Weekend Confirmed Episode 7

I agree with you Garnett. Chromehounds is amazing Billy has no idea what he's talking about.

i recently accidentally came across spoilers for alan wake and was wondering how much or if it can downgrade the experience to the point of just renting or even taking a pass on this game. also do you think it's worth it to know if the spoiler is true?

keep billy!

Question for Garnett
Did you ever get around to finishing Bioshock 2, and if you did, what did you think of the sequence when you are transformed?

It was mentioned back on one of the earlier ep's and I have just finished it so I was curious.

Keep up the awesome podcast. Can't wait to hear you and John back on the same show. So cool

Oh man, Team Fortress is probably my favorite game in the entire world. Regular Quake DM was fun, but nothing compared to loading up GameSpy or MPlayer and finding a TF game.

My favorite part about it was the quake engine though. Every level was so dark and dirty. It really lost that in the transition to the half life engine and TFC.

If the rougelike you are talking about is Sword Of Fargoal the iPad version is good and made by the same guy who made a Commodore version.

Just to comment on starcraft 2 with relation to korea -

I'm not living in Korea, but I have followed the starcraft pro scene for many years now (Way too many nights were spent staying up til 3am to catch a crummy internet stream of a broadcast). While starcraft 2 has already overtaken starcraft 1 in the foreign scene (foreign in starcraft = anyone who's not korean), I don't think that starcraft 2 is going to overtake starcraft 1 for many years in the korean professional leagues.

There are a couple of reasons for this. First off, while all the comments in the media are about how starcraft 2 is simply starcraft with better controls and graphics, the game has changed completely from the perspective of top players. The metagame is completely different, and even the general playstyles of the races has shifted dramatically. While starcraft 2 is a fun game to play, so far the tourney games broadcast have been nowhere near the level found in starcraft 1 matches. All of the top players are going to stick with starcraft 1 until the bulk of play moves to starcraft 2 and starcraft 2's balance is fixed, which will be years down the line.

As an addendum to this, starcraft 2 is nowhere near as enjoyable a spectator sport as starcraft 1. In brood war, pro games are special because they use incredibly intense micro to make their units do things that you don't see anywhere else. For example - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EqsSrWZciY0 (Minute long video, shows one of the best protoss players ever going up against one of the best terran players ever. Over a minute long fight he's able to hit every single spider mine the vultures drop before they kill his units, while doing enough damage to drive back the push)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1u_tBTS3CE8 (Ridiculous amounts of psi storm)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kihOFh2vgFY (action starts at 5 minutes, terran completely wrecks zerg with vultures)

In starcraft 2 there's comparatively little micro. Blizzard added features like unlimited unit grouping and smartcasting which have made the game more fun to play but less impressive to watch, simply because there's less room for viewers to see the differentiation between regular players and amazing, professional players.

Second, there has recently been some major drama between Blizzard and KeSPA (Korean e-sports players association) regarding the broadcast of professional starcraft and potentially starcraft 2. Check out the blizzard statement - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=121471
KeSPA response - http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/viewmessage.php?topic_id=123275

These tensions have been simmering for a while. Currently there are two tv networks devoted to starcraft - MBC and OGN. Earlier, Blizzard had put money into a third korean network called GOM to cover starcraft, warcraft, etc. Problem was, blizzard was trying to sever all ties from KeSPA during this time and in response KeSPA forbade Korean pros from participating in GOM events. This all went down August of last year.

I guess my point is that brood war isn't going anywhere in korea for many, many years. I've been told it's comparable to pro counterstrike players playing CS 1.6 instead of CS source, though I might be screwing up my reference as I don't actually play counterstrike or know anything about it.

This actually got me thinking about a possible 4 minute warning question for you guys - Starcraft in Korea has long been the standard for professional gaming by which all leagues are measured, mostly due to its audience - there are two tv channels devoted entirely to broadcasting starcraft, with people watching starcraft in the same way that americans sit down to watch football or baseball. I feel that much of the success of starcraft as an e-sport is derived from the fact that it's a very easy game to watch - while the players are moving at a million miles an hour, the result of these actions is a battle which easily fits in its entirety on a television screen and there's plenty going on for a team of commentators to analyze and discuss. It seems to me that the most popular professional competition in the US is the halo competition from major league gaming. I've watched several MLG halo matches and the viewing experience is less than ideal. The camera jumps between player viewpoints as they jump around trying to headshot their opponents, making it very difficult for someone who sucks at halo to get an idea of what's going on in the overall match.

My question to you is this: what makes a game work as a spectator experience as opposed to a player experience, and how big a factor is this in the growth of esports?

I finally had a chance to listen to it; some things stand out after a listen while driving in the car:

- Thank you for taking turns beating up Facebook/Twitter game integration. It's a stupid marketing ploy masquerading as a feature, and I would either shut off any such "feature", or refuse to buy a game if it has this "feature". However, I fear that even though there's an avalanche of feedback resembling "it's a stupid feature; take it out, or give me a way to turn it off" will be ignored, as the marketing machine seems to always get its way lately.

- The "game museum" thing made me smile. Sorry, but once multiplayer games became imprisoned to a matchmaking system that could be shut down or incompatibly altered, gamers gave up their right to a multiplayer game that they can play forever. This is why a contingent of PC gamers has been so vocal about the preservation of gamer-run dedicated servers: if we lose them, we lose the ability to play the game, even if its market demographic isn't economically viable anymore. Enjoy buying Halo 2 over XBox Live Arcade in 3 years.

- The Windows platform needs to be open, otherwise it would not be possible for businesses to code their own software, or for regular people to code things ranging from "hello world" to excellent utilities, games, and other software. Microsoft certainly wants to keep the Windows platform open for people to code legitimate software, otherwise they wouldn't be able to sell Visual Studio. This means that a secondary layer for game service / matchmaking / DRM is necessary. Games for Windows Live has taken the model of "Let's make the PC just like XBox Live!", and it's done pretty bad in the eyes of the advanced PC gamers. Steam has been a runaway success, since Valve is giving back to the community with free content and technology advances. GoG is pretty good, from what I hear, especially due to their "no draconian DRM" policy. So I don't see the Windows platform closing up, and if it did, I would hope that the United States Department of Justice would ramp up a new antitrust lawsuit.

Just finished listening, great show as always guys.

Also, no one hate on Billy! The exact same thing happened to me; I got to the "good part" of FFXIII where it opens up and I've just run out of steam and have been playing the crap out of other games.

I hope I get back to it sometime, I was still really enjoying myself up to that point...

I think the only FIFA to fill the quota you guys were talking about is FIFA 98 Road to the World Cup, that game is really awesome, it let you go through the qualifier with your national team AND THEN play the whole World Cup with it.

It's a shame that same year EA started with the franchise milking in the current way it does and RtWC is a rarity that no longer works unless you have Windows 98 (YMMV, might work on XP if you're lucky), but iirc, there's still a strong community supporting it, releasing a new D3D/Glide (yes, Glide!) renderer and the common team roster update packs.

This is a pretty good podcast! You guys are not very awkward and keep on topic while staying entertaining.

I have a question for Brian about skate 3,
Since one of the features is that all players receive credit for completing challenges online, If you play a challenge online prior to unlocking it in singleplayer, what happens when you get to the point in career when t would be unlocked? Can you just skip it, or can you play it again to get more "decks"(iirc, thats the resource your trying to earn in the game)?

Shane...? :(

thanks for answering my question! *hugs*

Love your podcast and the fact that it's 2 hours long (while other podcasts are 30-60mins). However, can you divide it in two halves so it can fit on a CD-R which only has a limit of 80 mins? I much prefer listening to you guys in my car than the stupid repetitive radio stations in montreal!!!
Keep up the good work!

no i am fucking stoked for alan wake

YES!!!!

Looking forward to your Alan Wake impressions!

You guys always do an awesome and entertaining job, have a great weekend!

Thanks for the recommendation for "Battle of wesnoth" last week. Pretty solid game...and free to boot

"I'm fucking invincible, man..."

"Like a phoenix..."

Yeah, like a fucking phoenix. Goddamn move and shoot buff. Anyway, just thought that was funny...