M New Year, new studio. Yeah, same nonsense. Sure here on
the Giant BombCast, like where you're going with this stuff, except that we
already did a new show in the New Year. So but yeah, okay,
yeah year, we're still in the window. Hey check it out.
Happy New Year? Hey thanks? Yeah right, wow, yeah, I
think I think it still works, right. I think you might be one
of the only people that said that to me. Okay to start this year.
If so, it hit extra hard. It's the twenty sixth of January.
I think we're still in the window where it's okay to be all January
is okay? Yeah, yeah, happy twenty What are we calling the twenty
six teens? You're way into sixteens. I understand fifteens, we've got them.
Saw some people refer to it as twenty sixteen. I'm not sure what
they're going for with that. Everyone's on heroin. Oh wow, I didn't
even think about that. I don't know they are, actually, I mean,
yeah, from what I understand, Yeah, sixty minutes. The national
epidemic of opioid abuse. Oh yeah, no, totally. Oh boy.
Brad Shoemaker. Statistically one of the four of us has a painkiller addiction.
Think, let's not play the guessing game right now, Painkiller. I mean,
how do you feel right now now that you've bought a bunch of amibos.
I'm feeling pretty good. Well yeah, all right, statistically think there
you go. Okay, God damn it. Jeff Gersman, Dan Record,
Drew Scandlin sitting by that giant, heavy looking mixer. Yeah, in this
new room. I mean, well, the mixer's okay, it's this this
giant rack, but I mean that mixer. It looks like you could brain
somebody with that thing. Yeah, it looks heavy damage. Yeah. We
are in the new podcast studio. Yeah, yeah, kicking the tire is
on it. It's not You've been diligently setting this thing up. Yeah,
it's over the week. It's not done. Yeah, but there's evidence by
how many wires are running everywhere. There's there's a bunch of cloth on the
walls now which was cruci. It's a fiberglass. Actually, was it really
got colored lights? Yeah, it's my mind. The audio baffling was the
crucial piece. Yeah, it was very sea. Once Once that was in
place, I was like, all right, well the audio quality is going
to be close to or equivalent to what we had, So let's get in
there. Yeah, this is the stuff, the same Mike's that well actually,
that we've been using for years, and but we bought new ones and
these are the ones that we used for Game of the Year. Yes,
and some of the same compressors that we used for game and yeah, we
broke these things in good, proper super seasoned them. Well, we frantically
set default settings and then twittled knobs on the fly. I think Dan has
a default one, so his EQ is not quite That's why it sounds kind
of muddy. Yeah, I'm maybe'll tweak him up here, good old Dan,
default EQ. Do you need more EQ or less EQ? You probably
you sound a litt muffled. I'm gonna say you probably need a little more
high end. Okay, I'm gonna say boost the trouble to boost the trouble.
Who is that stuff happening? I don't know. Push it talking,
push the trouble all the way. I wanna hear what it sounds like testing
testing that's clear enough? Is that kind of robody? No? No,
okay, I'm just hearing things. That's okay. Now this is getting crisp.
It's getting a little crisp. My voice is crisp. Okay, you
can hear me crisply ay test test tests human crisping sleep sound you sound bright?
Are there crisping sleeves for things other than hot pockets? I mean you
can put a crisping sleeve around anything if you want to, Okay, like
a hot dog. Yeah, I mean I don't think it would do anything,
but you could do it. Forearm, nice crispy forearm. Yeah.
But they are famous from hot pockets, right yeah? Yeah? Okay,
So what is it? Some some pot pies and stuff like that. Have
you cook it in the box because it has similar material inside the box,
like microwavable pot pies. Ever tried that that huge on pop pies? I
had one last night. The crazy thing is you have to put it in
the microwave for nine and a half minutes, which I feel like if you're
putting something in the microwave for over three minutes, you fucked us. If
you get a family sized to furs macaroni and cheese, that's upwards of like
nine or ten, it was frozen again, I think that's I think sucking
up. It had to be frozen. Definitely, definitely definitely. That's still
that just sounds like it's gonna come out of their glowing or something. No,
it came out of their fine actually you know, I mean it came
out of there like you know a decent microwave meal, uh, which you
know better than average microwave meal. What is the interior? Like I know
the veggies and stuff, but what is is it gravy? What is the
liquid? It's different ones. You can get a beef pot pie, you
get a chicken pot pop, but the traditionally it's like a cream of chicken.
Let's say, yeah, all right, the one I had last night
had like a cream of like a corn chowder thing going on. I'd say
it's mostly chicken stock and cream of stuff. And the crust came out,
you know, like flaky and the way that like a crust or bread.
It usually doesn't send a microwave. That's the danger with microwaves. And that's
where you get the like like pizza rolls your microwave and they get all saggy.
WHOA, what happened to my voice there? Yeah? And you put
them in the oven though, that's the one thing where I get fancy and
I put them in the oven because pizza rolls in the oven are a million
times better. Totally, You're totally right. I mean they're great either way.
I can't I cannot think of a single food item that is better out
of the microwave than out of an oven. I mean, like nothing,
Stofer's macaroni. Nothing. But it's like, yeah, microwaves is where it's
it's you know, I think that there's probably some cases where they could be
equal. I don't know about that. I don't know about that. I'm
learning the microwave is about convenience. I wouldn't say it's about food quality.
I'm learning that pizza leftover, like delivery pizza, is so much better if
it's in the oven. Yep, yep. Understand a little more patience.
I know. I know people that swear by the frying pan method of heating
up pizza, but I can't do it every time I try it. Yeah,
the bottom of slap. Just throw a cold pizza in a frying pan
and let it go that way. It's weird. I don't know, the
bottom of the crust always ends up black when I do that. My threshold
for a reheated pizza is is pretty low, Like as long as it's just
warm or even like I love it just straight out of the fridge. Yeah,
straight out of the fridge, totally. Yeah. When I was heavy
into my pizza eating days, uh, and you know, the Dominoes would
have cases where they'd be like, hey, why don't you get two pizzas
because then they're the cheapest, and then you pay six dollars a pizza.
I'm like, well, okay, if I'm making these people drive all the
way over here with a pizza, they might as well bring two. Yeah,
and then that'd be great because then you could, yeah, you could
sit down and eat one and then have a whole pizza in the fridge,
uh, to go, you know for the next day, next couple of
days. Cold pizza. Yeah, fresh cold pizza. How you feeling.
I think I think he's all right for now. Yeah. Yeah, you
were down in the innerds of that thing. Yeah, for a little bit
there. I don't know. It's tough when like I don't have like a
script for you to just read right right. I mean I can pull something
up on my phone. Yeah, it's we're a podcasts okay, repeat after
me, loreum ip. Some how about we drew watch the Royal Rumble.
Yeah I did. I know we can't actually talk about that. You know,
we've gotten own venue to talk about that. Set that whole shit out
of here. Also, I know that people expect they're federally mandated minimum fifteen
minutes of nonsense on this podcast. Yeah, but we have to talk about
the Witness. Yeah, that's got to talk about it. That is all
I want to talk about. Is I feel like like I can't actually have
the Okay, there are conversations I want to have about the Witness that I
don't want to have about the Witness yet because I'm still playing stuff you don't
want to know. Yeah, there's there's stuff. There are mysteries about that
game that I know that you solved because I can see your trophies areas that
you have completed that I'm just like, fucking god, damn son of a
bit. Can you at least tell me which area is hanging you up the
most? Just say the name of it right now. It is the bunker,
Oh yeah, which is where the color puzzles. Oh wow, oh
wow? Yeah that would suck for you. So yeah, so there and
then there's a there are elements of the bunker that exist in town also.
Yeah, so the village is the very central area. Should we just walk
back and talk about the Witness from the top level. Yeah, I've finished
the Witness. I've almost done a lot of the it's weird the structure.
I've gotten to the ability to where I could finish the way really, Yes,
you've done enough of the things. I've done enough of the things where
I could do it, Okay, So yeah, so that's what I did.
The structure is, you know, it becomes office is very quickly.
Like you know, the game is broken up in areas. You have to
do x number of those areas and then you can go to the end of
the game. Right, So I did that, But there's a lot so
that basically the meaning is that there there's a lot of optional stuff in that.
Well yeah, but there are actually layers of it. I mean,
it's you know, it's a lot like Braid was or like Fez was,
where there's optional stuff that could feed into the end of the game. Yes,
or you know, Okay, so you you learned that. Okay,
So they're they're ex puzzle games and there's you aren't an island go all the
way back? You are you are the witness, You are the You are
a person on an island. It is mysterious there has appeared to be no
other humans on the island. Yeah, mysterious, you know, I'm yes.
People people are rightfully super touchy about not hearing a lot of details about
this game, because discovering this game is is what the value of this game
is. But a person on an island, I think anything Jonathan Blow has
willingly said in interviews is totally fair game. Okay, this game is a
modern day Mist. Like he straight up said that. I found an old
interview yesterday where he basically, like flat out says that he set out to
make a better modern day Miss. I think he accomplished. It absolutely has
that feel. Did not like Miss Yeah at the time, and I've tried
to return to it kind of, you know, a little older, a
little wiser, and I you know, I can respect it, yeah for
what it did back then now in a way that I couldn't then. But
I still don't think it's I just still don't enjoy it, but but I
will. You're right, like, this game takes the things that are good
about and remain good about Miss to this day and builds a much much better
game around. I really really really like The Witness. It's fucking awesome.
It's yea a fantastic game. It is really great. Yeah, absolutely,
And it's just so it's a it's a great looking island that you just kind
of start on and and there are puzzles, like literally like I have instruction,
not only there's no there's no explicit instruction. I haven't I haven't even
I haven't seen it on the PC. But my understanding is it's the same
on both platforms. I've played it on PS four, But you literally launched
the game and are in the game like there's no title screen, no anything.
You are literally standing in the game bodily and can start walking. When
you fire up the game again. It just kind of loads your just went
back on do that too, Like, didn't he have to get around some
like Microsoft TCRs to think he didn't get around it. Yeah, I think
there is a press start moment in Brain and specifically because World too. Yeah,
yeah, specifically because you have to make sure that the right accounts are
signed in and some of the other stuff that they that they assumed every game
would want to do on the On the three sixty yeah. Still it's a
heck of an open. Yes, yeah, yeah it is. It's cold
open, the coldest and and so you are said off into this world and
there are you are You quickly encounter puzzles, puzzle panels. They have panels
in the world. It's not like Tallis principle where you're kind of like positioning,
like picking things up and moving them around and that sort of thing.
You are walking up to a panel and there's a solution to that puzzle.
You might not know what that solution is. You might not even have the
information you need to know what the panel is trying to tell you about how
to solve that puzzle. Now, okay, I'm not starting it until tonight.
But every screenshot I've seen the puzzles and even looking at you guys play
the game, yeah, it looks like, you know, just a big
piece of checks mix or something and then you're just moving it. Always no
royal rubble talk, come on, Okay sorry. Does it branch out beyond
those kind of grid based puzzles, Well, it's in terms of your interface
with the game, like what you mean, like what you are outside of
walking around, like your interaction, like what you are directly manipulating that in
that game is drawing lines through mazes and walking around right, well yeah I'm
walking between those puzzles, okay. But like something that I was sort of
concerned when, like like pre release was all those puzzles. Like I was
like, why does the island even exist if you're just like once you just
like page through? Yeah, exactly, why doesn't CBS for six bucks?
The island exists for a reason. Yeah, and it's it is to help
you comprehend those puzzles. Yeah, there's one of the many reasons it exists,
right, I mean there, yeah, there's a there's a two way
interplay between the puzzles and the environments that they exist in. You know,
Like I tried to make that point in the review because a lot of people
pre release, we're looking at this thing just going like why didn't you just
make a puzzle game? You know, like this could have been a five
dollars iPad game where you're just like, you know, likest more fun puzzle,
right, like just play through one puzzle after it. But it's absolutely
not that, like the game would not work like that is not the game.
It's it's very much there's almost like a kind of action like action adventure
Metroid Vanya kind of aspect to it, where the game shows you something pretty
early on, yeah, or you can show you many things along the way
that you just you do not possess the information needed to solve that puzzle,
and you're brain yes, because there are there are things on the display that
you're like, I don't you know there's a fucking two triangles and the picture
of a clown face and you know it's like this, I don't know,
there's a butt or something. You know, there's there's like there's stuff in
there that will determine the rules of how you are to solve that puzzle.
And if you do not have that information because you've not been to the area
that explains those pieces very plain like relatively plainly, or that you have not
understood that information as it has tried to teach it to you, you'll look
at that and go like, this is a bunch of garbage. Are you
finding hints in the environment where like you you go to a place on the
island and like, oh, the trees are arranged in this way, and
because I'm looking at this and the environment will matter in some cases, Yeah,
and but it's really more that you will One of the first things you
encounter kind of after solving the first few puzzles in the game is just a
row of puzzles in a row that are variations on it. The game is
very much about variations on a theme, about like, here's one puzzle that
you would have to be you will easily solve this panel because there's only one
way to do it, but you know it'll have some of the some information
on it. You go like, okay, well this this registers as a
successful completion of this puzzle and has this item on it. I don't really
know what this item is. Okay, here it is again. I think
this item might mean this. And so you're kind of poking at and testing
these hypotheses about well, okay, what does this what is the particular puzzle?
And so by the end of that series of you know, it might
be five, it might be eight or whatever, you are supposed to kind
of come away with that with some understanding about what that does to the rules,
with no set linear like do this and then do this. It's just
your learning things. You are you're not You're not getting items. It's not
metro Advania and you get the wave Beam and then you go to this you
started a new game of The Witness. Having completed The Witness, you would
be able to solve every Punel puzzle panel on your first attempt because you would
know exactly what everything meant, skip all the tutorial puzzles, and just like
plow through the like you've seen Jonathan blow out there saying he was like speed
running the game as a test and like four hours or whatever, because it
will be skipping like eighty percent of the puzzles and just going to the ones
you have to do to progress because because you know how to do those already.
And first time you were saying it text dozens of hours, right,
absolutely, I'm to put it over twenty into it, and I'm just at
the point where I could finish the game. I probably, I probably.
I wish it had an end game clock, I really do, but I
would bet I was somewhere between thirty and forty hours when I saw the ending.
As such, I probably played six to eight. Yeah. Yeah,
it's so good. It's it's really good. It's hard to We actually so
need to have like a separate podcast to talk about it for people. But
I feel like that's you know, like I feel like that explains, you
know, what the witness is. It is. It is that hunt for
information so that you know how to solve these other puzzles. And then there's
kind of the larger thing about like okay, also there's this island what the
fuck is going on? And that's I don't you know, there's some interesting
stuff there. I don't know if it wraps up well or not, but
it is intriguing along the way. Yes, yeah, and you want to
see more of it. Yes, there were things in that game. There
was a thing that I like, on Sunday playing the game, a thing
that happened that I was just fucking blown away. I want to know what
it is. Not to say that it is like some like a maze.
It's not like, oh, no game has done, but like the way
that this thing was presented, the way that it happened, Like I just
I looked up from the puzzle panel and saw what was happening. I was
like, what the what the fuck is going on in this game? What
is this game? It? Yeah, it's like it's like that it just
repeatedly finds new things to do with that basic format of the you know,
panel based line puzzle, the maze stuff, like the the way you solve
them changes frequently. The things that they can do for you when you solve
them changes frequently. Like yeah, like there's so many, Like there's so
many different examples I could just rattle off. Some puzzles may have different solutions
that will then affect the world in a different way. Uh, you know,
there's there's just there's a lot going on in The Witness and and I
I think it is incredibly well done, Like a lot of people have been
trying to compare to the Talis principle, and I see. I mean obviously
like that's similar kind of like hey, first person puzzle game and a big
environment and stuff like that, but this, you know, you're not you're
not picking up objects and water moving around Talis principle. Like I actually think
this is a much more realized take on that kind of combination of adventure and
and puzzle Talas principle is. And I've only played maybe five hours of that
game or something, but what I saw of it was a much more regimented
video game style way to present that stuff. Because you were moving from discreet
room to discreet. It was like Portal, like much more like yes,
exactly that it was very much formatted like Portal. I will say the writing
in the Talis principal spoke to me a lot more than what they do in
this game, like the there's not a lot of storytelling in the Witness like
it is much more about like sense of place and just getting immersed in this
like very strange environment. There's some potential and I have to say potential because
I you know, I don't know where it goes, but you know,
there's there's the potential for some like very strong environmental storytelling that game like things
that you can look at and kind of infer like Okay, maybe this is
what happened, or maybe this is what's really going on, But a lot
of it is so loosely or vaguely presented. Yes, it's it's very open
to and I wonder, you know, I wonder you know, if you
think about Braid and the trajectory that that took in terms of like people finishing
it and getting like some kind of revelation, and then by the way,
if you did this other thing, there's this whole other revelatory thing there,
Like I start to wonder, like, you know, if if this game
has something like that, if this game will have a thing that like someone
you know will somewhat eventually right their big long thing tying it all together.
Go, No, here's what the witnesses. That is very possible. So
so that's what I was gonna say about the amount of stuff and like the
layers of stuff they're in this game, because okay, so there, you
know, there are eleven areas in the game, like he's he came out
and said that before release, you have to finish a subset of those to
go to the last area and quote unquote finish the game. Yeah, but
you can still go back and do the other areas that you didn't finish to
open that stuff upright. But on top of those eleven areas, there is
so much other stuff that I still can't tell you the nature of because I
have no idea what it is myself. Yeah, Like I can think of
four or five different passage ways down into an underground area that I saw that
I have no idea how to open whatsoever. There are entire types of puzzles
that you see scattered around the world that have nothing to do with that core
progression. Yeah, I have no idea how to solve those what they do
when you solve them? Huh, there's that other thing. Yeah, there's
that that thing thing with the windmill, that there's stuff like there's so much.
Yeah, so you're right, like maybe once you do all that stuff,
like there may be some ultimate truth that you're going to encounter or like
who knows, who knows what that stuck is gonna lead. It's like it's
very fez Like in that way, right, Like there's just so many things
being dangled in front of you that you don't know how to do. The
thing I would say that is most like Fez. I don't think this is
a Fezli game per se. You know, it's it's a pretty different thing.
But the thing I'll say that is comparable to Fez is that that thing
of the answers are have been right in front of you that entire time.
That's what I mean, Like, like there is more and there is a
way for you to get to it. You just don't quite know how yet,
and it is, you know, expertly like the way it it try
It introduces new concepts to you, provided you find the right areas and all
those stars story stuff I think is really really well done. And I think
that's that makes it tantalizing. Yeah, it's not obnoxious, Yeah, no,
I it's not like teasing you. It's more like like, well,
I'll be here when you figure me out, right, Yeah, exactly like
there, yes, absolutely, And it's that feeling of just like, well,
I'm not sure if I have all the knowledge I need to solve this
thing. I think I know what I'm doing right, Like I have gotten
to like a string of five puzzles in a row, and I have been
solving you know, one, two, three, figuring I know exactly what's
going on, and they get to the last one and then apparently what I
thought was right is not right at all, and then I have to leave.
Well I choose to leave and come back later. Yeah, yeah,
I've I totally had that experience. I've I've had to go back and look
at those tutorials again, like hours after I did them, and likes stare
at them and go like, Okay, something I didn't grasp part of this
concept the first time. What is wrong with me? Yeah, I'm missing
something in the in the rules here. And there's definitely been cases like it's
it's definitely the sort of game where if you get stuck in a certain mindset
while staring at a puzzle, you kind of have to walk away. It
is that that is absolutely ruinous because I can tell you like three different puzzles
that I got on stuck on for days at a time. Yeah, that
when I finally solved them, Ay, they were the solution was super obvious,
but b I was constructing more rules in my head about what I thought
I had to do to solve them than actually existed in the game. It's
like that was way simpler to execute than I thought it was going to be.
Yeah, I was trying to meet all these extra criteria that I thought,
like, you try to get into Jonathan Blow's head because he's already in
your head, if that makes sense, you know what I mean. Sure,
it's like, okay, well, clearly he did this and this because
he wants me to think of this, right, But then that's not actually
the case, right? Or is there is there? Is there? Is
it subverting this right? Is it going against this deliberately to teach me that
there's more to it than just this other stuff? And I'm sure it's maddening
to hear about these things in such vague terms, but it actually makes me
want to play it way more. Yeah, but it's already excited. It's
very it's very very good. It's it's the type of game where when you
do solve those things, you you know, it's a game that's really good
at making. Like there are multiple times where I was just like I would
solve something to go, man, I'm fucking so goddamn smart because it's awesome.
Yeah yeah, you get that feeling yeah, but then but then also
so yeah, the opposite you feel like a yeah yeah. And it was
one of those strings of five puzzles where I have solved four of them and
then I couldn't solve the fifth. Walked away, came back a day later
after having slept like you know, woke up. That was the first thing
I did, was like, all, I'm gonna go do this thing thirty
second ye so yeah, you'll just see it. That happened to me this
very morning. This very morning, I was doing working on one of the
areas that I hadn't finished yet, and like one of the last puzzles in
that area, I just walked up to it. It was just done and
I was like, how did I not see that? Like, what the
fuck was wrong with me? Yeah? Uh, it's and I think it.
It looks very nice. I think the island is incredible. It's got
a really organic look to the way the environments are built. One of the
I noticed a lot of reviews mentioned this, and I noticed this off and
on, but it didn't bother me, I guess as much as some other
reviewers. Was like, it's got kind of a problem with sort of like
tension and release or with kind of like rise and fall in the action.
And as it were, the puzzle solving, you're the one picking what puzzles
you'd do. Yeah, but but there was like there was definitely a point
early on when I was doing some stuff and like I've gotten stuck on something
and I finished it, and it was very much this feeling of like like,
hey, congratulations on solving that puzzle. Here's some puzzles you know.
Yeah, Like all you ever do when you solve a puzzle is open up
the ability to solve more puzzles, and that can be kind of fatiguing.
Sometimes there are moments where things happen in the world as a result of your
actions. I think are nice, right, but ultimately, you know,
you're not generally gonna get like, all right, well, here's some expository
dialogue, or here is a turret shooting sequence, or it's like here's nothing,
here's five more puzzles. Nothing ever happens, but harder things, harder
versions of the thing you already do. Congratulations, you open to this gate
and now you have a short cut to get back here if you want to
lea stuff. Sure, occasionally you'll get some stuff like that, but yeah,
but yeah, there's definitely the Yeah, it can. It can kind
of wear you out in a way. And like I you know, I
had to kind of temper my feelings on that with the fact that I was
like trying to play through it quickly to review it. You know, I'm
trying to play through it quickly out of a whipped off right. Yeah,
I know what you mean. I absolutely felt that too, and and just
and also like I feel like the longer if I were to stay away from
it and take it slower, some of the knowledge might slip away. I
could see that. Yeah, yeah, I'm afraid of that. Like there's
there's you have to step away to kind of like recharge and kind of reset.
But you know, if I went a week without playing it, I'd
probably get back in and be like wait what yeah, wait what am I
Feel like the concepts would come back pretty quickly. Yeah. Again, Yeah,
you have to kind of look back at some some puzzles you'd already solved
and you're like, okay, what was going on here? Which I did
that. So there was one area that I went to solve a bunch of
stuff and then got got to an impass and I was like all right,
fuck this place right, and then went and did like a dozen hours of
other things. And then when I came back to that area, like I
was even less equipped to handle the puzzle that I was on. So placed
what what area was? That was the tree fort stuff? The treehouses?
Yeah yeah, So like I came back in there and it was like,
okay, all right, I'm gonna okay, I want to go very back
to the very beginning of these puzzles, because you can look at the puzzles
after you've solved them and see what you did to solve them, and you
can you pull them up in like a menu or not physically. And in
fact, there were there were multiple cases where I used the screenshot function on
the PS four because you can load that up in the photo viewer and then
kind of double home button your way back and forth because you have to refer
to Like, there are way too many things in this game to keep in
your head. I hadn't considered using the built in screen shot. It's also
I have like twenty pictures on my phone, sure, and so in some
cases actually that was beneficial because I had to do things to those pictures.
Yeah, I do like turn them upside down, Like I fucking used photoshop
to solve a puzzle out, so that might be good. I'm going to
play it on Steam, so I can just do the you can all tape
and then rotate picture. Yeah that sounds good. However you do it is
fine, but they're absolutely yes, I brought it in. I'll show you
what I've been drawing, dude, fucking terribly. I took a it's an
area that you already I think you already solved, but it's the bunker stuff.
Yes, So I want to just show you to this and go.
Because so we should talk about the bunker later. Because the second to last
puzzle in the Bunker is one that I got hung up on for like four
days. Okay, But but once I realized what I was doing wrong,
it was because I was applying a whole layer of rules to it that didn't
exist, you know, like it's it's possible to the misdirection is like profound
in some cases. So one of my favorite things about FEZ was that by
the end I felt like a crazy person, and I had like a spiral
notebook which is like scrawled like you know, shapes and all this stuff and
all the arrows. Is it like similar, it's You're not You're not gonna
build a You're not gonna build a codex in the way that like Fez had
an entire alphabet that you had to decipher, like there's nothing, there's nothing
like that. But it'll be more like you, yes, you will absolutely
need a notebook, but it'll be like a bunch of individual puzzles that you
sketched out and like things on and stuff like that. But by the end
of the final area, which is fucking brutal, Like I played through that
entire thing in one sitting and I wanted to die at the end of it.
It was the day before the reviews could run. But uh, at
the end of that area, I had not only notebook pages full of scribbles
and shit, but my girlfriend had cut out squares of construction paper that we
were like moving around the coffee table and different configuring, like like the visual
age that you need to Yes, you could literally use like yarn on on
a corpoard or something like that for a lot of this stuff like it.
It's it's just it's way too much to keep it all in your head at
one time. In some cases, there's fucking there's something that happens in the
final area that they asked you to do that as you as the realization dawns
on you of what it is that they want you to do, you want
to throw the console at the window or like turn it off. Like I
could tell you one sentence right now, and you just be like, fuck
you, No, I don't I'm not going to. Yeah, but it's
amazing, And that's that's the problem. Like I you know, I kind
of wanted to try to finish the game before it came out, right,
Uh, well, you know, you can just avoid forums for the next
couple of days or yeah, But but it's not it's not about it's not
about that it's about my will to stay away from it. Yeah, okay,
sure sure, and and and my my will to not seek that stuff
out because you know a series of screenshots is that you know of puzzle solutions?
Is is what this strategy guide looks like? Right, Yeah, there's
you know what they said, Like it's like just around six hundred puzzles and
all its so and I've I've finished nine of the eleven areas and I'm still
under four hundred puzzles solved, So there are hundreds of puzzles left for me
to do. I feel nished the game and almost finished all. Feel like
I'm coming up on four hundred puzzles solved. Yeah, I don't know.
You may have done some other stuff and I don't we should We should discuss
that later. Yeah, I flow my game and show you. I feel
like I should be at a higher number having like i've and this is with
the final area solved, like all the two of the regular area solved,
Like what could there be two hundred and fifty puzzles left in? I literally
don't know where the doors That's the thing. Like several of those locked passageways
clearly go like spiral down under the island, and it's like, yeah,
is there some giant subterranean complex that exists under this thing? I have no
idea, all right, I have a question. Yes. Sometimes I'll be
solving a puzzle in a series of puzzles and the next puzzle is locked like
behind a little you know, metal door or whatever, and by solving the
one before it, it opens. Yeah. Then I try the new one
and if I fail, it locks it down. That drove me nuts,
Like you have to go back and resolve the one before that? Is that
what you have to do? Yeah? If it really? Yeah? Yeah,
so what why I I was alive with you. I found that to
be just a baffling decision at first, But it's there to prevent you from
brute forcing the puzzles. That seems to be the consensus, okay, is
that those are those are puzzles that only have such a small number of possible
solutions are possible even like attempts you could make that you could just sit there
and do them all and come to the answer pretty quicken. You like,
I don't want to force a puzzle, right because that then I've learned nothing,
and then it's just harder to do all the other puzzles. Actually,
Justin McElroy made the point in his review that and this was about like going
to look at a guide or something that like every puzzle that you just go
look up the solution for is going to make the rest of the game harder
because you then failed to integrate the lessons of that puzzle you cheated on,
which and in the entire game is just a process of cumulatively learning all the
lessons of the island because you have to apply them all later. It's crazy,
but like deep into like almost halfway through the final area, I had
to leave and go back to one of the earlier areas that I had skipped
because I thought it was too hard and force my way through it because I
didn't understand the concepts of that area, so I couldn't move on in the
final area, like you have to You just have to go learn Sometimes sometimes
you have to go get the mental grappling hook, yeah, and its ice
beam to get you through that stuff. And sometimes you do dumb shit,
like there was one panel that I was looking at that hadn't lit up,
and I'm like, this panel is crucial to something. This panel is obviously,
like I traced it. It's k bolt to something. It's like,
okay, I need to solve this panel in order to complete this area,
but it's not lit up. What the fuck is going on? And then
I actually traced the cable coming out of the other way and realize like,
oh I just missed a panel right next to it, right like fuck.
Yes, you will definitely slap your forehead on frequent occasions. Yeah. Yeah,
that was like four hours blown. Yeah, like wandering around going like
okay, wait, is it just this cable goes into the ground. Does
it just come out somewhere else? It's what area? Was that in Shady
Trees? Okay? Yeah, yeah, I could see that. Uh.
It's been fun watching like watching other people's trophies unlock or talking to them about
their path through the game, because everybody takes a different path, like everybody
seems to do the areas in different orders. Yeah, like you would,
you would. I think you would finish the game and I had solved an
area that you had, Yeah, you did. It was rock Quarry,
which you I initially thought was at first, I thought it was one of
the hardest areas in the game because I wasn't getting the trick or the concept
from that area. So as I did, not only did I get through
most of it pretty quickly, I also thought that it was like the coolest
concept it is all puzzles in the entire game. Yes, yep, it's
one of the ones where it's the it's the fifth one I can't solve in
that first set in uh yeah, in the in the quarry, in the
building of the quarry. Okay, okay, yeah. Once I once I
heed into that concept, I just flew through those puzzles because I was like,
this is fucking awesome, mind, I can't stop do it. Yeah,
And that's what it was for me, And to get to that point,
I literally went back to those puzzles and tried every combination I could think
of and literally verbalized what was happening. I was like, okay, well,
when I go this way, that flash is what could that mean?
You've almost got to do it wrong? Like absolutely wrong. Absolutely, it
is absolutely a process of elimination. Yeah, and and trying to like integrate
whatever feedback it's giving you on what you're doing wrong and try to put it
together that way just to aggravating truly wonderful game. Yeah, it really is
absolutely, but you know, they're obviously going to be some people that just
don't want to solve puzzles in a game. Yeah, I mean, it's
like it's tough to bang your head against stuff, like, it doesn't it
doesn't always feel good. But like for me, that is alleviated a little
bit by being able to just leave and go to there's so much much stuff
you can so much for any point, just go elsewhere. I was playing
last night and then this is you know again, this is probably twenty hours
in or something like that, and then suddenly there was one puzzle I had
encountered somewhere else that I was just like, I've never seen anything like this
before. I don't even know what this is. And then last night I
stumbled into the area that was that area. It was just like, holy
shit, there's this whole area that like, I've been playing this game for
twenty hours and hadn't even fucking seen this. Was it? Buy any chance?
The Bamboo area? Yep? I found that super late. Yeah,
like the like and then I like I immediately figured out what it was and
like blew through so awesome and they're so awesome. I felt so fucking great
about myself because somebody else I had talked to it was reviewing it, but
how could not get through that area? Really? And when I got to
it and like heat into the trick floor, and I was just like,
oh man, I'm the best. Yeah that was. Yeah, that was.
I maybe solved that entire area in under an hour. Yeah, finished,
probably took about half an hour for me. But but the concept in
that area is really good, exists somewhere else. I found it last night.
Huh, what the fuck? No, I I that so that I
found that first? Oh, yeah, you're right. Okay, so I
did too, but I didn't. It was just like, okay, I
don't know what this is. What is this? I can't say where it
is it's and anyway. But when I got there the first time, I
didn't even I didn't even know enough to recognize what the what it was asking
me to do. I took one look at it. I was just like,
fuck you. It was a puzzle. I thought it was like a
control for something, because there you will encounter some panels that are like you
know that, like hey this you do this and it opens a door and
that stuff where it's just like it's a straight line and he's like, hey,
do that, and you'll open this door leading from the panel to or
something, and and and so I thought it was going to be something like
that that was less like a puzzle and more like a part of a larger
puzzle. Control that was part of a larger puzzle or something. But yeah,
yeah, there's such a there's such a great attention to detail in like
the visual language of the game. Because I'm you've probably noticed this at this
point, but uh, you know, there's there's some number. There's not
a ton, but there's some number of puzzles that will manipulate machinery in the
environment when you solve them. And all of those puzzles are on like old
ass looking bubbly like CRTs instead of the like really clean LCD panels all over
the island, like anything that can manipulate a machine, And it's in this
like big looking industrial metal green podium like it's out of like a seventies power
plant or something. Like all the machinery controls look like machinery controls. It's
awesome. It's a really it's there's it's really great. It's it's a really
great game. Yeah, it really is. I'm like, I've played probably
close to fifty hours of it in the last nine days, and I want
to go home right now and keep playing. That is yeah, I'm I'm
I have not put that many hours into it, but I'm like looking at
it going like this might end up being my first Platinum trophy. Although so
no, I don't don't, I don't hear, I don't know. I
don't know, I don't know. I've someone has it as a release.
Yeah, I saw on P four as of yesterday, right up until release
the platinum and one of the trophies in that game was zero Percent trophy.
And then somebody has it now. Yeah. I went to somebody at Sony.
Hmm. I didn't ask of what it was, but I said,
do you know what it is? Because so there there's only on Steam there's
like two achievements, like it is not a like, yeah, it's weird,
but on I guess on you know, PlayStation, you have to have
some minimum number or something. So there's a trophy for finishing every one of
the eleven areas. There's one for finishing the game, and then there's a
mysterious yeah what is that thirteenth trophy? Yeah, this person at Sony knew
what you had, like knew what the description of it was. Because it's
hidden. You could have to go to any trophy website and see you've seen
an image. Have you read it? Yes? Oh wow, So I
have no idea what even the description is like. But even this person who
knew way before release what the nature of the trophy was, had no fucking
idea how to finish it. And this person had played through a build of
the game like in October. Like, the point is, there are some
very deeply hidden and buried secrets in this thing. It may take some time
to figure out. Yeah, I'll be interested to see what people think of
the It's gonna say narrative, but that's not really the right word. But
you know, just just just kind of you know, what what there is?
What is there about the nature of the island? I want to I
wonder if if that gets pieced together in a meaningful way or in a direct
way. There's plenty of it, or if it's more interpretive, there's plenty
of information to work with. I'll say that, Yeah, there's definitely a
plenty of clues exist that you could interpret and assemble in some way. Yeah,
but it's not over. Well. The last thing I'll say is,
uh, even though it sounds like there's a staggering amount of stuff in here
and puzzles and things to unlock, and it like a lot of it seems
impossible, I love the fact that each puzzle is real tiny, and that
you feel like you're just slowly chipping away, and that there's always something for
you to do and you never really feel uh stuck. Yeah, I mean
you're stuck on a certain area, but like you can always do something else.
Like it's I think puzzle games like can very easily lose their luster when
it just feels like a chore to play. And here, like if if
you're stuck on a puzzle, you can go wander around the beautiful island,
find another one, and just plug away. Yeah. I mean you can
see in the quick very comforting. It takes five minutes to get through that
little tutorial courtyard and from that point you can literally go anywhere in the game,
yeah, at any time. Like it was a brilliant decision to open
it up that that much, Yeah, and give you that freedom to to
explore and poke it things. The thing I like doing is looking at the
number of puzzles completed. Yeah, which you can, you can, it's
the save files numbered. I wish I wish the game had a little bit
better stat tracking, Like you're right, you can't see how many puzzles you've
solved and how many the collectibles you've found, which the collectibles are are amazing.
Yeah, I won't say any more than that, but yeah, so
that that's been like every session has felt meaningful. But also I can go
in there and look at that number and go like, man, I solved
sixty fucking puzzles today. Yeah, that's crazy and didn't feel like sixty great.
I like that can add up really fast when you're doing like the tutorial
ones, you know, and like some of the puzzles take five or some
seconds. Still the number gets highed. That's what I'm saying. It definitely
adds up, Yes, for sure. Ah, man, I hope,
I hope this conversation hasn't been like frustratingly abstract for people to listen to.
As someone who's looking forward to the game, it really is just making me
more excited. But the conversation spoiled it all. Yeah, And the conversation
I really want to have is when all of us have finished the game and
we'd just sit down and talk about all these like specific cool stuff. I'm
gonna need to talk to you about some of the stuff that I've found already
that you finished, or that you that you can't finished, that I have
finished. We already talked about a little bit of it. Yeah. I
think Treehouses was like an unexpectedly a really cool area for me. I was
really scared of it the first time I got I was absolutely I took one
look at it. I did like five pus there, and I was like,
oh my god, maybe I'll be I chalked that one up as one
that I would finish post game, if that all. Yeah, And it
ended up being one of my initial seven. Once I mind too got what
was going on in there, I was like, Oh, this is fucking
so cool. Yeah. I couldn't stop messing with it. Uh yeah,
that came I it It just burrows its way India, Man, it's it's
I I would I would pay a significant amount of money right now if I
could wipe it from my memory and play it all over again fresh, like
I like, I would give just about anything to experience this game new again.
It's that's how addictive and just like tantalizing it It is as it dolls
out information to you and you feel accomplishment and like revelation as you understand things,
And it's that that feeling of accomplishment, but also that feeling of like
I'm a fucking maniac. Like as I'm like scribbling down like letters and stuff
like the in on graph paper, it's like, okay, when it's this,
it's this. When it's this, it's just like I'm fucking losing my
mind. Like when yesterday when I had fucking image editing software open to solve
a puzzle, Like at the time, I was like, this is I'm
out of control. I have to fucking rein it in. But then like
I all that and my solution was absolutely right, and I was like,
fuck you, I'm the best. I'm the fucking best in the world.
Fuck everybody. This is great. Uh yeah, it is. It is
a great feeling, and you will have that feeling over and over. It
is a fantastic game. Oh it's so good. I want to go play
it right now. Yep, yep, yep, yep. We need to
take a break. We can't play the Witness during this break, which is
what. My understanding is that it came out on iOS today, though no,
noos is they're starting work on iOS right now. I thought I thought
I saw a link to the as Okay, all right, No, it's
it's only out on Steam and PS four today, but they are. The
iPad version is forthcoming. I wonder if that will retain the same sense the
majesty and pageant of the Witness. I don't know. I don't know how
they're gonna handle it. I guess the PC version ships with a like a
click to move interface. Oh okay, okay, it's got regular like WASD
mouse all that stuff, but there's also an optional like adventure game style,
just click to move. That's fucking crazy, it's weird. Yeah, but
you assume that's how they'll handle right, like exploration on the iPad. That
would make sense. And honestly, I see no reason this game wouldn't work
and in fact probably be amazing on a tablet or at at the very least
totally workable. Yeah, yeah, we'll see. Man, what if we
just kept talking about we should probably no, no, I should probably move
on. We will reconvene, yeah, with more specifics about this game.
It's weird because it's like there's not really you know, like I saw someone
say, like you should do an endurance run of the Witness, Like,
no, that's not that would be bad content. I'm super I mean,
at the time of this recording, the game has been out for like two
or three hours or something. But I am super curious to see if people
enjoy watching streams of this game or not, because a whole lot of it's
gonna mean it's for this game, are just going to be still images of
a puzzle that somebody is like trying different solutions on over and over for twenty
or thirty minutes. And if you know, I could see, like I
think there's there's value in like group effort type stuff of like oh well maybe
try this, maybe try this, like that type of thing, like you
know, a group people coming together try to work their way through the game.
But yeah, watching someone fail at puzzles for hours in some cases like
that's that that doesn't seem like a good streaming game may not be super entertaining.
Yeah, and I don't know if the story is deep enough, like
you know, it's I don't know if there's enough there to like, you
know, be like, oh, do a spoiler cast, Like no,
it's like, there's not really well, I mean, a spoiler cast for
this game would just again would be talking about specific anecdotes of like, sure,
things you didn't understand and then had a big light bulb moment with or
like, you know, things that you thought were It should suffice to say,
yeah, maybe there's a little bit of that, but it just should
suffice to say that there are a lot of moments like that, absolutely,
and if that sounds at all interesting to you, I highly recommend the Witness.
Yeah, like, the only the only context in which you should not
play this game is if you just hate puzzle games. Yeah, like,
if you just don't like solving puzzles abstract logic puzzles. Well, I wouldn't
say that you always feel good playing this game. It definitely had a few
moments of just intense, fucking furious frustration. In this game, the name
of Jonathan Blow became a dirty word in our house for a period of time.
I will say that he made it with a team like there are more
curse No, you're right, but well no, but he said flat out
you know, he made most of the puzzles or whatever it's been. It
was I think it was mid twenty eleven when Patrick and Ryan went to his
house to see the game in a prototype state, and the puzzles were done
at that time. Yeah, so that ship's all him, unless I think
I think that may have changed. Okay, here read the games. They're
the blog that they've been keeping from the games. Okay, maybe there was
a point, like in twenty fourteen or something where they said we are now
puzzle complete. We may cut some puzzles or change it, but weird,
so okay. My understanding was that he had done all the design work.
I know, the credits list a lot of like engine engine programmers and artists
and like you know that kind of stuff, right, I don't know,
uh, voice actors like yeah, yes, but man, play the witness
fucking crazy. Okay, it's a good game, all right, the Witnesses
of what I've been doing with my life for the last nine days. But
have you guys played anything else? Yeah? Which got uh the next game
from noted game developer Donald Rumsfeld. Did you actually play that? Yeah?
Okay, Well I'm plucking that out of news and we're just gonna talk about
it now. Do it is that out. Yeah. So Donald Rump,
former Secretary of Defense Donald Yes, the of the of the Bush, the
second administration of the W. Bush administration has made a solitaire game for iOS.
What's it called Churchill Solitarire Churchill sot Wow. Okay, he is not
responsible for the design of the game itself. Wait is not uh, Winston
Churchill? Well really, yeah, Winston Churchill developed his own game of solitaire,
his own version, and then played that to keep his mind sharp.
Oh, I see so old and then Old Rummy has just translated into handheld
exactly mobile format. Churchill taught it to a Belgian diplomat who was exiled and
living in London at the time the Churchill met him, and then when that
Belgian diplomat became a senior diplomat, he met Donald Rumsfeld and Rumsfeld but that
it was passed down, so there is a direct through line from from Churchill.
Yeah. So it's basically, uh, it's free to play. Oh
it is, okay, Yeah, it is basically you're playing one giant.
It's it's all terrible two decks. Uh. And in addition to like where
you put all the aces up at the top, there's another row of six
cards that are static that you have to get rid of to win face up
at the beginning. They're face up and you have to play them in order,
and they can only go into the stack of aces on the on the
right. Is it randomized every time? Yes? Okay? So wait,
is there a certain point at which you have to play those six card I've
been trying to figure out how those are different from your standard hands. So
let's say it's a a five of diamonds, right, is the one that's
face up or is the one that's next to play? You have to get
one of your aces up to the four of diamonds and then move it from
Okay, what are they like? It's like the devil's row or something into
the aces. So you just play those as the opportunity arises, right,
okay, But you can't play them on your field. Oh, you can't
bring them down. And you can't bring that five down and put it on
a black six you've got it. You have to play it in the in
the ace. Oh okay, with the appropriate suit and everything. Yes?
Oh wow? Okay, So then, since it's double deck, do you
have two of each ace? Yes? Okay, it's uh eight aces up
there and I think six cards in the Devil's row and like a double wide
solitaire play field. It's it's intense. I played for an hour, Uh
played got through? Or I started two games and did not complete either of
them. Yeah, and that was uneasy difficult. Do you buy? You
buy? So I think the game comes with like three seeds to the randomness
of the deck, and you can only play those three seeds. So the
gameplay will just get boring and repetitive if you don't put some money into it,
exactly. And I think you can also buy hints, like if you
are stumped, you can hit the hint button. I think you only get
like ten, you can buy more. Does the show a picture of Rumsfeld
when you get the hints? Like, there's very facia, there's nothing.
It's all Churchill themed. There's no RUMs Felt sipping the credits as much as
as much as I feel skisy about playing a game, the Donald rum sold
is evolved with I'm downloading this right now. It's but a while since it
played a solitarire game. Yeah, I think it might be time I might
check it out. You know, I played Solitari for an hour. Has
anybody dug into this thing and make sure that it's not gonna like launch any
missiles when it when you win or something like that. It's not a PS
two. Okay, well that's good. That's a good point. They would
be American missiles anyway. Not comforting, not all right? Okay, the
most hawkish solitaire game in history. All right, we'll good to know what
that thing is. That's cool. Dani played much. I solved up huzzle
last night. It's not the four hundred you did. Uh. I had
to mix chemicals to kill a plant. Oh what? And resident evil make
jolt? Oh wow? Yeah? But yeah. Most of my last week
has been babysitting my father and the only game he will play is Mario Kart.
So outside of some Mario Kart eight and a little bit of linked to
the past since Platoon while he was napping, uh, and Mario Luigi at
work, which I guess i'll briefly talk about. Mario Luigi. I brought
up some Amibo stuff. You can stop me. I'm not gonna go along
on amibos. Please please stop me if I start going. How many amibos
do you own? Now? What's them? We've never been all in one
place yet, because all the ones that are compatible with paper Jam are here
at the office. But that's another thing. I erroneously said that only six
were compatible with Mario Luigi. Remember it's Mario Luigi Toad Peage Bowser. Who
am I freething Luke? Freed of them forgetting to Luke? Yeah, yeah,
Yeah, there's actually eighteen because every variation of those six characters, so
that means Mario, Doctor, Mario, Smash Brothers, Mario Retro Mario,
all those are usable. So I thought you could break the game pretty bad
with six of ebos. I brought in a bunch of variations and now you
can just kind of blow through a lot of stuff if you want to.
But overall, you know, we put a quick look up on the site
that kind of shows, uh, some of my frustrations with the game.
These very frequent toad collecting mini games, which right now I'm in the middle
of having to do a ton of these things twenty hours into the game to
get like two hundred and thirty paper toads or something. Watching watching you play
that stuff that that just seemed like it would get in the way of what
makes Mario and Lagi good. Yeah, but the thing is, there is
plenty of that good stuff. I mean, it's really really funny. The
battle systems great. I think the battle systems a lot better. All that
stuff looks looks fine, like totally totally yeah bigefully describe the battle system the
old paper Mario thing where it's you know, you're you're countering, you're doing
timing based jumps and trio attacks and stuff, which since you have three in
this one, it's Mario, Luigi and Paper Mario, it's kind of a
sweet spot to where Partners in Time was one of them. I didn't like
that much because there were four, so you had to kind of remember,
like when an attack was coming at one of your guys, it's like there's
four of them, which facebook, okay, baby Luigi. Is why I
think. I think three is kind of a sweet spots where it's not overwhelming
when attacks are coming at you really fast. But yeah, overall, I
like it a whole lot. You know, I'll have a review going up
once I'm done. I'm twenty hours in and it's still going so I don't
know if it's gonna be forty or fifty like Dream Team was, but I
like it quite a bit. The amibo stuff makes a little easy if you
want to choose that stuff and the paper time give bonuses or something. Oh
yeah, huge things. Although as I'm getting later into the game, you
know, this peach attack that has sixty damaged every enemy means less than it
did in the first fifteen hours, got it. Yeah, the stuff I
saw on the quick look like having amibos would let you basically just bypass entire
battles, oh, very easily. Oh yeah, they were huge sections early
on in the game where I just used that peach attack at the beginning and
just wiped out everything, just cheekos. Yeah. So it's like a micro
transaction that you can put on your shelf. Yeah. Gross. Yeah,
but yeah, I've probably got twenty plus. I mean it was now to
answer your question, Jeff, Well, a lot of them are on the
way, Like mister Rossetti isn't out yet, but I've got a pre ordered,
so mister Rossetti will be here after he becomes available. And they announced
some new ones too, So and I got Ganador fan links. I should
probably get Zelda because you know it's a try for us. So I got
some more that are coming in. But this problem seems to be snowballing.
Yeah, this is this sounds unhealthy. I like it a lot. It
ain't hurt nobody. Whatever works for you. Yeah all right, no,
that argument works for a lot. It's just hurting yourself. Look we care
about well No, all right, you go ahead, go ahead, boy.
That's basically it just you know, working around with a Mario Kart eight
and yeah, residable. Last night was first night that was dadless, so
still work free. Yeah, but I plan on beating that remake tonight and
then I'm gonna go straight into the Witness and I'll probably obsess that we play
that from tonight until the next podcast. It has it has that effect.
I will join you guys with that next week. How did your dad enjoy
the karaoke? Uh? He liked it. He was getting very frustrated by
the song selection. It's one of those things where the remote suck. We
got one of those private karyoke. They had some thirty eight. Yes,
yeah, they did have hold on loose Light now, but you'd go like
Bowie. You know, several people were interested in doing some Bowie and be
like, oh, here's one song from like Heathen. You know, it's
some like late nineties record. That's a terrible karaoke place. If they've got
one Bowie song and not a song anybody would want to say. Yeah,
they didn't have any rolling Stones. I don't know. It just for me
and my dad in that group, you know, they we found some.
There are some queen on there, but overall not not a great selection.
Was still a lot of fun. Yeah, so yeah, but yeah,
I'm looking forward to getting back into just the normal swing of things after Dad
Week is over. It's that annual crucible. It's it's a whole thing for
that guy. See. We put up some content on the site. Yeah.
Yeah, there's a free series of like quick look stuff we did on
the site, and then we also did a premium Dancers episode with him that
I thought turned out pretty well excellent. So yeah, you can check that
out if you're interested Dad based content out there. Oh yeah, dads and
video games. He has zero mebos. Good keep it that Way back he
looked at me like I was insane when he was here at the office and
I was playing Mario in Luigi and I pressed Peach up against the three ds.
He was right, He's right to do. So, yeah, wait,
can you use the mebos? In Mario Kart. Yeah, they unlocked
me costumes. Would he be into that? No? Okay, he plays
his Funky Kong every time because he only plays Mario Kart. We Uh,
Funky Kong is not in the new one. Okay, yeah he like well
he does like walla week. The man's got standards. Yeah, I can't
blame him for that. All right, I think that probably doesn't for video
games this week. Finally, I don't want to play the Witness you want
to take over? I have one puzzle. I appear to be one puzzle
away on my second to last area, and it was really hard to stop
playing it and come in here this morning. All right, Uh, well,
let's let's get it into news or something. Fine, fine, let's
talk about news. Uh Sony good lord who Sony perhaps you've heard of them?
Has made akers of the Walkman, yes exactly, and the bloggy Yes,
the Sony blogg everyone has one. They're huge. Sony announced, uh,
or I should specifically say, Sony Computer Entertainment announced a massive reorganization this
morning. It seems like a massive or at least from our perspective, it's
like a major like shift in the way they do things. Yeah, this
doesn't This doesn't seem like it's anything that will affect anyone really, well,
unless you happen to work at Sony and we'll sure, I'm sure. It's
actually kind of a big shift. Really care about this? Yeah, but
well, you know, the way that they are re shuffling, like the
different services they offer and how things are handled and who's running what may absolutely
lead to some changes in like how they offer their network services or like the
types of games they are developing. Because there is some appear to be some
changes on like on the who's running internal development front. Yeah, you've got
the re org chart in front. Maybe you can help contextualize. We have
a seating chart as well. Shane Bettenhou's going to sit over here. And
so, I mean the big thing, I mean, the big thing is
that they are renaming your operation. They are now uh S I yes,
s I E Sony Interactive Entertainment. I think that's a terrible acronym SIE just
CEA. It doesn't yeah, it doesn't. It doesn't pronounce well, none
of none of them, like the word lie, none of them have ever
been very readable. Though. Have you ever heard of anybody refers to Sony
Computer Entertainment Europe as SKI. Yes, and that's fun. Ski Ski is
fun. But Ski sorry Ski hasn't uploaded the bild yet. Yeah. No,
I think s CEA was always fine, but you know, like this
almost you know, they should have just gone back to SISA or SISA Sony
Interactive Studios America. But I don't think anyway anyway, what this? This
seems like they are globalizing their organization. Yes, before they were kind of
broken up into Sony Computer Entertainment International, which was Japan and then there was
America and there was SKI. I gotta say it, well we can.
I mean, it's not forever, and they kind of ran things regionally,
you know, with with you know, regional operations. This seems to be
globalizing a lot of those efforts in terms of how they look at the game
market. I guess so when I look at this, the big the big
changes are are exactly that. Like there's now a global head of sales and
marketing. It's not like, hey, I run sales and marketing in America
or I run it for Europe or you know or whatever territory. It's this
is global. Uh. And similarly, now Sean Layden, who was running
Sea is now the head of Worldwide Studios, which is the position that well
it's maybe not the position, but it's shoe Yeshida was kind of the person
who was looked at as like running Worldwide Studios, and now I believe he
has said on Twitter that he will now report to Sean Layden. So some
of these just like insto reporting line changes and shows how the roles will change.
But for me, it gets interesting where it's like, Okay, Leyden's
running that, that means he's basically running first party development. And now there's
a separate group here that is Global Partner Development and Relations, which is the
third party, and that's Andrew House, who also is the president and global
CEO of this whole thing. So I guess that would mean that like the
Phil Rosenberg's and Adam Boys's of the world would roll up through to Andy House.
I don't know that for sure. I do not talk to anyone about
it, but that's that's my impression is. So that's like a pretty definitive
split where it's like you know, before like the third party first party thing,
it seemed like it would all roll up to like Sean Layden, who
was running America and now he's kind of focusing on worldwide studio. So I
think there's a couple of different ways you could interpret this. Yeah. I
tend to look at it from the perspective of, like, well, worldwide
studios, like first party development I was out of only has not really been
getting it done all that well this generation. Some people certainly disagree with that,
but I look at what they're they're putting out and what they're not putting
out, uh, and it just doesn't it doesn't match the when you look
at the popularity of the PlayStation four. Yeah, and you look at the
first party efforts on the PlayStation four, it doesn't add up. At some
point you're like, man, what I'm with you. There's been a couple
of standouts, Yes, blood Borne, Yes, until Dawn it's pretty good.
Yeah, But but you're right, you're right. Like I if I
like Apples to Apples, I would have frequency releases. I would I would
say the first party development on the xboxes is a lot more impressive overall.
Sure, Yeah, but also i'd say it's a lot more That's what I
mean. Because's what I mean, because it's all a lot more expected.
That's what I mean. It's more impressive, like they're putting out games at
a rapid pace, but also it's like they've put out three forts of games
on their current platform already. You know, it's it's there. You know
they're they're hitting there. A lot of it is predictable, sure, yeah,
but the games are there, yes, uh. And so you know,
I when I look at the PlayStation four and I look at like,
you know, like where they need to improve, it would be in those
sorts of departments. It's just like more things that differentiate them from competing consoles.
And you know, they've they've gone out and done third party work to
secure things like Street Fighter five and stuff like that, but it seems like,
yeah, the first party hasn't always been there. So maybe this would
mean an increased focus on turning that around by taking someone like Sehn Layden who
would previously run in an entire region and saying, no, you focus on
this like that could be them saying like, there's a problem here, we
need a solver. You're at the fixer, go in, run this team,
do it. That's the that's to me, that's the number one reason
to talk about this story on a podcast like this is like more and better
games. Hopefully, hopefully we'll be we'll be a result of this change.
Yeah, it's it's hard to say, I mean, right, I mean,
who could say what comes out of this? But you know, it's
it's it could just be a bunch of meaningless paper pushing and just like,
well the line's changed and this person's desk moved over here, but really,
who cares. That's absolutely all possibility. Although the other thing I don't think
you've mentioned is that the headquarters is moving from Japan to San Mateo in the
global headquarters. Okay, so I just releases. Yeah, so you know,
I think that that's also something that maybe reflects kind of just the overall
direction of the business. You know, it's like it's it's weird. You
know, Japan was where the console business and it didn't get it start there,
but it's certainly its resurgence came directly out of Nintendo and Sega and any
c. Sure, you know you want to give them some credit. Along
Where would we be without bomber Man, motherfucker. You wouldn't have your mover
Dies, you wouldn't have your eye darbs. If not for games like bomber
Man. I think had one control report on it. Think about that genius
because they could sell you not only more controllers, but an adapter to make
those control No. Yeah, that was a fucking shit box. I think
it was a fucking That's not to say that like there were great games on
the Turmograph. Yeah, no, you're right, I will not back down
from that. But yeah, I mean, you know, like this,
this business, as we know it came out of Japan largely, you know,
until kind of Europe got big in the sixteen bit era making Genesis games
because it was similar to the Amiga or what have you. You know,
there's just you know, but around the time the first person shooter rose up
on the PC, you know, a lot of development changed, and you
know, it's like the audience, the global audience seems to be more interested
in Western game development these days, for better or for worse. So I
think that you could look at that as you know, this is reflecting some
of those changes in priority. And it's one of tho things where it's like,
you know, it was easy to look at some of the aspects of
the PlayStation three, and I think even the PlayStation four and the Vita and
go like these are decisions that had to have come out of Japan because they
seem so shortsighted with regards to network connectivity and and design and stuff like that.
You're like, this had this, This probably came from a territory where
they hadn't quite wrapped their mind around it. I feel a little dodgy,
like like sort of stereotyping, like the Japanese understanding of like network infrastructure and
like what people expect out of the modern Internet and stuff. But yeah,
you're absolutely right, like like the three sixty was miles ahead of the PS
three in that regard. Yeah, just in terms of services and software and
stuff, and the PS four is is a huge step over the PS three,
Right, But it's one since you could look at it is like,
well, you know, Mike, Microsoft was always a software company, so
it was always a hardware company. You know, like some of those learnings
are gonna be are gonna fall along those lines just from in terms of expertise.
So you know, it's no secret that like, you know, Japan's
ramp onto the Internet was very different from ours, coming through phones well before
we had smartphones and and not really embracing the PC in the way that we
did that, you know, led to a lot of changes in how they
consume content and games that were available in their region just because no one had
a PC there, So you know, why would they care with that stuff?
Uh? Yeah, so hopefully you'll move like this would need to help
address some shortcomings on that side. I think that they've they've globalized some of
those efforts to a certain extent already in a way that I have to imagine
that that's not that hasn't been a huge issue. But I don't know for
sure, but moving the headquarters seems like, you know, that could be
something you could take away from it, I guess. Yeah. Anyway,
it'll take a long time for any any obvious fallout from this to be to
be seen. Yeah, I wonder if you know, if it's ever if
the effects of this are ever obvious to the end user, which they may
very well not be, right. Yeah, and I'm on some level.
Yeah, it's just they put out a press release with a chart on it,
and you're like, Okay, so this guy reports this guy now whatever.
Yeah, like it might not. Sometimes it's hard for me to tell
if anybody outside of like people to do video game podcast cares about this stuff,
but I care. Yeah, so it's good to know about that stuff.
Here's something that everybody should care about. The new game from Alex Ward
and Fiona Sperry has been announced. All right, those are the founders of
Criterion Games, makers of Burnout. It's called Dangerous Golf. Dangerous golf,
called dangerous golf. You know what it looks like? To me? It
looks like outlaw golf. I look at three screenshots of this thing. I
didn't read anything about. I will say to you, I think it is
crash mode in places that are off the streets. They took crash mode out
of the streets. You were going to play golf. All the screenshots are
from a public bathroom, and there appear I'm where there's like a trophy case.
Now I didn't see that. I just saw the bathroom, but there
appears to be like a flaming golf ball busting up porcelain urinals and stuff like
that. The first thing I thought I was and they made black and I
remember them saying before it came out, like, oh, we wanted to
be fun to shoot a bullet in an empty room and just hear it ricochet
around and stuff. I thought like, oh, they're just doing that with
golf and toilets. Now, yeah, I could just hit a ball really
hard and fuck up some toilet like I could percent vision vision some like really
good aftertouch controls on the golf ball to just make it keep bouncing around like
busting stuff up in a bathroom. Yeah, I wonder if they'd be similarities.
I did this. What what world do we live in? Where now
all of a sudden there are two wacky golf games in development? What are
you counting Rory McElroy where you could no play it on it? But but
alright three three are you is golf? No, that's pretty wacky, but
that's already available. I'm not. I'm specifically talking development one hundred foot Robot
Yeah yeah, which is also coming to play. This is this is coming
to consoles and PC Dangerous Golf and it's not May is it? Yeah?
Holy shit? Oh that's soon. That's great, which is soon? That's
cool? Uh, that's cool that that's just like, you know, this
game's coming out. It's very not now that it's it's very retro to not
crowdfund your game. I appreciate it. Yeah, I guess so. Uh,
this says, this says, over one hundred holes in four different locations.
Fuck all right, medieval castle, a gas station, the aforementioned bathroom.
That's all I've got here. A mysterious fourth area. It's the Paradise
City. Okay, all right, Yeah, it's the first level of Black
which I played recently. How's that hold up? Not great? It's some
of some aspects of it just hold don't hold up well because it didn't,
you know, they had necessarily nailed here's how first person shooters could should control
on a console at that point. So some of the aim down sites and
some of the other stuff is a little finicky, even though you can customdy
with the controllers, like I got it close to left trigger, right trigger
type shit, but it's not quite there. It was easy to get excited
for that game because the idea of like, oh, the burnout guys like
with guns. Okay, yeah, that's gonna be great, and and everything
they said about it, you know that they were the ones that kept using
the word gun porn. Yeah. Uh, and and really that idea of
you know, was it like making every bullet your baby was you know,
like they're kind of touchstones for that game were very exciting because it was stuff
that other shooters weren't doing really well, just like gun handling and that sort
of stuff. You're like, Okay, this is actually this seems important.
And then I feel like the game they designed around those mechanics didn't hold up
its end of the bargain because in practice that game was here's nine people standing
next to a red barrel, over and over again. The video game they
try a lot of destructible environment stuff and that there's there's two so it's a
little looking real sharp. Yeah, at the time, you know, it
had progressive scan support, wide screen, like you could you know, four
ADP that motherfucker. I still remember. I will never forget the Black demo
I got at E three. It was it was left a very big impression.
Did you get that demo? I don't think I did, but I
remember you guys coming out of it saying like, holy shit Black and the
I mean it was you know again, it was them saying all that stuff
that was very impressive sounding at the time, and their demo you know,
lived up to that. But a great deal of that was the sound.
Yeah, And it was just like they fucking spared no expense in their tiny
little off the floor meeting room, like above the show floor meeting room with
giant fucking speakers, this dark room, this projector of just like every single
gun shot, you were like, fuck this, this is like I'm actually
being shot at with these speakers that you've so like everything about that just made
it look super impressive. I don't I don't think the game lived up to
that demo. I was gonna be deceptive, absolutely. I was very impressed
with the demo, the E three demo for home Front, if that tells
you anything. They were talking a big game about that stuff, and like
that first level. I think it was. Oh it was cool. First
level, yeah, like the big I remember the thing they pitched about that
that sounded so cool was that events would be tweaked to always make it seem
like you were just like barely skating by, like barely surviving. Remember crash,
Like like the trajectory of the jeep crash would always be biased, so
it just whizzed right past your face no matter where you were, you know,
so it always felt like you were like at the center of an action
movie. I don't know that those ideas came to fruition on that, but
no anyway. Yeah, uh, all that said dangerous golf sounds pretty awesome.
Yeah, yeah, that's cool. I will look forward to playing that.
I wonder if you know that they had been out there saying like,
what if we were to make a driving game, should it be more like
original Burnout or Burnout Paradise them saying that. I'm pretty sure that was them.
Second, their their company is called Three Fields Entertainment. I don't know
if that was known or yes, yeah, that was I don't know when
did they get out of Criterion. Oh gosh, it's been a while.
There was a it's been a good year or two. Yeah, I remember
hearing about it quite a lot a long time before it got confirmed that they
were on their way out. And yeah, I'm not sure when exactly it
was, but it's good to know that they haven't just been sitting idle.
Yeah, totally coming out. Yeah, it looks pretty awesome, and I
guess we we never did find out what actual criteria is up to you,
right, No, they had that thing at E three that that was infamous,
that infamous E A press conference that was you know, all show No
Tell or whatever helicopters racing stuff, right, It basically just showed a bunch
of like prototype footage, is like, here's what we're screwing around with.
You have to wonder if that ever became a game, or if they was
like, nah, we're gonna do something else instead, or if the yeah
who knows back to no that that game body Count was from Stuart Black,
Yes, one of the guys who was Was that really his name? I
believe so, huh. I could be wrong, but I'm pretty sure that
was. And they tried to build that as like, well it's from the
developer of Black. That was not a good game. Yeah, I remember
that. I remember you playing that. Yeah, that's a shame Bader's calf
it looks awesome. Yeah, cool, I will play that. Uh mighty
number nine remember that. Yeah. It's been delayed for a third time.
Great. Yeah, it was supposed to be out last April. I got
pushed from last April to last September, and excuse me. Then it got
pushed to at the beginning of this February, which would have been about a
week and a half from now. Now it has been pushed to Spring twenty
sixteen. They are saying some kind of network saying yeah, they're blaming it
pretty much on software on like engine bugs, on networking issues, Like specifically,
I think it was like getting networking up and running on every platform that
they're shipping one has been tougher than they thought. Yeah. Yeah, So
like they seem pretty contrite about, like, hey, it's our fault.
We didn't we haven't gotten this done yet. Why does that game have networking?
I don't know. Does it have online multiplayer? Baby? Is it
just leaderboard stuff? Babe? That's the kind of stuff they can just kill
a game though, totally. Yeah, you're right. Yeah, if that
stuff's bad, that's that's rough. Yees smatch making an online code it sus
matchmaking. Yeah, I guess there's something in there. I Mighty number nine
has never looked good to me, like in concept when they first pitched it,
I was like, Okay, sure I would play a game that is
basically a new Mega Man. I would give that a shot. But like,
it just seems like the reaction to it has always been kind of tepid.
As they they've shown it off in playable state before, it's been at
trade shows and stuff like that, Like just looking at it, like like
even it seems like even even the people who really want a new MegaMan game
are not super impressed with it. I would love a new MegaMan, but
like even the visual style and everything, Like I haven't played it. It
just has not looked great and everything. I'm saying, Yeah, I also
give it a shot when it comes out. But yeah, it seems I
don't know, there's a lot of delays. There's a lot of what seemed
like development problems. Uh, yeah, there, you haven't we talked about
Donald Rumsfeld. Else to say about a good head of hair on that guy
the eighties? What's else going on with Three Fighter five? Apparently he u
he dictated, Oh, yes, you're right. I saw that in the
I think it was he does not know how to code Washington Post article.
Yes, he dictated changes to the developers, apparently apparently the same way he
handled the Defense Department as the way that he handled development of this game,
which was, yeah, to issue memos to the people under him to like
enact his directives. Yes, great, sure, yeah, why not?
Article I read characterized it as a flurry of memos. Sure, yes,
yeah, I saw that. They quoted one that's saying, like, we
should have less bugs, should probably not have as many bugs. You know,
that's a good admirable goal. Yeah, that's they're not wrong. Yeah,
uh, they're they're not wrong at all. Yeah, Yes, what's
going on? Three f A Yes, I mean I could tell you.
I could tell you that apparently it's going to ship without a story mode.
Yeah, which is what? What is it? Was it last week or
the week before that you and Jason were talking about potentially all the cool stuff
they might be doing with the story mode in that game. Yeah, it
turns out the main thing they're doing is releasing it in June. Yeah,
which is what four months after it comes out. Yeah, that's how next
month comes out in February. Yeah. Uh so here's the thing that's the
story mode. No, not real really okay, but but like like these
guys were saying, I guess it was last week, Like I feel like
ever since m K nine, Yeah, like expectations for story modes and fighting
games have been elevated. Yes, like that game did some amazing stuff.
Yeah, and it's not like crucial. You know, if you if you
look at kind of the legs on a fighting game, it's not like people
going like man, that story mode. It's people, you know, like
hopefully the game stay is balanced, and they add new characters and like you
keep playing it and you know there's competitive stare. It's about the same amount
of people that care about like a campaign and call of duty, you know,
everybody being up to the multip I would say that if you like Mortal
Kombat is probably the exception because because the deep and serious lore of Mortal Kombat
no, I mean, like whatever, they are people that like really like
those characters and want to see those stories. But Street Fighter has typically just
been like you beat the arcade mode and like, here's what happened. That's
because there's never been anything else available, right, Like, who knows how
many people are out there that would be more interested in a Street Fighter game
if it had more on that front. Yeah, a lot of a lot
of people still seem conceptually interested in fighting games and just like totally afraid to
actually get their feet wet at them because the cates are so But so if
you have, you know, so you have more single player content that people
might enjoy, then that's a that's a better way to go. So I
think they're smart to include it. I think releasing it post launch at some
point sucks. All the point out of doing it in the first place,
like the whole the whole reason you play the story mode first to get decent
with the characters, to kind of wrap your mind around the game, and
also to have something to do while the net code is broken. Yes,
you know, like when the game ship's completely fuck sure, at least you
can play story the first week or so that it's unplayable online. So like
shipping that thing months after the fact, at some point you're like, well,
what you know, who's gonna fucking care. At that point, you
gotta do the tech and thing could have tech and force tech and bowling there
you go, volleyball. I mean, you're not wrong. Like the ship
they were doing with the tech and games stuff was in the like in the
middle of the middle period of that franchise, just like, oh my god,
I can't believe all things you're putting in here. It's amazing. Yeah.
Well, even before the story mode stuff, MKA was doing weird shit
like cart racing and yeah, puzzle conquest thing pretty bid, the big old
mode. Like yeah, they've they've they've embraced the concept of like, let's
do something for people that isn't just you know, Hey, you can play
the game against each other over the internet with like, you know, reasonable
success, yeah or d decent success. I guess. So there are two
modes that they're going to be adding to the game. Okay, I believe
they're both free. I'm trying to find that. I know it is a
part of the story mode. Yeah, so well, yeah, so they
will be adding these. I guess they're both coming in at the same time
in June. Okay, I'm trying to because they listen, there's character stories
and then there's Cinematic Story expansion. Character stories sounds like it's kind of each
each character is going to have it's their their own little storyline, and it
sounds like those will have like two D illustrations that go along with Right,
the beta had tutorial stuff. Yeah to those two two D things in it,
right, I guess. So I gets we've seen a little bit of
that stuff and then the hasn't looked great. I don't know. Yeah,
some of that art was not and it didn't really do it for me.
But the Cinematic Story expansion, I'll just read from this blog post. For
the first time in franchise history, we are creating a cinematic story experience that
takes players deep into the Street Fighter action and mythology through beautifully rendered cut scenes.
Story expansion will be available to all players. Is a free update in
June twenty sixteen. Takes place between the events of Street Fighter four and three.
Yeah, so it goes one, two, four, five, three,
Yeah, this is the chronology. Three is the Tokyo drift of the
excepting quality fully explains everything that transpired in that electrifying time period. Says this,
somebody gets it, please, yeah, please look forward to the Cinematic
Story Expansion the CSX, Yes very much. I don't know. I will
certainly be curious to see what they do with it. Yeah, definitely can't
condemn them for doing it. I would have certainly been nice for shipped in
the box. The things that they've done around the lore of Street Fighter and
tried to tell stories in it, you know, the various anime and cartoon
series here in the US and movie and just all this other stuff. Like,
I think there's a real potential around those characters. But yeah, some
of this stuff has been you know, it's never manifested in the game particularly.
Well, I've always felt like the game the franchise and the characters deserved
better. Yeah, like there's a lot of meat there. I want to
hear more about you and what he's doing when he's not punching waterfalls and you
know you ever fucking carrying his bag around? Wonder about Blanca's time in the
jungle always, how did he get his powers? I want to learn about
the shadowloo. Okay, yeah that's valid. Yeah, see like there's all
kinds of what does Guyle put in his hair? Yeah? This is these
are many could be so many questions that could be answered. Oh no,
no, it's what did Gyle put it in his hair during that electrifying time
period between Street Fighter four? Sure and Street Fire three? Is he he's
not? It's I know he's on in it, but is he still alive?
At this point? He never died? Did he know? It was
just Charlie the Charlie they fully converted over to Nash. Yeah, they've the
Street Fighter five, wi I believe call him Nash board and we've got zombie
Nash. No, right, yeah, he died and then came back together
at some point because yeah, at some point the Alpha games, he gets
straight up murdered. Yes, Okay, as long as Guyle is still alive,
as far as I understand, got something to believe in. Yeah,
all right, should we talk about this Mortal Kombat X situation on the PC
since we're talking about things that fighting games don't have. Yeah, it sounds
like the PC version of Mortal Kombat X is just straight up being abandoned.
WHOA, Yeah, they haven't. So they're about to release. So they
announced Mortal Kombat X L, which I think is a really good name.
Yeah, it's pretty good for their like Game of the Year Edition, Director's
Cut Edition, DLC pack in edition of Mortal Kombat X. Yes. Alongside
that, they're releasing four new characters. Yes, Triborg Triborg bow right show,
Yeah, leather Face from Texas, chainsaw On Masker, and the Xenomorph
from the Alien franchise. Everyone's favorite Mortal Kombat characters are finally represented. I'm
sure you guys have seen the design on that alien, right on the Xenomorph.
Yeah, like it just looks like a muscle bound dude with an alien
head. I hope that. Yeah, Like we're hope like one of the
fatalities is just like he takes his head off and it's just like it's Jack,
what's up. Yeah, yeah, so like new characters, all kinds
of stuff, dressed up as the alien. You know, this is the
only way they would let me back in the game. Yeah. So Also,
that's the other thing is they're testing new net code and beta form on
consoles. Yeah, and that's what we talked about last Yeah. Yeah,
and that beta did not run on the PC. So the thing, the
only thing that they've come out and said officially is that Mortal Kombat x L
will not be available on the PC, and Combat Pack two, which is
those four characters you just mentioned, will also not be available on the PC.
They haven't necessarily come forward and said we are never going to patch the
PC version again, never going to do a balance update, not going to
roll out the new net code. But it would seem pretty likely that,
yeah, that that they're not going to touch that version very much if it
all ever again, If they're releasing all this new stuff for console, that
seems like that's going to be their way forward. Yeah. I mean,
you know, some other outlets have asked them directly, hey, are you
going to address any of the stuff in the PC version, and they declined
to comment. Yeah. So I've been given how that port has been handled.
There was a post from Tyler Landsdowne who's on the nether Realm team,
saying that the stuff was not coming to that that that content would not be
coming to the PC. But they have not said one way or the other
about further updates, balanced patches, other you know, other stuff like that
for the PC version of the game. That's super unfortunate. Yeah, I
think after the mini events that transpired in uh they're in relation to Warner Brothers
PC releases last year. I mean, they might want to shore up support
on that platform. I don't understand how, you know, And maybe it's
just a logistical thing of like, you know, hey, the port was
handled out of house and which it was. That's that's true. You know,
High Voltage did that version. They did m K nine as well on
PC, which had its own weird thing going on. Maybe at some point,
just like the logistics don't work out, or maybe it's something that they're
in the process of working out, so they can't announce it at this time
because there's paperwork that has to happen. Sure, but I mean they're out
there pretty definitively saying that content is not scheduled to come to PC, so
you know that that would indicate that they mean it. It currently doesn't look
great. Yeah, and given Warner's track record with some of their PC releases,
with even with Mortal Kombat pieces, this game launched horribly broken, fucked
last year. But they're like the Arkham Knights stuff, like it's just like
man, because there's money to be made, there's a loyal audience to be
cultivated on the PC these days, and like these guys are just not doing
it. I don't understand how that seems how that is like acceptable, but
you know, there's probably some business aspect that we're not thinking of where it's
like, yeah, that would be the right thing to do. It would
just cost more money than it would make, and they're just like whatever,
you know, who knows. Maybe they're just super bottom line oriented right now,
and there's like that wouldn't make its money back, it's not worth it
for us to do. But regardless of that, it's fucked. Yeah,
it's fucked. Like yeah, you're I mean, you might be right like
the ship me of sale business wise on this, but like every time this
happens with one of their games, it's like that you're probably losing that many
more people, right, Like, I aren't going to trust you as a
publisher next time, I know, like Jason had real problems with ongoing problems
with the net code on the PC version of Mortal Kombat, specifically, like
I got to a place with it where it was fine. Uh you know,
it was the best looking version of the game, and and you know,
the support was fine after a certain point you know where they after they
spent weeks patching it up and getting it you know, up to snuff,
right, And that's my preferred version of the game at this point. Uh
So now I'm just like, well, oh yeah, I guess, yeah,
it sucks. I guess I'm never going to play this version again,
which I you know, I had to be fair. I wasn't really playing
a ton of it anyway, but uh, I'm not inclined to play this
new content at all to like go like, okay, what do I where
find the console version? Put that back into PS four, patch it all
up, buy this new stuff like it's just you know, whatever, Yeah,
especially when two of the characters are guest characters that you know, are
not why I come to Mortal Kombat and one of the others is bo right
show. Yeah, but you get three robots and one four the bonus fourth
cyber subzero stance for Tryborg. So it's Syrax Sector, cyber Smoke, and
apparently some kind of cybers zero thing in there somewhere. That's just the concept
of the character. It's it's it's it's one one robot stance and like all
the robots, like the stance select would determine the moves. I guess,
I don't know. I haven't been following it super closely, to be honest,
but that's that's my impression. And then people recently started talking about cybersubzero
as being in there as well. That's getting tough they I mean that,
like even the Bass games got so many characters in it, and they created
so many new ones for this one, and then like even that first pack
was already two guest characters, right, yeah, Jason and Predator. Predator.
Yeah, I'd be granted, you know, like the franchise has been
the stranger to guests characters, like they wasn't Freddie was in none. Yeah,
stuff like that, but I thought that stuff was not cool. Also,
Yeah, Mortal Kombat is one of those franchises that has such a history
on its own that I think bringing guests into it dilutes it because you have
there are so many other characters, Like, there's so many, Like there
are still some fan favorite characters like mo Cap and Meat. Yeah, like
mo Cap and Meat. No, but I mean there are there are existing
characters in the Mortal Come at Lower that you could draw from. There are
other new characters you could be developing instead of just like, oh, let's
just stunt and get the Predator in school. License every horror Yeah, franchise
from the last thirty years. I just think it sounds like it just sounds
like a bet on either, like who's gonna buy more of this DLC?
Totally you're hardcore. Yeah, it's by putting the Predator in it, they
potentially sell to a new audience. And I get that, you know,
especially that new version out there. Yeah, all you know all rolled up
in the one. Its just you know, here, you go buy one
disc and you'll get everything. Yeah, someone's gonna go like, oh man
Jason for his leather face. Finally the thing I've been dreaming about all my
life. And I'm like, all right, that's fucking weird make that game
though, just like all about Scorpion versus sub Zero. Still, what was
that weird deal? There's still ter wants to that fight. Tera Drome is
what you're thinking of, the one that Jason, I think that's Teradrome right
Homebrew Horror Fighting. I mean that thing was awesome. Thing is awesome.
Fucking Somebody do the work to license that stuff and make that for real.
Yeah, I just I think that there's a time and a place for guest
characters and it's a Kuma appearing in Tech and seven. How fucking awesome is
that? Like that's you know, like weird ideas like that that are like,
yeah, that are more than just like hey we got this guy who
was from a movie in yeah yeah, and Killer Instant you know. There
there you get all the cool potential of like, Okay, how are the
street Fighter guys moves going to translate into the tech and framework? Yeah?
Cool stuff like that, Like, yeah, I'm with you, But the
Soul Caliber game, We're not out there doing this for the Yoda for Mortal
Kombat Yoda against mister Rugie. Finally, fuck man, I never I've never
actually seen that in action? Was the Invader it was more funny because it
wasn't as dumb as I assume it was like was it was his hit box
as small as you would think. He's like tiny little he's the gonet attacks.
You could hit him and that sounds furiating. Caliber two had pretty good,
guess except for hey Hachi. Heyachi was the only one that I thought
was like, okay, kind of cool. It's pretty good because he's a
fighting game character who belongs in a fighting game the same way like Yoshimitsu already
had a sword, so why not. Nychi doesn't have a weapon, and
he's going up against Keilick. Now he's seen his heart chee, you've seen
his hair. No volcanoes and sol Caliber you're not. It's not pressing the
right button. His his his answer, his weapons master chief. In that
one, No. Three has a spawn. Spartan spawn was the other character
spawn on Xbox Link on Gamecubechimps two, and that was that was one of
those rare cases where the game CHIEP version sold like like a zillion more compass
than everything else. Yeah, so whatever, you know, fuck me right.
I mean, the business obviously, you know is totally against everything I'm
saying here. But in cases like that where people go like, oh,
links in this game, we should buy it, But that's soul caliber and
who cares. This is Mortal fucking combat we're talking about. There is a
legacy. There is a Mortal Kombat legacy. Ye, man, I'm getting
horse for some reason. But we got to do email. Let's free.
Maybe this room is still the fiber Maybe it's the fiberglass on these panels.
Are you guys getting too? I always I have been getting more and more
horse lately after on podcast recording days. But I think I am. I
am not drinking enough water. No one is ever there's not enough water to
drink here, but I am especially doing a bad job of hydrating. I'm
horse thanks to karaoke and the Royal Rumble. Wow. Karaoke was like three
nights ago, wasn't Yeah? The rum Boy was like two nights ago.
There's a lot of young I watched the Royal Rumble in abject silence, except
for at one point I went, I'll let you decide which moment that was
through. What did you make? Dude? This is a good material.
You can't burn it, all right, I'm so curious. Just sit on
it. Check yourself BombCast at GiantBomb dot com. Let's read the emails came
to that address, such as this one from Alex whind God's name. Does
your bomb logo have gapped front teeth? Is this modeled after a gap tooth
person? Or did the graphic designer fuck up the spacing between the teeth?
Whatever the reason? Fix it is that letterman's call. Yeah, it's the
gap was introduced when we came to see Yes, yes, I had to
stay on brand. Yeah, I don't know. I didn't read, not
privy to the design of the teeth on the bomb logo. No, man,
I've never even I never even thought about it until I saw this email.
There were some other early sketches of the bomb, and they sent them
changes and said how about do this? And then they did that. Oh
right, that didn't happen in house. Oh that's right. I totally forgot
about that. When I played the lettering around the bomb was done in house,
but right, but not the bomb itself. I totally forgot about that.
I guess, Okay, well, shit, you'll have as much of
an answer as I thought you would. Also, it's not gap teeth.
I don't know what the fuck like I'm looking at it right now. It's
no, there's no, there is no. This person's wrong. Okay,
well then sorry, Alex, you're wrong. Bomb should have a face.
It does. Yeah, it turns out. Yeah, that was a good
call. I guess sure. Uh. Here's a mysterious email from Jordan.
Attached your images of a country. No, okay, he didn't. He
didn't say where he was. Okay, he didn't say where he was from.
Remember twenty three he hit me. Yeah, he does have an unconventional
spelling from scamble. There are two ohos in it. Attached our images of
a Konami van cruising around and oh you know what he does say in northern
Michigan. He's from northern Michigan. Ok Or he was there at least.
I can't say he's from northern Michigan, but he happened to be there when
he saw this van driving around. I'll put the images of this in the
show notes. It's very disturbing, perhaps servicing some slot machines or something.
I also had no idea their tagline was born from fun super weird. Do
you guys do some great word? Keep it up? Have you ever heard
of that Konami Born from Fun, Born from Fun? Yeah, no,
no. The images that he's sent in are of a like you know that,
you know the kind, like the featureless, big white van window,
windowless white van with a big Konami logo on the side. They're rounding up
the next metal gear dev team coming up behind him with a rag yeah,
smell this, yeah, the back of the van cardboard boxes. Konami Gaming
is based out of Vegas. They do have a slot machine and system sales
and support and service operations that seems to be out of there, but not
out of Michigan per se. So I don't actually know. Keep your eyes
peeled for any creepy white white Konami van. What was the tagline Born from
Fun? He says, can you gamble a Michigan? I don't know.
Maybe there might be some spots, yeah, but so that that was definitely
a gambling okay, because Born from Fun is a Konami Gaming ink tagline that
they started using in twenty thirteen. I didn't though that Konami did gambling in
the West, and obviously the pachinko stuff, but I didn't though they did
it over here too. We are bringing a new multi game called Selection that's
sel E capital x io N and a new cabinet called Podium Goliath, new
Progressive Link, Dragon's Victory, and the new Syncros Systems which is s y
N k r OS all capitals TM to SAgs which is some fucking nightmarish.
There's a lot of gaming lingo I'm not familiar with. Oh yeah, like
progressive was progressive? What progressive progressive link? I always loved the use of
the word gaming in the in the context of gambling. It's so weird.
It's so much better. It's another one in there. We are here to
show the market how Konami products are born from fun registered trademark and can drive
performance on the gaming floor. Announced Gaming a Duardo Aking, Vice President International
Sales. Economy. What is a multi game? Uh? Multi game is
a cabinet that can play multiple games? I think, of course that would
stand to reason. Yeah. For the first time on display in South America,
Economy introduces the Podium Goliath, a bigger version of the industry leading podium
cabinet. Podium Goliath is a really chilling name for a product. I don't
care what it is. Games like passport to riches cold in the Great Pyramids
utilize both thirty two inch monitors to drive an immersive gaming experience. Yeah,
so that's a that's a gambling thing. Well, that's exciting. There's some
potential for the for metal gear themed gambling apparatus. The email addresses for Canami's
gaming wing are just as fucked up as the one. It's just like a
ten ten, It's just like this month the numbers are here's yes, here's
your email address for the month of September. Uh. Dan Josh from Illinois
wrote in with some facts about out that root beer that we enjoy. He
says, a few weeks back, I heard you guys talking about not your
father's root beer and your enjoyment of it. I have a few fun facts
about this beverage number one. Although they say it is made by small Town
Brewery, it is actually made by Fusion. That's Fusion spelled with pH.
All right, these are the lovely people who brought you four loco a sweet
number two. The nationally distributed version of the beer is five point nine percent
ABV. However, small Town here in Illinois also made a ten percent and
a nineteen point five percent ABV version available on draft and in twenty two ounce
bottle bottles Boticles Boticles. Yeah, nineteen, you need an extra layer protection
to hold something with nineteen point five pers that's fucking high. I gotta taste
way more like alcohol than these standard not your fathers. These tasted similar to
the nationally available one, with the added bonus of way more alcohol. That's
super dan. I can't like I'm trying to think of on tap. Yeah,
dude, that's like that's higher than one, right, yeah, one
kind of fifteen to seventeen or something like that, not all of it,
but yeah, man, that's really high for a beer like beverage. That's
like how how what's CHAMAI? Ohmy tops out? Well. I don't know
all the varieties, but most of the most of those Belgians are like anywhere
from like ten to like fifteen at the outside. Yeah, like the highest
ABV beer, like craft beer. I can think of as some of like
the dogfish Head stuff, which is like fifteen and like two of those and
I'm good for a while, Like sure, that's yeah, that's real stantil,
that's real heavy. Number teen sounds yeah awesome too. I don't know.
I guess you got to go there to get it though number three.
Rumor has it go there? Oh yeah, sure. Rumor has it that
they no longer make the nineteen point five percent version because the owner of the
brewery was caught using grain alcohol to boost the ABV, which is a big
no no. Come to think of it, I haven't seen the ten percent
much recently either, that would like ever Clear, Is grain alcohol illegal?
Is that the case? It's it's not that it's illegal, it's illegal to
put in a beer like product. Probably. Oh, it's just a purity
of products kind of thing. Boosting your ABV with that sort of stuff at
some point that it's the classification of the beverage and there's probably a bunch of
regulations around it. Is ever Clear green alcohol? Didn't know? I thought
it was, Yeah, wasn't It wasn't ever Clear like ninety something percent just
pure ethanol? Yeah, yeah, I forget. It's proof is twice the
percent, right, and so like a standard shot a jack or something's usually
eighty proof, right, Yeah, so this would be like half of a
shot if you had a nineteen percent. Most most whiskies are anywhere from eighty
to like one hundred proof, Okay, something like that. Wow, uh
great, from New York. It was on a bit of an E three
kick during this big winter storm, and I was having trouble finding a solid
resource for detailed E three press conference history. I'm specifically interested in when big
publishers began having their own large press conferences, similar to Sony Ands and Microsoft.
Publishers like EA, Activision, and uby Soft have had big press conferencestance
since what would seem like about two thousand and seven. I could be wrong,
but this is based on what I can find on various wikis and web
archives. If you could take us down E three history lane and helped me
fill out the gaps, that would be great. That's probably about right,
is that right? When three came back and everyone got in because remember Activision
didn't show at E three for a little bit there. Yeah, they just
said, fuck you, we have our own off site thing. Come here
and play Tony Hawk and he did you go to the one where the Activision
press conference that was in like a high school auditorium or high school gymnasium.
No, So I did not go to any of the Activision press conference because
until there was that one year that they were not officially part of E three
right, and I went to whatever that was. Oh, I thought that
was the same year. No, they were at some well I didn't go
to press conference. I went to whatever hotel they had taken over or whatever
event space they had converted into video game land that year. But yeah,
I never saw Jamie Kennedy or whatever it was that ship firsthand. So yeah,
I feel like the the EA you be soft uh like thing is still
relatively recently. That was a post Santa Monica thing, thinks nine so oh
seven and O eight oh seven was Santa Monica. Oh eight was back at
the convention Center, but just in that one hall six Santica six is big.
That was the first one I ever went to, and that was huge.
Yeah. Seven was seven was the year that we were on the pier.
Yeah, okay, that was the weird one. Yeah, and then
eight was weird too. It was small. It was it just Kensha Hall
or was it that it was just the it was just the hall that uh
it's that concourse hall. I think between the two. It was one of
the big halls. But that was where the press conferences were there also,
Like Microsoft had the press conference in that in the convention center. Space three
just took up a lot less and that was where they showed like Final Fantasy
running on an Xbox three sixty for the first time or something like that.
Was that year. Yes, theear of like we Sports Resort and a little
big planet. It was underwhelming one I remember, yes for sure, and
then I guess I eight is when it really I'm sorry. Nine, when
it really started, it was just like it was just the three again.
It was getting back to form. Yeah, because because the world can't exist
without a Property three, or can't it. Well, I feel like more
and more people are starting to ask that again. Yeah, yeah, as
of the last couple of e threes, and yeah, definitely been going like
this is we really need to keep dollars. Cycle has gotten shorter over when
people go like, wait, what are we doing? Yeah? So yeah,
it's hard to who is this show for. I don't know, but
I can't imagine a world without it. Yeah, It's been a lot of
things in my life get built around like Okay, well this is when PREE
three stuff happens. This is when this happens. This is when okay game
of the years here, like you know, it's just those kind of events,
the lock out months of time E three has been around for over two
decades. It's hard to think about this business without it, but we shall
see. Chris from Liverpool, that's kind of an interesting question. After reading
Jeff's article on emulators and how current games preservation is reliant on the gray area,
I was wondering what you're a hinion was of how the loss of this
gray area could affect games preservation, specifically the fact that after two months,
just Cause three has not been cracked and likely never will. He's talking about
the PC version, right, Yeah, according to he refers to it as
the scene you know the people who would yes. Yeah. While piracy is
obviously a bad thing, this lack of a crack does mean that once Square
Enix decides to stop selling the game, there will be no way legal or
otherwise to play it. So and this is like I didn't pull all the
games, but so he's talking about specifically that denuvaux like anti modification, right,
Like that's what just Cause has, Like one of the thief gams had
it. That took them a long time to bootleg that game. As I
did that happen, I believe it did. Okay, there's there's I wish
I had written it down. There are a couple more prominent recent PC releases
or maybe that are about to come out, that are also using that Denuvo
stuff. I think the thing you have to look at here is like,
you know, the preservation of the old cartridge based games didn't happen overnight either,
Like those things had to be developed, and you know, emulation of
that those things didn't happen overnight either. You know, it took years and
a lot more computing power. If you look at Danuvo and assume that it
is some kind of encryption style thing that can be cracked, faster computers make
that more and more possible as time goes on. So if you presume that
just costs three will be available for a long chunk of time, eventually that
happens. Even if you have an encrypted version of the game, you know,
sitting on a hard drive somewhere for a decade. That eventually becomes not
trivial, but eventually that work becomes more feasible, as you know, you
could eventually brute force your way through that, assuming that processors continue to get
faster, and I think that that probably eventually solves that problem. But again,
like preservation efforts shouldn't have to rely on piracy methods, you know,
it just shouldn't have to rely on the gray areas and stuff like we you
know, ideally people would be better about preserving that sort of stuff by people,
you mean, the people making the games. Yeah, the ODIs should
be on the Yeah. But also, like you know, the people making
the games are you know, they're running a business. You know, it's
not you know, their right to protect their work with this technology, even
if it does make preserving the game harder. Yeah. Uh, And don't
worry, they'll find another way to sell you a copy of Just Caused Three
someday, Like with the way things are going, Uh, you know,
they're just gonna sell that game over and over again in different packages. Sure,
for the rest of our lives. I mean, obviously the console versions
aren't going anywhere. But then again, I guess like the the the purists
would say, obviously, even the loss of any version of the game exactly,
the loss to the culture right definitely, definitely, So you know,
I and even just like patches and stuff like that. You know, there
are people out there that are like concerned because like what about old iOS versions
of games or you know, like that have since been patched, or you
know, like do people still have those old Android apk's laying around, you
know, like like all that sort of like a recent example like the shipping
version of MGS five that didn't have all the shitty online stuff in it.
Sure, yeah, yeah, yeah, so all that stuff is valid,
All that stuff is valuable. But in this particular case, like the cracking
of games becoming more difficult, I don't necessarily see that as an infinite blockade
against these efforts. It's just something that will be a stumbling block for now,
and presumably someone will eventually get to it. Yeah, somebody will keep
the install folder for just cause three on their hard drive free very long time.
Yeah, that's not you know, until something works out. Yeah,
those files are out there, so it's I'm not too concerned about that.
But you know, you have to take the long view on some of that
stuff. You know, look at like MMOs that have gone offline and how
long it's taken private servers for some of that stuff to get together. Like
there are people that are able to connect to and play something that sort of
resembles the Matrix online, sure, but I don't think it has well I
don't know. Last time I looked at which was a while ago. Now,
it doesn't have quests, it doesn't have this doesn't have that. You
know, there's like things, you know, like people are working on Auto
Assault Private server. You know, there are people out there that are like,
man, we need to figure out a way to get City of Villains,
City of Heroes playable. Those people are crazy. Those people are crazy
or are they Maybe they know something we don't. I don't know. I
can play Fantasy Star Online blue Burst, Yeah, the drop of the hat?
Fuck it? What about that one with the c A R d oh?
Episode three? That was? That? Was that three? Yeas three?
I think that someone is I think that the server stuff for that game
was similar enough to the Dreamcast stuff that maybe they've got a solution in place
for that. I don't know that there's much demand there. I don't hear
a lot of people calling for that one, but I want to say that
that was something that was considered at some point. Whereas you and Jason randomly
like to this day talk about playing yeah old PSO bootleg servers or whatever.
People are Notice here's an email from Scott, just Scott, which happens first
Spy Party is released as a complete product, or Microsoft or Sony release a
next generation console. I don't know. Yeah, Spy Party, yeah right,
that never came out. Spy Party talking about that five years haven't though
a very long time. Demoed that in Whiskey Media basis. We had Chris
Hecker came in and showed it, right, Yeah, that's that's Chris Hecker.
Yeah. Yeah, like he came in and played. It was a
very early, like obviously prototype version, but like it seemed functional at the
time. We're like peering through windows. It's like and I'm trying to figure
out who's real and like like one so it's two players and two different computers.
Like I think, you know, one person is a sniper effectively and
the other person is a person in a cocktail party kind of situation. Right,
But there's a lot of NPCs. Yeah, there's tons of ais running
around. I mean other games have tried this kind of concept, and in
that time, there was that one Cowboy game and we played on PS four
that was Sievetown, and then there was Hidden in Plain Sight and it's similar,
uh you know, like Game and Warrior had a mini game that was
almost kind of like that of just the concept of like, hey, I
also I don't I doubt this is related, but now that the Witness has
shipped, like in in the category of games that are largely being made by
a single dude who lives in the Bay Area. Sure, yes, Spy
Party is in that huge category. Spy Party has kind of back in the
front of the front of the mind. Yeah, that seems like a really
cool game. I would like to know where it's at. And a good
time is ripe for those sorts of games. Yeah, yeah, uh,
I'm gonna say Spy Party comes out before those companies put out another console.
Yeah, that seems reasonable. If I had to guess, Joe K,
what's your favorite aiming radical. I'm partial to the small white dot from Rockstar
Games, but I'm also a big fan of the square shaped radicals. Fuck
crosshairs that shrink as you aim in. Also, the hula hoop radical from
the Nasher Shotgun is okay. I think the Carl's Junior French Fry radical for
Black Apps three it's gotta be up there. Yeah, that's definitely you know,
the it's one of the big useful just for practicality. Oh yeah,
obviously. Obviously it doesn't hurt that it's also one of the most beautiful,
right, Yes, aesthetically, but it's certainly practical. I don't I don't
know what he's got against a crossair that shrinks, Like, yeah, I
feel like that's good. That's good feedback for Hey, your aim is going
to be more accurate now when you duck and it kind of closes it in,
like a weapon is larger like us. Is that I mean, it's
not necessarily about the shrinkage. It's more about like, not not necessarily about
that. Is it's about overall shrinkage, not necessarily like the distance between the
gaps and the crosser. I mean it's just a plus sign at that point
connected. Yeah, at any distance. I think that getting smaller can be
a little annoying, But but I don't know that's it's It's never really bothered
me that much. Yeah, the fact a little dot like a little dot's
good. I also like the like the reflex sites and Call of Duty games,
those work pretty well. I like the fact that all the Halo weapons
have a different one, so you know immediately what weapons select. That's you
know, what game didn't need a crossair what's that doom? Yeah? Those
weapons are so fucking savage. You don't even need to see where they're going
to shoot silent scope. They just get the job done. Yeah. But
you know, Quake crossair pretty awesome, That's true. It was a pretty
good crossair, that's right. And that hoop that the shotgun like, I
like the idea of shotgun is just a fucking fat circle. Yeah right,
that's that's a cool Some of the spread is gonna go in this entire area,
You'll probably hit something. Raider Formstonia writes in says, Hey, gang,
these past few days, I've had a weird urged buy a PSP just
for the two Burnout games. Should I go for it? Those games are
surprisingly all right, psy is no car series as good as Burnout was,
Frenny face, that's true. I've been thinking a lot about the future of
driving games lately. Are the future of cars in games? More correctly,
and what happens to cars? What happens to games based on driving cars when
cars are autonomous and no one's driving cars? Don't even think about that?
And I bet this is something that Watchdogs two will It would be very intelligent
for Watchdogs twos to be the game that jumps on this and tries to figure
out what the world looks like in a world where we are calling empty cars
to our home homes to drive us place. So I would have that minority
reports sequence. Yeah, that would be. That would be very forward thinking
in a way that perhaps first Watchdogs was not. Yes, but but it
tried to be well okay, yeah, And if you were starting development on
a Watchdogs game after the end of Watchdogs one, I would hope they would
at least have the foresight to try to piece together what that because a,
you have your hacking tools, not that other weird stuff. But I hope
they would try it at least peace together, like what a society looked like.
Yeah, uh, let's let's extend this out all a few years in
advance and try to see where the stuff is going. But like, again,
I think we've set over and over like like like Hacker GTA is a
fucking great concept for the game, right, yeah, need to execute it
a little bit better, but like but also like, you know, what
does it mean for open world need for speed games when kids aren't being raised
to understand that cars or something you drive on the road and what happens to
motorsports in the long run, and they become even more I don't know totally.
I mean, speed we are you know, we have to close in
on speed Racer the movie as a reality at a certain point. That's our
eventual goal. But you know, much like it was hard to find people
that to get into boxing because the kids were more interested in MMA, and
now boxing is you know, people aren't growing up to become boxers. Who's
just going to grow up to become auto racers in a world where no one,
no one drives a car. I I could I could believe there any
reason other than yeah, sure, sure, I don't know. I could
believe that we will see the ubiquity of self driving cars in our lifetimes.
But I can't believe we will see the end of driving like Ford claims they'll
have autonomous cars for in the public's hands in four years. No, no,
I believe that. That's what I'm saying, Like, I'm sure that
will be everywhere. Yeah, but it won't be Yeah, it won't be
autonomous. There will will or just there will be people who who insist on
driving there in cars, right yeah, like or they can't afford you know,
or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, like this is America. People are
stubborn about their cars. That's yeah, that's what I mean. Like it's
going to take like generations for people to completely let go of like the pride
of car ownerships, maintenance and driving and all that stuff. Right. I
am so ready, yeah to be done with it. Yeah. If I
were in your position, I would be like, yeah, fucking sign me
up. Yeah, I guess I already am. I'm kind of yeah,
you know, ride I ride a bus, so I think I'm already on
a car. But it's like vehicle I don't not an option for me,
you know, like the idea of like not having a car, living in
the suburbs, like you couldn't do it. Yeah. Are there any other
goods games? M Those burnout games are good. There's a game that's okay,
probably get a real sheet PSP at this point, so yeah, you
can just find one of those. I like the Ridge Racer games on PSP.
Those are decent Ridge racer games. Twist. You know what game is
really good is Luminous. Yeah, yeah, that's that first one, specifically
that one. Yeah, Lubness is worth owning a PSP for. It's really
good. Uh oh, I was excited to read this email Zach from Texas.
I'm curious about a problem that I feel might come up in a few
years. As more companies gain a library of facial scans of people to use
as characters, a library could develop for people to use in future games.
I think there will be a problem with using faces of people, either with
out their knowledge or using them in a way that they were not originally planned
to be used. For example, this thought came to me while I was
playing in from the Second Son and ran into Dan during an undercover agent mission
sideboat. Dan's way, Uh in my game of being undercover was standing alone
in the middle of an empty park. Yeah, what if someday in the
future, sucker punched sides they need a generic looking hipster dude for their main
character. If they use Dan's face, do they need to pay him?
Do they even need to let him know that they used it before the next
game comes out? And do you think this might become a problem in the
future. All you'd have to do is like make his eyes a little farther
apart in this not his face. Yeah, it's not a copyrighting faces work.
Well, I don't know I mean I assume you had to sign contracts
and stuff. Yeah, so that was it. That was part of the
reason I brought this up was I was kind of curious, like what kind
of paperwork they threw at you when you did that. Yeah, there there
was paperwork. I definitely remember at Sucker Punch. I don't remember if rock
Star made me sign anything, and they did more stuff with like you know,
facial animation and dialogue and stuff voice work. Yeah, yeah, I
had to sign something. We did crowd capture for one of the w w
E games. At one point. They had an event and they were like,
hey, you could be in the crowd like sign the stuff, and
it was like just a standard release form for them to use that image and
a thing. Yeah, And I was like, I actually, you know,
like this is I'm not into this at all in a lot of ways,
but at the same time, I want to see this process, like
what are they going to have us do and wanted to go through that.
So I ended up going with it and they I don't think it didn't end
up at the game, but yeah, it was just kind of a standard
release form. Yeah, yeah, I didn't detail. Wasn't this like twenty
page booklet or anything like that. It's pretty standard. Just wasn't a very
lengthy procedure or anything, and I certainly didn't hear anything about using it for
future games or payment or anything like that. You never know what was on
that contract it They'll come for your tongue. Delson Row was that the guy's
name? And second son Delson? Yeah, yeah, I'll be the new
Delson. I'm not holding my breath for another Infamous. I bet that was
the last one, if I had to guess, Okay, yeah, maybe
it could be wrong. I bet we'll see something something, some new Infamous.
Maybe, I bet we'll see that more stuff from that studio. But
oh absolutely, scis four games. I just I still like the first Infamous
the best. Oh yeah, I feel like everything well about the Second Son
is better than two, but one one is definitely the best. Second Son
was a great looking game. It was the right game at the right time
for that platform. Looked amazing. You're right, but I did not enjoy
the game play nearly as much as the previous two, or the missions weren't
super memorable. I feel like the series had a downward trajectory that really boned
me. Out. All right, I've got, I've actually got. There
are actually a lot of good emails this week, but I feel like I
feel my voice going as we go through this. I think we're gonna have
to make this our last email, but I will save some of these for
next week. The last email comes in from Brett in Indianapolis, regarding astronauts
and were wolves. I see you as the only proper folks to answer this
important question. Hypothetically, what happens if an astronaut gets bitten by a werewolf
and survives then manages to be launched into space before the next full moon?
Is it always a full moon in space? Is lecanthropy a strictly terrestrial condition?
The world demands an answer, it's always, well, not always a
full moon, but it's always night in space. Well no, but well
it depends on Oh, it's never daytime in space. You're like, brighton.
What if you're looking at the sun. Yeah, what if you're in
full view of the sun, it's gonna be black with stars. Yeah,
but you're gonna have you can get the sun insanely. Yeah, but this
guy's not blue daytime sky's blue. But any environment, anything you're in or
like anything that's pointed towards the sun in terms of spacecraft is gonna be very
well lit. So I feel like that makes it daytime. Also, there's
no daytime or nighttime in space because that's all relative to the planet you're on.
This guy is always black in space. This guy is black at night.
It's always night in space, but you're you have full daylight. I
feel like, one away from like this Bob science rap about the Earth being
flat, the Earth is round. So you say, did he make that
into the song? I thought he was just tweeting about it, and now
I think he ended up recording a song. Oh no, Like it was
like there's just this weird turn of events in hip hop, where like last
week I was listening to Case Sleigh and he went on this weird tirade about
how the Earth is flat and fuck y'all for not being able to prove it
him wrong. And then here now we have Bob doing the same thing.
Wasn't as it used to be at Banks also in some weird kind of probably
I don't know the science science like weird pseudosciencey stuff like that, or did
I dream that up. I'm just saying people used to drop science and now
I don't know what the fuck they'd drop it. I'm gonna I'm gonna say
that you turn into a werewolf because of how much moonlight is hitting you.
Okay, all right, so just never be between the sun and the moon
so you're in full view of the moon. Never get sun or yeah,
never get the sun bounce off of a full moon because the moon is not
full when the Earth is blocking it. Okay, right, yes, yeah,
yeah there. Yeah. If you landed on the moon and you had
the werewolf thing going on, you would have to keep running to make sure
you're always in the shadow part because the second you get on the bright part,
no, no, no. If the moon is tidally locked with the
Earth, so the shadow side is permanent, you just go on the dark
side of the moon and there. Yeah. Yeah, the moon rotates at
the same at the speed. Just hang out. Could you stick your finger,
just pass the like event horizon, and then your finger you get a
werewolf finger. Oh I do that. How about a whole werewolf arm.
We don't know what's there. Yeah, I'll buy that answer, moonfull of
werewolves, send all the werewolves to the moon. Yeah, I mean that's
what we've been doing with them for generations. That's why we haven't gone back.
But they all like like like you said, they've all been hanging out
on the Yeah, Shadowy say all right, all right, bobcast a giant
bomb dot com. That's the email address sending emails there. Okay, let's
shut down the show, all right, getting raspy over here. And I
don't know what's going on. Area, don't know what's going on in this
room. I hope it's not this room. I'm just gonna I'm gonna chalk
it up to a coincidence. What's going on? Oh you're boys, all
right? Yes, I don't know. Uh. This seems working out pretty
good in here though so far. Yeah, it sounds all right. Yeah,
it's nice and cool in here. It's comfortable. Some snazzy mood lighting.
Okay, we'll get a nice table in here or something. Yeah,
some felt felt covered table. Yeah, and do some decorating. Have a
poker night in here, poker night at the podcast room. Yeah, it's
a VR game working on. I like the sound of that. All right.
Uh, well, let's all go try to solve a bunch more crazy
puzzles. Yes and yes for a few more days. Okay, I gotta
solve areas of ten and eleven before I lose my Uh. That'll do it
for the Giant Podcast. Thanks for listening. We will be back from one
studio or another same time next week. See then,