Weekend Confirmed Episode 59

Speaking on the single player of Portal 2-

I was more on the Garnett side of the Portal 2 discussion. Unlike, Jeff I rarely felt “smart” for solving a puzzle, I felt more like “I figured out what Valve wanted me to do.” There were so many moments where the environment was specifically designed to lead to you a solution. Maybe it is the Architect in me, but I have an eye for extraneous overlooks that serve no other purpose. (I’ve never designed a catwalk with a random part jutting out). I realize it was necessary for the places outside the test rooms but it brought me out of the game. The story kept me playing but the "twist" was telegraphed and it overall was very Bioshock-y.

Anyone who thought the SP was too easy, should try the co-op. Already a few hair pulling moment and I'm not done.

I just wanted to offer this up in response to Garnett's comment about Child of Eden and Kinect... I believe he said, "Can you justify a device that expensive off of one game?" My first thought was Rockband/Guitar Hero. I guess you could at least use those instruments in later games. Aaaaanywho, just a thought. :)

So does anyone actually want to hear the deer story? I could type it up if anyone is interested...

I realise this is old hat at this point, but I wonder if you guys could talk about the state of games journalism without getting on the defensive. I wasn't at PAX Prime last year, but I heard that the 1up reunion panel turned into a 'Games Journalism hur hur hur' panel, and Garnett was the man defending the corner. I just wonder what their points were, to what extent you guys agree, and how you think things could be achieved.

To make it relevant, I think the recent Brink, uh, 'fiasco' could be a good jumping off point.

Homosexuality in games.

I agree with Jeff about social issues working better allegorically in games.

I think it would be very immersion breaking to be in a situation where homosexuals were discriminated in a fantasy role playing game. Part of creating a different universe is assigning the unique prejudices and social issues that are unique to that world. Applying our modern, western social shortcomings to a fantasy realm seems wrong.

There are more social hang ups than just homosexuality. After all, no one in the world of Dragon Age thinks twice about seeing a black king or a female warlord.

It's better that sexism and racism are properly tailored to the setting. Allegories of homophobia, racism and sexism are very much present in Dragon Age. When I played as an Elf there was a situation where I went to a merchant and he assumed because of my race I was a servant and of a low class and instead of serving me he gave me an order to get back to work. This enriched the world and gave so much texture. How different would that be if I was a black character and the merchant said "the sign says 'no coloured people' now get out of my store" or at the end of the game I encountered opposition when climbing the political ladder because women aren't taken seriously as leaders? In Oblivion different races even have obscene slurs and terms for races they aren't fond of.

Not only will it not raise an ounce of controversy for a fantasy game to display an elf calling a dwarf a racial slur as opposed to a Caucasian character to call a black character the 'N' word, it enriches and enhances the universe as well as giving the developers the chance to make striking social commentary by creating fictional prejudices.

No Bungie at E3 2011:

http://www.bungie.net/News/content.aspx?type=topnews&cid=31451

"Oh, and while we’re on the subject of clarification, we won’t officially be at E3 this year. Remember the Band-Aid approach I talked about last week? This is what it feels like in practice. Sorry for the sting. We wanted to make sure you didn’t get whipped into a rumor-fueled frenzy only to have your expectations unceremoniously dashed during expo week."

Not happy :(

Since valve released a level creation kit for portal 2, do you think it possible to release a best of pack for the consoles seeing as how we cannot create our own levels unless we have a pc or mac

Hopefully one of you guys are playing Brink on PC post-release as well as having played the 360 version pre-'bargo.

Jeff!

Get Miri, the girl you review Blu-Rays with on Reviews on the Run, to guest on this podcast.

She is amazing.

Garnett: If you want to play Child of Eden in the dark you can, Kinect works just fine in the dark I do this all the time with Kinect Sports (infrared camera).
Jeff: If you want the realistic game experience version of taking out Bin Laden – isn’t that what the last version of Medal of Honor was attempting to do? I enjoyed the fact that the game was grounded in real events as opposed to the bad shit crazy Jerry Bruckheimer story that Call of Duty has become.

Xav needs to be on the show more often (permanent 3rd chair) I thought he brought a lot to the discussion.

Love the time stamp on the Portal 2 section more podcasts need this.

Is there any way we could have the video pre-show on the iTunes and RSS feeds?

They Might Be Giants reference finally someone has actually heard of them. I love everything that they have ever done and think it's great stupid comedy rock thing.

Hey, are we going to get an E3 prediction episode? :) I always love to hear the crazy-and not so crazy-predictions from you guys. It always gets me excited for E3. Maybe you could get Shane on or something?



And make more crazy predictions plz. ;p

So Microsoft is buying Skype, anyone wanna bet the over/under on when it gets integrated into XBox Live/Kinect?

My bet is that it gets announced at E3 next year.

I'm really interested to hear what shackers here think about Brink.

Garnett too, since he was really excited for it.

I'm enjoying it, but I'm glad that I rented it before diving in. I think the game has a ton of great ideas for getting people to work and play together, and those elements along with the SMART movement work well IMO.

However, there's a lot of rough design around the core of the game. For example, there are a ton of different weapons to choose from, but none of them feel very different from each other.

The SMART system works well, but the maps don't take full advantage of it IMO. SMART could have allowed for flowing, vertical combat, but most of the areas are either tight corridors, or wide open areas. The stand-outs are the ones with terrain of various heights, like shipping containers or construction catwalks, that players can hop up and down on in the middle of a gun-fight.

There aren't enough maps period.

And for anybody that actually wants a legit single-player mode. Yikes. AVOID.

Like I said, I'm enjoying it. But I was kind of hoping that it would live up to expectations and replace Crysis 2 as my secondary shooter (behind Halo: Reach). I don't think it will hold my interest for that long though, especially with a new crop of Crysis 2 maps on the way.

http://www.shacknews.com/article/68391/crysis-2-retaliation-map-pack

I can't believe Garnett thinks Sony won't focus on NGP at E3. I think 65% of their show will be NGP related. I think they have to focus on it. We already know nearly everything they have in store for PS3 so what else would they talk about? They need to show as many compelling games as they can for the NGP to counter whatever NIntendo will be showing for 3DS.

This is going to be such an amazing E3. Nintendo is going to wow us all (I hope). Sony is going to have to humble itself. And what on earth is Microsoft going to do? All the focus is going to be on Nintendo (new system) and Sony (PSN fiasco/NGP). Microsoft is going to have to do something amazing to get people to look their direction. I sure hope they have something more than Gears 3.

Might be the wrong place, but what the hell. Check out the new info on AC from Game Informer (which you should totally buy for the images and interviews, BTW):

- Ezio is looking for seals in Revelations. These seals hold the memories of Alair. They'll allow Ezio to peek into Altair's life (just as Desmond uses Animus to peek into his ancestors lives).
- You'll control Altair through these sequences.
- The bulk of the game is set in Constantinople which will be split into 4 huge districts (Constantin, Beyazid, Imperial and Galata)
- You'll also visit Cappadocia
- Ezio is over 50 years old in this game
- Ezio has a new item called the hookblade which allows him to use ziplines throughout the city. UBI says that it speeds up navigation by about 30%
- You can also use the hookblade to reach out and pull enemies in for a combo
- Ezio can now make bombs through a crafting system. UBI says that there are over 300 bomb types
- They've modified the control scheme so that circle/B will control the hookblade and triangle/Y will control project weapons and bombs
- Eagles vision has become eagle sense. "Eagle sense let's you focus on a character and see where he's been," Amancio says. "You'll get an approximation of where he will go. If you're able to detect the path a guard will take, you can run ahead, set a bomb, and create a trap or an ambush."
- They've expanded on the Borgia Towers concept in order to create a new system. Throughout the city there are Assassin's Den's, you'll need to complete various assault scenarios in order take down the Templar presence (UBI says that there's more variety than in the Borgia Towers). Once you obtain a den you'll be able to upgrade the buildings in that region along with adding ziplines across the rooftops. You'll also be able to change the guards from being hostile to neutral.
- You can lose control of you dens as you gain notoriety. You'll be able to send your own troops after the templars if you're unable to make it back to the specific den that's being attacked. You can do that by making it to any of the other dens that you currently control. You'll also be able to install a master assassin to control a specific den and you'll never have to worry about it being taken over.
- The assassin leveling mechanic has been increased from 10 to 15
- In order to make the world more immersive they've done away with traditional side missions in favor of random events. For example you may be traveling through a city and notice a shop owner being robbed or a little girl asking for help
- They're using a new type of capture facial technology called Mocam that GI describes as an "intriguing amalgamation of traditional animation, performance capture and the fascinating new style of performance on display in games like LA Noire."
- Desmond is placed back inside Animus where he finds a safe mode called the 'Black Room'. You'll be able to access Desmond's lost memories through that back door
- The gameplay during Desmond's game is described as narrative-fueled puzzle sequences. "Through the manipulation and creation of geometry with the game world, Desmond seeks to reintegrate the splintered layers of his subconscious."
- Multiplayer is returning but this time they're trying to give more focus to the narrative since that's a big part of AC
- You'll be able to custom your character appearance and weapons as well as create guilds.



i. WANT. IT.

I want it in me.

Cram it into my eye and ear holes.



Thoughts?

A helpful tip for dealing with the problems of spoilers: Add chapters to your podcast. It's pretty easy to do, it just requires marking the segments.

http://www.ehow.com/how_4937125_add-chapters-podcast.html

Update on my Dad's dog as I mentioned in Ep. 58. The kennel lost my dad's dog on Good Friday. My dad looked and looked and looked for the dog, posting flyers and doing everything he could possibly think of to find his dog.

Yesterday, my Dad's birthday, his dog found its way home. It might have taken her 2.5 weeks but she found her way home...and on my Dad's birthday. Crazy.

Just thought I'd share. Thanks to everyone who gave kind words of support, helped looking, and shared the story with people in the Houston area.

So the reviews for Brink have come out, and thus far doesn't seem to be as well received as one expected (BLeahy with his review on G4tv). What disturbed me is not so much the reception from the critics, but the response to the various reviews that are either lukewarm or not good (I checked out the G4tv, IGN, and 1UP ones).

Now this seems to be a common thing where when a game that has been heavily promoted or with great ideas end up reviewing poorly, the gamers that expected something more tend to absolutely shit on the reviewer. Nevermind that they haven't played the game yet nor seem to realize that a reviewer's opinion is just that: an opinion. However it has really just occurred to me that like the main theme for "Inception" where an idea becomes an absolutely powerful thing, we seem to get the same thing for gaming.

What I mean is that games that upon preview have great ideas, further bolstered by the marketing, expectations are raised. However in this case as well as Homefront, the negative review leads to backlash among 'fans' and thus rants about how a reviewer "doesn't know how to review games".

My problem is that it feels like the combination of good-great ideas combined with marketing seems to have affect gamers, whether they say so or not. I mean how many times have games that are either movie/comic tie-ins or sequels that no one asked for (like Dynasty Warriors), get poorly reviewed, yet no one seems surprised at them at all?

Are we indeed more affected by ideas (and marketing) than we think we are? I mean in the case of Homefront and Brink, it seems like the responses have been along the lines of the reviewer offending them in some way.

I know for me I very rarely dive into a game without other people trying them out first (usually reviews), thus taking away that "surprise" element, yet saving myself some coin on something that I may or may not have wasted my time on. Its not that I'm of that "elitist" attitude. I mean I do enjoy some 3/5-esque games, being aware of the context of which I am playing it for (like Dantes Inferno for instance).

The Cheesecake Deer wrestling game should be an indie, i would totally put that in my gameflap

In regards to the comments on PSN being down, at this point I agree that the average gamer is, at this point, just annoyed that the service is still down. That's the way I feel, anyway. I'm obviously not pleased that a criminal may have my personal information (to include credit card info), but I accept that as one of the dangers of being a computer based society; and the benefits of using computers are well worth the risk.

It's like driving or riding in a vehicle. The vast majority of us accept that we take a risk every time we get into a car - we could be hurt or even killed. However, the benefits of motorized transport far outweigh those risks, so we utilize that tool.

Hey Zav!

Amen brother! A-friggen-men! I completely feel your pain. I lived and worked in America for three years as a legal resident soon found out my Australian XBL account was useless there. Everything from buying a MS Points card from Walmart to the code for a bonus map pack that comes with a brand new game is region locked!

Sure enough, the masterminds at xbox support had the same advice for me; make a new account. So, I made another account called Xbox In America which was a silver account made purely for redeeming codes and MS Points and so forth. The problem is that whilst the content I purchased/redeemed was licensed to the xbox on which is was initiated (ah wonderful DRM) it created so many headaches when I replaced my console because of either RROD or upgrading when undergoing the license transer process that requires you to re-download every piece of content.
This lead to me keeping a piece of paper with my xbox that lists all of the different content purchased for each gamertag.

It's a HUGE hassle and although I'm back in my homeland, to this day I still have to keep that second American account along with the login details and password and hard copy lists of purchased content all because of the lack of ability to do something as simple as switch regions.

I don't know what Sony needs to do at their E3 press event, all I know is that I want them to retire Kevin Butler. After this mess I don't want to see his smug face.

The Portal 2 spoilers are in the beginning? Ugh. Why not put them in at the end of the podcast like you did with the sports talk (wasn't it called the tailgate or something?). I really hope that any further spoiler talk will be at the end of the podcast. At least we get a time stamp though...I guess it's better than nothing.

I've listened to the discussion and mixed outrage over PSN being down for the past couple weeks, and I just thought I'd share a couple ideas to think about. Perhaps a different perspective.

1. Doing anything in a corporation the size of Sony takes more time. When Sony says they shut the service down on the 20th after discovering that it was compromised on the 19th is immediately for a giant mega-corp.

2. I understand that you are upset that they mislead you about the cause of the disruption in the initial couple days. That they didn't tell you the reason. Did you ever think that maybe they were trying to catch the people responsible? That by telling you that they got hacked they were also telling the hackers that they were on to them? ANY security expert, especially actual law enforcement who I'm sure were involved, is going to try and catch the hackers before they know they've been discovered.

3. You're upset that they didn't tell you exactly what was going on. You're upset that you THINK they weren't taking network security seriously. You're upset that because they brought in outside experts, you think that they didn't have good security experts in house etc etc etc You're upset about a lot of things based on speculation and on how you wish things were. Unfortunately, I have to respond with "It's nice to want things.".

The security people at Sony are just like you and me. They are a bunch of guys doing their job. There's no "this is what you do if you think you got hacked" manual. Every case is unique. They are in uncharted territory and are making it up as they go along. Doing the best they can. When you get mad at "giant mega-corp" just remember that it's actual people making those decisions. They have to go through legal, they have to go to corporate. Across divisions, through hierarchy etc etc

It sucks that the service is down, it sucks that people's information was stolen, hackers suck, legal sucks etc. It's a bad situation and it's easy to say in hindsight what they should have done based on speculation and rumour. In reality, it's really really hard.

Outland is NOT a metroidvania game.

Case - in - Point. After you beat a boss, you NEVER return to their domain. The only place you revisit is Origin, and that's only because you get transported there after beating a boss.

Also, you don't get any new gear or weapons. You get "abilities" which you rarely ever use except to access the the other three levels.

By metroidvania, you must mean that you get "power-ups" along your extremely linear path through which you are never required to go backwards.

Also, *spoilers* *Spoilers* *SPOILERS*, the last level of the game where the enemies start switching from light to dark and back is about as lazy of difficulty-increasing as a developer can get. In a game where combat is entirely dependent on color, it is developer-shame to have enemies changing color with no indication to the player that they are about to do so. All that does is slow down combat and make the final level extremely boring as I wait for the enemy to be the color I need it to be to win.

This game sucked, I beat it in about 4 hours (plus 1 hr for achievement grinding) and have no reason to go back to it. There are four main levels which take about 20-30 mins each. The only thing beautiful about the environment is the background so I really have no desire to explore poorly defined foregrounds or new areas (of which there are two).

The only redeeming thing about this game is that the co-op is easy enough that my 5-year-old can play it with me.

Your discussion on whether or not it would work to make a game with a disabled protagonist reminded me of a gag I saw 10 years ago in I think game informer, the Daredevil First person shooter, and it was just a blank screen lol. When you mentioned it though it got me thinking about how how you could make a blind game work and ironically I think the art style is key. You might be able to do something really interesting with sound and touch to do kind of an echolocation dynamic utilizing your own voice and those of the surrounding area to give you a picture of the environment or when you touch a surface you can see so much around it, and with a good art style it could look really cool. This obviously would not be a fast paced action game but maybe an adventure game with some interesting platforming, a really suspenseful horror game could probably also be done. It's not a fully flushed out idea but it might have possibility.

More points to Garnett. There's nothing so remarkable about the writing in portal that merits the dizzy cult-of-koolaid that gets laid at its feet. I'd put it on the level of a direct-to-DVD Pixar knock-off, which I guess has its fans.

The coverage of Bin Laden's assassination (which is what it was, I'm not trying to put a spin on it), actually made me think about videogame coverage. Not immediately of course...I'm not that single-minded or shallow. :P

Videogame media are constantly bound my publisher NDAs, and they get criticized for following them by some fans.

But if you watch the coverage of the Bin Laden announcement, it's clear as day that EVERY news station had been informed ahead of time about EXACTLY what was going to be announced. They all knew, and were spending 30 or 45 minutes before the announcement trying to say as much as they could, without breaking the NDA.

Why? Why not just report it? For the same reason that videogame media doesn't just report something against NDA. Because the White House would have immediately broken off any kind of working relationship if they did. These reporters also get the speeches that officials give before they do so that they can 'speculate' on the content of the speech before they actually give them.

It just opened my eyes to the fact that the processes and relationships that videogame media are derided for also exist in other forms of journalism.

Replay Portal Garnett. I did yesterday. You'll see that the "problems" you had with the environmental sections of Portal 2 are exactly the same as in Portal. Yet somehow Portal is better? Remember that whole section or Portal after you dodge the pit of fire? No? Obviously not.

I agree with Jeff, Portal 2 is everything Portal was except bigger, better, and fleshed out.

Jeff, I had to chuckle a little hearing you emphasize the fact that Outland is a metroidvania that doesn't force limited lives or continues on you.

No Metroid game has ever had limited lives. You get one life, and checkpoints in the form of either save spots or passwords, usually save spots.

Early Castlevania games, by contrast, did have limited lives and continues, back when they were linear action games, but when they adopted the SOTN exploratory style with light RPG elements (actually becoming metroidvanias as we now know them) they ditched the lives and continues in favour of save points.

I can think of no example of a metroidvania game that does use limited lives or continues.

That aside, while I agree that limited lives would be rather inappropriate in most modern games, I do feel that they still serve a useful purpose in some cases, and I would be sad to see the concept thrown out wholesale.

Some of the complaints in the Portal 2 discussion could be easily answered by reading the text in-game. Aside from some really funny signage around the Aperture Laboratories, there are some good story clues. There may be some that are harder to see since you don't have a flashlight in your inventory, but that shouldn't be too much of a problem. Some key areas where one should read text are at the Bring your Daughter to Work Day science fair and the 1952 Aperture Laboratories waiting lobby trophy display.

One other key information that was actually mixed up by Jeff was regarding the elevators in Portal 2. They're not going up in the first part; they're going DOWN. This was pretty jarring for me when playing through the first few parts of the original Portal 1 test chambers, as I had remembered that the elevators went UP in the first Portal (you could tell by the direction of the light glares). The elevators go down in the first half, and then you have to ascend for the second half. Very symbolic.

There was mention of wanting to look for another MetroidVania game for Jeff; I think he should play Aquaria, if he hasn't already. It was available in the first Humble Indie Bundle, and is also available on Steam.

I never did get to play Metroid, so Aquaria was the first time I was exposed to that gameplay mechanic. Others have described the game as "Metroid meets Ecco the Dolphin", though I really fell in love with the art style and music, plus it also helped having listened to Oceanlab - Sirens of the Sea (the song and the album), as well as Oceanlab - Clear Blue Water (slight spoiler, but let's just say that that song came instantly to mind at one specific part of the game).

It's a rather long game for being an indie title; I think my first run through was around 14 to 16 hours, from having to find things the hard way the first time around. I played Aquaria before playing Braid (which was in the second Humble Indie Bundle), and I thought that Aquaria far outshined Braid, both in the sheer amount of content, and in the delivery of the game experience (Aquaria didn't lock the best parts of the game behind secrets).

Aw, I watched the video preview and was all ready to here you guys discuss the best new IPs of this generation. Guess time didn't permit.

Oh well.

Maybe all for the best though, cause Child of Eden sounds AWESOME, so it might turn out to be somebody's choice for best new IP. :D

Question, information and props

Long time listener (start of the 1upyours roundtable) first time poster, many thanks for helping me through all the workdays. Jeff's comments made me curious though, about a month or two ago John mentioned a little league baseball game or somesuch that was scored "Fun to fun" and the entire room to a man groaned. Is there a danger in companies taking the desire to have "Less fail states" or "The end of death." towards that 'little league' direction? I'd note that despite our early hopes for DLC, we started with horse armor and there's still arguably more horse armor then expansion packs.


The information I thought might be interesting is that if you read the logs of the IRC chat that Keven Steven posted to twitter to defend his talk of the database being sold off the obviously extremely knowledgeable members of the chat talk a lot of shop about the Sony attitude towards security in general and the version of Apache they're running in specific. Possible security holes and the like. It's not conclusive one way or the other, but it is independent corroboration. It doesn't take Sony's conflicting previous statements to realize they're hiding things.

(Here is the log files if you like, search "Apache" in ctrl+F or anything SKFU said as he seems like the big dog in the tall grass. I'd suspect that Sony's security failings were well known, among groups like this there's always at least one "Helpful Hacker" archetype who sends a message to the unsecure company that their shit is weak) http://173.255.232.215/logs/efnet/ps3dev/2011-02-16#2646)

I'd also note that when protection or security or other "just in case" precautions comes with an incredibly huge pricetag for updating a world wide network companies are not quick to move. Passwords were after all stored in a plaintext (or at least unsalted encrypted which is basically the same thing) file. Additionally old databases filled with old creditcard numbers provided? That doesn't speak to their security team having much sway within the company. (Bet that changed!)

Another note is that companies do not shut down wordwide storefronts from every passing breeze. Uptime is king since every second an online storefront is down costs hysterical amounts of potential sales that you may never get back, for Sony to have thrown the switch willingly then kept it down for days, much less weeks, they knew that some serious shit had hit the fan and they knew pretty early. It's possible Rebug was involved, and they were just worried about the PS3 becoming the next PSP in terms of hacked vs nonhacked systems but that's conjecture. Either way, Sony knew and probably knows way more then they're letting on.


Finally, (long post) Props to Garnet for the awesome music this week, I dunno why he has to apologize for playing what he likes on His Own Goddamn Show. A work should reflect it's creator, and this podcast is his.

Besides, that stuff is beautiful.

Cheers~

Can't wait for E3. Honestly I pretty sure I know what to expect from Sony and Nintendo. Microsoft just confuses me. I'm pretty sure that Dance Central 2, Forza 4, Gears 3 and Kingdoms will be there. There were a lot of rumors of Microsoft making their on television channel earlier in the year so that could be an announcement.

I know you guys at Shacknews will hold it down at E3 with great content and podcasts.

The next gen Thor game was developed by Liquid Entertainment.

The DS Thor game was by WayForward, hence there being reason to believe the DS game will actually be worthwhile.

Now you know!

Is there a specific time on Friday when you guys release the podcast? I did another random search and that's how I the found episode.