Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 215

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, Julian and Cory Talk Gamma World, Your Twitter Questions, Your Emails and more!

This week Shawn and Elysium carry the show solo and take your questions and emails. We also have a segment with Julian and Cory talking about their Gamma World experiences.

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. You can also submit a question or comment call in to our voicemail line at (612) 284-4563!

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Master Assassin - Assassin's Creed: Brotherhood (Jesper Kyd) - http://assassinscreed.us.ubi.com/bro... - 19:20

Monty Python intermission music - 30:50

Comments

...but I like it when it's just you two chuckleheads!

I keed. You guys, I'm totally psyched/sold on Gamma World. Thanks for the enticing coverage.

Listened to the AC:B section, and while it sounds good, I'll pick it up used/new for $30 next year. I liked AC2 but it feels like it pulled you back from how AC1 worked, I just didn't feel as into it as I did in the original. Then the extra DLC really soured it for me. Sure, AC1 may have been repetitive but to me was more thrilling than the sequel.

Was it the thrill of its general newness, or something else? I honestly can't think of one way AC1 was a better game than its sequel -- unless you simply preferred the time/location the story was set in.

Oh, just hearing someone else mention Top Secret gave me a surge of great joy. The first time I played that tabletop game I was 13 and at a friend's house (circa 1986), so I went home and tried to write my own rules and combat charts and maps. I even started mapping my own Sprechenhaltestelle. Good times.

Dyni wrote:

Shawn, I think your GOTY was Demon's Souls last year. I just remember the rest of the podcast crew giving you a lot of grief for it, bunch of softies!

I probably blocked it out of my memory. I couldn't respect any of them after that.

Shawn, I thought your GOTY was Demon's Souls last year. I just remember the rest of the podcast crew giving you a lot of grief for it, bunch of softies!

Brotherhood looks pretty interesting, but I haven't played AC2 yet. Should I play through that first, or can I hop right into Brotherhood?

Dyni wrote:

Shawn, I thought your GOTY was Demon's Souls last year. I just remember the rest of the podcast crew giving you a lot of grief for it, bunch of softies!

Seems about right. The other podcasters were a real bunch of softc*cks.

Certis wrote:

Was it the thrill of its general newness, or something else? I honestly can't think of one way AC1 was a better game than its sequel -- unless you simply preferred the time/location the story was set in.

I played them pretty close together, and I'm not sure what it is about it, but it felt like the difficulty was higher in 1 and subsequently, pulling off some of the kills was much more thrilling simply due to the way you had to stalk your prey. Also, you had 9 major goals/figure-heads you were going after, while in 2 it was a lot of smaller assassinations with fewer notable ones.

Don't get me wrong, I'll get around to AC:B eventually.

Just want to chime in on the Gamma World love. Really awesome value for the price. The system is very much 4e light. Clearly the emphasis was on quick, dirty playing.

Case in point: ammo. You are either considered to have ammo for all of your weapons or not - it's binary. If you are going to fire your gun once in the encounter, then you should just open up with it. Otherwise, you can conserve ammo by limiting yourself to just one shot per encounter, and thus have ammo for every encounter (until you fire that second shot). Dead simple that.

I was a little disappointed in the cards as they're a little flimsy, but again for the price, they're just fine. If you treat them well, they'll last many, many, many gaming sessions. But they are not the gorgeous, thick, linen cards of many board games (think anything by FFG).

Many thanks to Chris, Paul, Julian and Cory for the radioactive intro to Gamma World. Double thanks to Ryan for lending his GMing prowess.

Dammit, Andrich; I'm convinced you work for Ubisoft now. This is the third Assassin's Creed game you've talked me into buying.

Free running through the Holy Land in the first Assassin's Creed wasn't just a spiffy setting. Not for me. For me, it was a virtual pilgrimage. Being a Christian has a lot to do with that, I'm sure, I'm sure. But it was a journey that technical improvements and greater mission variety couldn't replicate in AC2.

That said, I've been in Brotherhood's multiplayer every night. Driving a wrist knife into another player's skull provides its own holy moments.

Rat Boy wrote:

Dammit, Andrich; I'm convinced you work for Ubisoft now. This is the third Assassin's Creed game you've talked me into buying.

He's actually an assassin. An assassin with a screed. I mean a creed.

I've just recently finished AC2, but damn, Certis' taste is games mirrors mine so closely (I LOVED Demon's Souls as well-- oh AND Bayonetta) that I'm having a hard time resisting the Ubisoft siren's call. Maybe if he hadn't talked it up so much.

Hmmm. Red Dead should be cheap now. Maybe that'll assuage my cravings.

Regarding the email about NFS:Hot Pursuit challenging GT5, I agree that the two games appeal to different markets.

NFS:Shift 2 however will have cross over appeal as the Shift line seems to be going in a strongly sim direction, even being made by some of the guys who made the GTR games, and it's multi platform to boot.

I remember playing Gamma World once in college. It was a great time with friends. In fact it was the last table top game my group of friends played before we parted ways for "The Real World." Now mind you this was 3.0 or 3.5 so it was quite different. We played it as an actual campaign and not randomized. We weren't concerned about character death. *chuckle* We cut our teeth as a gaming group on 3rd Ed Shadowrun.

But this game generates all sorts of great memories for me.

I couldn't help but notice that your discussion about skipping parts of games completely ignored what Nintendo has done with their system of play it for you after you've failed a number of times. They have pretty much already pioneered (and patented) the system and you sat there and went on about how you didn't know how it would ever work. Also, their system of indicating you did the skip-through is showing a discolored star / coin (in Super Mario Galaxy 2 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii). I know you guys have played these games. So what is it that is so different about these, or is it that you just plain forgot?

Just plain forgot/never used the feature.

Chairman_Mao wrote:

He's actually an assassin. An assassin with a screed. I mean a creed.

When Witcher 2 comes out I'm sure he'll be Assassins of Kings.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

I couldn't help but notice that your discussion about skipping parts of games completely ignored what Nintendo has done with their system of play it for you after you've failed a number of times. They have pretty much already pioneered (and patented) the system and you sat there and went on about how you didn't know how it would ever work. Also, their system of indicating you did the skip-through is showing a discolored star / coin (in Super Mario Galaxy 2 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii). I know you guys have played these games. So what is it that is so different about these, or is it that you just plain forgot?

Nintendo's not the only company to do something like that, either: 'Splosion Man let you skip stages after dying a certain number of times at the price of going through the next stage wearing a tutu like the sissy little girl you are. (-:

I should really give Hot Pursuit a try. I want it to do well, because after Blur and Split/Second both bombed (due mostly to the idiot decision to release them in the same month, the month that was absolutely dominated by Red Dead Redemption) I'm sort of afraid that publishers might start to view arcadey racers as a losing proposition. And I'll take an arcadey racer over a sim-style racer any day. GT5 is not even remotely on my radar.

hbi2k wrote:

going through the next stage wearing a tutu like the sissy little girl you are. (-:

That's excellent.

I was shocked to hear Elysium say something wrong about WoW, his WoW-cred has slipped!

You need to buy all preceding expansions as well as the original game to play the Cataclysm races or 80-85 content.

harrisben wrote:

You need to buy all preceding expansions as well as the original game to play the Cataclysm races or 80-85 content.

...which doesn't sound like that great an idea. Shouldn't there be an easy way for new players to catch up to the current state of the game?

It's currently $20 for the lot (excluding Cataclysm).

harrisben wrote:

I was shocked to hear Elysium say something wrong about WoW, his WoW-cred has slipped!

You need to buy all preceding expansions as well as the original game to play the Cataclysm races or 80-85 content.

Got a link to back this up? I'm willing to bet you can play the Cataclysm races without needing the other expansions. I'm also too lazy to look it up myself, so if you've ever wanted your own personal chance to tell me I'm wrong, here's your chance.

You need to buy all preceding expansions as well as the original game to play the Cataclysm races or 80-85 content.

I think I didn't form my thought very well, because I definitely know that. As I recall, I think I meant that all the 1-60 post-Shattering content is shared for everyone. The new non-new-races starting areas and on through the changed old world.

I definitely know and can confirm that you need the expansion to access those races and zones.

I would play a game called Whore Quest.

I am with the guys on the SNES choice. The quality of games on SNES were so much better than the shovel-ware being crapped out of the NES, especially near the end of its life.

It goes from being nerdy to "uber nerdy" when it involves dressing up. LARPing, wearing 3D glasses, putting on any kind of outfit for a convention, being into Fantasy Football. Those are things that bring it to the next level. But hey, if you're having fun, go for it.

Skipping going out with friends to stay home and play an MMO… well that's just being a bad friend.

Doing a gaming podcast on a Saturday night, then trying to deny your nerdiness? Somewhere, Donald Gibb is screaming into the sky.
IMAGE(http://blogs.sfweekly.com/thesnitch/donald-gibb-ogre-revenge-of-the-nerds.jpg)

hbi2k wrote:

Nintendo's not the only company to do something like that, either: 'Splosion Man let you skip stages after dying a certain number of times at the price of going through the next stage wearing a tutu like the sissy little girl you are. (-:

Alone in the Dark set the game up as a sort of TV series on DVD where you could skip individual chapters (scenes) or episodes as you desired. The only penalty was the loss of achievements for not having played through all the levels. I thought it was a nice feature, particularly for getting past some of the iffy driving sequences that could have been game-breaking otherwise, but it was widely panned (as was the game as a whole) and, anecdotally, it sounds like no one ever actually used it. I think that second point is the most pertinent: it's an uphill battle to convince gamers that it's okay to skip a section of a game because they aren't enjoying it or can't hack it.

Did someone call for a nerd?

The Dreamcast was last generation, contemporaneous with the PS2, Xbox and Gamecube. It appeared early and died fast so it's easy to confuse which generation it was. The Saturn was PS1/N64 era, with the 3DO and Jaguar.