Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode Sixteen

Crackdown, Splinter Cell: Double Agent, Fallout 3, Loads of News, Tons of Threads and more!

Where did Rob go? Why isn't Rob here? Rob? You said you had nowhere else to be last time, and now you're gone! Cory Banks is left fending for himself, stuck between the GWJ CEOs as they go over some big ticket news and tons of awesome threads.

Want to support the show? Hit the Digg link just above (it's fast and easy to register) or review us on iTunes! Read on for show notes.

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. You can even send a 30 second audio question or comment (MP3 format please) if you're so inclined.

The Links
Crackdown
Splinter Cell: Double Agent
Sam And Max
Ritual Interview
Age of Conan Delayed
Mmmm ... Microsoft Money
PAX is Bigger!

Threads of the Week:
Games You'd Like To See - dhelor
Gametap Gets Interstate 76 - Fanatka
Fallout Meets Xbox 360 - Kyreth

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

"The Neverwhere" - Apoplexia (Benoit Casey) - 0:13:17
"Terra" - Chico Correa & Electronic Band - 0:30:34
"Impeller" - Ian Dorsch - 0:54:59

Comments

Pardon the occasional sound glitch in the show, my internet connection was dogging out hard, causing a couple anomalies. To make up for it, here is a special bonus image of Elysium dancing on Demi's corpse. Bear dancing is awesome.

IMAGE(http://www.gamerswithjobs.com/files/images/corpsedance.jpg)

Corpse dancing will never die.

If it does, I'll dance on its corpse.

In spite of a little fuzz in the background and Certis's chocobo joke, still a great episode.

I have to agree with Elysium's prediction that Fallout 3 will be a great-selling game and the fans will still hate it. My gut tells me that anytime so much nostalgia is involved, the odds are exponentially reduced that it will meet anyone's expectations. I loved Oblivion and at the same time hated it because it wasn't transporting me back in time to play Morrowind again. You can't go home again, as Wolfe says.

Yes, Sam's getting a bit grizzled. But at least he isn't sporting that iron-gray soupcatcher Snake's got sprouting from his upper lip.

The Ritual guy sounds like we need to come up with a Game Industry version of Buzzword Bingo. Oh dear FSM, please don't even start about Peter Moore. I have to stand on the Fifth here. Or we can put him, Ken Kutaragi and Peter Moore in a room for Rock'em Sock'em Marketing Robots.

Conan - I'm happy, too. This means I can whomp the crap out of Assassin's Creed and a couple other things without feeling guilty that I'm not playing it.

Don't blame the 360 for how FFXI was. Blame PlayOnline and it's hideous interface. It was a pure miracle the thing even connected.

PAX... The expo hall is not that crampled little corner. It's six times bigger than it used to be. No one at Penny Arcade wants to turn the thing into E3. Not even Khoo and Fehlauer. This is a game convention for gamers; it's not a pimp-fest.

Fallout 3 - Sounds like a lot of fan-cruft. Like those poor souls who are firmly convinced they're doing a re-make of Final Fantasy VII for the PS3 based on everyone's spatters on the wall from the tech demo. I hope like heck they do move it to the real Oblivion engine. Then the Obliviots and Fellouts who have a two-headed cow about this can go grouse to each other on alt.grognard.rivetcounters and leave the rest of us alone.

As far as games I want, I WANT MECHWARRIOR 5! No ostensibly hot robots slinking around with devastating eyes and messing with people's heads. I want a robot 40 feet tall leaving 2 foot deep footprints that can make 'em dance purty from a kilometer off with a PPC in one arm and a Long Tom in the other.

Just a note on the Crackdown demo, lots of complaints about the difficulty, but the difficulty in the demo defaults to easy. Crank it up a notch and the firefights become much more compelling.

I want Freespace 3 dammit. And I don't want HEWHOSENAMESHALLNOTBESAID anywhere near it.

Also, you're missing the point Re: Resistance Co-Op. Your Co-Op partner isn't just "Some Black Guy". He's "The Black Guy", and it being a Sci-Fi game, his job, nay, his very meaning in life, is to die first.

Freespace 2 + BSG
My fingers are crossed for this one

wahwah wrote:

Freespace 2 + BSG
My fingers are crossed for this one

Holy cow. Piloting a Viper. Talk about childhood dream comming true...

Good show guys.

But while you lump tons and tons of praise of Bethesda, I'll remind you, Oblivion is the first game they HAVEN'T totally screwed up. Sure they've got some GOTYs under their belt, but that's usually in spite of the code rather than because of it; BethSoft has a history of severely glitchy, poorly optimized games.

I think their Fallout game is going to be really enjoyable... it just won't be Fallout.

LobsterMobster wrote:

I think their Fallout game is going to be really enjoyable... it just won't be Fallout.

Personally I'm just curious to see Bethesda not doing fantasy. I not getting my hopes up that they'll capture the feel of Fallout, but I figure in the very least it will be an interesting game just because it will have guns.

wahwah wrote:

Freespace 2 + BSG
My fingers are crossed for this one

That looks freaking awesome, and it is free! Thanks for sharing. Also good show guys, enjoyed it as always. Though it might be nice to have a female voice every once and a while.

Certis' take on Double Agent pretty much echoes my own. I took a look at the reviews at gametab again and I would swear that some sites have dropped their review score since the game came out. No multiplayer love?

The talk about Conan sounded interesting. An action MMORPG over Live with proximity chat and combat that drops the old EQ/WOW snoozefest sounds like a hit to me. All those features that Elysium thinks buck the traditional MMO format too much to be a success sound great to me. Are there eight million other gamers like me? Probably not, but I'd like to think there's enough to allow for a successful alternative.

Sinatar wrote:

Just a note on the Crackdown demo, lots of complaints about the difficulty, but the difficulty in the demo defaults to easy. Crank it up a notch and the firefights become much more compelling.

Yeah, I hate it when they default games to easy. I switched it to medium (or whatever they called it) as soon as I started the game.

Certis wrote:
Sinatar wrote:

Just a note on the Crackdown demo, lots of complaints about the difficulty, but the difficulty in the demo defaults to easy. Crank it up a notch and the firefights become much more compelling.

Yeah, I hate it when they default games to easy. I switched it to medium (or whatever they called it) as soon as I started the game.

An alternative is to ignore the lock on feature. The aiming gradient isn't stellar but it's not horrible either. This makes the game a lot like Mercenaries, and in my opinion more fun. You can still specifically aim for the thugs' heads, hands, etc. you just have to do it the hard way.

Certis, there is a game like that of which you speak. It is called System Shock 2. You can play through the game in co-op (I think up to 4 players) and choose different roles (hacker, fighter, psionics). You gain skills as you go through and can choose different paths. You could be cracking a door while your partner shoots down the enemy. You play through the game in a space station (close enough for Demi?). It's got a great story, good action and some really spooky parts.

bennard wrote:

Certis, there is a game like that of which you speak. It is called System Shock 2. You can play through the game in co-op (I think up to 4 players) and choose different roles (hacker, fighter, psionics). You gain skills as you go through and can choose different paths. You could be cracking a door while your partner shoots down the enemy. You play through the game in a space station (close enough for Demi?). It's got a great story, good action and some really spooky parts.

Tried it, not bad but too enclosed and not built from the ground up for multiple people. The game didn't really make plot allowances for it, and one of the best parts (the spookiness) was completely out the window when you're watching your friend hump office plants and shoot lab monkeys.

Certis wrote:

when you're watching your friend hump office plants

Why would your friend hump office plants when there's plenty of corpses and cyborg nurses available?

Rat Boy wrote:
Certis wrote:

when you're watching your friend hump office plants

Why would your friend hump office plants when there's plenty of corpses and cyborg nurses available?

I'm so glad you didn't say monkeys.

Rat Boy wrote:
Certis wrote:

when you're watching your friend hump office plants

Why would your friend hump office plants when there's plenty of corpses and cyborg nurses available?

The friends humping office plants Certis is referring to were myself and Sanjuro. That should answer your question sufficently. Unless you want me to go into more detail. I remember that plant well...

el_dino wrote:
wahwah wrote:

Freespace 2 + BSG
My fingers are crossed for this one

Holy cow. Piloting a Viper. Talk about childhood dream comming true...

And you can live it here too. It's a better game than it's mediocre scores indicate - it got hit with the Curse of the Licensed review pretty bad. I'm definately looking into that link, though. Thanks guys!

The guys were talking more about WoW with Cylons in the new series universe, the way I understood what they said. That isn't out there. I don't even know if there's any AAA games in the works for the new universe. Anyone out there know?

Demiurge wrote:

The friends humping office plants Certis is referring to were myself and Sanjuro. That should answer your question sufficently. Unless you want me to go into more detail. I remember that plant well...

No, I think I can picture this one quite easily:

Certis: "Guys, any of you got any bullets left. I hear more zombies."

Sanjuro: "I'm out."

You: "I'm out, too."

Certis: "If only I didn't drop that wrench to make room for the grenade launcher"

Sanjuro: "If only I put more points in my melee ability."

You: "If only my guns would stop breaking."

Certis: "So I guess we're screwed."

You: "'fraid so."

Sanjuro: "So what do we do now?"

You: "Plant sex?"

Sanjuro: "Works for me."

Certis: "You know, we could try to run back to the elevator...*sigh*...nevermind."

Thanks, Rat Boy. Now to go Lysol my brain to get rid of that mental image....

Certis, I am beginning to realize that you just don't have good taste in games.

(sticks out tongue, puts thumbs in ears and waves fingers like I just don't care)

I'm a rabid fallout fan and I'm excited to see what Bethesda does with it.

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man"
-- Jebediah Springfield

EDIT:
Sweet. I made it to Office Linebacker. I am the tortoise. wordsmythe is the hare. I win.

McChuck wrote:

"A noble spirit embiggens the smallest man"
-- Jebediah Springfield

EDIT:
Sweet. I made it to Office Linebacker. I am the tortoise. wordsmythe is the hare. I win.

Get back in your shell!

IMAGE(http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v317/TheRealEdwin/725cdff7.jpg)

Why would Bethesda adopt the Fallout brand name if they're not going to appeal to existing Fallout fans? As you say, the Fallout games were not phenomenal sellers. So why would Bethesda adopt the name if the developers are just going to reject the only people out there with positive name recognition?

I'm not saying that Bethesda will do that. I just don't understand all the people who insist that Bethesda should ignore (or outright deride) the pre-existing fanbase for the series. If they didn't want to make Fallout, they shouldn't have spent money to license the name.

Quintin, are you under a rock? Game companies, movie companies and etc do this ALL THE TIME. They want the cardboard cut out, not the substance.

As pennance, go watch the Fantastic Four, Xmen 3: The Last Stand, and Captain America back to back, and then play Shaman King: Power of Spirit (after you've read the manga). Heck, they didn't even get the names right in there.

As far as deriding the existing fanbase of Fallout, the derision isn't aimed at all of them. It's the Charter Members of the Please Please Please Get a Life Club who have grognarded their way into a sense of entitlement about the series that's truly offensive. I know a guy like this, and he is an utter asshat when it comes to disarranging even one pixel of this game (except for the sweeping changes HE wants that would basically turn it into Final Fantasy with radiation - UGH!). And it also goes for the Obliviots, and the jerks having a cow about the changes in Shadowrun, the friend of mine who hates every Final Fantasy game after VI because they went 3D and changed Black Mages.

Every time you use grognard as a verb, Satan gets +1000 XP.

You guys made my mouth water when you talked about an MMO where one person was the raging barbarian who walks with confidence down the middle of the road while the other person sat, climbed, leaped and attacked from the outlaying trees, cloaked in the shadows.

I think Planetside was almost there save for the nimbleness of the stealth class. The most interesting thing you could borrow from Planetside is the invisibility bonuses when crawling, kneeling or still.

Agility is something no one has addressed in MMO's. Bouncing from tree to tree ala Ninja Scroll would be a sight for sore eyes. I'm sure this hasn't been addressed due to the fact that the faster characters move, the more intense the burden on the servers. Also, adding more places to explore (n, s, e, w and now up and down) in a single area will increase the amount of potential players in an area and thus, increase the potential server burden. There is a reason areas are typically so spread out.