Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 354

Euro Truck Simulator 2, Surgeon Simulator 2013, SolForge, Breach & Clear, Hotline Miami, Walter's Topics, Your Emails and More!

This week community member Walter Strapps (Tach) joins the show to talk about games, e-sports, things in games that drive you nuts and more!

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.

Chairman_Mao's Timestamps
00.02.29 SolForge
00.07.05 Hotline Miami
00.09.09 Breach and Clear
00.11.54 Euro Truck Simulator 2
00.19.57 Rogue Legacy
00.23.45 Surgeon Simulator 2013
00.26.38 Bioshock Infinite
00.35.42 This week's sponsor: Indie Con DC
00.36.57 This week's topics, answered by community member Walter Strapps et al!
00.55.18 Your emails!

  • Subscribe with iTunes
  • Subscribe with RSS
  • Subscribe with Yahoo!
Download the official apps
  • Download the GWJ Conference Call app for Android
  • Download the GWJ Conference Call app for Android

Show credits

Music credits: 

Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks

The Great - Broke for Free - http://brokeforfree.com/ - 34:05

Nothing Like Captain Crunch - Broke for Free - http://brokeforfree.com/ - 53:12

Comments

Elysium buying and playing Euro Truck Sim2... There are no more heroes... I don't know who I can look up to anymore...

You guys should have one community guest each podcast. Get Strangeblades while drunk. I'm sure that would be an interesting one.

Mex wrote:

Elysium buying and playing Euro Truck Sim2... There are no more heroes... I don't know who I can look up to anymore...

I'm looking forward to next week because Euro Truck Sim 2 will be making a come back, because a few of the cohosts who weren't on have been showing up in the Euro Truck Sim 2 thread.

It's a good game and while I understand it's just "driving from point A to point B" for most it's an entire experience for others. How often can you sit at home and drive a truck in a foreign country and listen to internet radio from that country, all in game? Not that often surprisingly. The RPG and business pieces are bonus content to me.

Frozen Synapse is what you guys were trying to come up with at the beginning.

There is really only one song that you should be listening to while playing Eurotruck Simulator, and that's Eastbound and Down by Jerry Reed. Alternatively, Westbound and Down by Jerry Reed is also ok.

Oh yeah, talk more ETS2. You think you can stop at 8 hours? DO YOU? I'll tell you what you need: a G27 and TrackIR. It's worth the 500 bucks for dedicated hardware to get the full ETS2 experience.

I do think you guys sold the non-driving systems in the game a little bit short. Part of the enjoyment I get from the game is in truck customization and the business management stuff.

Playing cutscenes during level loads is one of the best recent innovations in gaming. Nothing breaks immersion as much as loading screens and anything that hides or disguises them is an improvement in my opinion. (But I am in favor of popping up a small 'skip' button once the level has loaded, which a lot of games do.)

maverickz wrote:

There is really only one song that you should be listening to while playing Eurotruck Simulator, and that's Eastbound and Down by Jerry Reed. Alternatively, Westbound and Down by Jerry Reed is also ok.

Eastbound and Down by Jerry Reed.

Well, that's in my head for the rest of the day.

Beckett wrote:

Playing cutscenes during level loads is one of the best recent innovations in gaming. Nothing breaks immersion as much as loading screens and anything that hides or disguises them is an improvement in my opinion. (But I am in favor of popping up a small 'skip' button once the level has loaded, which a lot of games do.)

Unless of course you hate cutscenes (and find them immersion breaking). As I said during the podcast, I hate cutscenes. They actually irk me because 1) they waste my time and 2) all I can think about is the money spent on them instead of actual gameplay.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

nel e nel wrote:
maverickz wrote:

There is really only one song that you should be listening to while playing Eurotruck Simulator, and that's Eastbound and Down by Jerry Reed. Alternatively, Westbound and Down by Jerry Reed is also ok.

That's incredible!

Tach wrote:
Beckett wrote:

Playing cutscenes during level loads is one of the best recent innovations in gaming. Nothing breaks immersion as much as loading screens and anything that hides or disguises them is an improvement in my opinion. (But I am in favor of popping up a small 'skip' button once the level has loaded, which a lot of games do.)

Unless of course you hate cutscenes (and find them immersion breaking). As I said during the podcast, I hate cutscenes. They actually irk me because 1) they waste my time and 2) all I can think about is the money spent on them instead of actual gameplay.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

I've often thought the opposite. Some studios do cutscenes so well that they should stop making games and start making movies. Blizzard comes to mind.

My beef with cutscenes is when I have to rewatch a cutscene after dieing. Seriously - just start me back AFTER the cutscene.

Thank you Tach for finally getting some discussion of Solforge on the show

McIrishJihad wrote:

My beef with cutscenes is when I have to rewatch a cutscene after dieing. Seriously - just start me back AFTER the cutscene.

I love cutscenes, but they must be skippable and pausable.

I'm not sure what's worse, having to rewatch a cutscene over and over again before a battle because it wasn't make skippable, or having to leave the game for whatever reason and missing a key scene because it wasn't pausable.

padriec wrote:
Tach wrote:
Beckett wrote:

Playing cutscenes during level loads is one of the best recent innovations in gaming. Nothing breaks immersion as much as loading screens and anything that hides or disguises them is an improvement in my opinion. (But I am in favor of popping up a small 'skip' button once the level has loaded, which a lot of games do.)

Unless of course you hate cutscenes (and find them immersion breaking). As I said during the podcast, I hate cutscenes. They actually irk me because 1) they waste my time and 2) all I can think about is the money spent on them instead of actual gameplay.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

I've often thought the opposite. Some studios do cutscenes so well that they should stop making games and start making movies. Blizzard comes to mind.

The best examples of this disparity are the SWTOR cutscenes - from movies that are better than much of Episodes IV-VI to gameplay worse than Vanilla WoW.

Beckett wrote:

Playing cutscenes during level loads is one of the best recent innovations in gaming. Nothing breaks immersion as much as loading screens and anything that hides or disguises them is an improvement in my opinion. (But I am in favor of popping up a small 'skip' button once the level has loaded, which a lot of games do.)

Agreed. I would much rather see a cutscene than a loading screen. Of course, that cutscene should be skippable as soon as said loading has finished.

maverickz wrote:

There is really only one song that you should be listening to while playing Eurotruck Simulator, and that's Eastbound and Down by Jerry Reed. Alternatively, Westbound and Down by Jerry Reed is also ok.

IMAGE(http://i.imgur.com/BX4ulGD.jpg)

On the topic of gaming pet peeves... Besides unskippable cutscenes, how about unpauseable cutscenes? Also, inability to remap controls, and inability to widen the FOV to at LEAST 90 degrees. I can't use WASD and FOV < 90 makes me nauseated. Basically, anything that limits your choice or ability to make the game accessible.

Jayhawker wrote:
maverickz wrote:

There is really only one song that you should be listening to while playing Eurotruck Simulator, and that's Eastbound and Down by Jerry Reed. Alternatively, Westbound and Down by Jerry Reed is also ok.

Oh, go on, play track 3! It's the one where a group of truckers take down a corrupt police force using only their trucks and their saucy colloquialisms!

If loving Euro Truck Simulator 2 is wrong I don't want to be right!

Fun fact my CB handle back in the day was The Kool Aid Kid.

Mine was Mosquito Toe. Don't ask.

I knew that Teddy Bear song because I had this record when I was a kid:

IMAGE(http://s.pixogs.com/image/R-3273558-1324098861.jpeg)

Tach wrote:
Beckett wrote:

Playing cutscenes during level loads is one of the best recent innovations in gaming. Nothing breaks immersion as much as loading screens and anything that hides or disguises them is an improvement in my opinion. (But I am in favor of popping up a small 'skip' button once the level has loaded, which a lot of games do.)

Unless of course you hate cutscenes (and find them immersion breaking). As I said during the podcast, I hate cutscenes. They actually irk me because 1) they waste my time and 2) all I can think about is the money spent on them instead of actual gameplay.

Of course, that's just my opinion.

If we accept that cutscenes are mostly in games to cover up loading screens, first someone should tell Hideo Kojima, second what would you rather see?

Cutscenes work because, while they break control immersion, they maintain story immersion. By which I mean they normally do not break the rules of the world. Where a loading screen does both.

I think some sort of minigame might be good. It might not break control immersion if it is given a valid narrative explanation. For instance, in Epic Mickey, players transition from one 3D world to another by jumping into a movie screen and playing through a 2D platforming world based on a old Mickey cartoon. It made narrative sense, and controls mostly stayed the same.
While the platforming levels didn't entirely replace loading screens, I think on a system that was optimized better they could.

So...people complained last week about the bleeps? ....really? Everyone didn't think it was hilarious? If you didn't think it was hilarious, was that because you wanted to hear the actual language or because you think this is a family show and people should only use sanitized language?

Bravo, GWJer crew, for mixing it up and leaving me in stitches. Last week goes down with the retro '98 ('97?) episode as unforgettably fun.

Ooh, ETS2 talk, going to have to listen this week.

In the meantime:

I don't understand what people mean when they talk about 'breaking immersion.'

I love my games and can play for hours, but I've never been so immersed that a loading screen would break that. Cut scenes, loading screens, bad scripts, reloading, the fact I'm sitting at a desk with hands on keyboard and mouse, the dog jumping on my lap, then jumping off when I won't pet it and dozens of other things 'break my immersion' continually.

Loading screens are probably one of the least distracting things on that list, and are far better than the cutscene used to cover a load right before a tough fight which you have to sit through multiple times. That's so aggravating it can make me walk away from the game. I've never gotten mad at a bar on the screen for filling up, and maybe giving me a helpful tip.

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Ooh, ETS2 talk, going to have to listen this week.

In the meantime:

I don't understand what people mean when they talk about 'breaking immersion.'

I love my games and can play for hours, but I've never been so immersed that a loading screen would break that. Cut scenes, loading screens, bad scripts, reloading, the fact I'm sitting at a desk with hands on keyboard and mouse, the dog jumping on my lap, then jumping off when I won't pet it and dozens of other things 'break my immersion' continually.

Loading screens are probably one of the least distracting things on that list, and are far better than the cutscene used to cover a load right before a tough fight which you have to sit through multiple times. That's so aggravating it can make me walk away from the game. I've never gotten mad at a bar on the screen for filling up, and maybe giving me a helpful tip.

This man has the right of it!

One thing that bothers me on loading screen? Stupid tips, especially stupid tips I've seen a million times already, especially when they seem to span multiple load screens since I guess I load so fast that the game thinks maybe I didn't have time to read them.

"TIP: did you know you can press A to jump?"

gore wrote:

One thing that bothers me on loading screen? Stupid tips, especially stupid tips I've seen a million times already

Magicka lampooned this trend very nicely.

Also, every loading screen needs to reticulate splines.

OH MAN! I just had to pull over on the side of the road while listening to the Euro Truck Sim 2 talk in this episode! As a "professional" truck driver here in the states, I've listened to the chatter in the Steam sale thread and around the site, and haven't looked much into it, except being mildly interested to know why people are rejoicing its virtues.

Well after listening to Tach and Elysium explain it, I couldn't stop laughing and shaking my head. In the middle of driving down a tight state route and listening to a podcast, I felt so meta and connected to a game (and the people who play it, you crazies!) I've never even played. It sounds like I could make some spare change by inviting some of you fine GWJ folks for a ride along/do my job for me!

BTW, I CAN'T be the only goodjer who drives a truck for monies and didn't laugh/smile while listening to this episode.

P.S.: Yes, I found a safe place to pull over and post this. I'm not that crazy. (Just slacking on the job, like any good truck driver does!)

Le0hart85, do kids still signal truckers to blow their air horns? I remember doing that back in the day, but that was when my dad still brought a CB with him on all family trips. We were tuned into trucker culture in a way that I'm sure my daughter is not.