GWJ Conference Call Episode 558

ARMS, NieR:Automata, Farpoint, Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind, Beyond Good and Evil, Our E3 Impressions, Your Emails and More!

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This week Shawn, Julian, Amanda, Cory and Sean Sands get into their E3 impressions!

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.

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Show credits

Music credits: 

High Hopes - Broke for Free - http://brokeforfree.com/ - 39:51

Beyond Dazed - Broke for Free - http://brokeforfree.com/ - 1:25:19

Comments

00:01:32 ARMS
00:10:15 NieR:Automata
00:20:22 Elder Scrolls Online: Morrowind
00:28:18 Beyond Good and Evil
00:31:45 Farpoint (VR)
00:39:51 E3 Impressions
01:25:19 Your Emails

Mario XCOM has actually sold me a switch.

Yay, NieR talk!

After hitting all the main endings, I have this problem of physically having to constrain myself going full on creepy "have you heard about our lord and savior..." whenever it's brought up.

If you think Nier: Automata is crazy 2 hours into Route B, you ain't seen nothin' yet Get 2 hours into Route C, then we'll talk!

I sincerely hope all three of you keep going with it. It would make an amazingly interesting spoiler section, and it is undoubtedly one of the best games of the past few years.

On side quests, some of them seem pretty "fetch-questy" early on, but almost every side quest chain ends with some interesting dialogue that helps to flesh out the world or overarching story. Some of these side quests have more impact with at least one full play through completed, so don't worry too much about finishing them all your first time around. At the very least, I would highly recommend finishing both "The Wandering Couple" and "Amnesiac".

On E3 games, if I were to pick a favorite game or two, they would probably be:

1. Monster Hunter Worlds. As one of the resident Monster Hunter fanatics, it is my sacred duty to prop up this series whenever possible. I foresee myself dropping triple digit hours into World with fellow GWJers next year.
2. Super Mario Odyssey. I don't even understand half of what was going on in that trailer, but I can't wait to find out in October!

Yay! We're one step closer to a Conference Call NieR spoilercast. Just in case anyone came away with that overwhelmed by the amount of time it takes to finish the game, it's really more like 5 chapters than 5 playthroughs. They are all different and successively shorter. So, don't let a perceived time investment or aversion to redundant playthroughs turn you off.

I think you can just pronounce Automata either way. It's more correct to pronounce it like the plural of "automaton" in English, but pronouncing it "awe-toh-mah-tah" without stressing any syllables is closer to how you would pronounce it in Japanese.

As far as the E3 talk goes, I'm very excited for Moss as well. As far as I can tell via the internet it's a PSVR only game. There were some people on one of the Giant Bomb E3 streams talking about it, and they mentioned that the devs found out some very interesting aspects about how VR games work. One is that small, intricate, enclosed spaces work very well in VR. They're almost like detailed dioramas you can interact with. The other thing was that they were really surprised how different you feel when the mouse character looks up at you, the player, in VR vs on screen. Personally, I think it looks to be amazing and the type of relaxing, escapist adventure I'd like to experience in VR.

Great episode!

it was a genuine pleasure to see Laura kate Dale utterly vindicated for revealing the existence of "Mario Xcom" months ago before anyone else (right down to specific gameplay details), for which she got nothing but grief and abuse from the usual internet suspects calling her a liar and just looking for attention.

YAY!

Nier: Automata is the game from this generation that we'll bring up in conversation 20 years from now. Where many of the games in the spotlight this year are just pretty games that will be forgotten, Automata is a masterpiece that uses the video game medium as uniquely as Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons to tell multiple stories that rocked me emotionally. It left me beside myself after its completion, and as I tried to play other games in the weeks that followed, they just felt shallow. The systems, the setting, the stories, the characters, the music(!) all combine in a perfect lifetime achievement for Yoko Taro.

@Alien Love Gardener ... You have more control than I !

I’d argue that Mario has ALWAYS been weird. Like really really weird. We’ve become accustomed to such things as;

Eating a leaf puts you in a raccoon suit.
The sun sometimes gets angry and attacks you (and you can kill it).
Punch your pet dinosaur to make him eat your enemies.
And
Smash the blocks that are the magical frozen remains of the kingdom’s inhabitants (google it, it’s canonical)

But while we are used to the above, none of the above is objectively any less weird than what we saw in Super Mario Odyssey.

Amoebic just validated my opinion that Bob Ross is the best streamer on Twitch

Who are these make/female couples streamers? Intrigued.

I've decided that I'm going to call the Xbox One X the XOX, which is pronounced "Socks."

Who's with me?

I feel as though if GWJ ever opens a pizzeria it should be called "Vertical Slice."

I popped into E3 for a day this year. Many far in the future titles, but still some fun coming this year. I played both Mario x Rabbids and Super Mario Odyssey and they are so much fun to play. Good game mechanics, Odyssey works really well the separated joy cons, and both really shined as the outstanding Switch games for this year (as well as E3 as a whole). Throwing Cappy around to hit things and posses enemies puts a really fresh feeling on an long time classic. The 2D old school platforming still works and scratches that retro itch. The Mario x Rabbids crossover XCom like piece was just as much fun in a different way. I like the direction Nintendo is pushing their IPs. Just take my $$ now.

Most of the rest of my day was spent with Activision and Sony. CoD WWII looks and sounds fantastic, but I just don't get the pull to play CoD very often. Destiny 2 looks to fill much of what was missing from the first, but I didn't get any hands on time. Uncharted The Last Legacy is the typical Naughty Dog polish-- looks, sounds, & plays fantastic. I'm not really feeling the dynamic between the Chloe and Nadine, but it's great to see more female protagonists. Days Gone-- still not feeling it. Spiderman, fantastic. I'm all about it. Yes, it looks like it plays like Batman, but I think it totally works for this character & game.

The Nier talk has sold me. I am hearing so much good chatter about it, I don't think I can resist anymore.

doubtingthomas396 wrote:

I've decided that I'm going to call the Xbox One X the XOX, which is pronounced "Socks."

Who's with me?

That's a good one. When I saw the press conference I immediately tried to think up new nicknames for it.

Xbox One = X-Bone
Xbox One X = One X -> Onyx?

Zombaco wrote:

The Nier talk has sold me. I am hearing so much good chatter about it, I don't think I can resist anymore.

Muahaha! The cult of Yoko Taro (director of NieR) gains another member. Enjoy when you get to it! I think the Steam summer sale has it at the lowest price it's been. Fortunately, it seems like it's actually sold really well so they haven't bottomed out the price on Steam or PSN.

For the record:

[aw-tom-uh-tuh]

Re: Xbox One X and not being able to trademark "Scorpio"... the project code name is almost always better than the trademark-able name that the console actually gets sold as. Remember that the utilitarian GameCube was once "Dolphin."

For that matter, we all got used to it a long time ago but Xbox 360 was actually a pretty terrible name in its own right.

Middcore wrote:

For the record:

[aw-tom-uh-tuh]

This is my favourite post.

Middcore wrote:

For the record:

[aw-tom-uh-tuh]

Pretty sure that it's a Japanese word and should be pronounced quickly and unstressed like Cory did. Oh-toh-mah-tah.

Mixolyde wrote:
Middcore wrote:

For the record:

[aw-tom-uh-tuh]

Pretty sure that it's a Japanese word and should be pronounced quickly and unstressed like Cory did. Oh-toh-mah-tah.

The word 'automata' is simply the pleural of 'automation', which has been in English for a very long time. As with any word borrowed from another language by the Japanese, it's written in katakana. In this case, it's 'ニーア オートマタ'. Japanese is not a completely unstressed language, and the katakana dashes show where a long vowel is. Thus, the official pronunciation (per the katakana spelling on the game's website) is "Nee-Ah Ohh-to-ma-ta". The "ee" and "oh" sounds are longer, and the rest are evenly spaced and without accent.

So in a way, everyone was a little bit right.

I don't know what is the 'right' pronunciation, but Latin portmanteau words like automata that don't have a basis in a current living language I like to treat lyrically so I say them the way that sounds best to my ear. I prefer Julian's "Ooh-to-MAH-ta" to Waypoint's "Ooh-tom-ah-ta" which is what I think Shaun was going for and it almost inevitably tripped over.

Ultimately, it's not a word in someone's living language you're torturing, so say it how you feel comfortable. IMO at least.

Beyond Good and Evil HD

If you play Beyond Good and Evil HD be aware that they changed a crucial thing in the HD version (at least they did in the HD version for the 360): if you are in the hovercraft and inside a building you can no longer freely rotate the camera. The camera is now stuck behind the hovercraft. The problem: to solve most of the puzzles you have to be able to rotate the camera. So most puzzles in the HD version are no longer solvable in the same way as they were in the original version. Also, the camera now gets stuck in walls and in this moments the game seems quite buggy and frustrating. That was not at all the case in the original game, which was a total joy to play.

VERY LIGHT SPOILER:

Spoiler:

For example the homing sea mines in the Slaughterhouse level: in the original, you would drive near a mine to activate it and then switch the camera to the front of the hovercraft so that you can see the mine following you. I remember that this was really fun. In the HD version its just trial and error. You are no longer able to see the mine following you or be able to react to anything the mine does. What is left is just a frustrating, broken experience that has nothing to do with the original gameplay.

Or navigating the rotating lasers and all these hovercraft navigating and jumping: this was good in the original (because it was skill based) but is now only dull trial and error in the HD version.

So be aware that if people talk about how awesome BGE was, they talk about the original. And that if people say they do not understand why this game is so hyped and loved, they most probably played the HD version.

Here is a video of the game director Yoko Taro saying the name of his game over and over for everyone concerned with how he pronounces it:
Video of Yoko Taro

Sure, but how authoritative is that guy?

MrDeVil909 wrote:

Ultimately, it's not a word in someone's living language you're torturing, so say it how you feel comfortable. IMO at least.

Seriously though. It is a word in a living language. It's in English dictionaries. It's a plural of "automaton," as already stated above.

I don't really care how the director says it, English is not his first language. If you tried to learn English pronunciation from the few random English words sprinkled in video games and anime when people shout out the names of their special attacks and such you'd have a rough time.

What was the name of the Twitch streamer Amanda mentioned at 1:39:20? "Aleema?"
Thanks!

Ramblin_Ray wrote:

What was the name of the Twitch streamer Amanda mentioned at 1:39:20? "Aleema?"
Thanks!

GWJ user Eleima. She starts discussing her stream here: https://www.gamerswithjobs.com/node/.... Her twitch stream "Eleima" is linked from her signature.

Oh, Amoebic's got it!

Late listening in, but I appreciated the Nier and Nintendo love on this episode.

Welcome to the E3 hype train Amoebic. In a few years you'll either be jaded and cynical or E3 will be a special holiday for you.

Assuming E3's still around, that is.