of adventure game
panels, a lot of poker panels, all poker a poker pans is that
one of them is that one of the GDC tracks poker poker panels is actually
a we wear a game. But then every time my GDC has been me
sitting at the office working on a video game. So you you are at
the recruiting booth today, I was if you know any good UI artists know,
that's not that's not, that's true. That's actually please no, really,
seriously, if you know what, you are going to go to tell
Tale Telltale games dot com webstay. If nobody sounds really confident about it,
there could be the website. It's tell Tale dot me. My company is
hiring like a dozen positions. Can I plug all those guys? This is
actually the number one UI podcast. We're looking for a UI guy. We're
looking for Yeah, if someone it's ladies only want to come make my st
where things get down Face for Everything's game. Irrational Games is hiring Rational Games
dot Com. They're hiring Irrational games dot Com. All websites that are arrested
games dot Com, we're hiring them. We're hiring Rational Games dot Com to
write a story for this website. So we're gonna add that in there.
We figure it could use like a good narrative, tying it all together.
Yeah, we've got all these quests and stuff. But it's just like you
just click on stuff. What's that about? I don't know. If we
had a story TI tying it together, maybe that would make more sense.
So if you've written that story, go to Rational Games dot com and someone's
got a handy for him. Also, the story needs to involve the apocalypse
needs to have happened or is currently happening, and you need to go to
New Detroit and meet up with old Man Rock, who was just an aged
version of Rocks. That's RoboCop, believe it or not. That's what the
hiring sheet says. So okay, Greg, I hear that's actually the secret
plot infinite one fund bro. Sorry, friend a friend a bro I got
someone pulled that out. I like the guy, and I was like,
this is I can't be a part of this conversation. Yeah, sounds like
actually had video games or has our ridiculous relationship with the publishers. Somebody just
transmuted itself. She was someone I know who actually works on games, who
was telling me something you should not have told me, not about the game
though he actually think you sign anything. But I said I was sorry that
I used that term everywhere. Now that he now that he's further away.
I can say it because there's no he's not gonna like punch me in the
stomach. I'm a little disappointed though, that you're breaking our friend over the
use of the term friend. I thought you had my back. That was
the long break was the explanation of the friend. Am uh? And And
how's your GDC been going? The best g DC? I missed the best
GDC? No, I don't know. I saw two panels that were both
pretty sweet, and then I played Not Enough Nidhug, which Chris already talked
about. We also played a Button Goods. That game is great. It
was like, what is it? Brutally unfair tactics something. They brought out
a dance mat for us to play, though, so instead of instead of
using the instead of using Xbox Control, we all had to just run them
and push your hands to the ground one of you. It was nice.
So the game. The game told all four of us to of the fetal
position from from six steps away and then sort of roll our way over and
then push the button. But the way of that game works is you're only
supposed to press it. I don't happening. Yes here, this is what
GDC is about when in fact, uh no, but we had all crawl
over to a button on the show floor in the fetal position, and then
it tells you to press the button eleven times or you're eliminated. So then
it became four people in the fetal position crawling all over each other to defend
the button that is yours, to keep people from pressing it a twelfth time,
which would make you lose. This is an IGF contestant. It's great.
This sounds like sounds so this this game was designed for you, guys
to overlay on top of, like the fucking people pressing the dance ship while
you're just in the background. Someone's finally found a way to make twister,
you know, interacting entertaining. I saw this game in Indicateent. I was
a judge on that, and it's so clever about it is that yes,
you're using the digital interface, but the fun of the game. Yeah not
people, but everyone has realize that once you play a game your show like,
I will follow your rules, yeah exactly, and everything you're doing you
actually have quamit of agency to not do it. But I know that if
I have fun you that we had to hold the hand of the contestant who
we thought was the sexiest, and everyone everyone stopped for a second, but
then we all held hands. We may have a choice, but not a
dance match. There was there a collective choice. Did you all this side?
No one was two mutual? It's a pair off like that. Yeah,
but it was podcast. There's someone out there for everyone. It was
me, Speth, Chris, No, it wasn't. I was in the
second round. Gentlemen. Yes, okay, this but even just the ub
shop game that they won't oh right, where it's got women like not making
out on either side, like and all the sudden we remote and jamming we
remote downfac I see I see this trailer from and I'm like, what's the
age of consent in Europe? Because it's just creaking nut. You can no
longer watch that trailer in North America because they blocked people from little Expansion to
imagine babies or is it? Oh yes, but yeah, it's it's basically
they're taking the let's tap concept of put the we remote on something and then
tap the thing that it's on, except that things and brand shoemaker is done.
This whole two halves is weird. They're game of button gone on right
here free d Those guys are sucking as ye are like two separate podcasts this
a little while we were all having separate conversations, which I'm sure, so
I was like, you guys to the right and we'll be over here on
the left. I was wondering about we Dare though the actual content on the
screen from the video not explicit in any way. Yeah, it's be rated.
Would that be rated? E? It's rated the equivalent of T.
It's like Peggy twelve. It depends for the regular community. Is because I
mean it's one to say what the on screen trumps are. If it is,
I don't think that it tells you to put that. We were about
in a who has But yeah it is. It is rated twelve, right,
and it is going to come out on the p s three as well,
so move Controllers will be a part. That's so y'all have directionality and
everything. Yeah, exactly all that stuff that comes and seen some of the
later levels and we Dare. But it's it's wed with benefits, calling it
the fun shot Jesus. So in the podcasts back from this, now that
we all get together with the whole the entirety of the game industry and all
the students that are out there at detending, GDC hoping to catch on and
get jobs and all that stuff. How do we feel that the industry is
doing. Does it feel like games are out there getting signed, everything is
going great? Like, is it is it a blood bath out there to
see more layoffs ahead for all these huge companies. Well, it's really it's
really cool to see stuff like the Indie Fund. You know, we're a
bunch of guys who got really successful making indie game, making really good indie
games, get out there and like, hey, we will give you an
amazing basically loan contract forty to one hundred and fifty thousand. Yeah, and
it's their money exactly. It's not. It's not they didn't go to an
external funding and like, hey, we're indiec I know how to talk to
a need bailers. This is their extra money, exact. One of the
questions they asked was one of the honiest members, like, could you make
it more of like a social thing, like we go down the game that
makes no, No, they're just making choices. Because Ron Carl was like,
no, this is my money, money, I don't. Yeah,
but I don't think that was it is transparent until like that, you know
that talk right now, they're not managing a fund. Yeah, has some
extra cash on the side, and we got together some other sweet people that
have cash on the side, and we want to make voices heard. But
if you want to crowd source your idea, there's Kickstarter. Yeah, there
are those all kinds of ways. Yeah, it's great right now. It's
it's pretty exciting. And they fund is is amazing. I mean I think
they said something like, if after three years you can't pay us back,
we just dissolve your dissolve your company everything. We just dissolved your actually a
bad yeah, but it's a friend dissolve. How do you get that deal?
You have to play button naked and lose what only the European released.
In that talk, one of interesting questions was a guy came up and says,
so, who would like to get the money for the Indie Fund?
And there was you know a lot of guys put their hands, like,
so, who has submitted for the Indie Fund? And then like very few
hands went up, and then the third question was who hasn't done it?
Because they were afraid of getting turned down and like up And it was because
you know, you got guys on the stage, you know, Capulary Games,
Toody Boyd, like that game company, these like the you know,
like the amazing Petigree developers. Those guys are a lot of those be the
audience were just like, I got something I want to talk about, but
I don't want to be told like it's a stupid idea. So they one
of the things they actually went back and forth though I was really interested to
trying to figure out how to make it more encouraging for developers to failures.
Okay, that's the whole reason they dissolved the debt in three years is because
if your game doesn't work out, it's okay because you'll learn something from it
and hopefully your next game is better. But it's also the intimidation factor of
like talking to your idols, and your idol telling you you're not good enough.
Well, they get them all to just put a stocking over their heads.
Videotape there's submission on like a bund of a Beta Max. Like Patty
was saying, is it I think there are games that are not perfect that
we see the Flawsney, Well, like whether recent ones. It's like Heavy
Rain, where there's so much goodmire, but you also know where it's falling
short, and that there's something so instructional about having ambitious games that don't succeed
in their intentions. It becomes very formative, especially for very young developers.
It's like failure is just part of that process of creative iteration over and over
again. I do think that we as the press sometimes if it's not you
know, if it's not there the get go, then you know, we're
just gonna abandon it and turn it back. You know, we're just over
here going if it has perks, it leads. I know that doesn't rhyme,
but that doesn't mass persistence online multiplayer and you can shoot guys in the
face and it's exclusive, right yeah for me, for you, this is
my exclusive to stay play section of Blank. But what's this scene like that
game? What's the scene like down in Austin? Feel healthy? I mean
they're down there making Star Wars. You just run into guys they're glazed over
saying like I haven't working on Star Wars, or there's a scene nice down
there. It's just all the time saying that that's true. And they don't
work for BioWare. It is kind of weird, like I know with like
DC Universe's ships and uh, you're a big fan. I remember seeing the
review and huge love that game. Yeah, so that's cool. Subscriptions so
that was that was in Austin. That was and uh, yeah, it's
kind of weird with the BioWare thing. I'm I just haven't seen much from
it, but they're just absorbing developers, like like a black hole. I
don't know. It's great because they look, all these people can come to
Austin. They can they can get jobs. They're working on, you know,
a big title. But if that thing doesn't just go gangbusters, it's
like there's gonna be this huge explosion of of people that are like, oh
I don't have a job. Now. It's like they all walk into that
building and they never come out. Yeah, oh no, they all come
out and then they'll just be like jobs. Yeah, like job zombies.
But if that would happen, I mean that that seems like it would be
a thing. It would be catastrophic for Yeah. Yeah. If if that
doesn't, you know that there could be people outside of Austen losing jobs.
I think if if that game goes, it goes totally sideways. And it's
kind of weird too, because I know there's been a ton, like like
Disney laid off and closed tons of studios, and I'm actually kind of surprised
that I've talk to some people like at the booths like that I knew that
we're running the booths and there's not there's still not a lot of developers,
like season developers on the floor. It's still like students, right, And
I'm just really surprised, like, well, where do all those people go.
It's like, I don't know, so either getting jobs, or they're
not coming to the the gdcs, or they're not coming to expensive Yeah,
Like I think it's like a couple hundred bucks to get into just the hall
to get I mean, if I was looking for a job, And like
I want to also remember the death cycle is so changed that you know,
usually this time of year there were no games coming out or at least you
know in the second court. And then there's a lot of studios there right
now are in crunch time. Twining's finished and they don't have the time to
attend to you d see that, you know, I think it was emerged
because back in the nineties, who was perfect but now it isn't. But
when you're talking about really season developers who maybe haven't let go because of the
change in you having to face you, haven't let go because of a change
in the sort of structure of their company or whatever it is, when did
you think that the more season that developer is, the less likely they are
to need to come here and have one to one to face time on the
floor GDC versus like a networking maybe meeting in a hotel lobby and having a
drink and Storger doing a quick chat and then that's sort of the networking that
they do. Or they've got a resume with so many ship games on at
this point that that kind of speaks for them and avable conclusion they'll land somewhere,
And so like coming here is not like the open door that is for
a lot of students where they're looking for that first job or that second job.
It's sort of you know, jumping off of can you have you guys
seen people getting hired out of GDC, like like promising students coming to boots.
I was talking to people, Yeah, I mean I would say that
in like ninety eight percent of the people have talked to today we're recently recent
graduates or students, and like it's great for us as a resource because you
get sort of this like young excited talent and you find the right guy and
like it's yeah, year, exact same way. It's great. But they
post at the forums. Then you bring him in and go, here's what
it's really like, kid, they go, oh fucking god, what have
I done? You know, Like I think a lot of those I think
you're probably right. Like if you're a season developer and you've shipped you know,
three or four titles and have some like some like good stuff under your
belt, the point is come to GDC. That's where your friends are,
you know. I think that's the way. Like if I was looking for
a job right now, and like that's what I would do. But it
is the floor is a lot of it is a lot of students, And
I mean it's always I tell the same the students the same thing every time,
which like showing me something awesome, entertain me for two minutes, and
like we would love to have you, like come work at our studio.
You know, that's it's it, Like I don't he demanded an actual signing.
Dance dance for me, dance bright play okay, play more button.
I got play button with that guy. I got kiss that guy. Okay,
they really want jobs. So I just saying, this guy's doing internet
real you see, really salmon strange direction. Put on this black one that's
a brand new meetings balls, so I said, put on the black seat
with the balls on it. I didn't know what he sure come on that
before. I guess, you know, that's like it seems to me that
there is there is still hope out there, you know, it's it seems
like in the year's past video to dream Jeff Gershman, Yeah, that is
the single most positive thing I've known you for fourteen years. Yeah, I've
never heard the word hope. Pass your lips. Say there's reason. There
was that time when I said, I hope Techn comes out of the Dreamcast,
and then they translated our interview into Japanese and then at some point the
river started the Techn was coming to the dream Cast. That was my hope.
And now Techn has no hope. Come on Tecon tag, Techn's gonna
fight Street Fighter. Do you have no hope that that might be interesting?
That might be again, might be the thing that might be a video game
that might actually yeah, that will that will it will be a big game
to ships. It will be set at some point to the public and they
will fight. Yes, yeah, the public. But no, it's you
know, in the years past, like you know, for as many layoffs
that there still are going on, and it seems like, you know,
just deals weren't getting signed. The indie developers out there, the smaller I
don't mean like indie like you know, the the but independent studios out there
we're looking to get work you know, art studios and you know kind of
middleware guys. It just seems like that the deals weren't happening, and it
it seems like that those deals are starting to happen again. So it's not
a problem for those guys. It's a problem for the big like activisions and
eas trying to figure out managed So the one part of like a watt Is
keynote that was good was like, look, this stuff is not manageable,
Like the costs are going up, the what you get back from it is
not worth it, or if it it's one out of five that is work
like so that it's really you know those independent studios where like they can manage
their costs like they that's not happening on the triple A scale. And you
know you've it's that you know, we all want like new ips, but
that makes no sense, Like it makes no sense to invest in new IP,
like it makes sense to just sequel Eyes because yeah, you might get
a little tired of the mechanics or whatever, but you're advertising the engine development
costs across. It's funny that we haven't on the Jeffrey Kassenberg ladder that was
so notorious in the namies in Hollywood, where he Jeffer Cassimberg of all people
say, hey, we're expecting too much money on these big bunch of things.
We need films about people and things that are real, and everyone laugh
at them. You know that's Jerry Maguire. I think it's like actually based
on and but that's exactly what's happening in the game industry. And I think
having up each other and eventually you're going to hit a brick wall and then
everyone's gonna lose. Well, but you need to think, I mean,
think about it from a developer's perspective and a publisher's perspective. The developer's perspective
is we want to have a new IP it's gonna like launch out of our
studio and make a sort of a flagship studio that's gonna kill some cool aspect
of the industry from and we're gonna bet this many people working this many hours
for this long to make that happen. From a publisher's perspective, it's like
we need something on the books where we can guess, because that's what publishing
is is guessing how many units you'll sell, where we're like, well,
we know if we if we sequalize this game, we can probably sell at
least eighty percent of what we sold at the last game, if it's not
a terrible disaster. And so you go out and you know exactly what that
like profit and loss sheet looks like before you start, versus a new IPE
where it's like, yeah, it's either gonna make us like a bajillion dollars
or like it's not gonna sell at all and we won't anymore. And for
a developer that's not making multiple games from multiple publishers, that's really scary socase
little houses need to sort of either become bigger which is hard to do when
you don't have any discompy or make sequels or work as a middleware studio or
whatever it is. I think like sequels will become like the like the IP,
like the movie IP, where it was like that's a sure thing.
Now thank god those are done. It's like they don't make money anymore.
But the like movie tie ins, it's like you don't see those as much
anymore. It's not this flood, but it is. Now sequels are well,
we can definitely cash in on this. It's that used to be like
for sure, like you do a movie tie in, all the Grandma's are
gonna buy it. It's gonna be amazing. We're gonna do big money Dark
Siders two coming soon for Grandma's everywhere. You guys were doing a complete ad
campaign like Grandma loves this game. All right, Well, I think that's
gonna just about do it. From the bar for tonight. We're gonna probably
be back tomorrow night. So if you guys want to come back, that's
cool, or we'll rope in another I have to leave you guys aren't sleep
here. And saw the dungeon room, the dungeon, the dungeon Oh yeah,
we'll sleep. No, we're taking up the pedaluma. I get a
lot of work done there. You're like, yeah, yeah, I have
killer room in there. Oh yeah, I'm sure you the killers pushing tell
you, tell us, but you focus wild. Do not get to see
the killer room tonight. That's it from here. Uh see you Internet by
Internet, goodbye video games. Don't say that. Thanks for coming to guys.