GWJ Conference Call Episode 546

Greg at Pax East, River City Ransom: Underground, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Coming to Big Franchises Late in Their Life Cycles, Your Emails and More!

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This week Sean Sands, Cory Banks and Greg Decker talk coming to big franchises late in their life cycles!

To contact us, email [email protected]! Send us your thoughts on the show, pressing issues you want to talk about or whatever else is on your mind.

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Show credits

Music credits: 

One And - Broke for Free - http://brokeforfree.com/ - 50:22

Blown Out - Broke for Free - http://brokeforfree.com/ - 1:10:55

Comments

Mass Effect: Andromeda is so good it gets mentioned twice

00:02:34 Pax East
00:16:52 River City Ransom: Underground
00:28:58 Mass Effect: Andromeda
00:41:37 Splatoon 2
00:46:02 Nefarious
00:50:22 Coming to Big Franchises Late
01:10:55 Your Emails

Thanks for having me on! It was great fun as usual, and I don't think I embarrassed myself too badly.

By the way, of you like what you heard from me today, you can find more at the Asynchronous Multiplayer Podcast website, or on iTunes.

Regarding River City, I cannot believe no one mentioned the amazing Scott Pilgrim version on 360, which is no longer available to purchase. That was the modern version of the nes one.

I'm with Sands on Andromeda. As I noted in the catch-all, there's a big five hour hump you have to get past before the game takes the training wheels off. And stops holding your handlebars. And lets you pedal on your own without following close behind.

Re: jumping into a series:

It's not quite Lara Croft levels of going back, but I played Half Life 2 first, then bought the entire HL1 anthology and played them all.

I just recently started playing The Witcher 3. As much fun as I am having, I have no intention of going back to play 1 or 2.

I think this is one of those things that different between games and books (and maybe movies as well). If I read a good book from the middle of a series, I will almost certainly go back to the start. I did that with the Culture series.

I played Ratchet and Clank: Deadlocked first, and then went back to play all the Ratchet and Clank games. Wikipedia says that's a 3 year gap. I then, later, played them again in the Ratchet and Clank Collection. So there's that.

Interesting that you didn't include Amanda who's actually gone beck in 2016-2017 to Mass Effect 1, 2 and 3. Totally holds up as far as I can gather from her Twitter feed, and I'd totally recommend DoubtingT go back and play them. You don't even have to 100% everything, just drop it down to "Casual" and do priority and loyalty missions.
As for Oblivion, it's totally playable if you mod the frickin' beejesus out of it. Just ask, Shawn, modder extraordinaire.

DoubtingT, I also recommend the Tomb Raider reboot which is a much tighter and slightly superior game compared to Rise of the Tomb Raider, in my book, but that's just my two cents.

I never played a single Saints Row game until the third installed. Had a blast, played the DLC, picked up the fourth game and then some more DLC when SR4 was released, but I don't think I'll ever, ever pick up the first two games.

Rat Boy wrote:

I'm with Sands on Andromeda. As I noted in the catch-all, there's a big five hour hump you have to get past before the game takes the training wheels off. And stops holding your handlebars. And lets you pedal on your own without following close behind.

Ah, RatBoy: as ever the wisest among us. I didn't mind the handholding at the beginning of ME: A, and I agree with Sands that Andromeda does have a couple of flaws. But at its core, it is a Mass Effect game, unquestionably. And that will keep me busy 40 hours or so, without a doubt. <3
Also, Cory, I don't do aliens, I'm a total xenophobe, I stick to Homo Sapiens for some reason. Although Garrus will always be my FemShep's best buddy.

Finally. I can't believe the Game King allowed peasant Cory call him "Sandy". Twice.
I love you guys, keep doing what you do.

I'm busy replaying ME1 at the moment and it's still magnificent.

I think there are a lot of people who start in the middle and just never say anything. Frequently, if you mention in a catch-all that "I just finished X, and really enjoyed it", the response from some posters is akin to getting a pat on the head and told to go eat supper at the kids table while the adults talk serious talk about the series.

If I come late to a series, I try my best to start with the earliest game possible. For instance, like Eleima I started with Saints Row 3 instead of 4 because I heard you can't go backward with those, and 2 seemed a little "too old" also.

When it's pure interface or mechanics differences, I don't think it really matters such as going from Fallout 1/2 to Fallout 3.

It's tougher for me when story is involved though as I'd always prefer to go back to the beginning. I started playing The Witcher when everyone was gushing about The Witcher 2, but I could just not get through its jank. Perhaps knowing there was a way better sequel out there discouraged me from pushing through.

I don't think I'd ever have played Mass Effect 2 without playing 1, and I think the reason I had no interest in Dragon Age: Inquisition is I just didn't like the world after bouncing off of 1 and having no desire to play 2.

I'm really curious to hear from people who have started a series late, such as Witcher 3, ME: Andromeda or Fallout 3 or 4 without no prior knowledge of previous titles. Did the game appropriately inform you of the greater universe or were you lost with a lot of back story? Did you care?

I utterly failed to comment on Escape Velocity last night, so I'm back.

Even before you said the name of the game I was like "Could this be Escape Velocity he's about to reference?" I didn't have access to a Mac, so Escape Velocity was what prompted me to learn about virtual machines as a lad. I played it once or twice at a friend's house, then ended up building a Mac OS VM so I could play at home. The family PC was /well/ below spec for the task, so the initial load time was /tremendous/. But once I got into the game things ran ... smoothish. Smooth enough for EV (though docking/landing was sometimes tricky).

I never knew there were plots in the game. I basically just flew the starting "Space RV" around and did simple passenger missions, or I bought medical supplies on the cheap and sold them for a markup. I remember having a sheet of graph paper next to the PC where I would keep track of all the planets, their inventories, and all the prices of things. After that got out of hand it turned into a list of planets with medical supplies and the prices.

I might just fire that up again on Zudz-weekend. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm sure nostalgia will grab me sooner or later.

Zudz wrote:

I utterly failed to comment on Escape Velocity last night, so I'm back.

Even before you said the name of the game I was like "Could this be Escape Velocity he's about to reference?" I didn't have access to a Mac, so Escape Velocity was what prompted me to learn about virtual machines as a lad. I played it once or twice at a friend's house, then ended up building a Mac OS VM so I could play at home. The family PC was /well/ below spec for the task, so the initial load time was /tremendous/. But once I got into the game things ran ... smoothish. Smooth enough for EV (though docking/landing was sometimes tricky).

I never knew there were plots in the game. I basically just flew the starting "Space RV" around and did simple passenger missions, or I bought medical supplies on the cheap and sold them for a markup. I remember having a sheet of graph paper next to the PC where I would keep track of all the planets, their inventories, and all the prices of things. After that got out of hand it turned into a list of planets with medical supplies and the prices.

I might just fire that up again on Zudz-weekend. Now that I'm thinking about it, I'm sure nostalgia will grab me sooner or later.

You might be happy to know that they released a newer version some years ago on Windows.
It works on Windows 7 and 8, but I don't know if it works in 10.

Eleima wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I'm with Sands on Andromeda. As I noted in the catch-all, there's a big five hour hump you have to get past before the game takes the training wheels off. And stops holding your handlebars. And lets you pedal on your own without following close behind.

Ah, RatBoy: as ever the wisest among us. I didn't mind the handholding at the beginning of ME: A, and I agree with Sands that Andromeda does have a couple of flaws. But at its core, it is a Mass Effect game, unquestionably. And that will keep me busy 40 hours or so, without a doubt. <3
Also, Cory, I don't do aliens, I'm a total xenophobe, I stick to Homo Sapiens for some reason. Although Garrus will always be my FemShep's best buddy.

Finally. I can't believe the Game King allowed peasant Cory call him "Sandy". Twice.
I love you guys, keep doing what you do.

Oh, don't get me wrong, once I got past the hump I was fine with it. It just seemed longer than in the past MEs and the "Getting the lightsaber" moments in Star Wars games.

Aw yeah Escape Velocity! My brother and I played the heck out of that game as kids, finding all the plotlines and making as much money as possible. There's a modern clone of it on Steam's free-to-play called Endless Sky. When I first tried it there were no plot missions to follow, but after doing some cursory research this afternoon it looks like there's now one complete major story. It's open-source so there's a community of users creating content for additional stories. Definitely feeling the urge to take another look

raevenote wrote:

Aw yeah Escape Velocity! My brother and I played the heck out of that game as kids, finding all the plotlines and making as much money as possible. There's a modern clone of it on Steam's free-to-play called Endless Sky. When I first tried it there were no plot missions to follow, but after doing some cursory research this afternoon it looks like there's now one complete major story. It's open-source so there's a community of users creating content for additional stories. Definitely feeling the urge to take another look :D

You could also try Rebel Galaxy, which I consider to be a spiritual successor to the EV series.

Rat Boy wrote:
Eleima wrote:
Rat Boy wrote:

I'm with Sands on Andromeda. As I noted in the catch-all, there's a big five hour hump you have to get past before the game takes the training wheels off. And stops holding your handlebars. And lets you pedal on your own without following close behind.

Ah, RatBoy: as ever the wisest among us. I didn't mind the handholding at the beginning of ME: A, and I agree with Sands that Andromeda does have a couple of flaws. But at its core, it is a Mass Effect game, unquestionably. And that will keep me busy 40 hours or so, without a doubt. <3

Oh, don't get me wrong, once I got past the hump I was fine with it. It just seemed longer than in the past MEs and the "Getting the lightsaber" moments in Star Wars games.

Oh, I don't know: felt like it took forever to get my lightsaber in KotOR.
I knew from the ME: A catch-all that you enjoyed it once you got past that first phase, I guess I should've been more specific and actually just said I agreed with you.
It's a bit funny, though. This game is getting a *lot* of criticism, and I just can't help but wonder (as I might've mentioned in the catch-all) if it would've gotten less slack if it didn't have "Mass Effect" on it.

Edited to actually mean what I meant.

I've been playing some Andromeda, and it fits well with this week's topic. I'm enjoying it quite a bit, and I suspect that's because there's no baggage.

One thing I failed to touch on in the show was how expectations influence opinion. After ten years of hearing people talk about Mass Effect like it's the Greatest. Game. Evar. there is virtually no chance I could enjoy any part of it, not only because I am naturally contrary, but because no game ever made could possibly live up to that sort of buildup.

Andromeda gives me the opportunity to have the Mass Effect experience without, as it were, the Mass Effect Experience. I'm grateful, and quite happy with it. And not only because it was a gift from Demiurge.

Awesome, I'm glad you jumped into it!! I think you hit on something super important, something I agree with wholeheartedly, it's the issue of expectations.
Overselling something is bad, not to mention that personal tastes must be taken into account . I adore Mass Effect (take a drink - yes, I know it's currently 8am on the East Coast), I love it to bits, each and every single game. But I'm not going to go around and tell everyone it's the BEST SERIEZ EVAR, because it's just (one of) *my* favorite series ever. Someone else might not be into action/RPGs, and just abhor the whole damn thing, and that's okay. And I'm pretty lucid when it comes to the games. Sometimes the games don't age well, sometimes they have pretty big flaws (elevator rides and insufferable inventory management for ME1, for example). In the end, no game is perfect, no such thing.
I may be passionate, but I try not to let that passion give me blind spots, if that makes any sense.

That said, Doubting T, you should still try Mass Effect and see if it clicks.

We'll see how it goes with Andromeda first.

I actually have a copy of Mass effect 2, which I got back when EA was giving keys away a few years back.

I have an inkling to do a theme month of TLDP reviews where I play seminal games that I missed/skipped. The hard part is picking which ones, because I have missed/skipped a lot of them.

Eleima wrote:

It's a bit funny, though. This game is getting a *lot* of criticism, and I just can't help but wonder (as I might've mentioned in the catch-all) if it would've gotten more slack if it didn't have "Mass Effect" on it.

I think it probably would have received more slack without the Mass Effect name, but it also probably would have been mostly passed by in the gaming zeitgeist by now.

Games with this many problems don't typically get talked about as much as Andromeda. The reason it is getting so much criticism and attention is precisely because it is a Mass Effect game.

Dyni wrote:
Eleima wrote:

It's a bit funny, though. This game is getting a *lot* of criticism, and I just can't help but wonder (as I might've mentioned in the catch-all) if it would've gotten more slack if it didn't have "Mass Effect" on it.

I think it probably would have received more slack without the Mass Effect name, but it also probably would have been mostly passed by in the gaming zeitgeist by now.

Games with this many problems don't typically get talked about as much as Andromeda. The reason it is getting so much criticism and attention is precisely because it is a Mass Effect game.

I think this is accurate. The thing with Mass Effect is people want to love it, and Andromeda is disappointing them, so they're going on about it.

As far as Andromeda goes, I like Sean's impressions ad I suspect that if I was playing it I would feel the same. But my ass is broke so I'm only picking it up in the future.

Eleima wrote:

Overselling something is bad, not to mention that personal tastes must be taken into account . I adore Mass Effect (take a drink - yes, I know it's currently 8am on the East Coast), I love it to bits, each and every single game. But I'm not going to go around and tell everyone it's the BEST SERIEZ EVAR, because it's just (one of) *my* favorite series ever.

Mass Effect is indeed great, but it's no Witcher 3.

One thing you guys didn’t pick up on with the topic of “going back” is that only every makes sense with narrative-focused games.

Game mechanics evolve. Storytelling doesn’t so much. The story of a 10 year old game is just as good today as it was 10 years ago, but the mechanics will be clunky and feel dated. It’s why no-one bats an eyelid at going back to Mass Effect 1, but try telling someone you’re itching to play some CoD: Modern Warfare 2 (released in the same year), and they’ll rightfully wonder what you’re smoking.

Dyni wrote:
Eleima wrote:

It's a bit funny, though. This game is getting a *lot* of criticism, and I just can't help but wonder (as I might've mentioned in the catch-all) if it would've gotten more slack if it didn't have "Mass Effect" on it.

I think it probably would have received more slack without the Mass Effect name, but it also probably would have been mostly passed by in the gaming zeitgeist by now.

Games with this many problems don't typically get talked about as much as Andromeda. The reason it is getting so much criticism and attention is precisely because it is a Mass Effect game.

Oh crud, you're right. I wrote exactly the opposite of what I mean: that it would've gotten less criticism if it wasn't a ME game. Whoopsies.

Also I agree with Jonman. The only reason to ever go back is for the story and the characters and the relationships (and the music, I love the ME music).

PaladinTom wrote:

I'm really curious to hear from people who have started a series late, such as Witcher 3, ME: Andromeda or Fallout 3 or 4 without no prior knowledge of previous titles. Did the game appropriately inform you of the greater universe or were you lost with a lot of back story? Did you care?

As I mentioned above, I recently started playing Witcher 3 without ever playing the first 2 iterations.

I felt a good bit lost because the game did seem to expect you to know the backstory. In particular, if you do not have a Witcher 2 saved game to import, the game asks you to answer some questions {link has spoilers} about the "choices" you made in Witcher 2. Without context, those questions seem almost meaningless to me. They seem more geared toward people who had played Witcher 2, but either don't have a saved game handy, or want to proceed as if they had made different choices.

During the game proper, there a few situations (mostly interactions among NPCs) where I apparently behaved very strangely, because I did not know the backstories of some characters (like Letho {link has major spoilers}).

Fallout 1 and 2 were a relatively connected story, but the later ones were barely related so it was easy to pick up and go.

Incidentally, those interviews from PAX I mentioned are live

Abigail Corfman of Open Sorcery

Tom Eastman of Battle Chef Brigade

Speaking of games we have relationships with. I've just had an epiphany five seconds ago as I updated my Guild Wars 2 characters spreadsheet. My "eldest" character was "born" in October 2012. I've been playing this game almost five years, sinking over a thousand hours.

Holy cow.