All right, we are back for the world's most popular and famous podcast about
video games, the Aero Pointing Down Podcast. I am your host, Ryan
Davis, and I am joined once again by TV's Jeff Gershman Houdy High.
Hello, Jeff, thanks for coming out and joining us for this in your
own living room again. Thanks for joining us in your living room. I
could be asleep right now finding the time to come out of your bedroom.
Well, do you have a cold? You should? You should? Yeah,
you have a cold in your house is again chili and you're wearing short
pants. I will have a fever, so I'm actually hot. You give
me a fee much like our other guest, Alex Navarro. Alex has going
it's not going too bad. I'm not sick. I have no sickness soon.
Oh dear, Yeah, I'm fantastic. I have no fever. So
apparently everyone is listening to this stupid stupid podcasts. What do you guys?
Why right? What do you guys think about about this development? If for
those folks at home, apparently the airpoint Down podcast has rocketed to the tops
of the iTunes charts. That's right. Uh, we were number one in
the UK, number two in the US Big in Columbia, and I like
to say, I feel like I speak for the group here and saying that
that's fucking ridiculous, so absurd. Uh, well, you know it's I
think it just clearly shows that people have a desire, that they have a
need that's not being filled by the podcasts that are out there right now,
and they're just not getting that high level discourse about beverages. People want to
know about Gatorade and various flavors. Yeah, uh no, no gatorade on
the show this week of Unfortunate No, not this week. It was not.
I bought it. I bought a grip of Gatorade a few days ago.
It was on sale right eighty eight cents a bottle, eight cents a
bottle for Gatorade, Tiger and G two. So I stalked up and I
think that I think I scared the lady because I was buying fifteen bottles of
Gatorade and then like five cases of soda. Nice, you're gonna go run
a marathon? Yeah? I like I started, and like the rest were
all like bags of chips and stuff. Is like the most horrific shopping trip
in a long time, and I actually okay, it was the most awesome
shopping trip in a long time. A bacon right there, that is large
bottle of lube. Yeah. No, I felt like I was gonna have
to like make up some kind of story about like, oh, kids soccer
game, gotta get his gatorade. I'm like that whatever, extra large tub
of light miracle whip. Yeah, you know what I gotta tell you.
I was promised gatorade. That's the only reason I came back at all.
Don't come here for the discourse with you, assholes. You came here to
gatorade. You came here because I yelled in my phone podcasts, which I
assume meant gid. No, that's not what that means at all. Oh
we are, however, Oh we have a beverage, Jeff. Jeff and
I are both enjoying a little bit of Cactus Cooler, which is a delicious
beverage available primarily to us in the Los Angeles area. Yeah, I've never
seen it elsewhere. Not available nationwide. It was available in select stores in
Arizona, New Mexico, I found. I think I've heard that it is
a Southwest thing. Yeah, Southwest thing. So I last night as people
might have noticed The Air Pointing Down blog has been kind of dead this past
week. My apologies. That's largely because I was on vacation. I took
a little trip down to the Los Angeles, the Greater Los Angeles area.
You know, when you don't have a job, I don't think you can
really call it vacation the south Land. It's a vacation away from the norm.
It's an escape. I stayed in Fullerton at a nice Windham hotel.
Well wow, there was a class, there was a feather pillow top on
the bed. And then I took my special lady friend to to Disneyland for
her birthday. So that was my week. So I went to La a
couple of weeks ago. I had a good time. Did you enjoy the
southern California? Do you have a nice time down there? I did,
because it was a very short trip. Good. It was down Wednesday,
went to the parks on Thursday, and then drove back up Friday. That's
good, nice and tight. You should You should never be in southern California
for more than three days. Ever, I agree. I agree with this
entirely because I always think to myself, I could totally live in la.
I like, you know, there's a lot of stuff going on down there.
It's all sorts of fun craziness, and you know, the entertainment industry
is there and all, and hey, maybe maybe I could give that a
go. Give that a shot, give it a shot. Get out there,
go some auditions, yea. Do some work shopping, Yeah, you
just get into it. But work workshop, some new material, A lot
of mics down there, you know, some good coffee house. Yeah,
wow, we go shop our screenplays. I actually did go to a fancy,
expensive pizza place in Hollywood on my way to California. Pizza Kitchen.
Maybe you've heard of it. CEPK is what we call it. We call
it around here, those little thing. No, it was an inside thing.
It was it was. It was a pizzeria Moza, which I guess
it's it's something fancy and special. I paid like eighteen dollars for a personal
pizza, and it seems like exactly the type of place where I should have
my my Macintosh laptop out talking about my screenplay with someone. Yeah, it's
a rom com. Matthew McConaughey is very interested. They're talking to Kate Hudson,
his personal trainer showed it to him for me. I hear he's locked
up in a bunch of dramatis from here to eternity. Though. Yeah,
a lot of buzz uh but so yeah, that's that was so so yeah
more than three days, Alex. I agree with you because I think,
oh, I could totally live here. But then by about day five,
the air quality of Los Angeles, just the air quality and the people quality.
I'm not to disparage all people who live in southern California, but I
and but they also suck. But they a lot of them really really suck.
A lot of LA just sucks people there. I did. I did
see the ultimate like La Vanity plated one was on a Porsche as we were
leaving Hollywood. That said, I sue you great, h that's delicious.
Way way to be a minor character in a late eighties but way to be
a minor character in Beverly Hills Cop two. Way to be the guy who
gets his car ruined in the action movie where someone has to fuck Counter Reeves
comes flying up on a bus beside you on the freeway and then he jumps
into your car and then he wrecks it. Yeah, that's how he is.
But like right before it happens, it shows you on the phone being
really abusive, so everyone gets the idea that you're evil. Yeah, so
it's like it's like, oh, well he was a jerk anyway. Exactly.
Yeah, that's exactly. Even when he even after the car is a
story, he's still screaming into his phone, somebody stole my car exactly,
standing in the middle of the freeway, pointing down the down the road.
Yeah. So so yeah, that was it was my That was my southern
California trip in a nutshell. But now I'm back, baby, Welcome,
welcome back. But you came back just in time because I, like I
said before, caught cold. You missed us. We went and saw Cobra.
Oh yeah, I was actually in town. I was. I was
back in town last night, and I knew I could have gone and seen
Cobra, but I just didn't have have it in me. Jeff, you
want to you guys want to talk about that at all. Let's talk about
Cobra for a minute. Yeah. So this is a subject that deserves a
lot of discussion. I think. So Cobra is the greatest movie ever made.
It's up there, up there as the greatest. Yeah, and uh
we caught win that they were showing it in San Francisco from one Matt Rory
who said, Hey, you guys should come see Cobra. They're having this
you know eighties action movie night, like you know, every Sunday they watch
a movie like okay, yeah, it's totally cool. So we go down
this in the mission in this place and we get there. It's not a
movie theater. It's more like a bar that doesn't have a liquor license and
they let people in there and then they they show Cobra and then they don't
really care if you bring in burritos or booze or whatever. Yeah, explain
bar without a liquor license. So the place is obviously bar. It has
a bar in it. Yeah, there's like like something you can lean on
bar physical bar. Yeah, But but the place itself is more is just
sort of rented out by these kind of like mission area burnouts who are using
the space as sort of like a performance type space, like they're doing a
play there of the Ten Commandments I guess, like during the weekend, except
starring the cast of Friends. Yeah, that type of thing. So it's
a just it is a place that has a bar, but they are not
operating it as a bar. Yeah. Continue, So we get there and
they're showing a bunch of YouTube clips because they have a laptop wired up to
this projection screen. What sort of is it? Like, It's like it's
like the Italian Stallion trailer and and like every regun shot from the Deathwish series.
Yeah, you know, stuff, stuff that fits into the theme.
And it's not like like dudes fallen down, not like no right, I'm
not like warm up for a Carrot Top show, No, nothing, nothing
quite like that. And then it didn't it didn't dawn on me until like
right before they started that the people that we're putting this on we're going to
be speaking into microphones through the entire movie. Yeah, which had the potential
to be really truly terrible because, as Rory said, like every time he's
ever seen and every time I've ever seen it, anytime anyone tries to do
the mystery science theater thing when they are not the Mystery Science theater people,
but almost always goes just horrifically bad. Well, I think the thing that
a few people really given up credit is the fact that those guys right,
all of that, oh yeah, and then pair it all down to only
the best stuff. I'm sure. I'm sure they override every single one of
those today. So this had the more of the feeling of like they had
not seen the movie ever or at least in a very long time, and
we're kind of just just going off the head and it was fine, Like
it wasn't bad. Yeah, I had a good time. They all had
their moments of being funny. And they had the subtitles on, so I
was able to watch Cobra. Yeah, and uh and eat a burrito.
I had half a burrito, but they put onions in it when I specifically
said no onions, so I couldn't eat the rest of it. So that
happened. So so Cobra stands Upbye, Cobra is the greatest movie ever made.
Stands up? Two thousand and seven movie the Year's Cobra. I want
your eyes, Pigry pig. Have you been drinking uh Commando this Sunday?
Yeah, And I think I'm you know, provided I don't still feel sick,
I think I'm gonna go. So that that sounds like an endorsement.
Yeah, No, I had a good time. Like like I don't I
don't want to like come out and say like, oh, these guys talking
about the movie and their thick history ripsters and jerks and no. Like,
like it was like they obviously had their scene, like they had their thing
going and they did it, and that's cool. I thought it was neat.
They're just like a posse of people and they all seem like, you
know, they were just friends hanging out and they were going to get shut
down at any minute, like any second someone's gonna figure out their their whole
thing and it's just gonna come storm again. They're going, you can't do
this. Well I was. I was really bummed out because they call it.
They call it bad movie Night, and yeah, you know, if
you're gonna show Cobra, it's obviously not bad movie night. It's badass movie
night. Maybe maybe it's maybe that's just like they leave that for whatever hyphen
it they need for that week. Yeah, maybe I don't know. This
is bad funny night, This is badass nights. Yeah, so all this
month it's eighties action movies Commando this Sunday, and then Deathwish, Death Wish
Dawn at some point. Yeah, missing an action I'm sure. I'm sure
Red Donald draw crowd. Yeah. Yeah, there's a surprising number of people
there for Cobra. Yea. And they they did like, you know,
show a hands, who's been here before, and almost everyone raised their hand
because Cobra brings them out. Yeah. When you say you're showing Cobra somewhere,
people come out of the woodword, go Cobra. That's the greatest movie
ever made. I'm gonna, well, we're gonna go see Cobra. You
did venture into the harrowing depths of San Francisco for it. Yeah, I
drove definitely the depth of San Francisco. That is, are we talking like
deep in the mission? No, it's like between like eighteen and nineteen,
OK, but it's it's in there, but it's not you know, it's
all up in it. Whatever it was. There was a Pedalecostal church like
across the street that was head of service going on dirt like while we were
walking there. It was Sunday night. I'm just saying, yeast blast some
live music too out of there. It was. It was the jam.
So there you go. Uh, Cobra is awesome. Look forward to just
review of Commando in the near future. Yes, And I'm deliberately like leaving
the name of the place out because I don't I don't want to. I
don't want I don't want to ruin nothing. They got their awesome scene,
and that's great. Bring the hammer down saying what streets it was between?
Do you think this is? Yeah? But who knows what door behind which
happened exactly. It could be any of it. It could be the one
that has the flyers for the event that we went to posted on the door.
Okay, so they're flying. This isn't just like weird like fight club
word of mouth things like you know, it kind of is yeah, looking
sign with your hand before they let you in. I don't really, I
don't know. We brought an egg. I don't know if that helped.
Was that maybe that was what you needed to bring to show it's like all
right if they got another yeah, then we all got high on euphoria like
a chicken egg. Yeah, we were like cooked or uncooked? Uncooked?
Man, what were you doing with an uncooked chicken egg? That just bring
it to get in? Man? All right, good to know. So
if you want to go see Commando next week, an uncooked chicken egg down
to Mission Street. Different thing, man, oh this week today. Maybe
it's an ostrich egg. I don't know. All right, Uh, let's
I guess moving on or back to cactus cooler, which is delicious. I'm
gonna do some more of this well cooler. It's yeah, it's says orange
pineapple blast, and it builds itself as an orange pineapple soda. I think
it roughly tastes like chewable children's aspirin, that orange flavor of children's aspirin.
I feel like you equate a lot of things with that taste. No,
no, pretty much does this. A lot of people like to say that
Red Bull tastes like that, or Flintstones vitamins. I think they're crazy.
But I feel like you've said that before. I feel like you've said that
you thought that red Bull tasted like flint Stones. No, it was no,
and Flintstones changed the flavors, by the way, like with like,
I just I love that you keep up. I just went and bought some
more because I was out for you, your thirty some odd year body.
It's it's look, it still says one hundred percent. For adults. You
can't beat that. It's like what you know, has it's been proven,
it's math, it's since science books look it up the top. But they
they change the flavors and they taste all different now, which I don't know.
Maybe I bought the wrong stuff, but I bought I'm pretty sure I
bought see. Okay, So for a while I was taking uh, like
one of days, just like you know, regular one a day maximum,
just like, here's a vitamin you wanted vitamins right, centrum but centrum silver.
I don't eat breakfast, no, and that that gets around on top.
Yeah, so you swallow a vitamin first thing the day, like I
would be this is one I was driving to work. I would drive to
work or I'd be driving over to Alex's and I would have to stop and
pull over and throw up. It's always fun, yeah, which, and
I just wasn't into that. So I was like, you know what,
stick with what works. Flint Stones vitamins, they work. Trust the kid,
baby, that that that that you were throwing up frequently before coming to
my house in the morning. Oh, it only happened about a week before
I realized what was causing it and then just stopped taking them. But yeah,
so it wasn't the bulimia. Well that's a different that's a different thing.
I just spiraled out of this. That's that's your secret puking, right,
This is what see. This is when I gained a taste for puking
and just decided that I really liked it. And then from there I just
want to see my beautiful bones. I can't remember the last time I threw
up. I can It has been a good long time, Alex. When
was the last time you threw up? The last time I threw up was
probably about a year ago. I way way overdid it on some random drinking
night and I got home about I don't know, like three in the morning
and just head toilet, stayed there for about an hour. Just just so
this is this is well after when we played forty hands. Yeah, this
is out because that was that was a pretty epic. That was epic.
I agree that that was. That was definitely the most memorable throwing up I've
done in years and years and years. But I have thrown up since then.
Yeah, I think I've only threw probably thrown up from drinking once or
twice over the last few years, like yeah, maybe four times ever for
me, But that like, yeah, I came close last week. There
was a morning after. Oh sure, you get up and be like,
oh I was a little delicate at one point and thought, oh man,
actually, yeah, I guess like in the wake of the like the g
DC like four nights of drinking extravaganza towards the end there. Yeah, that
that last night, that very last night. I uh, the next morning,
yeah, I mean the morning that you would have come to GDC as
on the last day. And no, no, no, no, no,
no no no. After that, okay, beyond that, no,
the drink kept going. Man, all right, that's good. Yeah,
uh well, let's uh, I guess that's that's it for the air pointing
down drink minute this time, yeah, drink. We actually we have some
beverages on the way being shipped in from out of State's true, we do
have we do have out of state beverages. But we'll be able to taste
test soon, so they'll look for that in the near future. What are
these out of state beverage out of state drinks? Don't want to talk about
it just yet. Oh are you smuggling cores across state lines? Me and
the snowman, uh so so part of my My ritual for going to the
Southland involves me on my way back stopping at a Ralph's just before you hit
the grape vine, uh, and picking up a couple of cases of this
this cactus cooler. So I grabbed those, and then I also saw that
they had some men zinita awesome, which is the the the Pepsi made apple
soda, which is if you've never had you've never had an apple soda.
Oh goodness, let me invite you to Flavortown to enjoy a wonderful sensation that
is kind of a split between like a sparkling apple cider and regular old soda.
It's great. I love apple soda. I love it. It's so
damn good, and you always wonder how come it's It's only in the Spanish
speaking part of town. We used to used to me and Chris used to
buy apple soda at the dollar store all the time. They had, Yeah,
they had they had the Shasta was a good solid apple soda. B
manzana mia that was good stuff. The manzanita soul from Pepsi is also quite
high quality. So I grabbed some of that, and I'm enjoying it immensely.
So uh, if you have the opportunity, if you see it around,
try yourself some some apple soda. Yeah, I just I really find
it horribly racist that you can only find it seems like any sort of awesome,
weird fruit flavored soda. Well, I think they've done research that like
fruit flavored sodas tend to sell well to like the Latino demographic. And that's
why I think it's totally crazy, because I you give me an orange soda,
I'll drink an orange soda. Damn it. Well, just because they
sell well to the Latino demograph, it doesn't mean they don't sell to whitey.
You know. It's like like I would be more than happy to buy
plenty of that. And that's just and that's just kind of, you know,
the narrow mindedness of this market research, as they aren't realizing that I
would drink the hell out of some apple soda. I don't. I just
don't see it as frequently as I would like, you can't buy it because
it's not there, because they have it for like a second and they go,
oh, well, no one's gonna buy this, right, So I
implore you drink distributors and local retailers carry the damn apple soda and bring cactus
cooler up north. It used to be up here. I used to be
able to walk to the gas station and get a cactus cooler. You used
all to find it, along with Tahitian treat right there. Treat, But
it definitely seems like a kind of a compliment to the Tahitian treat. And
it's right, and it's fruit flavoriness. If I could just stock my refrigerator
full of cactus cool or Tahitian treat and apple soda, I would never leave
my house except to get more of that. I barely leave your house now,
man, I know, and I'm saying I would. I would do
even less leave in the house. Well fantastic. Uh, let's let's go
ahead and get into talking about video games a I guess, dude, if
you really want to, All right, well, let's take the time machine
back to last week. Take it, take it to the top. We
chose. We recorded our last podcast last Sunday. Yeah, right before apparently
all of the important things in the video game industry happened right like It's been
like two months of pretty much nothing until this week. It all happened like
the morning after we posted the podcast. So let's talk about some of that
stuff first. So EA making moves on on Take two. Yeah, yeah,
Uh basically has put itself out there and said, hey, we would
like to buy Take two, and and we pretty much found out about this
because EA took it public. I guess this is denied. Yeah, this
is very similar to kind of the move that Microsoft made on Yahoo exactly,
Like, it seems exactly the same that they're just to the point that EA
is kind of saying, listen, if you don't want to play ball,
we're going to go straight to your stockholders, which means kind of a a
hostile takeover situation, which is sort of what they did by by making all
this stuff public. And then the thing that came out a couple of days
after that is Take two saying that it has other offers from other companies,
which I don't know, who else could it? Who else I take to
Well, I mean, maybe it's not a video game company. Maybe it's
some big media company that wants to get in. You know, it could
be yeah, yeah, I mean certainly MTV could do it. Yeah,
MTV could be looking like that. Why not? That could be a good
compliment to what they're trying to do. But so yeah, so EA denied,
But I don't think this is the end of that. Yeah. The
thing that that I kind of thought immediately after reading that is like, well,
this is going to happen, whether it whether it take two wants it
or not. I think this is eventually going to happen. And then like
a bunch of analysts came out and basically said the same thing. So yeah,
it definitely seems like, you know, EA get what EA want.
Yeah, and in this in this matter, it seems like they're probably one
of the better poised companies to do this. Yeah. And of course,
I mean anything involving EA in business just kind of brings up that horrible backlash
with a bunch of people that don't really have any stake in it either way,
going oh yeah, he needs to stop ruining the video game industry.
The only the only losers I would see in this scenario really are everyone like
visual concepts, like basically everyone working on sports games for two K. But
whatever, those guys would dream, No, who would have to like move
to working somewhere else probably yeah, they would just shut up. Yeah,
they don't get absorbed they get shut down. And you know, I respect
the work that those guys have tried to do, but there's just no room
in this world for a non NFL licensed football game, right. But I
mean, at the same time, like two k's basketball games year after year
like the better of the two. Sure, but that's not gonna that's not
gonna stop. So maybe maybe in that scenario you fire the NBA Live team
and make But but I'm willing to bet you that that the NBA Live game
is still pull in more money than right, but what K games, What
they could probably do is slapped the Live name on on the previous on the
engine that they have just bought, essentially and you know, make two K
into Live. Sure, yeah, it's possible that would work. They would
then if they if he were to do that, they would again have a
baseball license because take two olds THEE and which I don't you know, I
don't I don't really see that as a huge deal because I feel bad for
the hockey guys because those guys would be gone, Oh yeah, because they
don't even have the best hockey game anymore. Right, Yeah, they would
probably all just be cut off. But I mean, that's all external development
that's at Kush or something, right, but what's Cush. But they have
internal guys at work on that stuff, some dudes I used to work with.
So yeah. So so it would be a bummer for people that want
a lot of choice in sports games. But as far as like you know,
EA being the people to put out Grand Theft Auto, that doesn't ruin
Grand Theft Auto, Like he doesn't eat A doesn't come into that situation and
say we want we want to do this and that, Like they don't make
changes to that, like they cant rated somehow. And that was one of
the interesting things right around GC as you saw EA's management coming out and kind
of owning up to some of the mistakes they've made in the past with companies
like bull Frog and Origin and and just like all these wests, not letting
people have their identities within EA, right, trying to integrate stuff too hard.
Yeah, and now you see E a kind of shifting to have like
their Sam's division and their casual division and their sports division and all that stuff.
And uh, that's a little more like the Take two with rock Star
and two K games and like more discreet LABE approaches. So I would see.
You know, I could see that working out for all involved and not
being that bad because I don't know, it's you know, bottom line,
it's Yeah, there's definitely kind of that knee jerk sense about EA of oh
whether they're the biggest so, you know, hate on them. They're the
ones that are making all games bad. You go look at EA games,
they're generally pretty good. Yeah, they're generally solid. There's definitely some solid
some bad life stuff happens, but you know, for for the most part,
when they get into something, they do it pretty well. They obviously
they get the right people to do it. They you know, picked up
Pandemic and BioWare. It's like, well, these guys are really good at
making these types of games. Let's have them do it over here. It
doesn't sound like they're going to go in and start ruining what BioWare does.
You know, they're just gonna you know, fund it and get a piece
of it, and that's going to be that Yeah why not? Yeah probably
So, Yeah, I don't know it. Given thea's a weird track record
with this stuff, I could see why people will be apprehensive. But sure,
it seems this seems okay, but they also seem aware of it,
right, seems aware of it. And on top of that, you know,
it's not like Take two is some brilliantly run organization that is not on
the verge of ripping a part of the seams is the best possible scenario for
that company, and I have to believe it's just gonna happen. I mean,
the one thing I'd read was that, like, was it Zelnick?
The guy Zelnick, Like, like, the only reason him and the board
and whatever delaying this deal is because he's trying to sign some sort of like
gigantic pay raise deal where if they get bought, he gets like a bajilliony
dollars. That seems completely believable to me. So and yeah, it takes.
It's had nothing but management issues and money problems for years and years.
I mean, the guys that are in power now we're put in there after
a huge coup in the boardroom that happened, you know, a year or
two back. So it's it's been strife and crazy on top level. It
takes two for a long time. So some sort of stability that could be
offered by EA, I have to imagine would only mean good things for those
games that are being published under them, and Jack Thompson wants it to happen.
So you know that right there, that's that's the kind of mode of
confidence you really need. That's the like to make it. It's like the
weird that's just such a weird. I feel like that. It's perfect because
it's because it. Yeah, every time anything happens with any of this stuff,
he just comes in and say, oh, you've played right into my
hands, like he's some kind of master strategists that wanted this to happen all
along, Like, oh, by doing this, you have sealed your own
fate. Twists his mustache and disappears into above of smoke. I really like
to see him actually do that. It just disappear into a puff. He's
basically like the bad guy from Professor Layton at this point. Yeah, which
seems like he's I don't know, like making a deal with the devil in
some way. No, like the quote no, don't don't be fooled,
Like the quote from him is very much like I hope this happens because I
can totally ruin them. It's not like he's like, yeah, that would
be good for No, it's like, yeah, I missed, I missed,
took the tone. No, he's he's excited for it for his very
much his own reasons. So almost at the exact same time that all of
this news of incredibly huge potential mergers, which we all in the room here
believe are it's probably gonna happen, even if Take two don't want it.
Yeah, I mean, unlike unless some other company rises out of nowhere and
it takes them away. But so I if not ea, although I believe
it will be EA. Let's say Q three, Q four, So before
the end of the year we will see Take two folding into another publisher.
And then at the same time we learned that Sony's Phil Harrison, Yes,
the Phil Harrison. He's up out motor Storm. Yeah, and I no
longer care about motor Storm, says Phil Harrison. I mean, I'm going
to go play the drums. That's the only thing I can think of.
Is like they were, you know, they showed motor Storm too to a
select group of people at g DC, and maybe he realized he didn't want
to go through another two years of saying motor Storm, so he he pulled
a fat otis bounced up out. Did they actually show MotorStorm to a GDC.
Yeah. Wow, not to not to people like you and me,
but yeah, someone somewhere I hear there's dirt and bikes. Yeah, well
that that sounds promising. But so yeah, this guy one of the major
faces for Sony, one of the big public faces for their videos. And
really, I think though, the one public face that could come up there
and talk about games and you got the impression that he knew what he was
talking about and b was telling the truth when he said I am excited about
this game and wasn't just out of his mind. Yeah, And Ken Kutaragi
was just completely flipping insane. Yeah, And Jack Trenton's a businessman. I
mean, you know, it's like hasn't really had that much pull the audience
in a long time. I think Cash is much the same as Jack Shrenton
and yeah, Ken Karagi and that he is he is a business dude,
right, that this is about games, and they're yeah, and they're just
like totally legit dudes, and they know what they're talking about and they and
they're like fairly compelling speakers in their own right. But I don't think that
they can deliver when it comes to now we are going to talk about the
games? Are you ready for the back? Like, that's just not they
can't, that's not there. So so now Phil Harrison's gonna go do it
for Atari, which is yeah, he has this awesome French title for Infograms
like direct Tour Regulars. I don't even know. It's something basically president President
of Infograms or he's President of France. Yeah, he is now the President
of France, and I think that's what that means. Basically, it's it's
all socialized over there anyways, So it's if you are the president of Infograms
to the President of France, well great, so good for him. Wait,
wait, way to break down barriers by being the first brit to run
France. Yeah, so I guess there's there's you know, there's a quote
from him out there talking about the legendary brand of Atari and so much potential
here and oh and those guys have been like circling the drain in a bad
way for a while now. I mean that's been my view of it.
But if they can get someone like Phil Harrison over there, then they've obviously
got something going on up top where they still have some money to play around
with or at least something to offer a huge percentage of Like if you can,
if you can turn this around and make it happen, you'll be paid.
I have to imagine that that's it. I can't imagine that they have
the cash to pay someone like Phil Harrison enough to draw him away from that,
because he had been at at Sony for like ten years, twelve years
probably he'd been there for a really really long time. So to pull him
away from that, I have to imagine just huge amounts of stock. Yeah,
that would be. Yeah, here's the here's this risky situation. But
if you can make it happen, you'll be paid very well, you'll get
many francs for drachmas or whatever they like. He's going to have trouble finding
work if that all goes out. Oh yeah, exactly. That guy is
pretty much set. Bill Harrison Russ's own ticket. Yeah, that is still
weird, sean archer of the video game industry. Totally, that is still
a weird shift for him though, just kind of going from from Sony riding
on top. Well, the other thing that the people were speculating about,
which is based on some comments that you said, like around GDC about Japan
being slow to move on online and various things with the PlayStation platform. Is
that maybe he's just like another casualty of the I don't want to work for
a Japanese company anymore, which every time I hear it, it seems to
be pr people that can no longer deal with they're the Japanese arm of their
company comes coming in and making all these crazy decisions, being like that is
not the way to do it. Oh God, you hear you Definitely being
in the industry, you hear that on kind of a low level, a
lot of people finding themselves working for these these large Japanese companies and being frustrated
by kind of the disconnect and communication and also just kind of the way that
stuff is decreed in Japan. Yeah, it's makes people who are just so
completely disconnected from kind of what is happening in the ground. I wrote a
bit about this on my blog and uh and someone someone commented, someone actually
had a really good comment where they said that, you know, basically,
Japanese business looks in decades, not quarters. You know, like they're they're
very much long view, so they're a little bit slower to move as a
result because they are kind of looking at that that bigger picture that American business
tends to be about, what can you do for me in the next three
months? And so Japan's like the internet, yeah pretty much. Yeah,
Yeah, it's working out really well for worldwide sales for some of these units.
But yeah whatever, PS three is doing fine over there. So so
yeah, Phil Harrison's going to bring incredible online support to Atari. Yeah home
now on your network connected twenty six hundred. What franchises does Ataris still have,
Well, they'll see that they sold Driver. Yeah, they still have
dragon Ball Z now for now. Yeah, which I which Fundmation desperately wants
to get away from them, But I guess did not actually get that shook
out, did they. Yeah, so they have that. They don't really
have beyond good and Evil they still have No, that's the other French,
the other French dudes. Yeah, splinter Cell, Yeah, splinter Cells got
they made the lost license. Tari has adventure. They've got combat right right,
Yeah, actually has browns all that stuff. They don't even know that
Atari doesn't like what Atar like, what classic Atari games does the Atari of
today they don't. Still they have dragon Balls, they really don't have anything
else, but I mean like Pong, well they still put out like asteroids,
like like oh that stuff all came out through Atari, like that X
Watch Live releases, like all the ones that Stainless did that. We're really
bad, right Joust. Yeah, so they still have access to some of
that stuff. But like the Atari split basically like Hasbro got all the home
stuff and Midway got all the arcade stuff, right, and then the brand
I guess maybe like they it Hasbro sell it off at some point. I
don't remember the exact logistics. Remember in the mid nineties there was that split.
Yeah, that's what's happened since then. So maybe they have Rush.
I don't know. No, No, Midway has Midwayway Rush. Yeah.
That's forty five minutes of us trying trying to figure out what Miay owns.
Super Mario Brothers still have that is still them. Yeah, if they got
Flight Simulator H eight, could they make another Smurfs game? Dude? There
is There is a new Smurfs CG film coming out, so I'm sure there
will be some fantastic video game tie in well. Atari Atari being a French
company is perfect for that. Poised poised to take advantage of this French property.
So yeah, Tari is in some shit right now. Well I guess
not. I guess yeah. If they're able to make this move, I
mean I think that this definitely raises their chances of actually doing something, their
chances, but there they're still have a long way to go. Oh yeah,
I can't again, I cannot remember the last time Atari put out a
game. Test drive? Yeah, test drive, that's true, test drive
on which did they license that out to someone? Didn't they? Sure?
Mark Echo's getting it up Contents under Pressure wasn't a tardy release. What's what's
the new? Didn't that come out in two thousand, like five, two
thousand and six years ago? I was like, I was like, oh
four, I think. But even even better than that was the recent announcement
tangentially related to all this, that they were making a video game based on
Dexter, the TV show, the Showtime show being produced by Mark Echo's video
game company. So Mark Echo Market Entertainment is going to bring you, which
I I don't think. I don't think it's to any of the dudes from
getting up. No, it's probably just Marcus. That was the collective and
they like it's whatever. Dude's mark Echo Design. Yeah, yeah, no
Mark that he bought the he bought a developer or something like that and renamed
it. I think maybe, But that just seems that just seems like such
a weird combination of here's a show about a serial killer who killed serial killers,
brought to you by the Grip. The guy right, well, I'm
sure he's just a big fan of the show said you will be awesome is
if that was a video game? To check it out. Yeah, here's
this footage of me spray paint on Air Force one. I still don't yet
how they're going to turn that into a game that doesn't seem you're a still
serial killer that kills serial The word kills is right in the description of the
show. That's how you make a video game out of it thing. It's
not a particularly action oriented thing. If Ubisoft was able to ring a goddamn
video game out of Lost, yo, yo. The thing you don't realize
is that you got to think about the verticality of Dexter. You gotta get
in, get up, kill, kill a serial killer, and get out,
And to be fair of the Lost game, not very good. Sure,
Well, you know what this probably won't be very good either. All
right, Well, there we go. So now now that we've decreed that
I liked Mark Echo's last game a great deal, I'm interested in more than
more than most people he mentioned to be by name in some interview because apparently
I got it and no one else did. That was kind of weirded out
by. But apparently I was one of the people who didn't quite get it.
I liked it. I didn't fantastic sound. The combat killed that game
for me. The awfulness of the commo. I like the story, of
the character, of the setting, everything about that game. Yeah, you
know, there was there were good ideas there for sure. Yeah. Uh,
but so that's Uh, that's the beginning of last week was two K
and then uh Tari and Phil Harrison and then what else has been going on
in the world around us? Jeff? Uh, Well, let's see.
Uh there was some stuff today about Uh Bobby Kodik, the CEO of Activision,
was talking at some is that some alternate ego of Bobby Digital? Yeah,
Bob Bob didgy Bobby kod g I speaking at some Morgan Stanley something or
other. I don't know, Uh, And and kind of talking about what
they're doing with Guitar Hero Aerosmith, and he mentioned van Halen in one of
the sentences. So now like just basically said like, oh, you know,
like or like you know, a new audience gonna exposed to van Halen
or something like that, just kind of dropped it out of nowhere. And
now everyone's taking that to me that after this Aerosmith game comes out, that
they're just going to be a van Halen Guitar Hero game. I mean,
I'm sure that's something they're probably speculatively looking at, but that doesn't sound like
a confirmation by any Oh no, no, no, I mean it's yeah
exactly, And it's one of those things that you call them up and asked
they're like, no, we haven't announced a game like that. He's just
he just mentioned it. What Yeah, But it's also something that like,
you know, like is this road Rash game gonna happen? Like dude mentioned
road Rash twice in different speeches during GDC uh and then what is it?
Sebastian Bach mentioned, yeah, we got a game. Were sounding on some
road rad I don't know something in some interview. So somewhere in a bunker
in some place, there is probably somebody sitting behind the computer working on road
rash. Yeah. But meanwhile, then when e A got ahold of the
you know, when everyone got ahold of Eya, they went no, which
doesn't which never means no. Like that's that's the sad fact of station is
probably the least useful thing you can do with things like that on things like
that, you know, because because they're not going to say anything until they're
ready to actually say their thing, they've got a timeline figured out for right,
and they're not gonna break it just because someone dropped it in some kind
of roundabout way. But I you know, these are usually very calculated things,
and I don't think you you go in there and just mention something like
that off the top of your head. So I think it's something they're definitely
thinking about. We'll see if the band you know, can can get into
that or whatever. It wouldn't surprise me considering how like Weird and Flighty,
you know, a band like Van Halen can be. You know, it's
like they're like, who's even in van Halen anymore? They're asking Eddie's son,
like, hey, sixteen year old kid, can we be in your
video game, like, yeah, hell yeah, he's in van Halen.
I know, he's the bass player. He replaced Michael Anthony and on the
last that's criminal. I know. So well, here's then I'm gonna throw
this down, right goddamn Now, gentlemen. Is that if there's a van
Halen game that has Eddie van Halen's son instead of Michael Anthony Michael Anthony.
I know. Well, here's here's where this gets really weird. Is I
don't care if you even give Wolfgang the Jack Daniels shape bass guitar, think
whatever. At this point you tell me, hey, we're making a van
Halen version of Guitar Hero, I'm gonna say the exact same thing as I
said about Aerosmith. I mean, that's that's the difference. The difference is
the difference is that I actually like older van Halen stuff and really don't care
about Aerosmith. Right. But here's here's the thing about that, is that
van Halen makes more sense just from a the you know, perspective of playing
Guitar Hero versus Roffian, because van Halen is about the guitar playing. It's
about Eddie van Halen, right, That's what that band is it is.
It is practically a showpiece for Eddy van Halen. So that's David Lee Roth.
I don't have to he has heard of time. I've actually greatest rock
and roll front man of all time, the greatest, the greatest, the
greatest. I still think the idea of doing an entire game dedicated to any
one band is functionally retarded, But I would much rather play a van Halen
game than an Aerosmith game. Well, did you see the other news about
the Aerosmith game, Like there was some because they're taking pre orders in stores
now, and I guess one of the best bicirculars had something in it that
said, like lay as Aerosmith or other bands, like basically implied but there
would be, yeah, that there'd be opening acts in the game, right,
they're bands, Like they said that in the initial release. What they
said it was going to be bands that inspired Aerosmith over the years and bands
that have toured with Aerosmith over the years. Right, so it's all still
going to be kind of very seriously thematically kept together. But that that at
least gives me hope for the project, because that means they'll probably a run
DMC song in there somewhere you would hope. I would expect, so I
also totally expect Christmas and Hollis. Yes, I totally expect that that there
is someone having conversations trying to get deals to get you know, Guitar Hero
van Halen going. But I also hope that they have sense enough to wait
and see what the sales figures for Guitar Hero Aerosmith looked like before they drop
the hammer on that, because I have very much question how many people are
going to give a good goddamn about that game. I guys are to guess
that they're not going to because I imagine that right now they're still writing so
much the high of anything we put out with the word hero in it is
going to sell billions that they're just they're just running out and trying to lock
up as many bands as they can before rock Band can get to it,
right and mean, and meanwhile, like you know, the mind share,
Yeah, it seems like to be it's moving away from Guitar Hero right,
So right, they're just doing everything they can to keep it relevant and in
the public eye, and if that means having to you know, spend a
billion dollars on getting you know, a gaggle of Van Halen songs and you
know, maybe a gaggle of ac DC songs or something. Just as they
can put out three of those games a year, they'll do it. Wait
to think about the long term activision. I would think that they would be
a job at this point. They would just look at what Rock Band is
doing download wise and instead just go for like a Guitar Hero four because it's
Stuff's like if, yeah, if you're not totally invested in the download business
model like the way the Rock Band is, you know, you're still thinking
like we should put out a bunch of discs every year, right, And
that's that's that seems to be the mindset they're pretty mired in, which I
hate that because straight up I don't want to be switching discs constantly when I'm
playing games with friends. Yeah, exactly, And you know they'll probably put
out PS two versions of those games too, and we versions. You know,
there's just consoles where you can't really do the download stuff. A model
that works so wonderfully for the Tony Hawks series yes, now being applied to
the Guitar Hero franchise. Clearly the right way to go chronic shortsightedness is going
to kill Guitar Hero, I'm afraid to say. Yeah, it'll be at
least a couple of years before it happens. Yeah, it always is.
It takes a long time for that kind of momentum to slow down and fully
shift. So yeah, right around the time of Guitar Hero X. Oh,
that'll be a futuristic Guitar Hero where you play on laser guitars. When
Guitar Hero underground there as Underground would be really funny. Scan your face in
for your dude. Yeah, whatever, what else is in the news,
Jeff, we'll see we should talk about the Grateful Dead stuff, right,
So should on the subject of the music stuff, you know, I just
the biggest just want to say how horrible I think it is. I think
I think the Grateful Dead are also pretty horrible. Yeah, Like that's you
know, every other song they've put out to date. I've looked at me
like, well, I guess I understand that, But then you go and
put out like six Grateful Dead songs at once like that. The reason that,
yeah, why is that the first band to get like goal Hog with
your because they licensed eighteen songs by them because they they they totally just jumped
on board the things said, here's a whole bunch of our music. There
you go. Well, then I got to go back and question that decision.
I have to imagine that that was, you know, in part,
because like that was you know, a bulk deal, like if we're going
to get anything, we've got to get this much. Maybe. Yeah,
yeah, I don't know. I just I don't think it's that bad of
a decision. I mean I understand that, you know, you guys aren't
fans, and that's fine. I'm not even a particularly big grateful Dead fan,
But I understand why they would do it. It's like they're trying to
create the is big of a cross section of different you know, genres and
styles. I think I think you put I think you put those tracks out
one at a time with other stuff. Yeah, just mix it in there.
I mean, you know, they haven't been putting out you know,
the Police six tracks at a time, but there has been you know,
a steady influx. There was the one Police pack, and then after that
it was just kind of from there. Yeah, they've thrown they've thrown a
track in here or there. I just I don't see the Deadhead Xbox three
sixty or p S three owner ven Diagram is having a lot of crossover.
I think it's probably maybe that's the thing though, is that maybe they put
out the one pack and from here on out they just kind of throw one
or two in here and there, and that's that. It seems like a
lot of the stuff that they're doing with the download stuff right now with rock
band is very experimental. So I at this point, they've sold so many
downloads that they can afford to experiment a little bit and go, well,
let's see if people will come along with us for this little ride here.
If we put out six songs by this by this band and see how that
goes. It could be them kind of priming the pump a little bit for
full album downloads down the line. That's I mean, that's the thing that
I mean that this prompts from me is the question of where are these full
album downloads? And and I guess, yeah, this will be them seeing
all right, are people willing to go for more tracks at a time.
But I feel like the Grateful Dead is a horrible band to do it that
way totally. I feel like, you know, Nirvana's never Mind. Ye
put that out as a full album. If that, if that is your
first full album released for rock band, it will sell. It's gonna be
the Who. The Who's totally gonna be the first one they do. They
are, they already talked that one up, They already confirmed it. I
don't think they've ever actually said officially that they're doing never Mind. I mean,
it was in that that news story about like that that list of songs,
right, like all the never Mind tracks were on that list, So
it seems pretty likely that that's coming, But I don't think they've ever actually
officially said that that's coming. Yeah matter, So I agree. I think
that, you know, the Grateful Dead is not the best benchmark for that
sort of thing. But at the same time, I played the songs,
and you know what, they're kind of fun, you know if you like
that, like some like you know, the sort of newly Allman Brothers stuff
that is in the Guitar Hero Too and whatnot. That that's it's the same
kind of thing. I did break my my current or my recent decision to
not downloading new tracks and I got the nine s Nails pack, if only
because I know that March of the Pigs on drums will be super fun,
super fun and uh, the perfect drug on drums. That's all crazy.
Yeah, that's horrifically insane thing ever insane time signatures and stuff on that,
Like it's all drum and bassy with by crazy fills and stuff. The signature
is it actually remains pretty steady. It's just that like the rhythm is just
all over the place. It just goes in so many like yeah, it's
so fill heavy, so drum and bassy and yeah, like it took me
five tries to even beat it on expert, which for me, I can
usually cite read most of that stuff pretty pretty easily. And that that that
ship like vexed me for a good hour there too. Big Man on campus.
Yeah, yeah, that's pretty extreme. I don't know. As soon
as I get around like playing more rock man, I'm just gonna go back
and buy everything except for the Grateful Dead songs, I guess. Yeah,
like that's been the first thing, Like that's that's been in the back of
my mind all along, Like, oh, you know, as soon as
I get back into rock band, it's gonna happen. One of these days.
I'm gonna go buy everything. This has been the one first thing that
came out and I was like, oh, except for that, we went
to buy that. You and I need to do the Endless set list at
some point. Yeah, we do. Yeah, we're about to get the
achievement for that. Yeah. That would be fun. Yeah, because I
haven't really played it too seriously since we finished fan World tour. Friend of
mine did it, said it took him about four and a half hours.
Christ, so I'm going to put it in the time if Yeah, I
am too. It's just it's just all the fifty eight songs that come with
the game, right, Yeah, that's not even that bad whatever. Yeah,
still means we have to play for play long time well on expert Yeah,
and which means I'll play bass. Yeah. Speaking of old white dudes
with giant beards, yes, uh that's and Dragons creator Gary Gygax has sad
news here has passed along. Yeah. He had a sixty nine years old.
Apparently he had been sick for for some years. He has leveled up
for the last time. Yes, he his tombstone will read he rolled natural
twenties. So that's that's I think tangential to all things. I was never
a big D and D guy. No, I never came in a table
top I tried playing it once and this girl that we were playing with showed
up with like a full loaf of bread and just was eating it with no
butter on it, And I'm like, what the hell? Yeah, did
you have your monster manual? No, this is the player's handbook. Okay,
so you have, you have an add but it's just the cover because
in size this copy of Poker Pro with Sammy Farha on the cover. Because
it's as handbook, I see, said, dude big time. Yeah,
So I don't know. I don't know where the actual player's handbook went.
It fell out of the cover a long time ago. But you know,
even as someone who was not a DND player, I understand how important he
was in sort of like you know a lot of modern game design invention.
Yeah, like role playing games and whatnot. Yeah, definitely, the modern
RPG would not exist as it does without that table top RPG convention existing beforehand,
which was you know, a large part his construction. So yeah,
so his his influences felt even today. Are we gonna miss him? You
know, I'm probably not gonna miss him, but it's still sad to hear
when when stuff like that happened will miss him. Well, I think he's
made his contribution. Yeah, he did what he needed to already ask him
in more. Yeah, okay, cached way, all right, okay,
I'll give you that. Uh so, yeah, that's uh all about do
it? I guess for news Yeah for Yeah, that's basically what happened.
There's also, you know, some new games out. Yeah, did anything
else happened while I was gone? Because I was I was out of it
all last week. I was not in the loop playing a conflict. Denied
opts to know what the hell was going on in the world. So that's
a lot of fun. It's a good game, is a fantastic Alex Navarro
gives two thumbs up to Yeah, Denied out of out of ten. That's
a lot of thumbs. Two thumbs out of ten points. Yeah, so
a thumb does not equal a whole point. No, so basically it gets
a four. Yeah. Well it's it's it is. You know, I
don't even know what type of game that is. The Conflict series, the
Conflict, Desert Storm and all those others. Oh, oh, it's okay.
So this is a first person shooter. So they changed it up on
you, you know, I mean, I mean, you give me that
name, and I could have thought it's like an RTS, right, Yeah,
uh no, it's the Conflict series that's been going on for some time
now. It's squad based. This one actually sort of there's there's two characters
you control the hold. Yeah. I guess that's that's how the last one
was to which to me sort of felt like someone saw the announcement for Army
of two and said to a design team, here, make this, but
make it in six months. No, they've been making those games for a
long time. I don't I don't know they're straight up biting someone else's style
with it, but it feels like it's it's the same sort of But they've
never been especially good games either. So Yeah, I've been playing The Club.
Yeah, I didn't like that either. I just got my copy today.
I haven't started digging into. Yeah, no, I understand, like,
like now that I've played The Club, I've played through like the first
three, so they are like the prison level of the last level I've finished.
Yeah, I don't know. That game makes a really like a passable
first impression and then immediately goes downhill. From there, we're just like,
oh, so I'm just gonna do this. Then it continues on like that
for a while and then it's over. I mean, so you can you
can pick a different character pretty much at any time. Like, what does
the condition for seeing a different You said the characters have endings to finished the
last tournament, last tournament with Oh yeah that's what I thought. Yes,
yeah, so you have to do those same levels again and again and again
and again to see all the endings, you know, the great fucking endings
that really tell you a lot about what's going on in that game. Are
they pre rendered? Yes? The sounds they sound like tech and ending is
only not as good. Yeah. Yeah, Well conceptually the same, like
conceptually a lot like conceptually that game is a hiding game, but a shooter
instead, like with it's at the dead level of depth that has everything everything
about it. It's like the actually it's Tony Hawk. It's with guns.
I mean, you're creating combos over and over again. You're well, okay,
the conceptually it's Project Gotham racing with guns but with fewer moves. If
you would do it, if you do a power rover drift around corners and
then shoot guys. Maybe you'd have something, but yeah, but you can't
do that unfortunately, so that game is not so Goodeseptually, it's like Mister
Dew and rad Racer. So it's Mister Dew, but three D. I
wear the glasses. I had the select button and put on the glasses.
That's game three three D Mister Dew. Carbon Company soon from Carbon Carbon Neutral
Games Games, the new development studio helmed by faved Jeff Gerstman. Uh so,
yeah, I had not played a ton of games over the past week.
I just yesterday wrapped up my time with Jumper. Oh good, I
never have to play that again, so that's good. How are the how
many points? Yeah? I received seven hundred and fifty points for finishing that
game. Then I need to borrow your copy of Jumper. I was totally
gonna bring it today. Dude. I'm sorry that I'd spaced on that.
That's cool. I just I just got notification from the good folks at game
Fly that they're sending me a copy of CSI, so I'll have that for
points and also front Lines of Fuel of War. Yeah I lost that.
You were saying as a good points. Yeah here that as well about them
closing on fifty five thousand. Uh so, I guess I'll technically be closing
on fifty six thousand after I play CSI. Yeah, that's that. That
is five and a half hours of your life. You won't mind having one.
I'm just gonna stare about them whatever. Like I have two Peak computers
in the same room that I play video games in. I'm just going to
have one of them with a fact up at all times, yeah, and
then the other one doing other computer e stuff. Yeah, and occasionally turn
around and kid a button to make them use the semen searching light on something.
That's the best part of that WILL game, I bet. Yeah.
Did tell Tale make that? Yeah? They they've made the last two CSI
games. I've been playing through the second season of Salmon Max. How is
it? It's all I've only played through the first episode so far, and
to start on the second one, it's great. Cool, So they they've
kept up the momentum. Yeah, it's funny. I mean it opens basically
where the first season left off, Like Max is still president. Oh good
you still you still encounter the giant stone head of Abe Lincoln. Good.
Good, good, good, like it basically just picks up. Yeah.
I finally went back and played through. I'm up to like episode five of
the first season. Episode five is the Reality two point zero one. Yeah,
that thing is my favorite one. Yeah, that's because the the arcade
machine that yells at you and they show up again like that awesome. There's
actually like the first thing that happens when you boot up the at least on
the game tap version. I don't know if it happens and the download one
as well, but it comes up like they they offer a tutorial now that
you can play if you've never played an adventure game before. It kind of
walks you through what it basically is. But the tutorial is kind of like
introduced by the four machines like the phone, the Pong machine and the arcade
machine and the computer. And it's awesome, nice, so funny. Just
so just those characters, like those those four characters are up there with like
Weighted Companion Cube in my book in terms of amazing video game characters from last
year. Yeah, seriously cannot say enough about the Salmon Max series if you
haven't played it, and like a good funny adventure game, it's great stuff.
I was. I was super impressed with it. I like, I'd
watched you play a lot of it while you're reviewing it, like back in
the day for the site which I'll never be named. Uh, and you
know, I got an impression of how good it was, but actually playing
it it is is really something. Yeah. I mean it's a very traditional
adventure game in format. But just the quality of the writing, yeah,
which obviously is a thing that carries an adventure game. If you don't have
good writing, then yeah, that pretty much is what an adventure game needs,
right, good, good dialogue, good story stuff like that. In
the ll tail people seem to know how to do that, so Bully for
them. Yeah, it's speaking of which this week, Bully. Yeah,
Schollarship Addiership Edition, The WE and Xbox three sixty. I picked up my
copy for the three sixty this morning. I picked mine up in this afternoon.
But it's still very much you know, for the hour or so that
I've played it so far, it's still very much Bully. They did not
change what that game is about. It still very much looks like a PS
two game as far as the quality of the president totally. Like I played
the three sixty version for an hour or so while I was waiting for you
to show up, and it's I like it so far. A little disappointed
by the frame rates. Yeah, like that's the problem. Like, graphically,
I think it looks good. They sharpened it up nicely, put some
more you know, chatow, a little more detail and stuff like that.
But yeah, I really really thought that they would have been able to hammer
down the frame rate stuff, although not not done by rock Star tracking doc
to the ports so, but also like the first thing that jumped out of
me is like the frame rate and the pre rendered cut scenes was jacked.
Yeah, like it though those were stuttering. I was like, what,
it's not pre render, that stuff's real time. But like the N engine
cut scenes I noticed, No, I mean like the mad Doc logo at
the start of the game him being dropped off at the school. No,
that's an engine too, the mad Doc logo. They use THEE to that.
Yeah, Bully's awesome, totally, it's it's it's still rude the music,
Gods music, And I'm still like a little I don't know, like
from playing it for an hour here, I'm a little disappointed by the quality
of the port like I wish the frame right stuff was better. I agree.
You know, it's weird that I what I realized is that frame rate
way better at night. Weird like in the game, like when you're doing
nighttime missions and like when you first go and see the homeless guy early on.
Maybe when I did that, I realized, Wow, it's running way
smooth than the fog up the outside of your view or something. No,
I I guess maybe, Well, there's fewer people out on the on the
streets at night. That's probably is you can see less pedestrians. When you
first said that, I thought you meant, like, you know, when
I'm playing a game, the frame rate for me is always or at night.
That's because at night. No, that's because you're drunk at night,
dude. Yeah, well it makes the frame way way better. Yeah.
So yeah, Bully's out. Army of Two is out this week. Yeah,
I'm kind of looking forward to you both. Both of you guys seem
seem up on it. I am a little more cautious. I played it
forever ago a't some EA event, and it actually kind of impressed the hell
out of it. Yeah, and I'm actually, I mean, I'm impressed
based on what he told me after that event. I think basically, you're
impressed by the Wu Tang line, right, Yeah, And then they talk
about like completely random, ridiculous shit throughout there, and that's in the game,
right, that's not just stuff in it for trailers. No, I've
seen I've seen that stuff where like you're in the middle of a firefight and
one of the guys starts asking the other guy who his favorite member of the
Wu Tang clan is. Yeah, I saw that. Yeah, I found
that very in doing as well. You know the best part about that line
is that he says, you know, you know, I'm I'm you know,
there's a lot that I like about ghost Face Killa, But you know,
I was thinking to myself, what about you? God? Like that's
that's the level of dedication they go to, Like who the fucking you?
A lot of people say Rizza or method man. Yeah, I mean that
that kind of stuff is great. And also learning that they hired actual marks,
these real sketchy ass mercenaries to come and consult on the game, and
that's where they got the straight out of black Water, the grizzled old Mark
well, and that's where they got the stuff they killed three developers where they
were working on about using tampons to stop bullet wounds and stuff like that,
which are you know, great authentic touches that I find compelling. But then
you also hear just all these horror stories from development about how you know,
there's a reason that it was delayed for the six months that it was or
whatever. So a little that makes me a little trepidacious. But I still
like the idea of what they're doing of a a non regimented military shooter,
like a military shooter that isn't about I'm in the army. Yeah, I
mean it reminds me of like some of the you know, the more freewheeling
concepts of mercenaries without the open world. Sure, like some of the same
kind, even like yours of war. I mean, you know, it's
like technically they were part of a military operation, but you didn't get a
lot of that feeling from the characters and the dialogue and stuff. But I
was speaking with one Rich Gallop earlier today over the Rich the Rich Gallup TV's
Rich Gallup Television's Rich Gallup. He basically said, he's he's waiting to hear
from me how Army of two is because he's worried it could be filled with
too much battitude. Yeah that's possible. Yeah, I don't know. I'd
just like to have a good co op shooter that I would actually want to
play with people, because I haven't had one since Gears of War at this
point. So there's there's both of those, and then there's a got a
war for the thing? Yeah that was that last week? Is that you
got a war? That is this this week? That's this week here,
it's it's totally amazing. Yeah. Uh, I would like to very much,
really on a personal level, kind of don't care. Yep, that
makes that makes me bad. I liked I like the first God of War.
I'm I've never been a huge fan of the series, so I like
the first one. You give me one. That's I'll wait for it to
come to PS two and then and then also not play it there inability three
No PS two okay, yeah, oh the PSP game to two right right
okay, which yeah, which isn't inevitable, so Q three look for the
Chains of Olympus on right the PlayStation two first, Yeah, with the you
know, some kind of trailer you know, after you beat it some kind
of video of the PS three game. At the end they're streaking news.
Well there's a thing like in the Instruction of Right, says yeah, Wars
three. Yeah, uh so those are probably the most significant releases of this
week. Next week, Condemned to blood Shot comes. Yeah, that's been
a lot of ads for best subtitle ever? Is that is a good subtitle?
Shot is a fantastic subtitles? Are they? Are they just picking up
where the first one left off with that It plays the same guy, Yeah,
except he's like gone crazy and he's an alcoholic. Now great, Great,
that's great, Like like like he to fight off the demons that have
been haunting him. He's been drinking them away. No, awesome, perfect
now and he'll pick up the school desks and bash you is with him?
Yeah, there will be. As long as there's a lot of like very
detailed, very gory bum fights in that game, it's gonna be awesome.
You can there are now like environmental kills. So like in one part that
I've seen, Dude Grabs, you know, the hobo crazy guys fighting and
shoves his head into a pneumatic press. Terrific, and you see this very
slow press, come down onto the guy's head and squish, squish until everything
pops out. And seeah, totally it looks way more brutal than the first
one, which the brutality was really what made the first Condemned any fun.
Honestly, is bent is bent rebar in it? Yeah? Yeah, bent
rebar with concrete chunk terrific. We'll make a return as well, so uh
yeah, there's probably other releases, but I looked over the calendar and that's
probably Yeah, that's the big stuff. I mean, we're gonna start picking
up releases here over the next few weeks because we're trucking onto the end of
the first quarter, that's true, and end of Q one is coming up
end of the month here, so you'll see a little rushed releases. Yeah
yeah. And then, uh, well there's a what's what's the Xbox Live
Arcade game this week, Rocket Access of Evil, which I saw described as
kind of like Smash TV but with some RPG stuff thrown in. Okay,
twin stick shooters Twin stick shooters, but with character development, bringing it to
the Xbox Arcade for the first time. Yeah, finally, when you level
up, do do you turn faster? Let's hope. Now when you level
up you become Mutoid Man. Well, then that that's the greatest game in
from me. Yeah, that would be sick play as Mutoid Man. Yeah.
Yeah, that's why you gotta have Smash TV MMO so you can have
the faction of the people that run the TV studio. Dude, what is
Midway doing? I want to do quests for Mutoid Man. What is Midway
doing that? There's no Smash TV, new new Smash TV game out there.
They're a wasting wasting potential. Yeah probably, I mean yeah, they're
about due to announce some new stuff. They got Ballers coming out in April.
Oh yeah, I notice their turn this year, isn't it. Yeah,
they get they get to do the freestyle basketball in the ball as I
the way to have a game Midway. The stuff, the stuff on Ballers
looks really cool. I'm sure. I'm sure it's great. The first one
was great. Oh yeah, totally. I don't even like basketball games.
I like ballers. Yeah, I have no opinion about ballers. Do you
want to be a baller? No shot caller? Do you want to have
twenty eight inch blades and paulor Yes, that's not really a rhyme. I
don't want to talk to you. I don't want to talk to you about
this. We're having a conversation over here. The adults are talking hogs.
I'm sorry. I drove past rosecrans Ah good on my way through La excellent.
So I guess that's about it for what's going on. We were actual
for actual news. Questions from at home. Oh brother, we have questions,
uh, pouring out the everything here what we don't have as answers,
but we're gonna We're gonna fake it anyways. Kurt from Washington, Iowa asks
what are your three favorite Xbox Arcade games? Wait, he lives in two
states. He lives in the city of Washington in the state of Iowa.
That doesn't make any sense. Three favorite Xbox Live Arcade games? Which a
pretty challenging question, I think because it's been a volume of really excellent Xbox
Live arcady I'm gonna say, and I know I own like sixty eight five
I actually only own like twenty five, So God, I've been way too
much on downloadable games. It's because it doesn't ever seem like real money.
Five bucks. Sure, I'll just push this button points hit them for ten
money. I hit the magic button and then it goes, yeah, I'm
gonna put Uno on my list. Yea, yeah, be online as well.
You know, I like I like Geometry Wars, but I don't feel
like it's one that I've necessarily gone back to so much. I'd put it
on mine. I would put Geometry Wars online. Well, you definitely put
Caten on yours. So there's your three. The only one that that comes
close to possibly knocking off either johnsry Wards or Uno is Alien Hominid. I
like. I like Alien Homedated an awful lot. I guess what kind of
ding's Alien hominated? For me? Is it's you know, availability right elsewhere?
For me, it was for me it was the problem that I experienced
while playing it, where there was a bug that wouldn't save your game right,
which I don't know that they ever fixed it, but it was something
that was only happening on certain three sixties, and I have since changed three
sixties. So you might even work for you now, who knows, but
I haven't found out. And I'm sure someone is coming right now a puzzle
quest, but as opportunity. I'm not a puzzle quest guy. I don't.
I don't mind it. Oh, you know, I do love puzzle
quests. I love puzzle quests a lot too, and I've played a whole
lot of it on the Xbox Live Arcade version as well. I probably the
best version of that game. Yeah, all things, I probably put that
on my list. I also really was. I was so thrilled when they
brought Streets of Rage too. Oh yeah, two Xbox Live Arcade, just
because such a left field thing that you know, someone just knew, right,
you know, somebody just said, yeah, this is a we have
Sega. You know, Digital Clips is going to do these ports. This
is one of the games that needs to be in this list. Shouldn't we
do Straight Your Rides one first? No, Yeah, it's got the car
with the rockets, But Streets of It is the superior game, make no
mistake about it, Ladies and gentlemen. We need desperately Final Fine Arcade to
come to Lave Arcade. That's got to happen, Just gotta happen. You
know. I'm kind of over the Arcade remix at this point, will be
once that comes out. That's the only thing I'm still like burning a candle
for at this point. I guess, do you want to throw any any
Xbox Live originals into your list? Jeff, I think, you know,
was a really obvious choice. I think that that asks absolutely has to be.
It's obvious, but it's also really good. There was a reason it
was like one of the most played and most pac Man Championship Edition certainly.
Yeah, that Space Giraffe. I love Space. I actually was playing Space
to Have recently a couple of days ago. I will never be able to
fathom anything going on in that game, but yeah, I don't know,
maybe maybe my color blindness actually makes it easier for me to see in that
game, because as yeah, visually that game is a mess. Yeah,
Poker Smash in your list anyway, I really do like Poker Smash. I
like it. I don't like it as must lady. I wish that,
Like I guess, I wish that the presentation was a little bit better,
Like maybe the music and the themes were a little I don't know, like
like certain aspects of that game seem kind of chintzy. I guess what bothers
me or what I What I have an issue with is I don't feel like
the gameplay evolves as much as it could while you're playing. Yeah, it
just gets faster, Like they don't add anything new, like maybe maybe if
they started out with like two suits and expanded to four as you went on
or something. Never really changed as far as what you're trying to do,
right, it does the challenges and stuff, like I think the multiplayer,
like the online is pretty neat, and that that's kind of a neat way
to kind of change the game up a bit. I guess I feel like
like doing something other than just speeding up the page. Yeah, yeah,
I agree with you. But at the same time, for them to make
the control changes that they did to like basically like I think Poker Smash totally
revolutionizes the way puzzle games are controlled. I agree, using the using the
two analog sticks for you know, for moving your cursory and then for moving
the pieces, like that's the Jeweled needs to start. Yeah, like what
the hell? Like, like, how how did we go this long without
someone else coming up with that? Like that? Yeah, exactly exactly like
that. Yeah, I guess. Yeah, Microsoft is invested in Poker Smash
or whatever early on and and and that happened, But I don't think I
would put Poker smash on my top three though. No, No, I
think it's a I think it's pack Man Championship Ship Edition, you know,
and probably actually Ultimate Mortal Kombat three m K three, Yeah, which has
its problems, but I love that game so much, I'm willing to kind
of look past a few of the issues that has. Nope, nobody picks
Utreo Solitaire. Man, what the f hell? Man? No? Yeah,
no, Sultrio Solitaire. Sorry, no, no, backammon. I
do have all two hundred points in back Ammon, But that's sick. That
was like me and Carry losing back and forth through each other to get like
ten wins or whatever. And Plus is awesome, and Plus is super awesome
for the Xbox Fly Arcade is awesome. But that's just because it's I have
a hard time, you know. It's a difficult game to recommend to the
average person. Yeah, and with good reason. And I don't know that.
You know what was amazing about it, necessarily trans four. I thought,
well, a lot of the stuff in HE four, like I really,
every extent extra Extreme I thought was was really like, well, way
better than E three. Yeah, every no, every extent extra was definitely
improved in becoming every extend extra extreme. Yeah, you're saying extremeness helped it
extreme when it went extreme, it went extreme when it went bungee jumping,
slammed a do. Yeah, it definitely helped its case some. But yeah,
it's still not still not gonna put that. Yeah, yeah, probably
not on top three, probably on top three, there's Yeah. Bottom line,
there is a wealth of excellent games for the Xbox libricide and just a
few of our favorites. Alex, you said PSN every Day Shooter would be
the winner on everything. Yeah, the only game on that list for Yeah,
well, Paint Pain Paint. I liked. Warhawk is technically a downloadable
PSN game, and that's that's t techn is also sweet. I own all
of these these. Yeah, that's that's pretty much. It's puzzle Fighter.
I mean there's that that's on three sixty as well, but puzzle puzzle Fighter
actually has Yeah, I'd probably say every Day Shooter Mortal Kombat too. Yeah,
and uh, I'm Warhawk, I guess, and there are war Hawker
Tech and it's toss up. All right, Well, Jeff, is a
follow up question that you didn't want to answer. Uh? This This listener
asks if you could, uh have one game remade for the Xbox Libricade.
Why he does not specify arcade game, so you know, you could definitely
go anywhere that you want. And I'm gonna say I talked about this with
the Deffil earlier Apples to Apples, the card game Apples to Apples I would
love to see made into an Xbox Libricade game. Sure, I'm not gonna
sit here and try to explain what apples to Apples is, but people who
know what Apples to Apples is you can see it translating very nicely into a
a fun group based Xbox Libracade game. Yeah. Uh, yeah, I
don't know. Journey Journey, Yeah, that'd be a good one. But
really, I mean, would you pay five bucks? Like? The problem
is that at some point the old arcade game has become a really bad deal.
Like I was playing discs of Tron. I passed on it and I
felt like a jerk. Why pay five dollars for this? Yeah, you're
you are perpetuating a bad system by by paying money for that. Yeah,
and I bought regular Tron as well, no, neither of which are particularly
great. Emulated versions of the game. Like they both feel kind of off.
Yeah, yeah, what my answer is, I love I love the
original Tron an awful lot, and I bought that and after that I did
not feel held by discs of Tron, but Alex any games final fight.
So Alex wants the final fight for Xbox Labricade I only player Arcade Final Fight.
That's all. I want to want Apples to Apples the card game,
which I would could easily challenge, you know, being a good casual multiplayer
game experience. And Jeff can't decide Samurai show Down too there, Jeff wants
sam Show too. Yeah, I play that, I'd be great and that
that's happening, I think. So there you go to tad out on any
puzzle Exchanger. Oh oh yeah, I've just I've just blown your vines,
haven't I known as money idle exchanger in the Orient? All right, So
here's a question from al Wong in Calgary, Alberta, Canada man because he's
from Calgary, Alberta, Canada. And this is a really long question,
so I'm not going to ask the whole thing, but basically he wants to
know. He says, yeah, so they're doing the rock or they're doing
the guitar Hero Aerosmith thing, and you guys think it's a bad idea and
we do. Uh. He wants to know if Harmonics could just upload the
songs into rock Band and steal their thunder No, because they probably have an
exclusive deal with Aerosmith. Yeah, I'd like to I'd like to think that
Activision did the business on that and prevented Aerosmith from from selling their songs to
competing products. Like I'd almost suspect that maybe that's why Train kept a rolling
is the Aerosmith song and rock Band, because maybe that was one of the
ones they didn't license for that game. Maybe maybe I just yeah, everything
about that deal screams we like, we will not be able to get any
Aerosmith song for a good year or so until after this game has come out,
Right, So I'm my guess is no, All right, So there
you go. I tend to agree. I imagine that Activision before they did
this, you know, sewed up all the exclusive deals for that kind of
stuff, and which is weird when you like, do you think about like
where this is going, like locking up exclusive rights to songs further your games
and stuff like that's really crazy. It's a really it's a really crazy spot
for us to be in with rhythm games now when you think about the history
of just like them being super obscure and now all of a sudden being these
huge, huge industries under themselves or Rhythm games didn't really license music that anyone
gave a shit about. You know, it was just stuff that like,
you know, it's like the DDR series, like everyone's in a while to
be a frequency and amplitude. Yeah, I'd like to bring to your attention
frequency and amplitude. Yeah, you know what, some of that stuff was
popular. A lot of it really wasn't like those some of those remixes and
stuff that run those games. Sure, no, I mean they were definitely
going for it for more dance music than than out and out pop music.
Staying that was not a big thing until you know, Guitar Hero Game along,
and then of course, like Sony is gonna enter I mean they've already
done so in Europe, but they're about to enter the space in a big
way here in the US when sing Star comes out and like May and did
you see that there is downloadable tracks for the most recent U karaoke Yeah,
yeah, Idol Karaoke Revolution beat It one of them. But is that even
a singing game? Yeah, yeah, it's a Karaoke Revolution Revolution games.
There's some other American Idol games, but they've done They've done two American Idol
Karaoke Revolution games, the second one and now they have downloadle content for it,
So so beat it. What's the weirder thing to me? More so
than people getting exclusive because whatever, that's just kind of part of the game
is when people don't have exclusives and then also don't have master tracks and then
everyone gets to record their own cover version of the song, right, so
you start getting multiple covers of the same song in these different games, right,
Like there's there's two different covers of war Pigs spread out between rock Band
and Guitar Hero, right and some of that, And even though Harmonics did
both games. So yeah, it's weird and uh so, so that's the
answer to your question, sir. Next question coming from some dude who wants
to know will they ever make a sequel to the two thousand and one PS
two game Rumble Racing. It's one of the best racing games ever. They
should. He's totally He's totally right. To ask that because Rumble Racing is
radical. It did like you do like fat spins in the air all the
time. Yeah exactly. It was like you know, all those Hot Wheels
games that came out, they were all not so good, Like those were
kind of like Rumble Racing, but yeah, yeah, and NASCAR NASCAR Rumble
also was was a similar game but with NASCAR license in it. But yeah,
yeah, exactly, that's that's the Sebastian box here. Yeah, yeah,
Rumble Racing. I love that day. Like that and Tony Hawk three
were out right around the same time, and those were like the two games
where you're like, oh, dude, the PS two as is awesome all
of a sudden, Like, holy crap, the PS two all of a
sudden is way better than the Dreamcast. What the hell were we thinking?
Next question it comes from Tom Buell. Tom asks, Hey, guys,
if you could make your own flavor of gatorade, what would you call it
and what would it taste like? I don't you know. It's I think,
Tom fantastic question for the podcast. But we don't have a large enough
marketing departments or enough chemists on staff here. We have a few, just
not enough yeah, to the chemists we do have are pretty busy. Yeah,
with street chemistry here. Do we want to throw some ideas out there?
Anyway, let's just spitball. Let's let's what what do you got here,
alex Oh, put me on the spot. I would Booberry Booberry and
it would be a ghost on the front, and then it would be it
would be it would be champagne flavored, so you call it booberry taste Champagne
tastes like champagne, tastes like champagne. Sho, that's what ghost berry tastes.
Well, that would be you would be surprised, You would go,
oh, you would be scared after you drink the Booberrians, like, this
doesn't taste like berry at all? What's going on? You talk about that
Warby voice? So yeah, that that that's that's my idea. As a
totally unrelated I have no contributions for this, but as an unrelated side.
Uh, yesterday, as I was driving back back here, I saw that
Carl's Junior has cap and Crunch flavored milk chakes. Oh yeah, I saw
you saw a picture of that. Don't toy with my emotions. I am
not We should go there. We'll go get them after this and well wow,
all right, yeah, I gotta try him out. Yes, I
don't even want Carl's Junior, but I want that. I never want Carls
Junior because of their gross ass commercials. And oh I'm not a fan of
the food. Really, I am a fan of food, but I don't
really want any right now. It's like, oh, the green burrito,
like the that most of them emerged to Carls Junior green burrito. Yeah,
the green Britus burrito side gray stuff and in a superstar yea. Yeah,
they have a sizeable burrito that makes it look like someone barthed on it.
Yeah, that'd be great, Jory, have those. Here's Paris Hilton watching
a car. Thanks, thanks for advertising. There's a chicken sandwich that looks
like it has poop in it. It doesn't get all over your face.
It's not smeared all over your greasy ma. I would call my I would
call my gatorade black shock, black shock. That's good. I would want
it black. Yes, it would be Yes, it would be a black
liquid. And I would want it to taste like like sweet tarts, like
if you like if you ate a whole role of sweet Tarts all at once
like that. We were kind of shocking, like, oh whoa kind like
that? And we get little John for the cover. All right, here's
a question from Sean Evans out of Raleigh, North Carolina. Sean asks,
uh, hey, Jeff, Hey, in one of your GDC blog entries,
you say that the problem with game reviews is that no one reads them
anymore. I was wondering what ideas you had to get people to pay more
attention to the actual written reviews. What, okay, you're all right,
he's let's let's let's give some context for what this guy's asked. So at
GDC there were a lot of different panels and this one that he's talking about
was one where the press was on the panel or at various members of the
press. Andy McNamara from Game Informer, Brian Crecente from Cottaco, a couple
other guys got there and we're asked questions that end guy Kroll from Newsweek had
gotten from developers, and it wasn't. It didn't get you know, like
the whole thing is they're supposed to be like, oh, it's gonna be
pretty fiery, but it never really got fiery because they sucked up all the
time talking about the nice stuff and then never really got into the more harsh
stuff. But someone there said that, you know, in kind of the
as what's what is one of the problems with aggregate review score sites is that
it makes it so that no one reads the reviews. I don't really think
that's a huge problem. I think the ultimate goal of a review should be
to get people the information that they want, and if they don't want to
read your review, that's their business, and I think it's up to the
authors to be writing more compelling reviews that that demand to be read. You
know, a lot of people say like, oh, game reviews shouldn't have
scores on them, which is ridiculous. It's just just you know, no,
Well, that's that's absolutely wrong, because if anything, these you know,
aggregate score sites prove that there is a good portion of people that do
want just a score and have a rough idea of what the you know,
the average popular opinion of a game is right, And that's that's perfectly valid.
Like that is actually the one valid use for those sites is for consumers
that just want to get that kind of quick fix of information. I think
that, yeah, I think if people are finding that not enough people are
reading their reviews, they need to start looking at the reviews they're writing and
and figure out ways to write better reviews. Yeah. Yeah, it's like
writing if you're writing reviews that are just like, here's everything on the back
of the box, and at the end of every paragraph, I'm going to
tell you if that's any good or not. You know that that's that's not
going to keep people that don't work in oh eight, No, no,
it does not fly anymore. So I think that, yeah, the video
game reviews have not changed as the industry and the audience have, and so
they you know, I think in a lot of ways that's going to have
to be addressed. I think part of it is that you just kind of
at this point people need to start sort of embracing subjectivity to a degree.
I mean, it's like reviews our opinions, and as much as you know,
it's just kind of like, you know, yes, there are facts
in reviews, but it's you got to kind of let your own personality in
your own taste sort of guide that guide reviews. You know. Yeah,
And I think that it's the idea, honestly for me of of people using
these aggregate review score sites to make purchasing decisions seems super crazy to me because
that's that's that is completely devoid of any context whatsoever. Is It's just right,
Yeah, it's like a bunch of different at best. At best they
give you like a sentence from the review. It's like, that doesn't tell
you anything about you know, your own personal likes or dislikes. I think,
you know, like for me personally, frame rate's a very big deal
to me in games. Yeah, when a game as a sketchy frame rate,
that can really that really takes away from it. Other people that might
not be a big deal, right, So I think, you know,
you need to read the review and find out, you know, what's wrong
with it, you know, and and and compare that to your own personal
likes and dislikes. And then furthermore, you know, I feel like where
that review you is coming from specifically makes a difference. And that's something that
I mean, film criticism has had for a long time as those kind of
named people that you can make those connections with and decide if you're if you
know, it's like, well, I never agree with michelsal Or. I
never get with Peter whatever from Rolling Stone, right, and it gets back
into that hole, like you know, every six months or something, some
of pipes up, goes, where's the Lester Bangs of game journalism? Yeah,
and that's and you know they don't really want that, no, they
but they want the Pauline Kale of game criticism. They want they want personalities
that they can kind of you know, look to time and time again and
to see, you know, that that match up with their own taste.
You know, they want people that they can kind of just sort of latch
onto in that regard, and there hasn't been I mean more, I think
more and more now you're starting to see that there are a lot there.
There are names that are starting to pop up and kind of math. I
think that's just the maturation of games and the people to play them. So
I guess that, Yeah, there's there's reviews, that's there's a lot on
them. Yeah, there's there's our little triotise on game criticism. Sean,
Sean, thanks for writing in. Next question comes in from you and in
Aberdeen that's in Scotland, y'all, word uh you and is in crisis because
he is stoked about Street Fighter four but he is not stoked about playing Street
Fighter four on his Xbox three sixty D pad. Oh, I hear your
brother. Uh, Now you are our two gentlemen in the rarefied position of
having actually played Street Fighter four, albeit in an arcade type environment. What
are your thoughts on this? Is this going to be an issue for people?
Or is this going to be a deal breaker as far as Yeah,
if if you don't like the Xbox three sixty dpad, you're not gonna like
the way this game play is because it plays like street Fighter. Yeah,
it plays exactly like Street Fighter two, and a lot of a lot,
a lot, a lot a lot of the ways the game speeds a little
different, in the timing will be a little different, but it's do you
think you're still making dragon punch motion and charging up moves? And do you
think that the release of this game on the Xbox three sixty will warrant some
crazy hoary well hory already put out They put out Virtual Fighter five. What
I'm talking about like a like a classic pad for the three sixty with you
know, deep pad stuff on it, like you like it? No,
I think if anyone is going to be crazy enough to to need something like
that for this game, they're gonna want to just get the Virtual Fighter sticks.
I've never liked using a deep pad for any I haven't had too much
trouble with the three sixties deep pad here comes up here and there, but
but I've never liked using any deep pad for it. Like, I'm all
the way with a joystick. So your street Fighter, I Street Fighters,
your game comes up through the arcades, So that's how you like playing it,
yep, I think I probably played my best street Fighter with a Supernintendo
controller. Ye. Any way to just plug a Super Nintendo controller into three
six, I'm sure. I'm sure someone probably has made some kind of weird
adapter by now there's like a USB version of it. But yeah, those
those hoary sticks, or I think I want to say it's hoary those sticks
that came out alongside Virtual Fight or five are high quality joysticks. Yeah,
as long as as long as Street Fighter four has full on button remapping,
in which usually Capcom has been very good about that, you should be able
to just get one of those and be straight. But it is a Japanese
style joystick. It's a ball, not a bat, so i'd also convex
instead of concave buttons. I would hazard to guess that there is probably some
sort of deal going on where there will be yet another joy Yeah. Probably
they'll probably, but just another one of these hoary sticks. Yeah, just
with with you on it instead of a Kira. Yeah, big difference.
We'll be doing a spot instead of throwing a fireball. Way different. Three
sixty deep pads a deal break for you. Maybe look at another version,
or maybe look at getting one of these third party controllers. Uh. Next
question comes from Michael in the UK. Yeah, kids keep coming, sir.
Okay, a lot of email comes in here, all right. Uh,
podcast is now three hours long. Michael. It's a very special episode
of the Air Pointing Down podcast. It's very touching. This one. Jeff
gets cooked on drugs and then we have to have a talk with him about
it. This is the one where he gets molested. Uh, Michael is
this is a dirty movie? Is riding into uh to talk about drinks?
Okay? Great? The envy that he has, all right, Michael,
let's go out for drinks. Drinks. Mike says that in the UK,
apparently Gatorade and Mountain dew. Right, Yeah, so much over there.
Yeah, there's no Gatorade in the UK. Luca's aid, as as close
as you can get, I think at all. No, they do not
sell gatorade in the UK. How do they live? Like, what do
they do drink after they've been hung over? More beers? They just go
back to the pub. Wow, that's one way to do it. Yeah.
Uh, And he goes on to talk about how he has nearly purchased
crates of Code Red for the equivalent of about fifty bucks a pop, which
I'm gonna say, good investment, Mike. Yeah, yeah, for for
a for a crate. Fifty bucks for a crate. Wait, can you
even get code read here? Now? Well this at this time of year,
probably not. No, No, code Red's full time. Code Red
is all the way okay, because they stopped selling it at the Taco bell
and I was super bummed about. Yeah, that's because they they rotated in
that Baja Blast flavor which is not which is which is awesome. Which they
don't even sell that in bottles, They just sell it a Taco Bella.
I want my Code Red back, damn it. So so Michael goes on
to list a few of his favorite UK only drinks are Terry seven Up is
one of his lists, and that's it. Yeah, they sold that here.
I don't think they sell it here anymore though, do they. Yeah?
Yeah, I haven't seen it. I can't stand it. Never Like
Cherry seven Up, I'm a fan, so I'm never glad to hear that's
still popping off in the UK. Goes on to discuss Pepsi Max coffee Chino.
If they have heard of this Pepsi Max. I mean, I've heard
what I've heard. I've heard of the coffee Pepsi before, like Coke Black.
I was gonna say, it's probably a lot like Cooke Black, but
not sold in the US, which I heard Coke Black was going away.
I would hope so because I heard that, like of O eight, they
were gonna stop making it. But I've still seen it around and I've still
like she's probably it's probably a lot of backstocks. Yeah, hopefully hopefully it's
clear will be carrying it exclusive right soon Extreme Value Retailers Brothers and Sisters.
Michael then ends this email with revelatory bit of information. Okay, I'm gonna
sit up for this, please do because you're gonna knock you back into your
seat, and we don't want you all the way back in your seats then
no, Lord knows what you'll be knocked into. Uh. He says that
nothing can compare to Panda Pops Anniversary party cake flavor, which tastes exactly like
sponge cake and jam harrowing heroin. Yeah, that's what it sounds like to
me. It's pretty addictive. It's it sounds like pure China white as far
as cake flavored soda. Uh, I'd say the closest cake. No,
no, no, sponge sponge cake. I thought. Have you guys seen
the new Doctor Pepper monstrosity? No affront to God that it's chocolate cherry Doctor
Pepper. Oh y, or no, it's I'm sorry, it's chocolate cherry
diet Doctor Pepper even better because for whatever reason, they can't make a regular,
non diet chocolate soda. Yeah. Do you ever know, like when
they used to sell chocolate soda, like you could never find regular it's always
diet chocolates chocolate. I think that's because regular chocolate soda would just kill you.
It would just let you know, it would happily let it. It's
just chocolate serp. Right, Yeah, sounds really good pop Top chocolate soda.
Well, Michael, if you could send us some of this pop Anniversary
Party cave flavor, we will drink it here on the podcast and review it
and tell people what we think about it. Uh. And actually that goes
for any of our UK listeners, right, anyone outside the US that has
any beverage at all that they want to ship, email it to us.
Well, we'll send you a shipp address. Yeah yeah, yeah, yes,
And I'm totally serious about that. Podcast at airpoint down dot com send
us weird soda. You will drink it, all right. Uh so that's
gonna do it for this edition of the Air Pointing Down podcast. Oh god,
I'm gonna have to whittle this one down a little bit, I hope.
So. Uh no, this is this is, This one's gonna be
the super long one because it's a very special week. It is a very
special week, it's true. Uh But anyways, that's it. We're done
sending your emails to podcast at air pointing down dot com. If you want
to something, if you want to send us drinks, uh, if not,
until next time, all right, turn these machines back on for a
special addendum for this for this this odd the Machine's back on very long episode
of the air Pointing Down podcast. Earlier in this podcast, we were discussing,
uh milkshakes, milk shakes, drinking them up. Yeah, uh,
talking about Carl's Junior having a cap and Crunch milkshake. And then we actually
just went and got goddamn capa and Crunch milk shakes from the Carls Junior.
We had to drive two towns. We had to drive to another town to
get this, because there's no Carl's Junior in this god awful town that Jeff
lives in, you know, the Carl's Junior. Two towns over Shelbyville.
The ironic thing is that we didn't actually get We went and ate food somewhere
else. Yeah, into the arms. We went to the Arby's and I
had bad roast beef and you had good roast beef. I had a good
turkey, saying which I don't know. I'm not gonna let you use the
Internet as a platform for you to speak ill of Arby's. Arby's very Goodby's
is awesome, were very good. But everything like Arby's serves food in such
a way that I can just order it and be done. I don't have
to tell them to not put stuff on it because they because it's exactly they
don't put any flavor into an of their food. They say, well,
instead of flavor, let's just put salt. Yeah, salt is a flavor.
Here's some salt, like delicious meat. And you can get an Arby's
melt, which is meat with cheese. Anyway, you can get a beat
with cheddar, which is meat with cheese. Also, fuck you, Alex.
The point. The point is that Arby's. I had those those loaded
potato bites, which were like a potato skin but in a deep fried formata,
and it was awful. I mean, you know, yeah, potato
skins are awful regardless of how you have them. But and yet you ordered
them. I had to find out. Yeah, well I had to know.
The moral of this story is that we went and got milkshakes after that.
I don't really if that counts as a moral, but we got them,
and I made sure that nobody drank them in the car. So you
have them, Yeah, Alex smelt his. I'm now actually going to test
test the nose on this smells like Captain Crunch. It really wow, wow,
it really does smell like Captain Crunch. That smells like a bowl of
Captain Crunch. But I know what I'm looking at. There is dissonance between
what my eyes are seeing and what my nose smelling. This is a milkshake.
It's a milkshake, not a bowl of cereal, which is what it
smells like. Okay, so times, so yeah, let's let's taste test
it on two three. Go, Wow, that really tastes like Captain Crunch.
Yeah, I'm concerned. Yeah, I'm concerned with how they got Captain
Crunch taste into this milkshake at times. At times it tastes almost like I'm
eating ice cream out of a waffle cone, you know, like it's kind
of like a Captain Crunch waffle coney kind of flavor. This is sweet,
It's just not like, but the sweetness is coming from the milkshake side of
it, not the Captain Crunch side of it. Yes, the thing that
makes it taste like Captain Crunch is not the sweetness. It's the other thing
that is in Captain Crunch. Right, It's like Donkey Kong cereal, which
was just Captain crunch, but barrels no, because that was still cereal.
Well, well, yeah, but they were barrels. Yeah, because Donkey
Kong threw barrels. That's the mind blowing. That's got a chunk. Yeah,
there's a little chunks and there are there are definitely pieces of Captain Crunch
in here. Yeah awesome. Oh yeah, some sort of blended cereal.
Yeah there is, Yeah, something masquerading as Captain. There's something caught in
my teeth that makes it feel like I just ate a bowl of Captain Crunch.
Good. Now, if only they'd make a crunch berry milkshake, you
know that has to be next. Yeah, I'm gonna say that the chunks
are fucking this up for me. I really like it. It's just the
same principle. Isn't like in an Oreo milkshake, but instead of crunching up
Oreo is they crushed up Captain Crunch. Yeah, dad, Yeah, No,
I'm gonna give this four out of five four stars. I'm gonna give
it. I'm gonna give it a pass. I don't dislike it. I
will never order one again for the rest of my life. It's maybe like
a three out of five. This is what you should rent first. Yeah,
yeah, I rent this milkshake and make sure you like it. I
like it a lot. If I were near a Carl's Junior and needed a
milkshake, I would get I would get another one of these, all right,
so you have it. I feel like they do make good on their
promise of Captain Crunch's smolkeshake. Yeah, in that regard success agreed. The
greater question that I think you have to ask yourself before you make this purchase
yourself is do you want a Captain Crunch milkshake? Yes, I'm going to
say yes, yes, Why do you guys? I'm saying for the listener
at home. The listener at home is going to do what we say unless
we say is yes. Or the listener in their car, unless the car
is their home or the listener well still both apply yea or throu saying at
a construction site, perhaps at the train on a train and transcontinental train.
Hopefully it's in a car, because you could drive to a carl Junior.
Sure you can't take a train to Carl's Junior unless the train has a Carl's
Junior in it, or there's a practice Carls Junior at the train station,
which I bet they wouldn't have these because it's be one of those weird like
airports style Carls Juniors. Yeah, that has like has the Burger special burgers
they had forty years ago and they're nine dollars more. We have the twelve
dollars burger here that we still call it the six dollars burger. Yeah,
and if it gets all over your face, well please wipe off before getting
on board. Do everything else to add about this monstrosity of a wood item.
No, but I guess you know we should say that, you know,
people that listened all the way through this, that it's gonna be a
real big week, agreed, And not just for milk shakes, not just
for milk shakes, but but but so you know, stay tuned to stuff
because there's gonna be some stuff going down later this week's jump it off.
It's gonna blow your damn eyes fantastic, all right, thanks for listening,