Stealth Inc, A Ride Into The Mountains, Shadowrun Returns, rymdkapsel, Are AAA Games Held to a Higher Standard?, Last of Us Spoiler Section, Your Emails and More!
It's a big one this week as Shawn, Elysium and Julian talk about whether or not AAA games are held to a different standard than indie titles. After the credits, the long awaited Last of Us Spoiler Section with Rob Zacny, Dean Tate, Cory Banks, Karla Andrich and Shawn!
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
00.01.17 The Last of Us
00.03.58 State of Decay
00.05.12 rymdkapsel
00.06.18 Stealth Inc.
00.10.30 Shadowrun Returns
00.20.05 SolForge
00.23.27 Kerbal Space Program update
00.27.27 A Ride into the Mountains
00.32.51 This week's topic: Do we hold AAA games to a higher standard?!
00.52.35 Your emails!
01.15.09 Last of Us Spoiler Section!
Intro/Outtro Music - Ian Dorsch, Willowtree Audioworks
Peripatetic - BigBot Audio Drop - SGX - http://sgxmusic.com/ - 32:23
Span (Malcos Remix) - BigBot Audio Drop - SGX - http://sgxmusic.com/ - 52:08
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Thank God I finally finished The Last of Us this weekend!
Looking forward to this greatly, folks. Thanks!!
Steam: doctorandy | PSN: ilduce620 | Battle.net: doctorandy#1524 | Bethesda.net: doctorandy
spider_j wrote:Pass ilduce on the left hand side
Wow! 3 hours, can't wait!
It's not nothing. It's 43 pesos.
"...mahal ko ang longganisa!" - Demosthenes
Great spoiler section. A little short maybe ;).
I hope you like thrill rides - Luis Serra, Resident Evil 4 Remake
Uncharted 4 Multiplayer: Half Nelson
re: the guy who was talking about wanting to see a left 4 dead/starcraft crossover, this may be of interest:
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2013...
https://juv3nal.neocities.org/
spider_j wrote:I had noises about that! Cheers, juv3nal!
Loved the spoiler section. Would've liked to hear more about the gameplay and artistic direction, though. Thanks for a great podcast!
I enjoyed the spoiler section, but after listening to several spoiler casts, I have never heard anyone discuss the problems that I personally had with the story.
Hey Maeloch,
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman
I really love these kinds of in-depth discussions about a single game. More, please!
Fun spoiler section.
A ride into the mountains isn't $1 for me. It's at least the cost of an iPod Touch, however much that is. I don't use Apple iDevices for gaming systems because I don't have an iPhone, and I don't want a console that I need to replace every 2 years yet costs as much as a home console.
If they release it for Android, I'd be very slightly more likely to play it because I own an android phone... Though I barely play any games on it. The most likely system for me to play it on would be Vita, if they ever released it for that.
bring back the bleeps!
High School of the Dead! Hard to choose, but the "steadying the sniper rifle" scene had to be the peak of ridiculous misogyny.
Steam ID:growat, PSN:Growat, Twitter:GrahamNY
The more I learn about you, the weirder our simpatico becomes.
Yes, the sniper scene was SO CRAZY it almost transcended the problematic, rampant objectification. I think the part where he calms the girl down by squeezing her chest is up there too. Good lord, why did we watch this?!
“Don’t ask what the world needs. Ask what makes you come alive, and go do it. Because what the world needs is people who have come alive.” ― Howard Thurman
The fanservice in Highschool of the Dead is way over the top - much more than is common in anime works, and much more ridiculous. I'm not sure if that's meant as a satire or if it's just selling itself as the goto anime for fans looking for that sort of thing.
The boobs moving such that they actually bounced around bullets suggests satire, but I can't be sure.
As for the topic, I personally found my limit with Ivy in Soul Calibur and Bayonetta. I won't pretend that it's because I feel offended for the sake of the women in my life, or because I don't want my children to see it. I feel disquieted by Bayonetta's general imagery for reasons I don't really understand.
"...mahal ko ang longganisa!" - Demosthenes
A Ride Into the Mountains on Android, if you were curious.
Professionally offended. Does not understand jokes. Needs a man to explain them to me.
I thought it was weird that during the AAA vs indie quality discussion you didn't really address the elephant in the room;there are some great discussions about how games are viewed as creative works of art and our stereotypes of exactly what are our cultural value judgement's about a games value. The influx of indie games is giving us another chance to evaluate that value.
You guys stood on the precipice of this great discussion about how games could primarily be judged by the intent and execution of their creator versus pure capitalistic commoditization. Almost the difference in how we as a society view music and movies, we reflexively scoff at musicians who "sell out" and yet intrinsically expect it from Hollywood.
I am not saying there aren't musicians who are mainly in the business well for exactly the purpose of treating it as a business, nor that there aren't directors/producers/actors that honestly want to create a piece of art sometimes at the expense of their paycheck. But culturally the way we value music and art has an impact; we get a much better overall quality of music due to our cultural perception. Its also why we get better books than movies, its not that the written word is some superior form of consuming media, it is the cultural traditions and value we place on the written word that gives us movies made from books and not the other way around.
Games are still not fixed in our cultural value system. I think right now we are standing at a decision point of where games will stand in our cultural consciousness. The birth of video games happened in most our our lifetimes, followed by a golden age of games being created by the artistic/scientific elite who had a particular vision they wanted to convey in media, almost how you define the essence of high art. Then the over reaching capitalistic influx of the past 10 or so years when cross-platform code gave the businessmen an ah-ha moment where you could write a game for both pc and console with a single team and make alot of money by halving your investment and nearly doubling your market but also creating a more generic work.
We are at another sea change moment with a real influx of independents into the community/market, how we react as consumers, critics and game makers matters to how we set video games value as art in our culture.
I had a similar response to the ending but it didn't pull me out of the game or story, it justified my in-game actions more so than if I'd have believed that there was a chance through the goals of the stated course of action. Sure, it also made for great drama... But that ended up all working together.
I was a bit surprised at julian's response to the mechanics of the game though. How many times do we hear that less is more and that design constraints result in improved design and gameplay? Personally, (and of course acknowledging that people have differing opinions) I thought the gameplay in TLOU was very refined and streamlined and worked perfectly 100% of the time. Yes, there were no innovations or situational nuance to it but once the rules were established they were what they were and I liked the game for that purity.
Contrary to certain people saying that you couldn't hide once enemies were alerted (around critical circles) and that gears of war did cover-shooting better (it most certainly did not!) TLOU managed to focus on a few characters and gameplay mechanics and, as a result, pull off a very focused experience. I also saw character development in the main characters though other critics did not, stating that Joel was fundamentally the same person going into the game as when he came out.
On another topic:
The two games I would mash together are Tomb Raider and Tomb Raider. The combat, traversal and realism of the new one coupled with the fewer enemies and more exploration and puzzles of the old one.
Spoiler section
Bacon is a goodjer in your pants.
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I love how there was a tiny bit of (probably unintentional) self censorship at the beginning, there, Julian started saying "big pile of sh..." before someone else jumped in. In light of Jonathan's prank two episodes ago, I found it absolutely hilarious.
Of course, the only point I would like to touch upon is the one you guys "blasted through".
I find it absolutely hilarious that you guys (or specifically Julian) had no recollection of how Morrigan in Dragon Age was dressed. If I'm not mistaken, it made quite the splash when the game's concept art was initially released, even before the game was finished. Shawn had the right of it, there was major sideboob:
The sad part was that she didn't need to be so skimpily dressed! She had a lot of things going for her, her manner, her seductive tones and wily ways. I still hate her guts, of course, but that's just me, I'm able to recognize her strengths. My point is that she would've been a great character even had she been dressed like this:
Agree about Triss in TW2, though, she's very crafty and very much a pro when it comes to the political game. The game had her taking her clothes off a lot, but same went for Geralt. Maybe that makes me a hypocrite, but at least they both got the same treatment.
Looking forward to the spoiler section!! Sorry, still chipping away at the podcast, this one's big!
Great and lengthy spoiler section. I don't think I'd need 2 hours of spoilers for every game, but this one definitely warranted the length.
My opinion on the game's ending pretty much mirrors Russ Frushtick's over at Polygon (spoiler-laden article, so fair warning!). It's worth the read.
A few other brief thoughts:
Overall, a spectacular game that is hopefully fondly remembered this December when Game of the Year discussions begin!
Steam: doctorandy | PSN: ilduce620 | Battle.net: doctorandy#1524 | Bethesda.net: doctorandy
spider_j wrote:Pass ilduce on the left hand side
Finally finished the spoiler section! Woot! Although I'm console impaired, I did keep an eye on The Last of Us, since, well... everyone's talking about it. Haven't played it, but I read a detailed synopsis and watch a couple of videos on YouTube. This is a bit of disclaimer, I guess, since I do not have a complete picture.
I did, however, have the same issues that Maeloch did with the plot and motivations of certain characters. It definitely put me off, and I couldn't see how that would "fit".
Can't say I'm surprised about Julian's reaction to TLoU. As a parent reading the game's plot, there were moments when it became just too much to bear, one in particular that might be considered as "minor":
That, to me, is something that just churns my stomach and breaks my heart. I had to take a break from reading the synopsis before I could get back to it. Like I said, I understand why Julian couldn't get through TLoU, be it the story or the issues with the gameplay. However, I definitely felt the feedback of a parent would've been nice (I'm fairly certain, Cory, Rob, Karla and Shawn don't have kids, and pretty sure I heard Dean on the podcast say he didn't ; I could be mistaken, though). I'm not saying that the feedback would've been more or less valid, perish the thought, just that the point of view is markedly different.
Somewhat surprised when Rob said that "parental love is selfish", such an absolutely truly, truly bugs me. Sure, some parents are selfish, just as others aren't... News flash, just like the rest of the population!
For what it's worth, I wish Karla was on the podcast more often. She may not be the most talkative of the bunch, but her comments always felt spot on.
I don't (or at least I didn't) take that to mean that the parents are selfish - just that they put their children first as much as is reasonable. I've never met a parent who wasn't at least a little like this.
Bacon is a goodjer in your pants.
steam profile
I am stunned by some of Julian's comments about The Last of Us. It seems like you don't turn into a mech in the second half of the game, and therefore there are no new gameplay elements? This beggars belief. Obviously he was joking but the implication here is so off-base and wrong, I can't believe the other guys didn't call him on it. The second half of the game, after Joel leaves his brother, is completely different--the level design, the strategies that are required to navigate new challenges, the mix of story and gameplay surprises are all the best work that Naughty Dog has ever done.
I also found the comment that Julian made about shooting to be stupefying. We've all played Gears of War and we all expect a certain kind of shooting mechanics in a third-person shooter? This is not that kind of game. I hardly shot my gun at all. I strangled dudes and snuck around bloaters and shived clickers and threw bombs at groups of runners, but I didn't try to act like a COD soldier because this is not that game. The gunplay is perfectly and deliberately designed to create tension and to fit Joel's character, to remind us that he's a normal man. A violent, angry, and dangerous man who knows how to kill but IS NOT A SUPER SOLDIER. You could not have chosen a worse baseline to compare the game to than Gears of War. It implies that everything that was important about this game--the way that the story, the acting, the environments, the dialogue, the gunplay, the stealth, and the music all combined to create a synergistic experience--was lost on you, Julian.
Granted that may have been his meaning, but selfish means "caring for oneself only". Putting your child first is rather selfless.
I don't know, maybe I'm reading way too much into this, but the phrase "parental love is selfish" just set off a whole bunch of lights in my brain. XD
Eleima:
I get what Duoae is saying. Putting your own children first is only selfless in the sense of the individual. In that sense, parents are generally selfless. However, in the sense of the family unit, lineage, or clan, putting your own family members over the members of other families (especially other children) is absolutely selfish. I agree with him there, parents tend to be a lot more forward about grabbing advantages for their children, even at the obvious and catastrophic detriment of others.
"...mahal ko ang longganisa!" - Demosthenes
That would have been much better. I really hated Morrigan's 'sexy' outfit. It undermined her character for me.
I hope you like thrill rides - Luis Serra, Resident Evil 4 Remake
Uncharted 4 Multiplayer: Half Nelson
I'll take a look at it then.
Any chance Joel *didnt* lie? There is a voice recorder where a Doctor seems to imply that there are others that are immune.
Eargh. I bought A Ride into the Mountains. It's everything that I hate about phone gaming. Primary controls being Touch screen, so that when you're trying to use them you're obscuring the action, and you frequently get killed by projectiles flying at you under your fingers. Secondary control scheme being tilt, so that you are constantly moving the thing and can't completely focus on the screen. Lastly, when you accidentally hit an OS soft key in the middle of a battle, it kicks you out to the home screen or last screen with no verification, then when you go back in it doesn't keep your location, only the last checkpoint. When the combination of those 3 issues kept hitting me on the same battle, over and over again, I wanted to throw my $600 phone against a wall. I was on the boss of the 4th segment of the game...
Great CC as always, but the spoilercast was in a league of it's own. It was a joy to have such a long discussion on a game. Many other spoiler sections are too short, I want a full in-depth session on exactly what people thought of the game, not just a quick discussion of the ending.
As a follow up it would bee good to hear a similar section on the mechanics and why people quit.
One last thank-you for all the time and effort in putting that section together it really is appreciated - I hope Santa has an extra special something for you this year as you all deserve it.
Bob
What is the IndieGoGo swordfighting card board game thing? A link was promised. I want to give them my dollars!
Steam ID: Ravenlock;
XBL / GFWL Gamertag: Ravenlock80;
Nintendo Network ID: Ravenlock;
I used to write sometimes at http://www.erraticgamer.com
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