Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 244

LA Noire, Terraria, Six Gun Saga, Candy Train, Frozen Synapse, E3 Thoughts & Reactions, Your Emails and more!

This week Shawn, Julian, Rob Zacny and Rob Borges react to E3 and think about what it all means. Julian and Rob Zacny also take indie darling Terraria to Pain Town.

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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CastMedium
Game Thing Daily
Good Old Games

Terraria
LA Noire
Frozen Synapse
Candy Train
Six Gun Saga

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Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

Terraria - Daytime music - http://www.terraria.org/ - 33:29

Mass Effect 2 The Sound of the Galaxy OC ReMix - http://ocremix.org/remix/OCR02037/ - 1:15:51

Comments

lostlobster wrote:
LarryC wrote:

Work hours, then? The point is, most people I know simply don't have the time to charge a phone for an hour in the morning, and even if they did, they won't return home early enough for that charging time to last them the day.

That's why having to charge a phone daily is already something of an inconvenience.

For some. Not for those of us who leave for work at 7:30 a.m. and get home at 5:30 p.m.

BOOOOOORING TANGENT.

Sorry, forum tourettes kicked in for a second there.

Wii U. Isn't that the sound a police siren makes?

Dark Rob? Wait a second… he's black? Who knew? Dark Rob mentioned not being able to differentiate between games anymore, referring to Battlefield 3. I agree with him. Thank goodness for games like Bioshock.

"That's ridiculous future sh*t right there." Ha!

Today we learned:
1. The term "hipster douche-bag" can, at times, be redundant.
2. It is really hard to make brilliant games like Portal.
3. Angry Birds tower defense needs to happen. The pigs need their vengeance.
4. Destruction is easy.
5. I do not know how to spell "vengeance".
6. Even the bad guys agree, your mom is classy.

burntham77 wrote:

Wii U. Isn't that the sound a police siren makes?

I thought it was the sound a redneck makes.

Hans

hidannik wrote:
burntham77 wrote:

Wii U. Isn't that the sound a police siren makes?

I thought it was the sound a redneck makes.

Hans

Oh man, that made me laugh. Although, I shouldn't - because I have been known to exclaim "U wii, it is a hot one today!"

hidannik wrote:
burntham77 wrote:

Wii U. Isn't that the sound a police siren makes?

I thought it was the sound a redneck makes.

(NSFW, BTW. JSYK.)

I own like 12 USB-iPhone cables at this point. There's one plugged in in every room in the house, at my office in town, in the car, and in my bag. I have a clock radio cradle by the bedside. Mentally, I just plug it in when I sleep. Never considered it an inconvenience.

Again, rabbit, I would have to say that you may be an outlier in that regard. Some of my friends tease me about being Stevie's Female Doggo and I only own two USB cables. Most guys I know only have one - the one that came in the package.

The expectation is that any decent phone would have enough life to carry you through 10 to 18 hours at least of continuous usage for its intended purpose without obligating you to leave hardware lying around.

You go to work, attend meeting after meeting in different rooms, go to yet other rooms for productivity in a large compound, and then go out to socialize in restos and bars afterwards - it's a royal PITA to have to think about charging your phone in the middle of the day.

That's not even taking leisure into account. It's not that unusual for me to head out of the city to go for runs or hikes in the middle of nowhere (but still well within cell site coverage) for much of the day.

My dad hasn't updated his phone in nearly five years because none of the decent phones that have released lately are non-smart. I think he'll have to take the plunge once his phone dies, but he's extremely reluctant to lose that vital on-the-go functionality. Several of my friends remain on primitive phones, or maintain a non-smart one in tandem with a smart one.

Repeating arguments with different words. MOVE ON.

Sometimes I like a salty Wisconsin cheddar with triscuits; other times I like hummus on a pita.

Does that make me crazy?

Again, it's a matter of ecosystem. My wife and I went from iPhone's to 3Gs to 4s and have an ipad. That's 7 cables that entered the house organically.

SallyNasty wrote:

Sometimes I like a salty Wisconsin cheddar with triscuits

Melt that in the micro for a few seconds and you'll have what I call "Wisconsin nachos."

wordsmythe wrote:
SallyNasty wrote:

Sometimes I like a salty Wisconsin cheddar with triscuits

Melt that in the micro for a few seconds and you'll have what I call "Wisconsin nachos."

That sounds so good to me right now. Off to check the fridge!

Rob Zacny wrote:

I'm glad you took this away from the discussion. I totally see why this game would fascinate people, and you articulated a lot of what I was trying to get at when I explained why the Minecraft comparison was a flawed one.

My concern is that most later enemies seem to have more hit points but are not more complicated or interesting than the slimes you kill at the start. I kind of wish the game require more evolution of technique. I'm too impatient with the game's core processes to want to put much more time into it, but I know that other people could find them rewarding. Definitely worth a look for $10 if it sounds like your bag.

There's definitely issues with the later enemies, and I hope this is a game that grows over time to address this. Certainly the developers are expanding with frequent updates - despite the fact that I think patch 1.0.4 is a big step backwards for beginning players (the reduction in corruption being the biggest problem, with surface jungle and corrupt bunnies being a distant second - you can now run to the edge of a large world in a single day if you pick the right direction, which more frequent corruption prevented you from doing in earlier patches).

Much of what is fascinating about the early game is the combination of dungeon diving (for want of a better word), then switching up to shadow orb diving, boss fights, surface exploration for meteors and then whatever you choose to do in the end game. There is an elegance to this progression which for me only started to get grindtastic in the Jungle (playing single player). And the dungeon diving is the best part... you're much better off exploring the surface to find entrances that lead deeper than you've been before, than trying to brute force your way down by digging, and even generating a new world if you don't find deep enough dungeons the first time around.

But Jungle (and from what I hear, Dungeon and Underworld) high spawn rate and uninteresting enemies are not the right way to go... I suspect for most people, their play experience is just going to fizzle out some point after they get Shadow Armour (or earlier, if they have Julian's mayfly attention span).

Ok so after listening to the podcast I understand and respect GWJ's not going to E3. Thanks for the most honest look at what was announced at E3 I've heard! The Wii-U

Whats more strange to me than the Wii-U is the strange disconnect between the Dev's and the gamers at E3. Maybe all huge product shows suffer from this but man some of those press conf announcements were embarrassing.

Scubasteve wrote:

Ok so after listening to the podcast I understand and respect GWJ's not going to E3. Thanks for the most honest look at what was announced at E3 I've heard! The Wii-U

Whats more strange to me than the Wii-U is the strange disconnect between the Dev's and the gamers at E3. Maybe all huge product shows suffer from this but man some of those press conf announcements were embarrassing.

I think the disconnect is that gamers think that E3 is aimed at them. It isn't.

E3 is aimed at the mainstream media. E3 is where games get covered on CNN and the BBC, and the conferences are aimed at the mainstream audiences that watch those networks.

MrDeVil909 wrote:
Scubasteve wrote:

Ok so after listening to the podcast I understand and respect GWJ's not going to E3. Thanks for the most honest look at what was announced at E3 I've heard! The Wii-U

Whats more strange to me than the Wii-U is the strange disconnect between the Dev's and the gamers at E3. Maybe all huge product shows suffer from this but man some of those press conf announcements were embarrassing.

I think the disconnect is that gamers think that E3 is aimed at them. It isn't.

E3 is aimed at the mainstream media. E3 is where games get covered on CNN and the BBC, and the conferences are aimed at the mainstream audiences that watch those networks.

Word.

MrDeVil909:

I'd generally agree with you. I think "+1" is the expression?

That said, I think that the point of the Wii U is that it's supposed to be aimed at traditional and "hardcore" gamer audiences. The way rabbit doesn't get what's possible with it is a worrying sign of things to come.

I know I'm kind of late to the party here; but on the comment about games to play with your kids. I have a number of nieces and nephews ranging from 14 to 3 years of age. Whenever we have a family reunion the Nintendo comes out; but games like Smash Brothers quickly turn into a fight because they 3 or 5 year old cannot play 'well' and is ruining the fun. That's when the Telltale Games come out. The Lego "Insert franchise here" games are a huge hit and I open up the notebook and put the little ones around a game of Monkey Island with the 14 year old actually playing it. That entertains them for hours and makes everyone happy without the fighting. So, I personally think that Telltale has really hit the "Pixar" type magic of games that adults can enjoy with the kids in the room and involved.