Conference Call

GWJ Conference Call Episode 402

Wolfenstein, Mario Kart 8, Rise of Nations Multiplayer, Wildstar, Gunpoint, Our Personal E3 Feels, A Segment With Jeff Cannata on His E3 Takeways, Your Emails and More!

This week Shawn, Julian and Cory see what stuck in their minds now that the E3 dust has really settled. Jeff Cannata also chimes in with his E3 thoughts!

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
00.02.12 Wolfenstein: The New Order
00.08.20 Wildstar
00.18.05 Mario Kart 8
00.25.12: Rise of Nations Multiplayer
00.32.13 Gunpoint
00.35.33 This week's topic: E3!
01.00.45 Jeff Cannata's top E3 games
01.13.34 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

Caught in the Beat - Broke for Free - http://brokeforfree.com/ - 35:02

Something Elated - Broke for Free - http://brokeforfree.com/ - 1:13:00

Comments

Always great to hear Jeff "two ens one tee" Cannata on the podcast, even though I religiously listened to the E3 DLC coverage as well!

I thought the "console-like" PC build and Steam discussions were an interesting juxtaposition. I recently considered purchasing Lego Marvel Super Heroes on PS4 - the full game is $50 on PSN, or was $20 on Steam. Along comes a Steam sale and I picked it up for $5. This makes me wonder whether a PC build to compete with the consoles should factor in the lower average price of games on PC, eg. after a year or two of ownership, an extra $2-300 outlay for a better specced gaming PC, could be recouped in the lower cost of games bought for the system.

maverickz wrote:

So was "wait until the furor" dies down an intentional pun?

Ha! Thought so too... One of those neat little unconscious word associations I suspect.

So was "wait until the furor dies down" an intentional pun?

EDIT: Misplaced end quote.

Great show today! Glad to see some encouraging words about Wolfenstein. I haven't had a chance to jump in, but have been a long time fan. I might be in the minority, but like day-old Chinese takeout - some of those Wolfenstein games were not the best, but I'd still eat them.... Ok that kind of fell apart midway, but you know what I mean.

Even when its bad, its gooood.

As for the other E3 coverage - just wanted to reiterate what ya'll said - game exclusivity (minus No Man's Sky) is pretty much a non-factor this time around. For me, it was the white PlayStation/Destiny bundle that tipped the scales. I've always planned on buying Destiny, so the chance to get the system + game at cheaper was enough for me.

Again the was no one game for Xbox that I needed to play. Overdrive looks great, but honestly, I need a bit more than over-the-top gameplay and bright colors. Plus [/i]I'd rather play No Man's/ 1886 than Overdrive. Funny Xbox had a lot of exclusives, of which only one [i]I wanted to play :\

PS - I just became a dad on 5/20, so about a month into it I find myself volunteering for late night duty so I can put her to sleep (whether in crib or my arms) and play some Dark Souls 2. That quickly turned bad, because the gameplay is a bit demanding hah.

Any chance you could do a show about being a gamer as a dad? I would love to hear about some of your experiences!

Could anyone link me to the forum discussion on the $500 console PC being designed and made as discussed in this episode of the conference call? I've been trawling through the likely routes and can't seem to find it...

legopirate27 wrote:

Could anyone link me to the forum discussion on the $500 console PC being designed and made as discussed in this episode of the conference call? I've been trawling through the likely routes and can't seem to find it...

The thread for the testing of the $500 PC has not been created yet (that I know of), but the comment(s) that lead to it can be found on this post in the thread for last week's podcast.

What are they talking about, pc mods for Watch Dogs that aren't really mods?

edit: found it, talked about in watch dogs thread and ubisoft thread,
ubisoft made it really purdy for demo's, didn't include it in the final version

I still can't convince myself to buy Rise of Nations again for multiplayer. Maybe it's because I can beat just about any scenario difficulty but other players defeat me!

So the real hacking challenge of Watch_Dogs is to hack the game itself and unlock a better game.

Whoa.

Felix Threepaper wrote:

So the real hacking challenge of Watch_Dogs is to hack the game itself and unlock a better game.

Whoa.

IMAGE(http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-WpuYGqCEHDg/UBznzaqReKI/AAAAAAAAB_0/0Vc8_mnnhqw/s1600/mind-blown.gif)

Just started listening to the podcast and I have to get this off my chest. I volunteer French lessons. Because "Le sigh" does not fly.

Finished listening and loved the interview with Jeff Canata. About the email regarding PopCap... How about we make buying them out a stretch goal for this year's donation drive? I kid.
Hear you guys next week.

Great podcast.

I thought I'd share my own crackpot theory for why the new Assassin's Creed's female assassins were abandoned. I suspect that the co-op was originally like Wolfpack mode in earlier games, where you could have any random assassin you wanted, including a woman, then the AC team was introduced to Watch_dogs 'everyone is Aiden Pearce in their own game' idea (which is pretty clever) and adopted it for their game with the only downside being that all the characters had to be very close to the main character in size, physique, manliness, etc.

Apparently a female character's movements can look very odd when given some (not all) animations from male motion captures.

For the question about Steam potentially becoming a monopoly would it make more sense to look at that question through the lens of Jared Lanier's book "Who Owns the Future".

In that case the risk is not that somewhere down the line Steam reveals its ebil plan and starts charging users rediculous fees. Rather do they (through Steam sales and the like) drive the expected cost for games to close to zero, and while with the best of intentions end up wrecking the small studio indi scene but making it next to impossible for money to be made as the game maker. The risk to steam users in this scenario is ever more pervasive adds or the likes.

I am not saying this is a new thought, just another way of looking at it.

For the record Battlefield:Hardline is a LOT of fun! It's a compact objective based shooter with the BF4 shine.

ranalin wrote:

For the record Battlefield:Hardline is a LOT of fun! It's a compact objective based shooter with the BF4 shine.

I'm glad you're digging (or dug, I guess) it. I wasn't into it at all. My hope is that Visceral adds a strong single-player campaign, because the MP did nothing for me.

Cory, I did want to say that you made a really good point that games can benefit greatly from not forcing a balance. I think it helps motivate a larger assortment of strategies and more interesting game play.

What you said makes the new Rainbow Six game sound more interesting to me than the massive cops and robbers teams. The same goes for Evolve as a night of rotating who gets to be the monster with four friends sound like a good alternative to horde mode.

Demiurge wrote:
ranalin wrote:

For the record Battlefield:Hardline is a LOT of fun! It's a compact objective based shooter with the BF4 shine.

I'm glad you're digging (or dug, I guess) it. I wasn't into it at all. My hope is that Visceral adds a strong single-player campaign, because the MP did nothing for me.

I had fun with it as well. I mainly played whatever game type had small teams (maybe 8v8 or something?) and played with my son, which made it a LOT of fun.

I did not, however, have fun playing solo with pubbies.

I think the discussion about Steam's power was interesting. It's definitely something to think about - look at how Amazon is throwing its weight around with publishers now that they have such a dominant position. There are plenty of other places to buy books, but Amazon has a huge amount of power because of their market share.

If anything, the social side of Steam means it's more difficult to move away from Steam if they turn 'evil'. Not that I'm suggesting Valve has done or will do anything evil, but it's not something to dismiss out of hand.