Everyone. It's Tuesday, September twentieth, twenty eleven, and you were listening
to the Giant BombCast. Oh my microphone fell away from bringing it back.
I'm Ryan Davis Videy. Caravelle is in the house. Jeff Grismond's in the
house. In the house, Brad Schewemaker's in the house. How do you
feel about being house bound? Warm in this house? I thought he said
it was okay, it wasn't. Pretty good? Pretty good, It's good.
It's pretty good. I enjoy this, this pregame show that we have
going on lately. It's actually pretty awesome, little little warm up. The
only problem is that, in fact, those warm up every everything. Yeah
yeah, warming up the crowd, you know, sure, getting ourselves warmed
up. Vinny Caravella, how you doing? It's Gears day you guys.
Also, I called in sick because the e day. No, it wasn't
day. It was the first one. They never forget your emergence day.
Yeah, years Tuesday. I don't know what what can you do for man?
Brothers to the End Tuesday, Great bros day. Man. I just
finished Brothers to the End last night. I talked about that later. I
haven't touched Vine if you have you touched Gears yet, I know my copies
should be here today though, today's day. Yeah, she was talking about
it. I did get my my sweet code from Amazon though, for buying
through them. So would you get player? Dude? Yeah? Did you
get your twenty dollars? Also, dude, I did that kind of awesome?
Yeah you got that all right? So bought Gears or pre ordered Gears
three and you get a twenty dollar like Amazon gift thing for doing that,
and it applies immediately, so it actually it didn't even ask you, it
just did it. Yeah. It was just like and I looked through my
through my history because I thought like, oh maybe I just had one sitting
in there, and I definitely didn't. So just like they were just like
stealth selling Gears for forty bucks. Yeah, so I bought Gears for forty
bucks and I was able to use like credit card points, so I paid
like seven bucks for Gears three out of pocket. So and then they gave
me the free multiplayer skin and I got the iced t skin. Thanks for
Facebook, Facebook, And I don't want to spy on this game. Yeah,
but I think it's worth seven dollars. I don't know, man,
I'll be a judge of Facebook and get the iced t skin. There's a
Facebook, Yeah, there's like I like this page to get Xbox code for
iced tea universal single use, single use. But they generate them. So
it's just okay, go there and like it and and then and like it
after you get the code as fast as you could, just make a Facebook
account and go do that. You have a Facebook account't want to. I
don't want to log into Facebook. I think I might actually have an extra
code that someone sent me that they went did with their fake bab So I'll
just I'll just that's the that's how. That's my next assignment for the farm
bill thing is to take that Facebook account that Steve has and just get me
a code, and then I'm pulling out a farm bill. So I pose
this question to Jeff this morning. I want I would would Brad Vanne,
what you guys think what percentage of the Gears of War audience do you think
understands the significance of the Gears cog word play ballpark eighty. It's pretty explicit,
right they called They called them cogs constantly, don't they right? But
understanding that like the coalition of organized governments. What cog means other than that
God may aim overestimating. I mean it's right there. Yeah, like it's
the visual symbolism is everywhere assumes that you know what a cog is. I
guess, and I just don't people know what a cog is. I don't
really. They never watched the jets and people people that listen to this,
what that'sprockets and cogs? Okay, fair enough, jeez, everybody sprockets and
costs. That's who they're fighting. Spacely's gone mad. I don't know.
I would think I'm a vast majority. I don't think people people listening to
this, I I you know, enthusias, crowd whatever like that's different.
But I think of how many people play gears. Yeah, that's very popular,
and you know how borderline. You don't necessarily hear people talking about cogs
a lot of lately, not really a term that it gets tossed around a
lot. They do, they do use the term gears in the game to
refer to themselves. Yeah, they do, especially as they're moving around dealing
with these different fashions. But maybe they'll trust them so much and they're all
markets all we're gears. Come on, yeah, yeah, actually don't cogs.
Cogs and gears are separate things. Yeah, I actually don't even know
what the relation is when you when you join the cog, you become a
gear. But it can what is a cause the coalition of organizing but like
in reality organized government government? Uh maybe it is? Yeah, like is
a cog of gear? I don't even know what a cog does, but
there's only one cog? Is a cog just like a sprocket. Are we
talking about like we're not talking about talking about talking about industrial mechanics than sure.
I don't even know what it actually is? Is it just like a
nickname in this room? Barely know? We know? Yeah, there's some
sort of connection gears. I understand there's word we know. We know that
it's metal and vaguely circular with with some kind of teeth on it or something.
Yeah, I think that's I know. I think it's something like the
rod that thee Where do flywheels come into all this? I know that the
cogs kind of gear. Okay, oiled with the blood of the gears of
war? How about that? Done? All right? I was just thinking
about the name Gears of War. And how long you look at something like
that, you think, like they didn't just spring fully formed out of someone
like there is a huge long list like all right, we're gonna make this
new game. We have these ideas like all just like the iterative stuff that
they were talking about before Gears came out of like darkness, and like you
saw character designs before they had fiction or characters or anything like. I mean
they shoved the brumac out there as like the tech demo for Unreal eng and
three. Right, it's like way back when and that was like here,
we made this whole thing. Yeah, like before the Gears of War was
a thing. So yeah, I wonder what the I would I would love
to be in any game developer when they go through that process. But what
are we going to call this game? And like at what point for various
franchises did they have like all right, we know what the name of this
is, space Fighters? All right, all right, nobody's trademarked Gears of
War. All right, let's figure out what a gear. Let's put a
pin in that one for now gear. Yeah, and then you are you
working backwards on the fiction from there? Well, I mean you know,
trademark dispute being what it is, you don't want a trenched situation on your
hands. I guess not probably a logical place to start. So, Brad,
you think Gears of War three is worth seven dollars? Jeff, I
feel like we know your your thoughts on Gears of War. You didn't really
talk about it last week. Yeah, you couldn't. Those I would go
so farst say it's worth sixty dollars. That's a lot more than seven,
don neating money to these people. Well, you know, no, I'm
not saying buy the weapon skins. That's what's that worth. Don't buy the
weapon skins. Okay, not even my time, Yeah, not even that
undulating rainbow skin. Yeah, not even really. That's it's like three bucks,
four bucks whatever it actually is. That's a lot of money. So
do they sell like an all pack? Yeah, and that's fifty bucks.
That's was that forty five? I think it was thirty six hundred points whatever
that? Yeah? Does that come with like any bundle that's like Madman Bundle
for four hundred dollars, get all the codes nothing. Well, there's a
separate season pass, yeah, the past that gets you for the next four
pieces of DLC. Uh, there's be some campaign DLC as well some multiplayer
stuff, but they've not been explicit about what any and that's gonna be repe
And you get an exclusive weapons skin with that one too, that's not as
part of that doesn't is not part of the other pack, but as of
now, that's all you get for buying them. But we don't even we
don't even know if that's gonna be like single player dealc. It's gonna be
both maps. Yeah, there's definitely a campaign or some kind of single player
at on, but they've so they've said something broadly about what that stuff's gonna
be. And there's a fat thing in the single player in you that says
coming soon, got it? So do you think it's the same audience that
wants campaign stuff and new multiplayer maps? Like how many people went out to
midnight launch and bought that game and came home and just just straight to Versus
and like never gonna touch the campaign That that always fascinates me. Yeah,
Yeah, I suspect that people will go back and play the campaign at some
point. You know, they probably did get home midnight and start playing multiplayer,
but before it got hard probably the majority will, but I mean there's
always people for every Every hardcore competitive game has that subset of the audience.
Right, Norman Chan has never played the StarCraft campaign. He just plays multiplayer,
that's it. But I think I think there's more, like you know,
Call of Duty and Modern Warfare. That's the classic example of like people
literally have never touched the single player in that. I imagine there's probably a
little more crossover in the Gears audience. Yeah, And I think that's it's
kind of a quality thing too. I think the Gears campaign they spend a
lot more time on it is longer than the Call of Duty campaign. Like
Call Duty campaign, you wouldn't be faulted for looking at it and going like,
yeah, they put this together specifically so they could have like a bullet
point to put alongside. You know, there's multiplayer. Not to say it's
bad, but you know, it's it's it's clearly right. I understand why
some people would not play the campaign that one. When it comes to Gears,
it's like, come on, that's that's It's one of the much bigger
part. One of the reasons why I've moved more towards kind of renting or
borrowing the Call of Duty games because I'm not gonna play the multiplayer competitively,
right and still buying, like Gears of War said, at least I hope
there's still single player value in that way. You know, Gears It's a
great job of being kind of all things to all people and in a lot
of ways because it does have you know, the single player campaign and the
arcade mode that you could play back through the campaign that way if you like,
and also the co op stuff. You know, it's like the competitive
multiplayer is out numbered, right in a way. Yeah, squee it out.
Sure, I don't want to get those competitive fools out of here.
So that call out that's fully integrated, right yeah. So four players,
yeah, four players through the campaign like you know, cut scenes all that
stuff, and and arcade mode is the same deal. It's just it draws
numbers on the screen when you kill dudes? Is that basically the only difference,
because I mean you're getting points in the background even when you play standard.
You can enable mutator the mutators also, so and some of those like
buff the point values, right yeah, or harm them. I mean,
if you you can make it easier or hard, like an infant an amo,
mutatory stuff like that, But unlocking those requires you to play so much
goddamn Gears of War. It's it's not just like skulls, hey, no,
you don't just find them. It's you have to meet specific in game
tasks like get two hundred kills with a rich in Beast mode, and you
know, it's like stuff like just it's not it's gonna take some time,
which is unfortunate because the mutators seem kind of cool. I understand some of
the you know, like the laugh track one, probably makes sense that it's
not easy to unlock, because that's crazy. What's it's just laughs every time?
Wow? I don't know, because studio audience, Yeah, you've not
unlocked that played way more than even I have played, and I've played kind
of a lot of that game at this point, so upwards of forty five
minutes of Gears a War. That's right, where's my lap track? Game
sucks? Yeah, I don't know. I think the game is awesome.
I think the story is really well done. You're you're you have you have
not finished it about halfway through act four? Okay, just met Ica all
right? Yeah, yeah, he does well, announces his presence. Yes,
in a very prominent fashion. What's his game name, Griffin Aaron,
Yeah, CEO of like a fuel company. Yeah. The Facebook page for
when I got the skin gave a little brief character description, and I'm like,
I didn't know anything about this going in, and this all sounds like
the Gears fiction is going in some really crazy Yeah, he kind of hands
it up a little bit, he does. Yeah, maybe more than a
little bit, maybe more than most. He lets more than one motherfucker fly.
They let the let ice tea explore the space. I believe his character
has a cane that he walks around with ice. Just whereever you feel like
a motherfucker is appropriate, go ahead, and just you gonna throw those in
there, and yeah, we'll find the balance, all right. So it's
whatever you're ready, guys, motherfuck yeah, just yeah, pretty much,
We're not going to use any of this, right. He basically like his
his exit is him like riding away giving a middle finger to like he refers
to Anya as bitch. Yeah to her face, it's uh, yeah,
it's it's it is outlandish in the context of the rest of that story,
but you know it works well enough. They hired Iced Tea to play ice
they play Yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, like, what the
fuck are you gonna tell Ice teac boot like your Cliff Blazinski. You get
in there with Ice Tea, someone you have grown up listening to and obeying.
All right, I as I have you know, what do you say,
no, Iced Tea? I just don't think you've got it? Like
no, well really I think the character would want to say this will do
it just alright. I think the only advice you'll higher Ice Tea unless you
want Ice T to be ic T. I mean that's the thing, that's
the only note you can give him is could you be a little more Iced
Tea? Well? They plays a pretty straight on he does. You're right,
he actually is is a capable actor. I'm not saying he is a
bad actor, but in this context it is almost stunt casting and and it
works. And then you know that that lets him kind of play a weird
role in multiplayer where all of his dialogue is insane and kind of fourth Wally
a little bit. Yeah, d who they have? They had some celebrities
in two, didn't they was Ice Cuban two? No? No, you're
thinking, man, I thought they had somebody into so I see the biggest
name and the guy who played Bender on Futurama in all of the Gears of
Wars. You may know him as Steve from I do know him from there,
you do, uh this game, he sounds a little more bendery in
Gears three. Also, it's kind of maybe a little weird, but you
know, it's a tonal shift for the story. It's not the gruff,
fist bump type stuff that it necessarily was in the past. And by taking
Marcus down a notch, it just sounds like that. So that's a little
weird. If he's not yelling battle cries, you think just Seanda Maggio just
sounds like that's that's facto. Yeah, I guess. So You're totally right
about that campaign though. Where I'm at now, it is my firm opinion
this game is dramatically better than Gears Too. And you had just finished Gears
Too. Yeah, yeah, yeah, So I left off Gears Too because
I played through it on hardcore and it got hard enough that I was like,
but you you'd finished Gears Too. It came out no, no real
thing. I guess you just got first campaign was I got to like the
end the act four and then yeah, just put it down. I don't
know what whatever. I just never got back to got busy with other video
games. Games of that games kind of tough. It is pretty yeah,
it is pretty hard. So I mean, I'm playing the new one on
hardcore because you said too. Yeah, and it's a way more pleasant experience,
Like it's it's definitely taxing, but it's not right. It's not pleasant
the way the two guys and playing it on normal, it just becomes a
different game. Yeah, I watched you play it on normal, and it
seems like you just don't even have to take cover. You're just like running
up onto is this guy soak up like too many bullets where you're just like
sitting behind cover unloading clip. It doesn't feel like that. Because I've read
this somewhere. I don't know if this is accurate or not, but somebody
was saying that you down enemies faster in this game than in the past.
I don't know if that's true, but it feels like it. That was
always my problem with the other ones on the harder difficulties, like yeah,
you're emptying, you're running out of ambo before you're killing everyone and you just
like literally like, oh, come on. A lot of that A lot
of that comes from their animation system, and the enemies just don't flinch that
much when you're shooting them, Like they continue in whatever animation they're in as
you're pumping bullets into them, and you don't feel like sense that they are
taking damage. I just I would hate. I just did not like emptying
like a full clip into a guy and sitting there like reloading. And then
every time that doesn't happen, even on hardcore, you know, I mean,
if you're aiming properly, like like shoot boomers in the head, you
know, like that's and and unload a full clip into their head, they
go down. Always it always seems like there was like normal and past years,
like there is a specific balance of like we know that it's going to
take you a full clip from the Lancer to take down this enemy, and
like that was like a specific choice to make it take that much damage before
you could just so that your reload timing would require you to actually use cover
things like that. Yeah. Yeah, it's all all, it all ties
together. It's I want to say, it's it's not each enemy takes so
much damage now, it's that there are more of them. Yeah. I
don't know if that's accurate or not. It feels like there are more environments.
I mean, you have like a larger crew of people with you more
frequently this time, and it feels like the areas are bigger. That's what
they're always talking about, Like the cliff always talking about leading up to was
that, Yeah, would a wider path. Yeah, that's and that's partially
because we're gonna do this four player multiplayer or four player co op. You
got to have that room that sometimes, I mean, and you know,
sometimes you have more than four people with you on top of that, and
you know, some guys and stuff. So so, Brad, did you
like just finished Gears two over the weekends? Yeah, late last week sometimes,
Okay, uh yeah. I play through the last act of Gears too,
just just to see how it wrapped up. The ending was kind of
well flat, I remember the very ending, but there's some great set pieces
leading up to the end. Yeah, it's also pretty good. I feel
like the last minute or two is good set up for the next game.
It's a little dark and a little kind of like the second act, but
you're you're right, like the stuff that like happens at the end of the
game is all of a sudden just kind of like what the like, yeah,
this is you guys are adding a lot into the Yeah, well pancakes,
yes and no. I don't I don't know. I feel like I
remember distinctly feeling after finishing Gears Too, basically in one sitting, going like
like nothing really happened. Like they started out shit was bad, and now
it's like shit is still bad. It's bad and maybe a different way.
But you know, it was definitely very second acty, like well, definitely
the second act of like bad gone from bad to worse. Yeah. But
but but I thought they started adding in. It was the they started making
it more of a trilogy than the first one was very standalone. And then
the second one they're like, Okay, we're gonna make the we know where
this goes. Let's add in these which flesh out these other cap characters,
add in some more factions, let's make this universe a little bit broader.
I don't know, man, rust Lung, Sure, that's all right,
it's right there. We can we have time to explore this now. I
mean, what was the what was the checkpoint list, like they introduced the
concept of the Lambent. Yes, well it's it's every it's every kind of
uh, look at every single shooter and kind of action thing that has spawned
a franchise. Right, you have your first one where you I fight Ryan,
Right, and then okay, this is this worked out this sold Ryan
was a really good opponent, but we beat him in the first one.
So now maybe Ryan has a common enemy that's Brad. So I'm gonna team
on no no, no, no no, I come back stronger in the
sequel, and then we fight through the sequel. And during the sequel,
this third party is introduced into the mixing, and everyone's like, what is
the Brads? And then you get to the third and then you get to
the third one, it's like, oh wait, the Brads are really bad.
The Viney's in the Ryan. I feel like it usually happens in the
second one, where like you and I, let's team up. Let's put
a side our differences and take on the Brads because they're you and I are
fighting for something, but they're gonna just Brad's gonna destroy the world. So
that's more important than whatever you and I were fighting for. So that's like,
but that's like like, but then that's part three. Part three.
Is that Part three is usually like, yes, now I should come out
and say the Gears of War three is not that. Yeah, for the
rest, two seems like it was going there. So two definitely seemed like,
Okay, you know what I'm gonna I'm gonna come to more of an
understanding of Ryan and understand his problems. You know, we were fighting,
but they were probably fighting for something. And the first one, it's never
just it gives nothing away to say that in Gears of War three everyone wants
to kill everyone. Yes, that's how it is. All right, Well,
give me, give me back up to speed. Remind me of the
events of the end of Gears two, because I mean I remember they sink
that fucking city that like, that was the stuff that The big thing the
stuff is six out is that by the end of that game, they have
introduced the Lambents, they have sunk the last human city, and you,
the player knows that Adam Phoenix is still alive, although nobody in the universe
think but I think someone in the universe does know that, but you don't
know that. I think even bigger than that you the Lambent being the kind
of spinoff from the locusts. Who do you realize that the locusts have bigger
problems than just you, that they have this kind of civil war gun right,
so and yours too. As far as I remember, lambit are basically
just glowing locusts, like they basically function, and they explode, but that's
about it. And they also make three here's three. You you are made
to understand what the Lambent, what Lambent Sea really is, and it's fucking
crazy. They go crazy with the enemy, like the lamb that are not
just glowing locusts with guns anymore, like things they explode. No, it's
it's way beyond them. Now they mutate into crazy shit and grow weird arms
and then you shoot the arms off and then they explode totally different. So
at the end you fight that giant thing in two. Remember how crazy that
thing got with the mutations, Like imagine if all the Lambent stuff like that,
it's the city is thinking, like all that stuff is off. That
stuff was good. You're right with that last ten or fifteen minutes, remember
now shooting the helicopter or something, right, I mean blow yeah, yeah,
yeah, yeah, that's what I feel like it's spoiling anything to say
that, Like, you know, going underground not a big part of the
game. That's good. I spent a lot of time underground. It's summer,
you know, like all this stuff they've been saying about it's summer time
and you can see exposed arms and like nice weather. Like it actually gets
exactly in more ways than one. It's like just Lamb and Rich on a
beach, just rubbing on sunscreen. I'm gonna blow up if I stay out
here. I do understand these guys better, now, Yeah, Uh,
that's you know what I mean. That is actually what really sticks out to
me is that you do actually understand the characters in this game finally, well
just from just from the multiplayer. I mean, I don't know if it's
spoiled much, but when we're playing the multiplayer beta, you could see the
different classes and one of them being a talking Locus queen. Uh kind of
sets up a situation where Okay, at least there's gonna be some avenue of
communication now with the Locus, but seeing her as a multiplayer character like kind
of crazy. Well yeah, but also it's like, okay, obviously now
since she can verbalize and talk, you have now put a face in a
kind of voice to the enemy, so they can be like, hey,
let me let me tell you why we're killing you, instead of the first
one where it's just you know, just killing on. Yeah, yeah,
these are Covenant bad guys. She's introduced the Queen. It just it comes
very jerky to me. I think once you introduce it, I want to
she has a human face. I want to know what the fuck? Yeah,
why is she a human or just why does she appear to different?
That's a fantastic question. I know I'm gonna be really upset if they don't
answer that question. So Locus have very good clastic surgery, and it's a
kind of you know, it's a weird elite thing where they just want human
face. It's really gross. Actually, they graft human faces onto them.
That's why they want to kill everybody. Yes, they just want their faces.
I don't know. The storytelling feels a lot more direct and effective as
a result, Like, yeah, there's a coherence to it the first two
games. Last it seems like there's care given to the characters themselves, which
is not just Marcus, like, not just domb you know, it's like
the stuff with coal I thought was cool. Yeah, there's like a really
good cold moment in the first act. So I guess the big question for
me is does it feel like the end of a trilogy or the absolutely Yeah.
The best part about this game is that there's closure, right, so
it doesn't feel like you're waiting for gas the end. No. No,
I mean there are things that they leave unanswered in this game. There there
there are things that I wish I knew more about, and I almost wonder
if there will be a book or something that explains that seem in the just
forgot it really because it's it's stuff that wouldn't necessarily lead to another trilogy of
games. It's more like, but at the end of this like things have
happened, situations get resolved, to trilogy. There you go. That was
the Gears trilogy. To go anywhere from here, you know, probably have
different stories, new characters, different stories in this universe, different types of
games in this universe, or you know, like whatever it ends up being.
But that is the story of Young Yeah. I could see like you
know, Gears, Gears of War, Colon the Pendulum Wars and just have
it be you Fight the Pendulum Wars. I just wonder like what does because
it sounds like, you know, Epic is done with this at least for
a little bit here. I wonder like what that is not the same organization
that it was before they started making these Gears games, Like, I wonder
what their focus is as a developer now that this is, you know,
wrapped and done. I think it's it's Unreal Engine four and turning that tech
demo that they put out front Real Enge four into a game fix. Samaritan
is the next game. I mean, it makes sense like that they didn't
make that Brumac for nothing. You know, they didn't put all that artists
never waste any of those assets, Like they're not going to put that much
effort in the making art for something. It's going to go out as a
tech demo on that Bruma is going to be in four, and you're gonna
be able to look around it, look under the hood and check it out.
I want to see the inside of you look underneath it. Definitely don't
want to look underneath the broom, pull up the cloth and then there's you
know, there's a very nice British lady to tell you about what's under the
line cloth four point three, Liita Sack, I still can't talk about Fortsa.
No, not until Friday. I honestly don't have that much to say
about it. Okay, the things, the things you already know about Fortsa
continue to Are you suggesting this is the fourth Fortsa game? Yeah? Fourth.
I am extremely excited to play that game when it is released four za.
Microsoft Lawyer is coming down this office right now. I would have said
that before going and playing it. It's not h No, I'm excited to
get into it. I'm totally excited to play some damned Gears three. I
don't know how they managed to get me hooked on more the narrative stuff than
the gameplay stuff, but somehow they did. It's shocking to me that it's
as as much better as it is, because I thought that was really the
weak spot of the first two games was a narrative, like it was a
little bit nonsensical and the characters were super one interesting universe, but you know,
also Resistance kind of had an interesting universe, but they totally lost me
in the second act of that game. Is what I'm saying. It's it's
a it's a great backdrop, they don't convey what's going on and why you
need to be doing it. The stuff with Resistance was like, you know,
you were finding items in the world that are telling you the main story
that don't get explained to the game, but also Resistance just the thing of
like to make by the end of the second one, giving you no reason
to care about the characters anymore like they and it doesn't even Resistance three doesn't
kind of more of a sequel to Resistance one than Resistance I hope so Patrick
characteristricks, but it's one of those things that by the end of Resistance Too,
I kind of didn't care about the universe anymore. By the beginning of
Resistance Too, It's kind of felt like like I jumped into two Resistance Too
really excited to see where it went, and then it feels like it really
fell flat. And then it's like, all right, I agree with you
on like the storytelling, like the the narrative, But I think as a
universe, like as a setting that the Gears stuff has always been interesting,
and it is almost more to the fact of like because they don't or haven't
really explained a lot of what the hell is like search games like busting you
out of jail, bad Shit's going on, go and like that's kind of
all you know, and it's like I would keep up with these guys,
obviously I have some history with this guy you that you derived just from the
dialogue, and then fight cleazy fucking underground monsters. Definitely, there's definitely something
to be said about like busting out of jail to your character is having a
confidence in the universe that they already know what's going on even if you don't.
So like Marcus knows this war has been going on forever, not kind
of knows a shit jump in fight yeah, versus like discovering it of like
oh, aliens Land. There's there's a real economy to the storytelling. And
three, like the Marcus backstory stuff. There's like a real quick playable flashback
that explains like five different things about where he came from and what's up with
his father and like why he was in jail all this stuff. And then
on top of that, there's a previously in Gears of War video track mode
thing that you know doesn't necessarily go over the story beats over the first two
games. It more just sets you up and let you know, hey,
humanity is super fucked like just bat we fucking man. We thought we had
them, but oh, things are going super bad. What any what edition?
Did you get a regular You don't want the fat cog? Uh?
No, I think I will. I will report from Jeff's Super special edition.
That thing is heavy and kind of awesome. Yeah, the box that
the game comes in, and the little flag and the cog and there it's
uff the little middle thing. Yeah, little Adam Phoenix cog thing is pretty
cool. I think the craziest part about it is that they actually unique Xbox
code into the back of that thing. Do that all of them? Even
the ones that are come in this edition. Oh, I don't think the
ones that come in this edition have it, because I pulled mine out and
I really, unless I missed it, I don't think it does. There's
the other ones that they have given out at events and other like put out
in the world and stuff that do have those codes, but I don't know
that. I swear it's said that on the do you have it here?
And I don't have any chick. Chick always round my neck, never drop
a cog, right, yep? Just regular old play. Some Gears of
War three. Yeah, that one is perfectly fine to get. Like I
said, I think that the epic edition that they put out is like super
well made. If you're in two statues of dudes, the statue is like
eighty percent of the package terms an art book, you know if you're that's
the thing. But the box the game comes in with the you know,
like it folds open all nice. Yeah, has the gear in there,
and like I guess it's flag right. I don't really have enough room in
my apartment anymore for that. Yeah, totally. And and why should you,
I don't know, you know, what's your grown ass man? You're
gonna put yours? So veenis he's got a gun. He's on one knee
to put it right next to my halo helmet, Like, no, come
on, I'm not moving my halo helmet. Crazy. I haven't moved my
halo helmet. But that's only because it has to go somewhere, right,
So it's and I have two of them. I ended up with two of
them somehow, which a sucker. Yeah, big packaging is sometimes cool on
a store shelf, but then when it's in your house and I can never
bring it home because I will look at it and go like that's not gonna
fit, Like that's gonna have to go on some weird other shelf away kind
of feel bad throwing it out, like, oh, that kind of is
a nice box, all right, trash. I just I just don't want
to. I already do have an abundance of gaming memorabilia all over my house.
But it's like two or three levels cooler than the ship that comes with
the collector's edition. Oh you're gonna put in your house, it's gonna be
like I got this on a weird trip, or this was a limited thing
out this broken soundboard. Here's the you know PS one Chicato tambourine minimody game.
Here here is a six by six mirror with the Vice City logo on
it. There's also there's a filo with a razor blade on it. This
that's no point in my life that says Vice City below it. You know
that Vice City though I still have that on my fridge. God damn.
That is the best piece of coke mirror ever been. There's also a point
to where it's just like, is that the stuff I choose to display now
in my house or apartment? Like, is this the wall of video game
stuff or it's just going to be like wedding photos or is you know something
else, you know, pictures of children. No, this is gonna be
my coke mirror from that's on the fridge. That's just on the fridge.
It's got magnets on the back, so it just sticks to the fridge nicely.
So yeah, at some point I'm just sitting on the coffee table.
At some point it's baby powder. I changed the baby on it. Uh
yeah, what you choose to display that stuffing? Maybe it's not for me,
but I still do like a collector's edition if they're going to include uh,
fiction that supports it like that. That Halo diary was actually pretty cool.
That was neat. Yeah, read that thing. It was like,
I mean the stuff they get me with is like in game stuff, and
that's cool. If they could just send me a code like from Amazi,
give me the box, put a piece of brain it, it does make
It does make pre ordering games from Amazon a little extra Christmas e is that
the day that Okay, I pre ordered it and it's set to deliver one
day of release and then that morning, so it's a little warm of it's
like, hey, here's War three is coming, here's your code, here's
your code. I'm like great, and go at this on Xbox dot Com
and look at it and say you got the same, Like great, this
afternoon when I come home, pre ordering games still sucks. Is it pre
ordering? I guess pre ordering it technically it is. But if you're just
like I'm gonna I'm gonna buy this, I don't necessarily need to reserve it
because they're not like they're gonna run out Amazon with with Amazon specifically, it's
more just I'm taking care of the transaction ahead of time so that it will
be at my house the day it comes out, and I don't have to
go to a store, right sure, Yeah, Like I don't feel like
they are reserving people. I think people should read video game reviews and then
and then then buy games. I did, and then I pre ordered Gears
Work, all right, Yeah, I mean in this specific case and yeah,
whatever I'm gonna You know, I was by that same notion. I
was going in pre ordering like you know, Arkham City and on Chart three
because I'm gonna want to play those games. I know that. So yeah,
there's some games that I'm gonna play regardless of if they're good or back
three were terrible. I still want to know how that terrible. And it's
not like the little pre order babble is like, Oh, that's why I
want to do this. It's no, it's because I get a day of
I don't pay shipping, I don't pay taxes. It's there at my house.
I don't have to worry about how we got to go to the best
Buy or the game stoppers. You're very possibly you got twenty dollars off the
order. Yeah, yeah, you know it's pay me twenty dollars to buy
Gears of War three? No, Fred Amazon? Did Frederico AMAZONI Zucchini Amazon?
Give you twenty bucks? You gotta fry. I can never argue with
you. It's so nice. I got all these copies of Gears three.
I don't know where this accent has gone. Yeah, it's Fred fred Zonian.
All come on? Any of you done? All right? Does that
ever get? Do you ever get a good? All? Come on?
Constantly? Ok? He says it when you're boning up your active Yeah.
He says it when you when you I think they're recycling that line, you
think they have them again. I don't know. I'm sure he's says whatever
they like. Every time he says it is, he says the exact same
way. It's just the only way he says. Says that line in his
sleep at this point. But I wonder if they had him so it's like
this, Yeah, we use a slightly different take this teeth clenched maybe because
things are dire. Because if you do twenty eight game that's got sixty of
them. I'm saying like they did twenty in the first game, and then
and then just like I'm not even saying they use all twenty, but you
do twenties that you have like one or two or three good ones. Marcus
Phoenix is a different man though, though, like he's you know, they
turn it on for combat. Yeah, you know, so like when they're
fighting, they just sound like they always sound. The Coltrane runs on whole
great exactly. I Well, we'll table this for now. We'll come back
next week. After had a chance to play any other I did, I
kind of did so when I finished up the Which or two kind of went
into Space Marine finished that up and then oddly left me in a weird place
because I was then presented with a bounty of different things to play, but
I wasn't really prepared to commit to anyone. Dead Island, Dead Island,
Dasax, Resistance three, and then a bunch of game fly stuff, So
I went up playing uh, Castlevania Lord's Shadow a bunch, and I actually
really like it. Really, Yeah, I'm actually really I think if you
come at it, or at least for me, it's like whatever. They
could have called that game Medieval Dude Crusader, right, it probably should have.
There was there was a period of time where it was just called Lords
of Shadow. Yeah, there's there's very little Castlevania to be had in that
game, well almost at this point in the game with me, it's kind
of zero. I mean, the guy's name is Bell Belmont. Yeah,
I think you're the first Belmont. Uh, I think so, because you're
part of the order. There's no other history. Nobody's even mentioned a vampire
at this point in the game. I mean, the combat is not even
predominantly whip based, like there is, there is whipping, but you've got
that cross weapon that is the whip. I mean, I know it's sort
of whips out, but it's not it's not exactly the same, you know,
like they it's pretty whippy. I know it functions as a whip in
a lot of cases, depending on depending on how you're attacking, but it's
not I don't think there's ever there's ever like a melee just kind of bash
a guy with that. It's it's always kind of character is very different,
you know, but it's part of this He's part of this monastic order,
and it's very it's very ceremonial. The combat is more if you were to
consider like the God of War chain blades as a whip, that is kind
of what the combat feels like. You're just basically making these circles we're just
talking about when he walks around, he's carrying the Shi Cross and not like
having a character. I think that game. I think that game looks pretty
cool. Uh. I was just turned off by Yeah, it's it's very
got a word derivative in the gameplay and some of it. But it's seemed
to remember a lot of people complaining about platforming. Yeah, I'm not having
too big of an issue with that, and I'm only I'm on chapter three,
but there's a lot of chapters in between, so probably about fifteen twenty
hours and maybe fifty, maybe more like ten to fifteen. The platform you're
now having too big a deal. There's a lot of like wall climbing ledges
and scooting over ledges and stuff like that. I thought a lot of the
camera angles were kind of fixed camera, so you can't move the camera.
That's kind of annoying in a lot of cases, like it's pulled too far
out to navigate what you're trying to get through and stuff like that. That
hasn't been too big a deal for me yet. It's the biggest complaint I've
heard is that the game is too damn long and so at some point.
So far it's been great for me. The variety has been a lot of
things keep me moving, They keep giving me new powers, feeding me those.
At some point, if there are just long stretches of doing the same
thing, because the combat isn't that engaging, right, then I could see
it really dragging and being like, man, really another ten hours of just
this. But if I actually really like it, I think it's well presented.
I think the presentation is kind of on Patrick Stewart. Uh, there's
a lot of Patrick Stewart, and there's it's just weird stuff in it.
Like it's a very different game than I thought it would be. There's like
some shadow the classes in it, Like you're kind of climbing up these giant
taps. The first boss. Uh, there's h you know, riding on
mounds. There's just I don't know. So far, it's it's been engaging.
I didn't mind it. I think it's it's a good's all right.
So anyway, so I want to play more than that than I thought I
would. I thought I would play it, uh, and maybe you get
a taste for it and then send it back getting your game five value out
of it up buying it from game Fly Hang on, Hang on, So
you you you've kept it? I kept it after after how many how many
times over have you paid the full retail price of that game? The full
retail price or the price that I paid for it? Well, either for
it, because yeah, I paid I paid less. But I'm talking about
if you have like a one disc game Fly heunt, because I get it.
I probably paid like eighty bucks for that game sitting on my coffee like
somewhere around there for a pure of months. So I'm glad. I'm enjoying
it after keeping it for this long. So after I bought that, they
were able to send me the other game, which was supposed to be Resistance
Coming, but apparently that is not available. Uh so that's why I dumped
them, because the available. So yeah, so I was kind of really
bummed. I was really hoping to play that this weekend. So kill Zone
three showed up. So I played a bunch of that, and I'm just
I'm not liking that as much. I just, uh something about it.
Rico, it's the Rico. I still hate Rico, yeah, uh And
I tried to shoot him every chance I get, but he never died,
even in three D holes Invincible Rico. And I actually I like kill Zone
two up and no, that's how we got into this mess. Yeah,
up until kill Zone two turned into Rico's story and then it's funny that kills
On three literally picks up right after that. Yeah, it just brought back
all those memories. You're basically walking out of the room and there's Rico.
Right, You're like, what the really be partnered with this guy? Like,
oh this is terrible. I don't want to be partnered with him.
Uh. Like it's like developers just rubbing your face in it, just like
no, yeah, you're stuck with him. But there are some things I
don't remember. It kills on two, having the revive did it revive you?
Yeah? Did yeah? In the single player okay, because it's weird.
In in three, this just seems weird. I don't know. It
seems like it's breaking me out of the fiction every time I go down and
then fucking Rico has to come and revive mabe you. Yeah. Maybe that's
what's annoying me, is that, like when I die, I have to
count on him, and you have to count on the AI and and it's
it kills the two is a lot of cases. I can't get over there.
I can see you. It kills on three. I add cases where
like he was crouched next to me. I was like, I can't make
it, like fuck you, you useless fun. The brutal kills are kind
of interesting, but they take up too much time. Yeah, I wish
they didn't because every time I go on the ball stab is so good.
It's so good, but then you get shot by everybody while you're doing it,
and it's like, no, just stamp the guy, move on or
button what you're gone, we don't need. Don't be such an asshole,
and you'll live. But I still think that game looks really good and and
some of the animation stuff. I still like the you know, the kind
of fluidity and the stuff, but though it gets in the ways sometimes.
Yeah. So it's one of those things where it was interesting reviewing that game
having not played Kills Them two since it was released, or you know,
right around it's released, because at some point they patched Kills Them two to
change control yeah, or to you know, kind of update the controls and
make them a little more, you know, to kind of take some of
the weight out of them, and and I guess ideally trying to reduce some
of the input lag. So it Kills On three just comes like that.
Yeah. I actually had to slow it down. I had to make it
less sense of because it was just I couldn't. It was it was too
finicky for me for some reason. Huh. Yeah, Yeah, it was
weird. So like Kills Them three comes like that, and having not played
it Kills Them two too much after reviewing that, it was like, man,
this feels so different, it's crazy. And then I went back played
Kills one two and it downloaded like nine patches, like, oh wait,
this is identical. Yeah, it did seem like it was the control like
that much difference from like when Kills Him two launched and what it became.
Yeah that it was pretty much the same damn game. But yeah, that's
cool stuff. They released that patch like after Kills Them or like around the
release of Kills one three. It was like it was like way way two
three months after came. Okay, it was like one of things where just
like people constantly complaining about the field of the game, and I thought Kills
On two felt kind of fine as is it was. It seemed like a
deliberate choice and not a why is this game broken? But so it was
one of the cases where everyone wants everything to play like Hall of Duty.
Then they you know, they bowed to that pressure or something. Yeah,
but you know, I think it actually does control better once they made the
change. So I'm enjoying it so far, you know, aside from like
you know, my personal feelings on Rico. And there's an issue like the
well there's like a weird story thing where they totally bone up along the way
that like wait, why okay, I've played this in flashback already and it
went this very specific way. Why is it not going that way now like
it does like a four hours earlier, and then you play back up to
that point and do that thing again and it's totally different. Why why you've
changed the timeline? Yeah, totally stupid. Should do one of it.
Should be one of those like, you know, perceived from another perspective,
you're playing is the same dude, right, right, and it's yeah,
it's or that that would there would be some sort of reveal later of like
that's why there's a difference. But right, Luckily for me in my memory
of ship so I can't remember even what happened in the beginning of the game,
uh, dressed up as enemy dudes talking. When you go back to
that part, totally fucking different. Yeah, right, because the tutorials that
game is as exactly you as that. So you go back to it,
it's not a tutorial sequence the second time around, weird and you're like taking
different paths and doing different stuff and it makes no sense. It still ends
up the way that ends up. That would be pretty funny though. If
they did the tutorial again, I was like this guy, Yeah, now
aimed down to the sights. Right, good job. You obviously like converted
people, no sense I really like, Yeah, whoever wrote the story for
that gets an f Rico. Rico wrote my part bigger. There are parts
are parts of the story that are they're totally fine, but that part of
it so broken, Like how do you get that? How do you actually
release that? Insane? Insane? I wonder if that was just like a
last minute Like fuck, we need to have some sort of storytelling device or
some kind of mechanical I imagine like maybe the the device was there, but
like, okay, we need this. We need some sort of tutorial in
here. We don't have anywhere in here where we actually show people explain to
people how to play kill Zone. Mayeah, it's a first person shooter.
People can figure that out. No, you needs something, No, you
have to do something. Uh. I wonder it's fun? Uh so yeah,
do you think you can hang with? Uh? With this and Gears
at the same time too, too gritty, mostly brown looking shooters. You
know, I'm getting to the point where I'm starting so many games. I
just need to, I think, concentrate and finish year. This is not
as brown as it has no, No, that was the one thing we
didn't really touch on is that I think game looks fucking incredible, Like it
looks so much better Havin played too so recently, right, like it looks
so much better now. So kind of one of the benefits of them not
spending a time time underground. Yeah, you know the lighting light love moar,
dramatic use lighting like like almost resistant three styles, some of the same
kind of stuff. I just really like that secrece and said the Giant worm
that part was so fu nothing like that. It's kind of nothing like that
in the in the whole game, like weird set pieces. Set pieces are
not as crazy as the pieces are more just like oh god, like how
many guys there are? We are fucked. Yeah, I don't know,
Like, yeah, I'm so I'm at this point where I'm starting so many
things. I'm kind of getting overwhelmed, getting that weird like paralysis of like
I just don't even know what to play right now because I'm kind of in
the beginning of Dave Sax played a little more of that uh Castlevania. I'm
already invested a couple of hours in uh kill Zone UH three. I'll probably
have to finish that. I would really like to jump into Resistance because Patrick
says the story and that's pretty good. Uh, Gears, I'm definitely gonna
drop in. Uh, what's McCall it the Rebel Assault, what's the I
want to jump into that some more. Game is pretty great. So it's
definitely like all these things that are open and then something something's coming out soon
on everything's coming out once Rage come out four. Yeah, yeah, so
that's the date I could just see that. Oh, I played some more.
I played a bunch of kill Switch, Killed Hard Reset. I'm like
literally just looking down. Names are just flying at me. He's just playing.
He's like he's getting back to the original Gears. He's like, no,
I have to play I have to play through the entire Gears trilogy before
I could play Gears three. And that actually starts with kill Switch Switch,
the game that that spawn cover Fire. So hard Reset played a bunch of
that. I mean Turbo Button. Uh, that game's pretty good. Yeah,
it's fun. That gives maybe too easy. I played about twenty minutes
of it, and I basically played up to like the first upgrade station or
something like that, and then yeah, it's a little it's a little the
way it looks, but yeah, it's super mindless. It's it's very like
narrow in scope like it. It doesn't seem like it ever gets into huge,
huge levels. So I don't know if the enemies vary that much.
I've only seen about it because yeah, like everything early on is all those
little gays. Does the little guys get the big giant kind of like ape
looking thing. I've not I've not played enough to know if it gets any
better than that. But just last week I blew all of the dust out
of my PC so I can run PC games again. That work Yeah,
yeah, like a bunch of like yeah, I had to take it outside.
That's how can there with no Will Smith gave me a little squeezy air
blowy thing that was able to use and that that worked out. There was
yeah inside the like the grills on the CPU fan like it was just completely
like literally I go out and do that, plug it back in and after
fiddling with some RAM stuff like twenty twenty degrees celsius drops in temperature on my
set and went from being like this is way too hot to like, yeah,
this is about can operate like this, Like I can understand why you
were chugging on games and occasionally locking up because it's not a good temperature for
CPU. But yes, they're hard reset fun, and yeah, the upgrade
trees are fun. Just seeing the gun transform is kind of cool. Uh
though, I just actually had the last time that I booted up, which
is sometime last week. Uh, I noticed that there was a fast menus
option, like in the after guys talk about popped up and said fastinating like
we're seeing them go slow ones. But but they've also patched that game.
I think it goes faster. I think this really moved. I feel like
they've like sped up the animations on even the slow versions of the menus.
I don't know. I mean they upgraded the servos on those arms. Yep,
I don't. I don't really. I don't really like the because the
story between the games so much that the panels. Yeah, because the first
time I played that game with preview version of that game they sent us had
none of that. It was literally like you just loaded up and that first
level starts, like none of the motion comic like loading screen stuff they have
because you don't understand what's happening. Yeah, it's super it's like guys like
just laying out all this stuff matter. The cop wants you to send another
cop over to drink with him because he doesn't like to drink alone. Yeah,
but then there's like robot renegade robots, renegade robots, and then souls
are inside this computer. And I worked for the corporation, but I hate
the corporation. I'm like, wait, so I don't know if you're a
cop, if you're a Yeah, I'm confused by your story, and I
really don't give a shit because guess what robots fight the robots. I think
I gained a better understanding of that game when I downloaded it from Steam because
I clicked install and it was like two gig to download. I was like,
oh, yeah, yeah, I don't think it's very long. Well
yeah, that's four hours. I think it's the number. Yeah, Like
maybe the price probably should have tip me off, but I mean it's weird.
On like the consoles, there's a more regimented approach to like this is
a full retail game, this is a downloadable game, and like you have
your expectations about what the game is based on that. Yeah, But on
Steam it's like whatever, it's like it could cost anything, it could be
anything. Yeah, there is no like this is a live ark game,
this is a games on demand or whatever. But then that game, the
game is kind of fun and it's like just hold down the trigger, no
reloading, just and basically shot barrel gets real hot and just shoot everything around
you because it all explodes. And that's kind of it's very much environmental kills.
Oh yeah, yeah, It's like I gotta shoot that panel because it
shoots out electricity and that'll shoot a car and that'll blow up everything. Uh
yeah, kind kind of like explosion management is as important as actually aiming at
the things you're trying to shoot. And I love that. I love the
the red hot barrels on your gun because you've just been holding it down for
too long. Yeah, So that's It's so everything is kind of like right
now that I'm playing is a little more a little less Dave's X and a
little more shooty you know, Castlevania kind of the same thing. But I
think that's that's where I'm We're gonna put my time for a little bit a
little less, little brainless well Castlvania it is. I just like the story
that's going on so far, I'm kind of interested to see if this this
is like a reboot, right, this is what they said Castlevania is from
now on. Uh so kind of I don't know, interested to see what
happens, to see if I'll fight a grim Reaper. I am the grim
Reaper. I don't know what nobody knows. Front to the end of the
alleged duck for three seconds until the treasure chest appears, there's no duck button.
It's time alright, Like I like when I'm playing that game, I
just I just see the effort that was, like, we're gonna make this
epic and grand, and this is gonna be such a such a good tale,
and I just feel like my heart goes out to be like I hear
you man, like there's good production value in here, that the artwork is
kind of inspired in some places, like the character designs are good. There's
some like pans labyrinth plucking dudes in it. I see you guys put some
effort into this, and so I don't know, maybe that is influencing me
and being like I want this to work out for you and I can get
behind this. I really like what I see in it. Uh Yeah,
I need to focus. I need to right in and take two weeks off
and finish everything. Just get it all done. I got a better idea.
Yes, why don't you take all those games that you just mentioned,
Ye, throw them away and just play track Mania. Yeah, I think
about that thin. Come with me, show me something, Come with me
and play track Mania too, for the rest of your life. Listen to
share. Yes, every every time I see it, I think. I
think I can make some cool tracks. Yeah. I want nothing to do
with making tracks. You don't want to, but you can drive my cool
tracks. Okay, somebody said, I got I got last week. I
got into a little bit of track Mania two trouble and it's first hit.
I'm not I'm not to Jeff's stage yet, but I get it. There's
no free version of track Mania now right, I'm not of two No.
Okay, somebody did you see this picture or somebody sent about the end of
the world. Yeah, it's insane. It makes you just want to buy
track Mania just to do that, he said. So basically, it's weird.
You can see there in the quick look. You drive off the track
and it doesn't like respond you back on the track. You just drive and
you just kind of just keep going. It's just just the world. This
is mania plant. And eventually apparently you stop driving over like mountains and stuff,
and it just becomes a gradual incline until you go past the sky box,
like through the sky into heaven, and then it just becomes crazy.
So he said it takes about three or four minutes just to get to that
incline. Yeah, and then you just go up forever. Doesn't sound amazing.
It's just heaven mania all the way. So I just want to make
a track that takes you there. I don't think you can put track out
there, So so is the idea probably not? Is the idea here that
like this they they didn't build like tracks. They just built like this giant
map and then they're just yes, and then the track editors all block based,
so you're just dropping down these blocks in this in the center of their
playfield, and the area that you can manipulate with track parts is way smaller
than the full area. You know, they just want it to look like
that's where is going to take place. Yeah, this is this is like
even theoretically just to the canyon area anyway, like there will be other areas.
Then will they connect to this? Will there be revisions to They'll probably
be a situation where they add blocks in each one of the environments and those
carry over into the others. There will be things that I just wanted to
buy. Multiple games will probably transport back and forth. I don't know if
I can drive from the canyon area to the fu Ungle area, the kind
of this, I don't know. I don't know, Man, this game
is so messed up. It is. It's made by lunatics, crazy people
and being used by crazy people. In some cases, it's like really disappointing,
but it's also awesome. Yeah, Like it's the hoops you have to
jump through to Nothing about any of the interface makes a little game. Does
not come with an instruction manual. No. So the only reason I know
as much as I do about track Mania is because I played a fair amount
of track Mania United Forever, the previous one, right, And I was
like, so you were creating like a giant bomb group, and I'm like,
like, hey, send me an invite. Let's let's be track Mania
friends. You're all right, I've said, I'm like, I have literally
no idea where is the interface to find that information like what like and it's
like you can't tell what's just text and what is a button in that game?
Constantly it's like, well, might do I click on? No,
I can't click on that. Wait, hold on, I clicked on that
and it selected it okay, but then I have to go and hit the
okay button over here. Wait, this is You're just giving me a list,
this is a even a thing I can select. You're just showing me
information here. So and a lot of that stuff is right out of the
previous game. And they really feels like it really feels like they just it
really feels like they really didn't put any effort into usability tests. Like everything
I hear about this game makes it sound like a game designed by programmers.
Yeah, kind of like the stuff you were saying about how you met,
how you set up a server for that game, and like you have to
install sequel on your machine. I'm running separately. I'm running a server now.
Uh no, I mean I'm paying for a service that runs a sequel.
But if you want to run a server, or if you want to
run a server yourself, walk through the He told me the stuff yesterday and
my mind exploded. So there's dedicated server software for for the game run separate
from the game. Run separately from the game to tie it. To get
it to access to your account, you have to create a separate log in
account for the dedicated server and then do that. That's like you're editing XML
files I think for that and create an account. You just kind of enter
whatever. Okay, So it's not as long as it's not going to like
the track Mania two weeks, like I need to create an adminicators. You
have to go to the website and link them together somehow, and so like
once you start the server, it's like, Okay, I know that that's
a server name, and I know that when you're this account connects it will
be an admin because this is the account it's tied to. And is that
is that set up so that you could like have multiple people be admins?
And so I'm sorry, we're geting media ahead of myself here. You could
just run a vanilla server. You could just like download the dedicated server and
put it up and be done. But it's not going to have any of
the stuff that is kind of now standard for a track Mania server, like
persistent records across sessions and you know, the ability to kick people out properly.
And you know, like like a lot of things are plugins, so
there's a whole like architecture for plugins like xml L, RPC stuff. So
you have to run a separate process that is like this plug in thing,
and for that to work, you have to have PHP and like my sequel
installed on a Windows machine. On Linux, you know, you'll probably already
have that stuff. So you basically really need to turn your machine into a
server like a web server. You've got a full like they did not make
their own database. They just want you to use this open source and this
is how it was in the previous game also and the and it's became kind
of the standard for how the game is played. And you know there's like
cross server records keeping now for for for track Mania United. None of that
stuff made it into the core of track Mania two. It is all still
in fact, like the it's like, I mean, I'm trying to think
how to pronounce it, like zaccho x A S E c O is like
the plug in structure that people use. And this is what will help you
serve up music. This is what her helps you serve up like a jukebox
to let people select tracks. So it's just as bolton like after the fact,
yeah, feeling as the original, which I was in the original that
they didn't incorporate and then yeah, exactly, they didn't build you, and
it sounds like they did go and build their own thing called Mania Alive,
but it's the same. It's it's also runs separately outside of the main server
and requires PhD and that's kind of crazy. So I actually, so someone
put together a track Mania two server in a box which of you google that
you can find it and it'll actually install the web server and install the plug
in stuff, and actually it's pretty easy to get it up and running.
Adding tracks is I don't know how you do it with that. I was
able to because another guy was running a server kind of on our behalf unofficially,
and then he couldn't run it. So like, I'll try and put
it together and just grab his map directory and his map list stuff and incorporated
it and had it running. But I don't have a good enough connection to
really serve that up. My upstream is garbage. So it was just a
poor experience for most of people. So at that point I was like,
fuck it. I'm gonna rent a server. I'm gonna go pay money for
someone to run this and started looking around and you know, had to decide
which site I was willing to pay a bunch of euros to because none of
them took dollars, but some of them did take PayPal and found a hosting
service and went with that, and actually getting tracks out of the server is
is actually really easy now with one with their pay service. It's like it's
not it's not run by ubisoftter and in the day or anybody. It's like
a separate So how much how much Ubi stuff do you see in this game?
It's their logos kind of all over it, but none. But like
in terms of like them putting out this game, no good zero. I
mean, it's it's not even I think they sell it on their store,
but it's only available digitally through the Ubisoft store and I think through TrackMania dot
com directly seem like pretty different stuff. Yeah, we went on Steam and
because of the way the game's going to hook together with all the different parts
and stuff, you know that they've kind of hinted that it might not be
on Steam ever, because like the way you describe it kind of just sounds
like I'm expecting like to install it and like have uh like like literally have
like MIDI of like Welcome to the Jungle playing with a scroll that says cracked
by you know from movie Soft, and like, you know, just basically
like you know Razor, you know, fifty one seventeen. The thing,
like everything about this sounds like something that John Carmack would have architected in like
nineteen ninety six or something just like this kind of like Bootstrappy then like open
info doc that tells you how to put these things into copy these into the
directory, and then like it says track mania and asky at the top.
It's it's you know, it's it's got menus and like it's it's pretty playable
out of the box, like you first time I booted that up, I
was racing on. I didn't, though it does do a terrible job of
telling you what the hell you're supposed to do in that game. I also
got this offline component and yeah, you can play it, but then there's
a difference between just playing those tracks and beating the times, and then you
can set an official time, which is then uploaded to the server and you
get skill points so well, because there's also the the whole metal points for
getting metals. You get skill points for setting official times offline on the tracks
that come with the game, and then there are ladder points you get for
playing online. These are all completely separate methods of progression that have zero to
do with each other, and again to two jas point never explained in any
capacity game. The game launches into this kind of interface for man, I
mean there's I mean it's where your points are worlds. Yes, there's a
screen with a bunch of like like here's a little box, and here's the
thing that looks like a shield, and then here's a bar, and here's
another bar. There's like a messaging system like their forum is basically the first
thing you see center screen in that thing, and uh, it just dumps
constant information at you without any context. Well, once you can, if
you can get past that, I can get past the craziest there. It
is a terrific awesome it's terrifically funny. It's one of those things that when
I see it makes me think that it's somehow this lucy goosy thing is going
to become the thing twenty years from now. Where everything takes place, like,
oh, I'll see you. Are you in in the Mania, Yeah,
I'll see you in the Mania. Drive to my Mania hub and we'll
have a business meeting where I'll give you seventy grams of jazz. And you
know, so there's like a there's an Internet within the Internet inside of Mania
Planet, and it's not it doesn't seem to be working right now, but
you know, the previous game is any indicator it will probably eventually how to
work. Or basically, you can set up storefronts in the game and then
people can browse them based on geographical locations. So you can make your Mania
zone and then register it in like California or whatever, and then you can
you can serve up. If you've made custom cars or icons or horns or
anything like that, or maps, you can sell them there for in game
currency. For planets. How do you buy a planet? You don't,
you earn, you earn, So getting metals gets you planets, okay,
and these separate points that then you're converting and reaching certain rankings in the ladder
on online you get planets, and for connecting every day you get planets.
Can you just play it? Can you can you can. You can about
you grind the system, Like if you make a server and just have your
track that's locked and make it like one and become number one on that track.
No, that giving number one on that track doesn't give you anything,
So that's not part of the ladder stuff. No. Being part of the
ladder stuff is you competing against other players and their positions on the ladder versus
yours. So if you are on a server with people that are higher ranked
than you and you do better than them, you earn more ladder points than
you would if you didn't. Oh, so you literally have to compete against
other people gain any of those game ladder points. Yeah, skill points are
set from official time, so it's and there's no manual and there's no you
know, the interfaces is pretty terrible, and it's it's really too bad because
like the game itself is really accessible and easy to understand. Just drive,
just drive, and the handling model is stuff that you know is nuanced and
you'll pick up on over time. Basically drive but basically just fucking drive.
You know. I think the thing to wrap your mind around is and I
only know this from like watching you in from what little uh track me one
that I had played. Uh, is you know, you you're not really
using in a lot of these races, like traditional race tactics, right,
because there's there's no contact. You're playing up cars, everything clips through everything
else, and that's you know whatever. That's honestly more of a distraction than
anything else. It's not like you can turn those off. Yeah, you
know, you can turn off the ghost cars ghost cars if you like,
you know, it's it's no, it can be a good thing if you're
starting at the same time as another race to get a sense of like,
Okay, I'm taking this this corner better, because all you're trying to do
is just run the same thing over and over again until you shaves as many
you know, tenths of a second as you can off of your off of
your best time. Uh. And you know, like all these tracks just
get created and uploaded to a community run server, Like they don't even run
their own map hosting service, which is weird because that's so key to the
whole experience. Like it's it's weird that they did not pull all this stuff
that the community is built internal and make it better. Right, So it's
like you still have to go to Mania Exchange to download tracks and it's it's
a perfectly functional system, works just fine. But like in this day and
age, like like with the community driven nature of that, there should be
a better in game map browser or or better certain just it's insane. Well
that's the part that makes me feel like this is they needed a UI guy
and they needed a social media ga. But the lack of that is the
part that makes me feel like this is also crazy and this is the future
kind of like where people will live in there. It's very yeah wildfrontier.
Yeah, there is that. It's kind of refreshing because like games aren't like
this anymore, and it definitely feels like you're you know, like okay,
we okay, I hacked. I feel like they have to root on this
box and we're gonna telling that into it instead of a quake service, don't
fucking tell anybos, like a grassroots of purity to it. I feel like
somebody's gonna die in Mania world and they're gonna die in real life. That's
like there's gonna be some like you know and share will play the funeral.
I mean, it's it's there is that weird economy that that Jeff mentioned was,
you know, it's all there's this weird barrier to entry to like understand
kind of the bigger picture of this game. But when you actually get into
the race, it's it is so accessible for now, but wait until media
it was a media Planet, right planet. Yeah, the promise of what
they're Puttingmania Planet comes up constantly, like when you load that thing up,
it's all. But but like I think, I think the icono my desktop
doesn't even say track what they have on the coming soon from Media Planet,
right kind of Christmas list just sounds ridiculous. But then you know, also
they've already broken a lot of promises with this game in terms of what it
was supposed to have, Like they announced a co op campaign for the cars
for track Media, which it does not have, uh, modes from the
previous game, stunts like all that other Like there was a lot of stuff
that was in the previous game that's just straight up not here, which is
weird because in a lot of ways, it just looks like they just took
the previous track Mania game the core of it, yeah, and then added
a new renderer, and then made a new car model and and you know,
altered the driving model and said, all right, yeah, we're cool.
I just I really like the the you know, the abstract nature of
a lot of the track designs, because it's it's not just like you have
this contiguous ribbon of track. It's like, all right, you're gonna turn
this corner and then you have to jump over this like gap edge here.
It's like you could just drive around this spot, but you're not gonna get
the good time if you do that, So hit these speed and then all
sudden there's no track for a while. And when you're on dirt, you
drip. You know, you're you're sliding and drifting all over the place.
You know, keep yourself going straight. It's like, all right, then
you're gonna you're gonna drive on these boost strips and then you're gonna go straight
up this wall and you drive on the side of this wall for a while
and you're gonna come down. You'renna have to, you know, drift around
this corner behind this other big ramp. It's it's just it's and and you
have to. There's so many times where it's like, all right, leap
a faith here. I hope that I am going fast enough to connect to
this next piece of track, because if I'm not, I'm just gonna hit
this ledge and then I might as well to start from the beginning because my
time is gonna be shit. So uh, it's it is. I mean,
that's the part that's brutal about it is it is within any session,
it is just this repetition. It's just this, do this perform this track
for six minutes. Yeah, for for five or six minutes or ten minutes.
Every you know, it's you know, adjusted accordingly. And most of
them my server sent to six minutes. And most of the ones that I
played have been really short. Most of the like under two minutes per run,
per run, so yeah, I mean, the the good track length
it's probably around a minute. Yeah, there's something to be said for the
tracks that are like fifteen or twenty seconds. Yeah, in terms of just
like, you know, then you're really just like I gotta get better.
I gotta get better. You know, you're you're that's all condensed and that's
kind of cool, But over a minute it starts to get a little well.
The problem then is like, ah, there was just a random caught
a weird edge, and it's like your whole run, you have to do
so much more to get back, and especially when you're like you're saying when
you only have five or six minutes, it's like that's That's the only thing
that I don't know how you fix in track Mania is when you get to
the point of I literally don't have enough time to make another four run here.
But that's when you spend donuts at the intr the track until time expose.
That's what I figured out. But if your horn over and over there
needs to be I don't know, there needs to go through weird end game.
I don't know. Yeah, where you're shooting, you're shooting guitars to
knock them off because you can't It's like I can't do anything meaningful here,
but I have to run out the clock anyway. So yeah, everyone goes
into that's what it kind of becomes a chat room. Yeah, you know.
It's also the interesting thing about this, and you know with us running
a server and stuff like that, now you know people that speak English are
playing the game, which was not often the case with with the track Mania.
You know, you got gg that's all. Yeah, if you were
lucky you got that. That game to me is this is This is kind
of what the future of Ridge Racers should have been. I feel like like
track Mania is drinking Namco's milkshake on this one. It's like, yeah,
crazy, accessible, over the top, wild ass arcade racer. Yeah,
but from like a complete like the origin couldn't be further away from where Ridge
Racers started. But the product there that they're making. If you know,
if Namco had any sense and Nadia had an already hooked up with Ubisoft,
that seems like that would have been a natural fit between the two. Yeah.
I mean the Bugbear game actually with their block based track editor. Yeah,
you know, that's that seems very track MANI alike to me that they
do have that block based stuff. It was French, right, yep,
I'm all the family over there Mania. Yeah. So the server is called
Giant Bomb Official Classic Holds fifty dudes, uh, and it's it's set up
in California. If you want to dig down through the layers, they're a
lot like six servers in California, I think. So, you know,
oh really that many? Last time I choked, it was like coo,
yeah, yeah, So how do I get my tracks to you? We
have a thread on the boards we have a thread and track Mania two about
the server. Just post your post your track to the Mania exchange, post
your gopher link and then yes archie the gopher to and and basically post coach
on our track media mud upload the tracks somewhere preferably Mania Exchange, and and
then you get down and then tell me where it is okay, and then
send me a link to it on that thread. I'm checked, But first
figure out how to open up the track editor. If it yeah, it
might not be so bad, but yeah, we have a couple of guys
on the boards that have made some some pretty good tracks. I just want
to see. I added like four really cool tracks last night, and then
a race like six. We have one hundred and forty tracks on that server,
which is way too many. A lot of them are pretty bad,
and so basically there's a karma system. People can vote yes no on on
track. So once things get to like negative ten overall, no, I
have to I have to go. But you can just see like, oh,
people hate this track. I have to log into the server, and
then there's a command I can issue that causes a really shitty pop up window
to appear that lists the tracks in karmic order, and then on my MacBook,
I have the web browser open to the administration panel for the company that
I'm paying to run this stuff, and from there I delete the tracks.
But that administration panel only exists because you're paying someone, right, Otherwise you'd
be in their raw editing crazy file. Actually that with the plugins and stuff
that are running, you can you can just type a race track and it'll
erase the carent track. So I probably could do it that way, but
since the server has to be restarted every time I add new music, I
need to do it through their stuff because I can back up the track list
and back up other stuff that way. And so your music, what kind
of hot tracks are planning? When you're an hour track mini server I put?
I put that that Katie perry et Excellent Step remix, just say I
would hope for a high representation of dub step in there. So what else?
I found a share bass nectar remix of Where Is My Mind? By
the Pixies and put that in there. Can you get a drumm and bass
version of the Sesame Street theme in there while you're at it? So I
could probably put that in there basically, and you know, people are just
fucking complaining like crazy. You're just like random people joining them. What the
fuck? There's only five songs on there at first, so it was an
awful lot of share and an awful lot of that Katy Perry song. Then
the Katy Perry one seems to be the one that gets the most hate.
Really, it wasn't even share at all. Their share. I added the
Buckner and Garcia Classic very good because you know what, what other track Mania
server is run by a website that has had a song written about them by
the guys what rope pac Man Fever to my knowledge zero, So this is
clearly the best track Mania server on the internet. Jeff, you uh,
you get into anything else you want to talk about? What you want to
talk about Burnout Crash. Yeah, okay, you played a lot more of
it than I have. That that game is cool and it will be a
better iPad game someday. It's that game is not good enough. This is
not Jeff sitting before us. I understand what he means by that, because
it's, uh, the basic controls in that game, it's you don't really
do a lot in that game, and the the main mode, like the
ordering of the main mode is terrible. So compared to the other modes,
this game is laid out is like you have this this you know, main
page, and it's it's like a you know, a big long road and
along the way you're basically unlocking new locations. And when you first unlock a
location, all you can do is this this primary mode, I forget what
they call it? A road trip? Yeah, yeah, is that the
road trip one? Yeah? Okay, uh, But it's basically you are
you're at this intersection, you drive into this intersection, you have your initial
crash, and then you'll see cars coming in from the different sides of the
intersection, and and you get little arrows, get a little warning is basically
saying like, hey, cars are you know, we have this many stacked
up over here and they're going to start activating now. And you know,
as crashes happened, you're building up your crash meter, so you can pop
that, create a little explosion kind of try and start some chain round and
then use after touch to float your car around. But you're after touch you
don't have even on the lightest vehicle, like the the buggy is not great
or it's it's it's balanced. So you know, you have this a bunch
of different vehicles that you can choose, and it's you know, the big
heavy like cargo truck explodes huge, but you don't have a huge amount of
aftertouch, and the buggy can move really you know, a lot more easily,
but the explosion doesn't do that much, doesn't have that much impact.
But yeah, either way, the amount of moving, the amount of actual
control you have over the action doesn't seem like it's great. There isn't There
isn't a lot of it, and it's long like that. First, the
initial mode is like you're in there for probably like what four or five minutes
or something like that ideally because the other thing and you can't let the cars
escape any any you can let five. Once you let five, it's automatic,
automatic, game over. Huh. At the same time, you're trying
to like basically build up this meter to hit these these milestones within the match,
because it has a hard end each each one of these, uh you
know, kind of encounters or whatever it has Like well, no, it's
not that, it's build You build up this meter and then like this big
super event happens at the end and you get some bonuses out of that.
But I feel like this, like a lot of the times, the super
event yeah cuts you off, like you could do better if you actually were
using the cars to you know, blow up the buildings. And there's a
lot of hidden there's like three hidden sports cars in a hidden gold car on
East not really hidden, but they're kind of away from the car. Yeah.
Yeah, you gotta take a little more effort and you get a lot
of bonus points for blowing up and basically shooting a car into another car,
like they call them skill shots. Uh, so you're you're trying, it's
it's you you're kind of serving multiple masters with like, Okay, I gotta
make sure that all these cars don't get away from me. So I'm trying
to just you know, block these intersections. But then occasionally you'll have a
bonus vehicle that comes through that you want to let through because that'll knock one
of the you know, X's off of your list if you can allow him
to get through successfully. But it sounds like there's variety in it, but
is it too much? But the problem is that is that so that that
mode is not the best once you and that's the one you have to do
first on every single track before you open up the other two by completing at
once. So and the other ones, like one of them is limited by
cars, Like you're there will only be twenty five cars to come into this
intersection, so you want to try and keep them as close together and pristine
through the majority of that match as you can, and then you'll have kind
of basically an end game where you can pop and build your your fast breaker
a lot more quickly. So it's like you're trying to keep as much fuel
for explosions on the map as you can and then not cars and dump set
them on fire, blow stuff up. And I didn't like that mode.
That is my least favorite mode. I like it better than the the road
trip one because I yeah, I really don't like the one that's time limited,
the ninety second one that's that's the mode. So you just just like
a size But as you march down this path, uh like there's different kind
of layouts, but it's you're doing the exact same things. There's always like
a lookout for emergency vehicle, let let him through, or uh here comes
a pizza truck. Also uh awful sounding game, I really I find I
find the like the music samples and stuff that they trot out every single session.
I guess you have played a lot more of it than I have.
I still find it novel well. Also, it was great when when the
road freezes, it plays ice Ice Baby for a few seconds. And I
get now why they compare it to a pinball machine, because every single mode,
every single thing has a theme song. So every time the ambulance appears,
it plays a song for one thing. I had to. I didn't
have to, but I listened to you play it a bunch before I even
touched it, so I it was already familiar with, like what the sound
like, what the queues, the doctor beats, you know, sound cue
whenever the ambulance comes on, or you know, it's raining men for this
part, or whatever little sound clip that they decided to use. That's that's
part of it. But also English dudes trying to not do English dude accents
and then and then blowing it holy shit. Every time the guy talks,
it's it's only really in the tutorial. For the most part, he talks
like because there's the DJ on every level, and it's different as you progress,
and so it's like, no, he's a surfer dude, but English
going dude. Save the dude very well, No, no, none of
that's yeah, whoever, yeah, whoever'd of the voice is obviously a British
dude and had closed like one line per sentence or one line per paragraph or
something like reveals his nature. Yeah, and it sticks out. It sticks
out hard, sticks out pretty hard. And so I've got I blew through
all like I unlocked everything, and I blew through all the maps, and
uh, it's it just gets repetitive. And that's because because there are there
are all those constants. There are you haven't played much with connexses all with
controller, there are all those constants, Like you know, okay, I
can't let like I'm gonna have to do this road trip mode every one of
these to keep progressing. And I know I can't let five cars off the
map or else I won't get to play as long. And I really want
to try and go for these you know, these hidden sports cars or the
gold car. You know there's a hole over there. I definitely want to
try and you know, shoot some cars in there. So it's it's like
you you learn the basic strategy pretty early on and then it's just repeating that
strategy over. It's not like like, oh, I have found the meta
game in this somehow. You know, I got lucky and so that's why
I have a hundred million on this one. Let's move on. So the
thing having not played the game at all, Yeah, just from like basically
the quick look to ex and stuff what we've seen. I feel like when
I see that game, it is literally just a multiplayer party game, like
it is something that you want to It seems like it would be very repetitive
to try and grind through single players styles. But like individual mode is long
enough that like having people standing there going like waiting to play, well,
maybe they were shorter like when we when we did that four player thing,
it seemed like the whole thing was like the tension of like is this guy
gonna beat my score this round? Oh, you got really lucky, because
it seems like there was a lot of random stuff happening. They build all
the autologue stuff into it so compete against you kind of sense challenges and constantly
go back and forth if you want to do that. The autologue stuff,
like you know, it's functionally like it's the same as what they had in
Hot Pursuit last year. But it doesn't work. And by that I mean
like without a variety of tasks to perform, without like like real variety,
Like okay, they've got maybe I don't know. It was like twenty probably
different intersection locations, and there's like four or five different kind of thematic zones
that you go through. I saw the lobster monster. He's very big,
worthy of blow up near him? What did it do? No, he's
this he's the super effects. Okay, all right, he's the thing that
comes through the end all so scarcely children. He blew me up. Really.
Now you drive away as you spend several minutes just exploding, and then
you're like all right later and then take off like what what how did I
do that? I don't understand to ask anything about what's going on? Uh.
That's a game that I can see being a lot more fun. Again,
back to Jet's point of you know, short bursts on an iPad something
like that, the controls aren't so specific that if you were touching on the
screen the screen to explode, tilts to tilt, Yeah, tilt after touch
after that'll totally work. That'll be fine. That'll be absolutely fine, right,
because the Connect controls are pretty hands off too. It's it's I think
it's like move forward in the backwards in the space to move the arrow,
yeah, and then jump. I have tried it since we got the final
version, but but playing it with Connect, like I was having trouble figuring
out like should I be leaning, should be stepping? I think it's I
think it's like move within the space. I think that's what you were doing,
and then do the posture to the special posture they give you to explode
you jump to. It's random for the mode that we were playing. It's
like, okay, do this different lang yeah, yeah, and cheerlead or
that hands up in the air. That's ridiculous, that's kind of cool.
I guess you know. I haven't beyond that meeting that we took with the
criterion guys, I haven't seen any of the Connects stuff. But yeah,
it's and and the like. Once I got to the end and I hadn't
played like all of the I didn't do like all three event types for every
intersection or anything. But even still like looking at achievements and whatever, because
once you once you finish the last one, it's just like credits role and
then back to the menu. I could see what you guys are saying about
the sessions being too long for multiplayer fun, because that is definitely one of
the big draws. My point is that it's is that it's not fun.
It's not really fun in single player for long stretch as eye. That's a
game, I think to make that more fun. That's a game that you
play, you know, one or two, and then go and do something
else. But even even if you are really long, yeah, that intro
load time is weirdly long. Yeah, but even if you had people over,
you're right, you don't want to be out of the game for four
minutes at a time watching somebody else explode like it doesn't seem like people,
I think, and I think that what they chose to do with the structure
of it is it's probably the thing that does it the most harm, the
way that it kind of forces you into experiencing certain yeahs of content in that
way, because you're right that that mode is not the best game. If
they just swapped it so that the ninety second mode was the mandatory one,
automatically better game, it's just not even yeah, because that that main mode
isn't even like the best introduction, like you're having to be you have to
play so much more conservatively in that mode because I can't. I can't just
like blow up constantly because if I'm over in this corner and then four cars
going to the intersection. Games it's it's, yes, they you definitely cannot
get as chaotic as you think you would be able to with a game focused
on you exploding over and over. Actually, like none of the modes really
capitalize on that, Yeah, terrifically, Like for all the promise of we
took the driving outs and now it's just exploding. Uh, it's not as
good as it is. It's not as things you have to do to get
a decent score from the people who brought you fucking burnouts. God damn it.
So how much is how much is it going for? Is it ten?
It's ten? Ten downloadable? Is eight hundred points or ninety nine?
Has he download? I think it's ten dollars worth of fun so far you're
still figuring it out. It's it's not terrible, that's for sure. Like
I like it's I enjoyed it for a while and then it just yeah,
it just kind of lost it. Just it's it's not I'm telling you man,
you put that on a phone, but that I don't know, I
pad. We should be clear. I don't know that they have any if
they've announced any sort of plans for anything like that. Yeah, I don't
know. They very early on, we're very clear about plans about that,
and then didn't announce any of them. Okay, yeah it was. It
was because it was literally conveyed to me that they were announcing the iPad,
the iPad two version at games Colm, and I don't I don't know if
that happened or not, So I don't know. Well, plans are no,
I agree with that assessment of that game. They how to be started
as we game. If you remember from that interview, they had been working
on it on the Wii for a while and then didn't put it out all
the way. So that that shows in certain elements of that game for sure.
Yeah, mm hmm, tracks is planning I play anything else? Yeah,
track Mania two is out play that building building box you had to you
or you didn't have to, but just to kind of speak to how weird
and and effed up track Mania two is you essentially paid for that game twice.
You you were you bought it as part of the e didn't so so
you bought it as part of the Bata things, Yes, which got you
into the final game. Yes. Uh. And and right around the time
that they switched from all right, we're going for beta and now it's a
full it's a real boy in right, we got some press codes for the
game, and I'm and I'm like, I don't know if this is different
from what you have, Jeff, So I'm just gonna forward you one of
these codes. You can do what you want, and these are the things.
The person who sent us the codes was like, oh, he's in
the beta. Okay, well here's some codes for the retail like like the
like the UBI. I don't know if I don't know if people can get
into the could have gotten into the beta without a game key already basically so
on their website, you go, you can log in with your media account
and then go into uh you know, a menu where you can just feed
it player keys and it'll take as many as you feed. It just gobbled
it right up. Like okay, yeah, he's like that thinks there you
go, cool, cool, run on, you got any more of those
and it didn't change anything. I don't, I don't mean its great.
Did you get more more planets? I think I got five thousand more planets,
which I then used to invite people to our group, which is unfortunate
because they could have just been spending their planets to join the group, just
splendant planets to download the game? What? Wait? So you just buy
planets and then no buy the game. When you buy the game, you
download it and that's fine. But if you want to download it again hundred
planets? What? Yeah? Why if you you know, if you bone
up your if you lose the install files, you need to download it again?
How many? How many points to invite someone to your group? Hundred?
Why? Because because crazy people? If you can have you have fifty
slots on your friends list, fifty one, one hundred and fifty planets to
add a slot. Why do you have to spend points that invite somebody to
your group to play with I don't know. There's no manuals anything, It's
just the truth. I think. If if you're running a dedicated official ladder
server, you get planets on an hourly basis per player, are you running
that? But no, Okay, I'm running it an unofficial so in order
to switch it from like a just an unranked ladder server to a real ladder
server, I have to give them a deposit of ten thousand planets. This
doesn't make sense. And for higher as deposit, well, if you if
you don't like to stay in the carpet or something, you can get that.
It says deposit on the screen. If I want to create an organization
in game, which I think might be a plant, I don't know,
is that planets? That's even more? That's like that might be one hundred
thousand plant. How many planets do start with? Like five thousand? Okay,
so one hundred and fifty planets not that much? Well, I mean
if you brown through that first five like I don't know, I'm I don't
play great for getting a gold medal on a track, Uh, you get
sixty planets? Oh that is a lot then yeah? Yeah, for for
going up a thousand spots on the ladder or earning earning a thousand ladder points,
you get I want to say, five hundred two hundred not a lot?
Does it cost you planets? If you like? Log out? No,
I quit the game. No, quitting the game is free launching the
game. That's fifty planets. And so every time I log in now,
like I got a bunch of friend requests when I created the group and the
server and all this stuff, and h accepted all of them, and it
let me accept all of them. And now every time I log in,
it says, hey, you have more than fifty friends. You need to
deal with this, or we will. But like, it'll just cut my
most recent friends down to fifty at some point, at some point. But
the fact that it'll let you add friends, what who made this game?
So I envisioned? So I envisioned a scenario. What if you spend all
your planets? Because you can also send plants to other players, you can
donate to their server, and it goes to the player. They take a
tax out when they do that. Nadeo takes like a percent of What do
they care about planets? They want they want the in game money to mean
something, so they need as many different drains for it as possible. Right,
the economy just accumulates with it. Yeah, so everyone's planet rich.
What happens if you spend all your planets on cars and and additional friends slots,
and then your hard drive crashes and you have no planets and you don't
have the game anymore. Right, do you think you accrue planets in the
background on their server. No, you log in to get those planets,
so it's on log in. I would guess that you get your daily planets
or weekly planets, or however they end up giving them to you. Can
you can you spend money to buy planets? Ever? No, you can
buy if you buy another copy of the game and feed of that player key.
I think you get another five thousand, because I think that's how I
ended up with ten thousand. I don't know, man, messed up.
It's a weird mess up. Change my disk into planets. You guys should
play it. You guys should play I want should play it. You should
play it. It's so fucking weird. I'm gonna build World one one.
It's so weird. It's hit the block and the car comes out. Anything
non Mania related, Jeff, you want to I'm pretty much all Mania all
the time, just manic. Yeah, there's a lot of that going around.
Donnas retch maker going, man, how you doing? How's reside Evil
four? In high definition functional competence? That all great back of box quotes
dot dot dot okay works as advertising. I'm sorry, what did you say?
What is that product? I don't know if it's actually called Reside Evil
four HD. I don't think that's like the full official title. Are there
other resident Evils in it? No, it's just for so in Japan they
put this out on a disk bundled with Code Veronica. Yeah, so that's
what I wanted to clarify X. Yeah. Yeah, well god they're okay,
there are multiple levels of Claire case you need to take place here?
What what is code Vernica X? Is that different? Was the updated version
they put out one? And maybe it was just but it's more than just
the Dreamcast version? Yeah? They I think sure. So the Dreamcast it
was one of the things where they added like meats in this one, you
know, like added it some kind of didditional mode meat meat. He's like
the unlockable character that's been in mean hunk yeah, hunk. Yeah? What
uh was Codevernic? It was the first one where they actually had polygonal backgrounds.
Yes, it wasn't. It wasn't just I think that's yes, that
it was. The Dreamcast one was the first one on the Dreamcast. I
think they Yeah, I think x was maybe some some bonus feature stuff and
cleaned up some graphics a little bit. But so what's that. Okay,
that's not out yet. Actually that's not out until next week. Yeah,
and there four came out this week and they're releasing that as a separate But
the reason, the reason I bring it up is that in Japan, this
all came out on a disc and it was on the same disc, right,
is that correct? Yeah, Sovernica and Or came out on this disc
on p S three n xbox in Japan. Biohazard chronicles like three weeks ago
or something or a month ago, and this here they have they have elected
to break them up and sell them for twenty bucks a piece on games on
Demand slash PSN. It's not even XPLA. Yeah, games on demand.
So that's part of what's so weird about this, because it's it's a games
on demand release because of yeah, it's it's like three points six gig download
and XPLA games top out it a little over two. Bradley, what else
is going on? Managa? Ops? Yeah, yeah, I only played
through like the first mission. I played the entirety of that game since last
we spoke. Yeah, it's still good. Yeah, games awesome, Play
play some more. Mission five. I think Avalanche fellows no thing or two
about explosions. Yeah, stuff blows up real really, you know how to
make explosions look real good? Why would you pick anyone other than the air
strike barrel. I played some of the other characters, and they have their
uses, Okay, the guy with the don't fend the airstrikes super useful either
subdue I don't know, the air strike once you get the ability that makes
it hit as soon as you use it, Okay, Because because when you
first go through that first mission, before you have any points to sink into
anything, it's a Yeah, there's like a three second delaynificant delay and like
and a lot of the targets in that first mission are mobile and there are
four air strikes happening at the same time. It's shit. I love the
structure of that, Yeah, I love the like amazing, Like you have
this other kind of like side mission that's going on right now. You can
run around and go these encampments and rescue these dudes if you want, and
you get more XP for doing that, and then your jeep levels up,
but then you've got this clock to or you know, you don't even know
that the clock is taking until it hits this certain point, like all right,
you've got this much time to finish your main objective or else you're It's
it's kind of fun with multiplayer because you can actually split up and just are
you are you gonna do that one? I'm going to take care of this.
Yeah, that sounds awesome. I only play. The way they notify
you that your time is about to run out is amazing. There is no
fucking way you can miss that, Like it goes completely black and white,
it slows down to about a tenth of the speed. Yeah, and then
it's just like boom, you got three minutes your ass. And and I
read your review and I liked it, and you mentioned the point I didn't
realize that the like your your CEO having his fill was basically the opening study.
It's great, like they say, every set, all the story and
everything in motion right there, and he's like, I got no time for
you, Namby Pamby diplomats just like him and Hong like wringing their hands about
what do we do? He literally pulls the handful like the fistful of metals
off of his uniform, fucking throws him down on the table like storms out.
It's amazing. It's just got big old chops, real captain price looking
back, Yeah, Alex. Alex made the point that it's basically like the
G I. Joe game that we always wanted, you know, Yeah,
like they might as well have just given you some guys that are down for
this mission find your rag tag group. Yeah, it's and just like the
basic feel of the way the shooting and the driving works. Yeah, there
is really awesome. Dude, donuts all day long on those things. I
mean, just try too. But it's good. They should. Those guys
should make a avalanche, should make a iron Man. Ivan Stewart, Yeah,
dude, that that was the first game I thought of. When I
first played that game, I was like, this feels like super off Road.
There is that that looseness to it, that bumpy surfaces. Yeah,
it's a It's a hell of a game for for fifteen bucks. Good stuff.
Somebody on our forums positive the theory that this is them testing four player
co op in their engine. So the just cause three you can have four
player co op. I'll take it that happen. I still whatever, how
would that even work? I don't care. I want it all right.
I'm gonna fly the plane. I'm gonna buzz pass you. I want you
to jump onto it, hang onto the tail of it. I'm three of
you players us assume the stunt position. I'm gonna fly you into this building.
Three dudes are hanging off. Now, everyone jump out at the last
second, so we get knocked down this building. The mayhem would be unbelievable.
Yeah, yeah, it's a I like to believe. And they would
all have great accents, all four players. Yeah, there's some. There's
some good voice work in that game as well, some some stuff. It's
actually decent. I like to believe that. Renegade ops and just cause existency.
Yeah, that's that's all. That's continuous. That's the Avalanche verse,
totally on board. Does dig Doug also take place there? No, because
it's a sega so actually no, I guess it's there is no publisher,
right, yeah, continuity there. But I still maintain that Renegade Ops is
a terrible name. It is. It is. It's just it's too generic
fight men, although it is also I guess, you know, in the
kind of the throwback retro jackal e feel of that game, like that's a
name that a game would have had. It's it's sort of it's the bulletstorm
thing of how did we get to twenty eleven and there wasn't already a game
called Renegade Ops. Yeah, I feel like they really maybe there was who
knows, yea, I guess like a mode in something was called It's like
some old Data East game. There's nobody around to lay claim to it anymore.
Even the just you know, like Russ your attack, yeah, you
know, and you can kind of see around the edges. How it's you
know, it was probably made on a small budget, Like there is exactly
one piece of artwork for each of those characters. They never moved, they
never animated. I don't think you see them in and cut scenes really slide
in and out of frame pretty much. They've always got the same expression I
tried. But the other the other characters are are decent in some places,
like the guy who has the armored like shell that goes around him, because
you can still drive all it's on, you just can't shoot. But there's
a lot of places where you're getting hit real hard with a bunch of stuff
at one time, and popping that thing is down, drive through some buildings,
get healthy, super useful. There's no difference in like handling models for
those guys thought first I thought there was. But if there is, they
don't give you any kind of like you know, bars for speed and turning
and stuff like that. And I tried it again, tried to compare,
and like they'd seen basically the same. Uh. The skill trees are actually
all basically other than the skills that pertain to your new unique special ability that
all the skills are the same, they're just distributed in a different order.
So but interesting. It's a fun game. I'm just try some some four
player there, yeah, I uh and the quick look, we played four
player on a on a stage on normal game. It's just oh yeah,
stupid easy on normal with four people. I'm just gonna go through like on
normal solo. That's the way to do it, and get a four player
post to do the hard course because by the end of the run on normal,
you'll like your character'll be up to like level forty or something. Yeah
your level quick? Yeah you do you ding like it's like a straight up
MMO ding it's just like column of yellow light. Long. I'm like,
I'm too busy exploding things to hear about that. I'll get back to you
in a minute. Let me up grade later. But but I just do
this giant battleship that I'm shooting at it is done exploding. Oh man,
I wish they used the helicopter a little more often. Yeah, it's only
like two or three times. Uh. And when you die in the helicopter,
it's a it's a touch confused. Yeah, they do not make it
exquisite that, hey, go shoot that crate helicopter. All right, I
guess I'm in a buggie now, and then I'm gonna I'm gonna find at
that boat now that I'm in this buggy because you can still like drive around,
like there's still that path that you can go down, Like, okay,
this is the only place I can drive. Let's go still, that's
a little barreling down this road and then it just ends in the ocean.
Like I just again, that's not I'm clearly I'm doing something wrong. It's
it's a little rough, but it's just the core of it is so much
fun. And I did just want to I wanted to say. I played,
uh, played a little bit with Will Smith over the weekend on hardcore.
Hardcore does not mess around. So if you're gonna play, if you
get yeah, if you're gonna if you're gonna play online with other people,
play hardcore. But it does not, it does not scale. So it's
yeah, it's just that's to get your level up, then play hardcore.
That's what we're doing. Yeah, so level up and have a posse.
Great game, Brad, just the Gears years. I got Gears. Want
to go finished Gears as fast as I can before somebody tells me what happens?
Pretty what happens you sounds like you're pretty deep into it. Yeah yeah,
yeah, probably deep in four hours from you said you're in act four.
Yeah, yeah, there's there's five back Griffin has Yeah, Griffin has
sent me on the mission that he put me on. Okay, I'm doing
that. I was just trying to figure out I finished the first one really
really you never fought General Ram I didn't. I got to some dumb point
that game where just dying behind cover constantly, and I'm like it's one of
those like I'm want you put this down for now compact to later and then
just never did life happens? So that was that was Gears Too for me,
and and the Gears Too. I was just like, I'll just play
this like, yeah, yeah, I understand this universe well enough, speaking
back to kind of the simplicity of of the scenario and the first one,
which is just that first game is just about introducing the esthetic and kind of
the grimy tone of it all. So what was the I feel like I
was missing too much. It was the light mass bomb at the end of
the first one, right, you know what happened. They played like the
big story parts, right if you're trying to get that was that was the
focus. And the first one was was drop that bomb, drop that bomb,
sink just sinto just sinto plateau. Is that what it's called. Yeah,
Adam Phoenix, that's what I remember from the second one. There's gonna
be a thing now, I'm Adam Phoenix was a big deal. Yeah.
They definitely made him to be a big deal on this. I can't believe
I'm sitting here like just speaking so highly of Gears War three, Like I
just really didn't expect you know, it was a Yeah, it was like
it'll be more Gears whatever. But they kept you know, games in development
for a while. They showed it off at two e threes and various events
and stuff like that, and I never really spent a whole lot of time
looking at it. And when you know the stuff they were saying about,
like, oh, you know it's gonna be you know, more players and
co op and wider areas and stuff, you look at it, go that
looks good. Let me it looks like Gears, but it looks good whatever.
Yeah. But then it seemed like over the last like a couple of
weeks like of leading up to me going and like I went and played through
the first act like a month ago or something like that now, And it
wasn't until a couple of weeks before that that I was like, man,
I actually totally want to know what happens to the too in this game,
like story wise, like ill like it was real came on suddenly of like
I totally want to see this ship. And then playing through the first act,
I was like, yeah, okay, I super want to know how
this actually ends. Well, you know, it was weird. It was
weird to especially with the promise that like, hey, we're gonna do some
stuff to move this story along or finish it, and it was quickly not
to not to string you along into a seven chapter you know seven game.
Uh I just mentioned briefly. I've been trying to play that Akron Right game
for about two weeks now. I watched you try to play some of it.
I had to leave the room. I still I feel like an idiot,
but like, I still haven't quite gotten Drew Strom trying to help me
too. He sits in the room about an hour day. She just kinda
well know that not not that much. But we've been trying to do a
quick look of it, and I'm like, I just don't I still don't
quite understand what you want from me. Some kind of time travel RTS right,
Yes, so you can make your units jump back to save them.
Is that? So you jump back in time? And then you're like,
okay, here's what but but the present still? So you have a timeline,
you know, Okay, you're with me, this line of time of
time with the marker that says here's the present right at that time, that
present is always creeping forward, right the president the president time marches on.
So you jump back in time, but the present. What you did in
the present is still going forward. So the actions you're taking in the past
are you going to affect when you jump back to the future present where your
units are in the present, and the and the enemies you've killed in the
past will be reflected back into the present, but also the future of where
you are, So you're you're affecting the everything forward, and time catches up
in waves that go by kind of like lumines shut, Like it's just like
shut waves come by. But then and then you also the enemy or the
guys that are with you can also travel in time. So and then you
get two timelines that show you like, all right, Brad is in this
place currently, he's doing this. Uh, And then you get objectives.
Out of one understands anything. They're like, your objective is not to have
this guy. You're the coke guy at the party now and he's trying to
explain astrophysics. Doesnt need to jump back to two thirty because two thirty,
but you're you're at four thirty in the mission, so you need to jump
back here. And then on your timeline there are just red blobs that show
you big encounters that are happening, so you want to make sure you avoid
it's just crazy. And then you have chrono energy. But you can travel
in time, but you can also teleport rout on the map. What shut
up? Yeah? So like it's Jeff, So when you know when you
jump back in time, do your units disappear from the present? No,
well you don't see them unless you jump back to the present. But are
they there while time march at the time is marching on the present? Are
they still there? Or are you taking them out and taking them into the
past? Because I imagine like you know they're still there, and the well,
what are they doing there? If if you've if you've taken them back
into the past. Oh you know, I'm breaking news. What's up?
Patrick Klevit just sent me a text message that just says beat a client downloading
what beta? Would that be me too? But they're yeah, but there's
like three betas already that on the table that I can think about. It's
not battlefield because that's not you're looking at the present of where you currently are
in the past. I tried, you know what I'm saying. So,
like you jump back to the past, you're killing these guys, and now
you've reset the timeline when the time wave catches up, because whatever you do
in the past is rippled in a wave that actually has to travel through the
timeline to affect to reset what happened in the future. So you move back
there, and if you jump forward back to the present, your guys will
still be where they left you until the time wave catches up, and then
they'll be over here because that's where you left them in the past. Well,
now that you've spent all that time saying that, I just want to
say, Kirby mass Attack is really good. Oh that seems cool. Yeah,
how's the time mechanic? And that's all. I can't talk about it
now? Why because you've blown all of our time. We're deep into this
podcast. I just feel I feel bad because we've been I've been trying to
show the world this game because I think it might be interesting, but I
just can't wrap my head around it. And I'm not sure if we'll ever
do it a clok of it because it would just be me trying to explain
that. So it would just be like this this past five minutes on the
podcast. I'd like to rewind in the last five minutes of that and ask
some more questions earlier on. You know what I'm saying, like affect of
time. I'm right, I don't understand how you do that. I've just
cut this whole section of the podcast. I don't know how you do that,
Akron, certain sections cut for time? Sorry? How come I'm in
blocks that matter? What? Looking at the thumbnail for blocks that matter?
And that dude looks like a cartoon version of me. That is either the
dude who made Tetris or the dude who made Minecraft. Is this a game
from the people that made Tetris and Minecraft? No, apparently that game is
also available on Xbox Indie Games, So it's part Minecraft, part Tetris.
Yeah, did you watch that quick? Look? It's a cool platforming drilling
robot, A mister driller, mister robot, a Tizo Yeah, TiSER Hory
is driving a ridge racer machine. And then Rico Nagassi's brother is flying overhead
dropping bombs and everyone. No, he's driving that the above that he is
in space, he's driving that that machine shooting to a Galagha. Are you
a galag No? Galaghs are the I'm a Galagha's talking about news, smash
watermelons all day. Good lord, good riddance, Breaking News Beta. Something
is in, guys, something is going into Beta. I'm gonna guess it
was Diablo. I've conferred, could have been Battlefield, could have been Dota
too. I was hoping. I've been hearing enough of the Diablo stuff.
Yeah, flying around more fast and furious lately, so I figured kind of
wide already. Oh I think that my battle that account has the stupid security
code on it, and I don't have the authenticator and secure. Now I
gotta call him. Oh yeah, let's talk about some news news all stretch
kind of stuff on you, guys. Breaking News got the lights to work
on my jazz machine. Really got one. The other bulbs have burned out,
but yeah, I got that. I got one of the front panel
lights to light up. What about your controls? Are they still fucked up?
Yes? Okay, what do they not do? Control? Player two
runs to the right. Player one doesn't flat it, but I've isolate The
last time we went in there, Player one worked fine and been trying to
get playered or at least diagnosed Player two. We ended up sucking up mechanically
the control's work. I actually tested it all. So up until that interface
board, everything actually just that interface board, unless it's something after the interface
board, but I don't think it is. So yeah, he's crazy daughter
board on there. Yeah, I think the interface board it's I don't know,
it's hard to look that stuff up online, but ten or fifteen bucks,
but it's like market price. Where can you find one of those?
Now nowhere? I spent about two hours trying to find my wife. Got
real mad. Uh. Crytech has announced. Cry Tech and t h Q
have announced that Crytech is going to make the next home Front game. In
other breaking news, that there's going to be a next home Front game.
I thought they said never. Oh. I thought they said we're gonna close
down the developer that made the developer and they were gonna move to Montreal.
Did that? But they did. They said there would be another one.
Oh what was the what was the number one? That was red red Fashion.
They're putting Red Fashion back on the shelf. Okay, yeah, great,
but home Front continues unabated red faction smart Yeah, uh, this is
christech UK. This is the free radical, pree Radical making it right.
Yeah, but with so they'll be monkeys with guns in it, I guess,
well, and then the other talks is that there's been a time splitters
four four four, yeah, four, What was the future? I thought
there's one, there was two and then three. They didn't call three.
They called it like future perfect perfect. So yeah, so there was were
that they had been working on that for a while and that got shelved.
So I don't know if what this has to do with the fate of that,
but that's sloshing around in the mix out there at thoughts on this this
collabo. Do you think free Radic will making home Front on the cry Engine.
I don't know. It looked good and maybe, yeah, maybe that'll
be great. Hard to say, no one ever, home Front was not
a good game. Yeah it had potential, but yeah the conceptually, yeah,
have potential like doing Red Dawn, like what, I don't know what
they're going for. Are they going to be like it sounded like red or
Net Red Faction. Home Front was trying to be a big multiplayer thing because
the campaign was really short, right, The campaign was kind of just they've
basically kind of like made it like they thought that it would you know,
people like Call of Duty. Let's do something like that, right, like
this short really like kind of almost offensive campaign, both due to technical issues
and just like the wanton mowing down of civilians just like for effect, Like,
man, this is how intense it is. The North Koreans totally shot
that fucking kid, but those mass grave isn't that extreme. But but then,
but then Scott, there was no Russian whatever. But then keep the
multiplayer as the thing that hooks you, right and yeah, but you know,
I don't know. I thought the multiplayer was pretty bad, So I
don't know, like what what I mean. I feel like they can make
a really good single player game. I don't know if those are the guys.
I think she's Q just invested so much into marketing and awareness of home
Front. Even if that game was ship, everyone knows about it. Think
of all the Korean taco trucks we had to rent. I think they actually
did a pretty good job with that. I think home Front of the name
got out there, a lot was everywhere. Yeah, I think they actually
did succeed in their marketing. I think that, Yeah, that is that
is exactly my point. The investment and that part paid off. They didn't
make the investment on you know, developer and making it a game that was
worthy of that. They did a good job of disappointing people. Yeah,
they made sure that everyone knew about this thing, so then they would be
disappointed by it. Yeah. That was on you know, busy busses and
that deal boards and bandage on his eyes. Yeah, he can't see very
well, can she. That's it home Front two. He did the blindfolds
off Telekinesis sword stuff. Uh. Sony has UH rolled out a new terms
of service for the PlayStation three for PlayStation Network specifically, UH, and there's
language in there that basically says, you can't create a class action, can't
be part of a class action lawsuit to sue us. UH, basically kind
of in response to remember what ps ana was really fucked up earlier this year,
Well, if you are sure if that ever happens again, we're we'll
be okay. I think even if that happened, I think if you if
you did for this thing, that's like, well, you can't be part
of any class action lawsuits that might be happening here. And that's just straight
up Hey, if you want to keep using this, you have to agree
with the terms of service. So so can you return a product if you
don't agree with that, you're like, I don't like the changes you made.
I'd like to bring back my PS three and get my money back.
Well, in this case, it's not for the p S three. It's
just yeah. Well, so Patrick has a story up that's that's worth reading,
just to kind of drill down on the specifics of this and how you
can heat that. And then he also has he has created a form that
allows you to that you can easily fill out and then mail back to Sony
too, because you can't not it's you can't keep using that ship. So
they currently do you do agree to this currently? Is that up now?
Or is it something like three seven or something of a firmware. It's just
when you turn a PS three on up, it does not sign in the
PSN and you have to manually go to sign in and then it pops up
the new terms. So might be my PlayStation has been offline, you'll have
good. So I got an email that was like, hey, you know,
I just I was like, hey, this is a change, you
can agree to this. I don't. I don't think they know that I'm
offline obviously, but like it came through on my email that was like a
new terms of service whatever. And I remember seeing that story. I was
like, I'm not gonna sign up that. I'm gonna find out just so
I can be contrary to find out what the options are. You never know
what I'm going to be part of a class action lawsuit. I mean just
because it's fun. Yeah, I want my five cents, I want my
coupon for a shake. Just but so you have thirty days within agreeing to
these terms of service to you know, send something to Sony saying actually I
don't agree with these terms, and then what happens, and then you can't
sue Sony for PSN being No, if you said I don't agree, that's
not that's not I think you're opting out of that clause, right, I
talked to I talked to Patrick about It's more. I mean, just because
they put it in an end user agreement doesn't make it legally bind. Really,
yeah, so I think put I mean, you know you're under like
actual legal tests, like your landlord can put whatever the hell he wants in
your least, but that doesn't mean it complies with like you know, even
if you agree to the law or whatever. Yeah, even if that checkbox
says I agree. Yeah, like that, you know. But I mean
if if you take it to court because you agree to have regular sex with
your landlord blue of rent, like you could still eventually sue him for that,
really, and if you assigned and agreed to it because I got a
phone call. He characterized it more as a scare tactic. It's just like,
oh, you know, people see that they have agreed to this thing,
and they're like, oh, well, then I guess it's a speed
mom too right to be like, hey, you guys agreed to this,
and then they have to go get a lawyer to find out if they well,
yeah, yeah, that's legal. Yeah I didn't know that. I
thought I thought those I thought legal or not? A contract is that takes
precedent like legal binding. No, no, those things are not above the
law. Like you know, you can't like sell your children into slavery with
a contract. That doesn't make it okay. You can't legally kill a man
just because you have a contract, just because he signed a thing saying please
kill me. Really yep, it wouldn't be legal. You might get like
some sort of like reduced in court or something. It was just like well,
we sign this thing and you want to do it, but then he
I got the papers for you to side. It's god damn government, man,
it's big government, US us out of my uterus. Thanks Obama,
he knew he did this. Yeah, yeah, Obamacare, you got problems
with PSN. He's the death panels with a step one of the death Panel
is accepting these new terms. P PS three version of Assassin's Creed Revelations coming
bundled with a copy of Assassin's Creed one. That's pretty awesome. That is
that is the single best use of surplus storage on a Blu Ray that I've
seen. We had enough room to put this other game on here, so
here you go. Yeah, I wish it would have been the subsequent ones,
but yeah, I guess they probably have the knowledge of like, yeah,
you know, the most people didn't play this first game, and I
just wonder it's also the oldest one that has the least value them to the
point everything they're shown in Revelations in case some pretty clear ties to the stuff.
Sure, sure, and then you know there's there's been little sprinklings of
that in In two and in Brotherhood. I just don't know that you can
make that jump. I don't know that if if you if you skip everything
in between, I think if, I mean, you know, two and
Brotherhood, And I haven't played any of the single player revelations, so I
can't speak to what that handles like, but like there's a kind of a
clear connection as far as the way basic handling is in those games. The
first one feels so much difference, a little bit stiffer. Yeah, uh
yeah, I just I don't know stectually, it's just not as good as
you're right right the game afterwards, you know, when's that coming out?
But it's a bonus if they were to remake the first Assassin's Creed and update
all the control stuff. It's not the control so much as the question.
Yeah, yeah, I guess it's the fact that it's nothing but there are
nine targets to kill and just grind. There's every for every target, there
is a prerequisitive like three or four missions, and they're all the same mission.
It was a good proof of concept, but yes, it was.
They got the sense that they were figuring out the tech yea, and it
couldn't really focus on like they got the framework in place, but like what
they've filled around. It was good to stretched it out for a couple of
hours. Oh man, Yeah, it's still good AboutUs. You're right,
yeah, cool us. I haven't I haven't played Brotherhood yet. That's not
gonna happen by November, is it. No, that's right. You played
two. Yeah, I would just played two like four or five months ago.
On you're on your path. I'm just gonna resign myself to be a
year behind on assassins Creed Games. Is this as anybody said, this is
the end of the Eteo story. Yes, yes, they've said. He
sinks the just until plateau Man destroys the mansion rescues Chris. It was another
underground mansion Adam Etio's dad. Yeah, okay, yeah, he plants the
light bomb film at eleven and he's the only one that survives. For the
suicide mission. DC Universe Online is going what to pay down? Which there's
a quick one. Yeah, that is a quick one. That's maybe one
of the fastest turnarounds from traditional MO model to uh. I think games.
I think MMOs should not launch with not being free to play anymore at this
point. At this point, I bought I bought that game for sixty bucks
or whatever it was, and then uh, you don't have my free,
well, you'll be able to play it again. So and they have three
tiers a service. So there's the absolutely positive of Lee free tier, which
is just you have never paid. I think you'll be able to download the
client for free. Maybe not a PS three out, I'm not I don't
really know about that, but yeah, yeah, okay, So there's this
free tier, super free, super free, limited inventory slots, limited character
slots, all that other stuff. If you buy any one thing or five
dollars worth of stuff I think has been maybe what it is, you get
upgraded to the next tier service or if you have paid or if you've paid
the past. Yeah, if you bought the game and had a subscription at
any point, you'll get free. You'll get this middle tier okay, the
trial subscription of them. Yeah, this premium is the middle tier. So
if you've spent you know, some amount of money at any point on this
game, that gets you more inventory slots, more character stuff, and I
think a little bit more content. Uh, you get auction slots, you
get banks, more banks slots. Uh, you can do item trading,
which year is no item trading on the free slot, on the free levels.
Uh, I don't know. You hit the level cap so quickly in
that game that they were cap below the actual cap. It would be really
dumb. And then there's the tier where you continue paying them fourteen ninety nine
a month and you get all this stuff you're subscribing, you get everything.
People in the middle tier, and I think even probably the bottom tier,
which would get them to the middle tier if they bought anything can buy episodes,
so they'll they'll sell content packs newer Yeah, okay, that aren't available
now, right, Okay, got it. We don't have this in our
story. But I was reading something else about about this this change, and
John Smedley, the guy who runs Sooe, there's this insane quote from him
to the effect of like, yeah, we felt this was the you know,
the best model in the first place. I'm like, well, then
why the fuck did you not launch with this model in the first place?
Because said, no, we're like the World of Warcraft. Our stuff is
popular, you will charge I bet, I bet that has to be it.
Yeah, do you think that he's like, no the future if he's
if he's coming out and saying we should have done this in the first place.
Yea, then they wanted to do it in the first place, and
someone somewhere along the way wouldn't let him. He's also actually pretty uh,
I wish you can remember where I where I saw this stuff. But he
was also pretty candid about like, yeah, this game took a lot longer
to make than we anticipated that it would, and that had some impacts as
far as you know, how some of these decisions were made. So Smedley's
always seemed like kind of a straight shooter. Yeah, he from interviews and
stuff, he comes off pretty straight up and h in his talk about this
stuff. So whatever, h it's twenty eleven, and but it's it's kind
of the crazy thing, you know, like so much money gets spent developing
an MMO that I think that you know, the money men behind them,
and you know, the people even working on them feel like, no way,
man, this game is every bit as good as World War Cries.
It's up there with all this other stuff from you know, all the other
third generation MMOs whatever you want to call him, and they all come at
it from this approach of just like, of course it's worth a subscription fee,
Like obviously, I mean this is great stuff, and then see their
numbers tank, you know, six months in or whatever, and go,
oh fuck, like it's because we got to change like everybody else, Like
they just they probably just need to start launching this way, and some of
them certainly are. But so, you know, it's something I've I've hoped
that would happen for a while. You buy a box copy, spend sixty
bucks, and you get some kind of forever free come. I mean,
this would make me go back into DC and check it out, you know,
why not? I always feel like it's like you need to go one
way or the other. Like the idea of paying for a box copy of
an MMO always seems crazy to me, right Like, And if if I'm
gonna play, if if I'm gonna play your subscription based game, just let
me download the client for free, because I can't do anything with this until
I start paying you the fifteen a month. Now, you know, understand,
it's kind of you know, legacy from a time gone past. You
know, the retail model is what it is, and they don't want to
be cut out of the loop. And but but for you know, it
just it seems like it makes a lot more sense to go that way,
although now subscriptions are fucking dead for MMOs. Anyway, I bet that when
Blizzard launches its next generation MMO, it will be for you to absolutely.
I still think people don't really like MMOs. They like World of Warcraft,
yeah, and I think I don't. I'm watching watching over the last six
years. Just seems like there's an audience. They're definitely people who like emos,
oh for sure. I mean you definitely, like you see the games
kind of rise and fall as people jump from one game to the next,
or or do whatever if a game is broken or whatever. I guess I
mean there are people out there who have played them all. That's like,
yeah, I was in Riff for like three months and then I maxed out
got board. I guess I shouldn't say we all moved over to this.
I don't mean people. I mean that target that it seems like something you're
talking about, like that that Brass Ring, which is like that insane mass
market, that billion dollars a day international, Like, yeah, the crazy
business that Blizzard has has built up, and so when people like we're gonna
make an MMO to take that down always seems like kind of crazy to me,
like what a gamble. I really don't think that people are just BIGMO
fans. I think they just really like that world and some people use it
as a check you know, even some of those people, I mean,
the world of warkoff numbers aren't like what they used to be. Right.
Oh, they've definitely ebbed. They're definitely they peaked I think a few years
ago, right. I think every time we have to have someone at Blizzards
that would return our calls to be able to see anything about that. So
oh s here, let's let's move on because there's a bunch of other stuff
and we are running along here, jets. Uh So some some Windows eight
shit happened last week. I know Will Smith saw some of that. He's
got it running on a machine. Ya, the beta version of it here,
like a look at it. We did a live they did a live
thing and that's that's available on test and check that out on test at dot
com. Uh. Informative that, Will Smith, because you were wondering.
Part of this was the announcement that Games for Windows Live or Games for Windows
is no longer a thing. They're going to talk about just Xbox now.
Hm. Well, if they come out and say that, or they just
say we are putting Xbox Live into Windows eights and then let you fill in
the blanks yourself. I guess, I guess. I guess that's more a
yeah. Yeah, it's not that Games Windows Live is dead. I mean,
nobody's ever going to come out and say we are killing off this initiative,
right, and it's you know, it's just it's really what changes,
Like it's a very clear implication. This would just be deeper system level integration
of the Xbox Live or the Live log in protocols. Always it relates to
games and friends lists and stuff. What changes is hopefully they get developments to
care about it more, yeah, and start using it. If they actually
integrated at a system level, it could be cool. And if that's could
be a cool sce. It's called Xbox across the board and they're able to
unify those features more directly. Yeah, maybe more people use it. I
mean I liken it to what they've done on whendows phone, Like that's just
called Xbox Live. It's you know, it's you get the impression. They
could probably implement some of those features better with the way the friends lists and
messaging works. But it's at least most of the way there. It's the
same profiles, same points, Like, you know, Xbox is a brand
that resonates. Sure the kids love it. How do you like that?
Shut up? Kids love Xbox. Hi, I'm so and so with Xbox.
I got that box. Uh so this is I mean, this is
kind of I guess tangentially game related. But all of the the buzz on
the internet yesterday was about the split at at Netflix where they are dividing their
their DVD shipping business and their video streaming business into two separate entities. Uh,
Netflix being the streaming stuff and now quick Ster dividing conquer. We're like
divide and not conquer. Is is what they're gonna do for more like DVDs.
And as part of that, they said we're gonna do Games two at
some point, like as like an afterthought. It's kind of the Quickster guys
of the net, quick streaming streaming game. They're gonna stream games. No
they're not. They're not trying to get on live. They're not trying to
go down on live or out. It's just it's their mailing discs. There's
not a quick Really, Quickster is a bad name. But Netflix is pretty
bad name too. Quicksters sounds like a Genesis game. Wait, we're not
gonna talk about the Twitter account. Oh yeah, the Quickster Twitter account.
It's really good. Dude owned the Quickster. It spelled the right way k
w q w I k S T SDR. Some dude already had that on
Twitter. And it's just some dope smoking idiot, uh that has it who
suddenly got a shitload of attention and didn't know what I do with this way?
He possibly what is he talking about? Smoking dope? Do Well?
He was before and that's what he was talking about before. Yeah, now
it's like going on somebody wants to buy it? I don't know. Dude
is way more specific. It's seen some of the stuff he posted today.
He posted an I don't either. I've just been looking at it from time
to time. But one of his posts was effectively, we're not we're not
talking about any deals until they're in the six figures. There was another one
where he first Twitter for the account. There was another one where he taught
He implied that he expected to be cut in on this, like he wanted
part ownership of something and then it would continue to make him money. In
purfuiting. I just envisioned this man eating a lot of cheeseburyping this stuff or
what yeah, whatever, because because earlier he made reference to asking his dad
for money so he could go buy food. Entitlement culture I'm hazing. Anyway,
if you want, if you want free entertainment, you don't. You
don't need to subscribe to anything. Let's go to the quickster Twitter account and
enjoy it for free until they start charging, or check out the real quickstere
h a because I expect the cut of this as well. Uh Tarlos new
releases real quick. Here's WRE three is coming out. Okay Ola, there's
other stuff coming out this week too. You want to hear about that stuff?
Yes, F one twenty eleven for the PS three and Xbox three sixty
that's out this week. Perfect for all you open wheeled racing enthusiasts. H
Persona two for the PSP perfect for all you open wheeled racing supremacy MMA for
the PS three and Xbox three sixty dittoh uh Frogger three D for the Nintendo
three D S three D three D three da. But that's just probably three
D three d Uh? What that's probably like Depth three D. Right,
yeah, I mean just probably polygonal as well. Yeah, behind the back
Frogger they've had that. Oh that's terrible. Frogger thinks Frog two. Every
Frogger game that they have made since the original Frogger two is terrible. Frogger
two for the PS one was okay, it was better than Frogger one for
the PS two PS one okay. Yeah. Frogger cartoons all right, Yeah,
Dragon Quest, Monsters, Joker two and Harvest Moon, Tale of Two
Towns and Kirby Mass Attack all out for the Nintendo DS this week. The
original still going strong at Harvest Moon games coming out like next month on three
DS. Also, yeah, they're staggering that out of it by a month.
Yeah, it is weird. I agree. Joker two, jer they
just you know, Japan probably loves that ship because it's like we made a
game that's Pokemon but also Monster Hunter but also dragon Quest and also it's a
dragon Ball and yeah, and yeah it's got a little dragon Ball in there
too, because it's got the Kira Toriama because he's got that. He did
the dragon Quest stuff dragon questuff. I really think he's doing all the designs
himself about hends every day. Drawn a slime that means another one, you
guys, that means this one's red. But but that's been like the that's
been true to a Cura Toriamic character design since the late eighties of just like
like all right, we're just this hairstyle from this guy plus this one and
then these kinds of eyes blue. This hair is white. He's a kid.
I'm not denying that. It's practically a parody of itself at this point,
but it's not. You don't ever hear about a CURATORI on the studios
or anything. It's like it's always attributed to him. Yeah, I think
he did the designs and people ran with it. Maybe I was thinking about
a white slime today. You're crazy. He's so good. He's so good.
Come on, white slimes, milky slimes now called with him. Don't
name him, I just draw him. I'll let you guys take care of
that part. I don't care, uh and then Burnout Crash is available for
Xbox Live, Arcade, and PlayStation Network this week. There's one more something
else, because there always is, Yes, thank you. RESI four available
for PlayStation Network and Xbox Games on Demand Is that the full name of that
thing? Yeah, it just comes up as a resid eval four on both
playforms. A game called Rotastic is coming out for Xbox Lab Ricade this week.
R O t A STS Rotates. It's not like you're your fantastic at
rotating. You can see where the confusion would come up. Follow New Vegas
Lonesome Road the fourth DLC pack for New Vegas fourth I have a code for
that. Does anyone want it? Yeah? Are you asking the listeners?
Because I'm sure we could someone asking the people in this room. No,
I got one too, so I'm good. I didn't get one. I'm
all right. I just want somebody to quick look who's not me? Patrick?
He likes, I wouldn't take it Reallylo Milo is on sale this week
five bucks. That's a good deal. Yeah, it's a great game.
Yeah, I agree with a tough game. It's definitely. It's tough but
fair. Oh it is it is Elo Milo. We talked to when was
the Paxy stuff? Think talk. We're all saying Elo Milo and I was
sad. I like the better ones, damn it. Yeah. Those are
the new releases for the week. Let's take a couple of emails. While
we still have the time come back to the past. Present keeps going.
Bradley Oh emails BombCast at johnbomb dot com. First email comes in from Dan
Blindman in Tokyo, Japan. Hello, mister Bomb, says Daniel. Middle
of your Solid Rising, Last Guardy and Final Fantasy verses thirteen have all disappeared
off the face of the planet. I expected, along with most others,
that, due to their absence from E three, that the famous being saved
for TGS strategy was in order. I was aware that keg and a fun
A did announce the tide of death for the Japanese game industry sometime ago,
but it seems that even the heaviest of hitters are now nowhere to be found.
Most interested in the whereabouts of MGS Rising, it would seem that since
its announcement, we have had a MGS three D remake, three HDMGS remakes,
transferring in a new graphics engine, but no Rising. What is going
on? The rumors of a new city are taking over rising A possibility,
Uh, well, one thing's possible. Yeah, there's for one thing.
You won't we won't be transferring here in the United States. That was the
hell that was a hilarious revelation during TGS last week. I think I call
it something else exclusive for Japan taking that feature out for the exclusively. Yeah,
they were threw all that trouble of announcing that thing for the US with
explaining with an American group whatever. That's when Japan pre ordered, they get
the exclusive transferring. Did you pre order America? No? No? Do
you want this tragic guy then nope? Well I'm just gonna go to best
Buy and get transferring anyway. Batman Arkham City comes out on October, but
down five dollars. No, Madden's coming out next August. Those games did
kind of disappear, didn't they They did? Yeah, Rising, especially Rising
is is that what is going on? Was that move and A while,
I mean these all seem so, these all seemed beleaguered to one to some
extent. No, that's a I was just just a controller. Was it
ever motion controls or anything? Okay, it was just that slicing watermelon.
It's just you're just thinking fruit ninja, because that's what that game is.
A right versus thirteen I think is continuing a pace. I just think that
it's taking fucking forever. So that was that happen. But I mean Versus
thirteen was announced right alongside thirteen. But they've they've shown stuffy for that game
more recently than that, Like it's been kind of they put up, they
rolled out things. I mean it's it's no moura Is is running that project
and that guys like crazy perfectionists and stuff. I'm taken forever. Those studios
are all kind of having a little trouble. There was a there was a
keep in mind also there was that whole tsunami thing earlier this year. Yes,
I don't mean that kind of trouble. I don't mean impact. I'm
saying like like that, not to not to forget that that was a significant
thing that impacted all of Japan, even areas that were not necessarily hit by
a little tsunami. So I could see that impacting when games with Last Guardian,
that was a game that when they first showed it like that was all
they had was a trailer. Uh, so you know, for them to
take their time on on actually producing whatever the fuck that game is actually going
to be, those guys, yeah, they always take take their sweet time
as well. Rising is the one that seems a little suspect, yeah,
that it might just disappear, something may have gone off the rails. Well,
there was a completely unsubstantiated rumor of a few months ago that reminded me
Vank, which guys Platinum, right, Yeah, Platinum was rumored someone I
saw somewhere that they were supposedly taking over. But then that hasn't even come
to me, said anything, but that sounds like the best thing that could
happen to that game personally, And what is versus I think the thing that
could happen to that game? What's that got that game? Oh? Come
on, don't you at least want to see what it turns out to be?
They didn't show enough of it too, Like really, I think riding's
a great character. Cut those watermelons any which way? Yeah, which means
that by the time it comes out the other end, it's going to be
a connect game, right the watermelon, you know, I told say that,
like that stuff seems tailor made for Maybe that's what connect. It's going
to be the journey when the watermelon comes up, it's riding on rails,
riding, riding on rails, riding on rails, Railsdame Weird German board games
like it's never understand too complicated, just pup on the board and then you
win watermelon at the other end. H So you know, yeah, yeah,
Rising seems like that could turn into a real StarCraft Ghost kind of situation.
I feel like it's getting too far away from Just four at this point
for me to even remember what Riding was supposed to be, Like Cyber Cyber
he died and they've brought him back. Yeah, but it's like kind of
like it's too much time is elapsing now, like kind of losing interest?
But what what's versus exactly? Who knows? Okay, I don't know.
That last trailer looked pretty awesome. What do you Do You Fight? Is
a fighting game? No? I'm fucking stunned that you were more interested in
that game than Is it a battle arena? I don't know. Is it
an MMO? No? I think it's an action game. It's like an
action action RPG slash, but not in the way that. Yeah, I
don't know. Like the trailer looked cool. It's got a weird, like
sort of better than Fine Fantasy thirteen. It's got like a weird modern day
Tokyo vibe. It's like it's set in the real world or something. What's
going on with their MMO is that's still free to play? Fourteen fourteen?
No, no, no, they didn't charge people for a while because it
was so the team they appointed, like a whole new team of people to
make it better. I wonder if they started charging people again. I don't
see. That's what I think they had. They're they're in a weird kind
of place. Also, like what are they doing with the rest of their
publishing arm of like publishing Western stuff basics, Like you know that this that's
gonna be the be the weird transition? Is that that's those are going to
be the game? Is that that company going? And but I mean that's
awesome. Fantasy will be like the weird like I guess we could kind of
thing. Yeah, but I mean that was effectively an Idolis game, right,
Yeah, but they're all one company now, I know, I know,
but I think another Supreme Commanders coming down. No, I don't know.
We're we're places for some of those square own Space Invaders now, oh
that's right, yeah, that's them. That's weird. We'll getting back to
the Canomy stuff for Rising, like it's there if you if that were to
get you know, turf to another developer, if it's in some sort of
hell right now, it's current developer, Like, is there anyone that you
think could do Who was the current developer it was? It was, yeah,
straight up, it was being run by a different guy. Yeah,
but man, do I not understand that organization like the with Kagema Productions and
relationship with with Canomy, Like I really don't have a logo at the beginning
of a Kestlvanian larders. Yeah, yeah, like oversaw that game showed up
twice and said, yeah, all right, this cut seems pretty good.
Yeah, if you could thee like the engine. Yeah, when they announced
it was the same time they announced Frans Faring, right, Yeah, it's
like, yeah, we've made this new multi platform engine. This is what
all our stuff's going to be on. What what that stuff? Maybe?
Who can say? What was the third game on? There is a Final
Fantasy it was, right man? Yeah, I don't I don't know you
Yeah, they're doing Yeah. I wonder if if Rising will ever actually be
a game, And sometimes I wonder if it ever actually was a game.
Well, I mean, I'm sure in their minds it was gonna be yeah,
yeah, yeah, definitely regardless of what's kind was on, like all
these remakes and stuff. I wonder. I mean they you know, they
got up on stages at press conferences and showed footage right and stuff, but
there was nothing this year. Right. No, No, that's that's what's
so weird. It was was it last year? Yeah, it was two
years ago. Both they announced it two years ago and then show it.
Yeah, that's what it was, and then showed the watermelon cutting thing last
year. That website. It's been over two years since they announced it and
they've shown that one like quick. Yeah, because it was the it was
the like Beatles rock band year that they had the announcement. That sounds right.
Yeah, I don't know. They're working on like nine remakes like Zone
of the Enders games and and all that other stuff. You have to wonder
like if at some point, just like financially, it got weird and they
were like, well, if we remake all these games and we'll cost a
lot of money and we could put out a bunch of them. Yeah,
I don't know. We need the scratch gets done. Health Clubs ain't pulling
it in Konami, that's right, has some weird businesses in Asia. All
right, thanks everyone who wrote in. We gotta end this podcast right goddamn
now, Vinnie, Jeff, and Brad, thank you guys so much.
Thank you. That's it for the podcast. Thanks for listening. We'll be
back next week