Weekend Confirmed 120 - Dawnguard, Day Z, Diablo 3

I mentioned this in the other AC thread, but I feel like it warrants it's own thread.

The problems Garnett and Jeff have with the free-running in Assassin's Creed seem to show a complete lack of understanding for how the system works and how they are supposed to be playing.

It seems you guys are stuck in the mind-set that there are only two kinds of platforming. One, where you have complete, precise control and the responsibility to line up every jump (2D platformers, the PoP games from last gen, etc), or one where the computer takes over everything.

I'm sorry, but the developers have not failed simply because the platforming system and philosophy they have innovated does not fit neatly within the platforming boxes you are comfortable with.

Assassin's Creed handles the little details so that you can handle the big picture.

There is simply too much going on the world - from geometry to navigate, from enemies pursuing, targets escaping, etc - for the game to ask you to line up, time and land every jump a la POP. However, if there is no tension of missing jumps, or keeping tabs on a target, or getting surrounded and taken out by guards, then these chases and pursuits lose tension.

So the game does something different. It tells you to stop looking 5 steps in front of your feet and worrying about micro-managing the details, and look up. Look 20, 30, 100 steps away, and plan your route. Look for the big gaps you need to cross and the best places to do it, look for the gaps in enemy patrols to make your life easier, keep a look out for your target and cut him off at the pass. We will handle the jumping, and the climbing, you handling the THINKING.

Holding one direction down and holding A is how you end up running into walls, missing jumps, and whatnot. You are being lazy. You don't need incredibly harsh, precise, jarring changes in direction like you would in POP, but you should be shifting his path to ensure the best route over the environment. Imagine using the stick to carve his way over the city the same way you would use it to carve the path of a snowboarder down a mountain.

The developers have not failed because their system does not fit into one of two boxes you are comfortable with. They have succeeded because they have created a system that works perfectly for the specific challenges and experiences they are trying to create.

Hey guys, more shameless promo here, but I figured some of you would be interested.

In May, I got to go to Vancouver and visit the set of Forward Unto Dawn. I saw a bunch of filming, and got to interview some of the cast and crew.

I'll have a bunch of coverage on my site over the next week. It starts here:

http://cruellegaceyproductions.com/2012/07/12/halo-4-forward-unto-dawn-behind-the-scenes/

RE: DAYZ http://dayzmod.com/downloads.php specifically the Six Updater Suite seems to make obtaining/installing mods in general nearly brainless even with the steam version. Obviously you need to launch ARMA II/ARMA II: Operation Arrow Head via Steam prior to using the updater.

@ Jeff C

Loved hearing you talk about Day Z. I'm curious if you ever listen to Rebel FM? Tyler Barber has been spending a great deal of time playing Day Z, and I find his weekly updates fascinating. I think you'd really enjoy hearing what he has to say, because he's sunk enough time into the game to see some really interesting human interactions develop.

He's described the moment of coming across another human player as being even scarier than meeting zombies, because you truly have no idea what they are going to do. They could be looking for other humans with the hope of achieving strength in numbers, only to stab you in the back with their knife as soon as they realize you're carrying a sweet shotgun.

As Tyler describes it, he's reached the point where anytime he meets another human, he will draw his gun and say "I'm friendly, I'm not looking for trouble, but if you don't turn around and walk the other way I WILL open fire".

I definitely think you should hear him talk about the game. I think you'd totally love hearing some of his stories :)

Things Sony can do with Gaikai:
*Convert Playstation Plus' free games to streaming based rather than download based.
*Create a backwards compatibility service based on subscription rather than hardware compatibility. Have a bevvy of titles available for a monthly fee, rather than selling things a la carte.
*Create the first "Free to Play" games with equal or greater fidelity than current console titles. Put games like Haze on
*Unload social networking off the console hardware. Make all Playstation friends lists, matchmaking etc, part of an App that runs off the network itself rather than consuming precious memory resources.
*Make Home completely streaming based, and thus be way more technologically robust, have less loading times, and easy to jump in and out of.

So I'm going to complain for a minute... Surprise right lol:)

I would really like to see the all stars in playstation all stars. I'm mean heihaci ok that's not bad, but toro wtf come on that's almost as bad as radiec, or fat princess. If they don't have at least one final fantasy title character they messed up, if they somehow don't have Alucard the f'd up, you know who else would be nice Zeus, but my faith is breaking in there ability to choose good characters.

Also this game is starting to look less chaos and more mosh pit. I hope projectiles are actually a factor, and I know we haven't seen items yet so maybe that's the projectile game.

Hey Garnett, just wanted to clarify something that maybe didn't come across in Jeff's complaints about the AC2 talk.

Yes, we all encourage you to talk about what you're playing, but there are certain games that were talked about TO DEATH on the internet, and AC2/BroHo, Red Dead, Bioshock, MW2, MGS4, and the like are in that category, soon to be joined by Skyrim and Diablo 3.

All great games, more than worthy of discussion at the time, but they need a little time out of the spotlight.

It's different when you talk about things like the Yakuza games because there's so much less discussion surrounding those games, or when you talk about previous-generation games which have laid fallow for a few years and so it's not quite as "been there, done that" when talking about them.

Other than that, it is still interesting to hear after-the-fact impressions on older games. Just that the timing wasn't great for this one in particular.

Great show, as usual, keep up the good work.

I think Garnett kind of has a point about the Wii-U.

I don't think people will flock to it just because the graphics are a teensy bit better, but there are people who might buy the Wii-U and stick with it as their primary console because they are happy with the graphics and are getting the same titles as the next Xbox and Playstation and get either a PS4 or Xbox8 as a backup console for the stuff that doesn't come to Wii-U.

Andrea the vita and PS3 currently do nothing together that tech doesn't exist yet. Killzone 3 doesn't even work with remote play... Heck I can't even play PS1 games on the vita. It's all just a marketing line the vita PS3 combo is nothing like the WiiU.

Garnett,

Regarding your theory on Sony's multi-million dollar purchase of Gaikai as a solution to solving backward compatibility on the next Playstation or other platforms, I have to ask: Are you nuts?!? Am I the only one who thinks that Sony would be batshit-crazy to entrust a cloud-based streaming service as the delivery method for its invaluable back-catalogue of PSN classics, much less ANY GAME of post-Atari 2600 visual fidelity?

Dark Souls on Xbox Live is a standout example why cloud gaming will not work in the next generation. As you know, Xbox Live currently allows Gold Members to store their gamesaves for just about any game in the cloud, rather than on the console, and Dark Souls is no exception. However, Dark Souls also has a curious design flaw that should you lose your Internet connection, the game immediately boots you out of your session and forces you to reload your game in offline mode. Problem is, even though your console has been physically caching your gamesave on the system itself in the interest of speed, that gamesave MUST first sync with the online save before your game will recognize it and allow you to continue where you left off, and this is impossible for the console to do when it's offline. So while your gamesave is technically the ONLY part of your game that is actually stored offline, in the case of Dark Souls your entire game experience behaves as though it is purely online if you are using cloud saves, that is, if you don't have an online connection, you essentially don't have a game at all. Now imagine if this was an experience you consistently encountered shortly after "purchasing" a Sony PSOne classic on your PS4 that you are streaming from the cloud. You would be demanding a refund of your money in less than a week. Don't think it will be a problem? Why not check out Sony's Music Unlimited and check out "epic online fail" in action. Songs get mysteriously skipped or are unplayable and the service regularly disconnects and hangs -- ON A WIRED CONNECTION. And this is just music streaming we are talking about, a walk in the park when compared streaming an actual game.

Let us take a hard, honest look at where we are now. Cloud gaming services such as OnLive and Gaikai can and do work, but they require a solid and reliable internet connection, preferably wired, and halfway decent hardware to run on. Try to apply these rules to the wide variety of Sony devices out there in the wild (e.g. TVs, Sony S Tablet (NOT "PLAYSTATION TABLET", Garnett), Android-based mobile phones and Walkmans, Internet Player with Google TV, PS3, PS Vita, Blu-Ray players and the like) and you have a drastically sliding scale with no constants, no common operating system and no chance of working consistently and reliably. Are people truly going to be willing to pay for a game delivery service that not only can't be counted on to perform reliably across all compatible Sony platforms, but also effectively cuts them off if they don't have internet access, or an unreliable connection?

Then you also have to consider the cost of streaming game content itself. A 2-hour movie streamed from Netflix in HD to a PS3 can be 4GB or larger in size. Imagine how much streaming a 3-4 gaming session might be, and then consider that many customers outside the US don't have unlimited bandwidth, have to contend with ISP throttling and/ or bandwidth caps, or are streaming content via mobile internet, which is far more expensive. The point of purchasing a Playstation game, be it an inexpensive PSOne classic or a current triple-A title, is that you can play it again and again whenever you want, for as long as you want, without having to pay another third-party through the nose for the ability to do so. It makes no sense to any intelligent consumer to have to pay an ISP double, triple or even quadruple what a game costs in Internet fees every month just so he or she can play it.

Perhaps years in the future, where everyone as a broadband Internet connection with unlimited bandwidth and no drops, EVER, cloud gaming will truly take off. Maybe even sooner. But it definitely won't be Sony and Gaikai that takes us there. Sony's already got enough problems.

Garnett, I think one of the main reasons you can't get into Assassin's Creed is taste.

Most games are extremely repetitive. In fact, most hobbies and past times are completely repetitive. But if you enjoy doing something you'll enjoy doing it over and over again.

Diablo does not appeal to me. And I've tried. I've played a decent chunk of Diablo 1 and couldn't get interested, when my friends were in the thick of the Diablo 2 craze I got it and spent about 10 hours trying to get into it but I just couldn't. I guess the thing you're doing over and over in that game just doesn't lime up with my tastes. I recognize that it's a top quality game but it's just not my bag.

In Assassin's Creed I could spend countless hours climbing buildings and stabbing guys, that gameplay loop just appeals to my tastes. Even if there's no goal and I'm just screwing around in the city, there's something endlessly satisfying about the animations and feel of the sword play that I enjoy.

I don't obviously know what Sony wants to do or will do with the gaikai purchase but I can think of a few other less obvious ideas that could be good.

For example, you could demo a game on stream as the service currently runs, see http://www.greenmangaming.com/ and try the gaikai powered demos they have (and today they also have hacker evolution for free! so here's a tip) you could decide to buy the game and game would start to download while you played on the stream, of course it's a bit unrealistic now, but later who knows.

A different idea would be a evolution of the failed remote play feature, where your playstation would act as a server for when you are out and could still enjoy the game on your mobile phone or tablet or pc.

A more realistic and grounded idea in the near future, is that they will reinforce the cloud in such a way that your save between the playstation 3 and vita is very quickly synced so there's no need for "transfarring" or connecting the two device. Within 60 seconds or a bit more of a Wifi connection would suffice to sync the save.

This just to name a few of the options that they could be pursuing with that purchase.

The Expendable 2 Video Game.

Now THAT is a great idea for a movie tie in video game. Instead of spending a few million on a full retail game that looks and plays like shit and will be $19 per-owned within 6 months ... spend a much smaller amount on a cheaper downloadable game that looks like a really fun, late 80s arcade game (which is suit the theme since the actors are all from that era). This is a greater idea, people are gonna be more inclined to drop a few bucks on a lower commitment download game instead of opting for a full scale game that's undoubtedly gonna be severely flawed and not as good as the other retail games on their shelf.

I know it's not the first game to do this but there should be more of this.

I'd buy a lot of movie tie in games if they were cheaper, simpler experiences.

I think it's a more efficient way for the developer AND the customer of capitalizing on the hype for a movie.

I think what modern MMOs need to capture most right now is a sense of stakes and atmosphere that has been lost. Back in Everquest the exploration and the fact that adjacent zones weren't always appropriate levels caused a sense of dread and terror whenever you went exploring, part of that is that death had a penalty. Which is a shame to see gone for the quick fix of the current generation of games.

Glad you brought up Planescape in response to my comment! What an amazing game! Those old games were based on DnD module design which tries very hard to avoid repetition. You don't wade through hordes of enemies filling every corridor, most corridors are actually empty aside from the occasional trap. Instead, action consists of discrete "encounters". You and your party poke around searching for interesting stuff and checking for traps until you stumble onto the next encounter, which is always new and different from what came earlier in the module. Of course there is a lot more to it than that, these games also required players to actually understand the storyline and pay attention to the dialog in order to make progress (what a novel concept!).

I feel video games often have a dependency on addictive repetitive mechanics that limits them as an art form. For most games the main draw is that "12 gauge needle" in the arm addiction you get from the pure pleasure of pounding enemies and watching loot pop out or shooting people in the face and watching their head explode. Or just making those satisfying jumps over and over...and over. Well sure I loved all those kinds of mechanics as a kid, and I still love shooters to a large extent purely based on the pleasure of shooting stuff. But we have to admit that on some level that is really a very thin thread to build a 20, 60, 100 hour experience on, and as you get older and play more games those mechanics start to wear out as you see them in game after game.

On the show you guys have complained numerous times about how Nathan Drake's murderous rampage in every Uncharted game simply doesn't fit in the story they are telling. Even if the shooting was improved, it still breaks the narrative. Try to find a film, book, or TV series where the main character spends more than 50% of their time methodically mowing people down. No, even the most action-packed movies have a surprisingly low % of time devoted to heads exploding. Too much of this kind of action quickly begins to feel like "filler". Worse, it takes your mind off the story and at some point the dramatic tension bleeds away.

Fewer, more interesting, more challenging, more meaningful encounters would allow developers to tell the kinds of stories they are trying to tell but failing. So many games lately have been full of promise but really disappointing because of the massive amount of repetitive "filler" action. No wonder statistics show a surprisingly small proportion of players actually finish games. I couldn't believe how many identical groups of identical enemies I had to fight just to get through the stadium area in Max Payne 3. Was it 20? 30? It felt like 100. I bought Kingdom's of Amalur expecting to be dropped right into a Salvatore novel, but after getting only the most bare-bones hint of a story instead I was dropped into a world filled with the exact same steaming pile of repetitive open-world throwaway fetch quests that really need to be retired from video games permanently. Why do they think games need so much time-filler? It isn't like an MMO where they need you to keep paying. Edit out all the repetition and many of these games would be great.

How dare she say the wii hasn't had triple A games. I mean come on Mario galaxy 2 came out what... Gosh that long, well never mind, and no Zelda was not a great game. Not when you put it next to Skyrim more ambitious and overall a better sword and sorcery game.

WiiU for hardcore nintendo fans only, and kids, and anyone who buys new tech... And anyone who buys inexpensive new tech like high end theater system guy. What's it to him to drop $300 to play the console for like 2 months.

I still don't get this idea that somehow the WiiU doesn't sell bucket loads just based on. Kids need games, everyone who wants to play a new Mario, and new Zelda, and new Metroid, and new smash, and new kart, and new sports. All those people don't overlap some do not most. Oh and has a year headstart.

Honestly who's in the most trouble next console Microsoft. They won't have a year lead and they won't be $300 cheaper than the PS4.

LOVE the DayZ talk.

Jeff, I strongly recommend going through the Arma 2 Combined Operations tutorial. Many interface things that are confusing are not DayZ specific - that's just the weird way the UI works in the regular Arma 2 game. And quick tip: full on sprinting can be an effective tactic against zombies. Remember if you can break line of sight, they go away. Look for buildings with two exists and you can ditch them.

You mention you wish whispering was a mechanic. It's in there! DayZ has localized voice chat in the game and it does attract zombies. Just hit caps lock. There is no global chat, so this is how you voice chat with other players nearby.

Lots of people saying wait until this game is more polished... I say bollucks on that! This may be a once in a lifetime gaming experience. For all we know the game will be entirely different in a year due to patches or just the player base changing.

Garnett: You want that unscripted experience, where deciding how to deal with people and factions is totally up to you? You can stumble into people and have that moment where you are confronted by a survivor group who has you at gunpoint:

http://games.on.net/stockholm-syndrome-how-six-men-kidnapped-me-in-dayz/

Check out these clips from a DayZ streamer getting into shenanigans:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vzj7JyJD43w
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9IaNWNx0No
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ru5RglF-I3E
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=APdlpgsBqJ8

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/10/thank-you-for-the-dayz-part-zero/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/14/surviving-in-day-z-part-two/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/05/24/surviving-some-more-thoughts-on-day-z/

Great episode guys!

So, EVO started to day. Man, I get fucking hyped watching this, especially SFIV AE. Never been much of a MvC fan.

I don't guess anyone else here is a fan of fighting games but...god this tournament is awesome.

With the description of "Variety" I think Garnett just nailed what makes a lot of the best action games ever. Two specific examples are Resident Evil 4 and Half-Life 2. Those two games are so great because each new area brings a new and unique set piece that you haven't seen before and you won't see again. That's what makes them so replayable too. I think that's also why the Super Mario Galaxy games are so good.

I think Andrea made an excellent point about the WiiU Controller when she said, "does it tow the line of being gimmicky or does it really enhance the gameplay?"

And it's an issue that always arises with new hardware. Kinect sold really well initially, but then sales completely dropped because the support of great gameplay experiences wasn't there. Child of Eden, Gunstringer, Mass Effect 3 and a Skyrim voice-rec patch can't hold the fort on their own.

I'm curious to see how the Wii-U brings something new to the table, but right now none of the software they've shown has sold me on it.

If I were a woman, I would have just thrown out every single pair of panties I own... because they all simultaneously become SOAKING WET.

http://www.giantbomb.com/news/michael-fassbender-decides-he-would-like-to-be-in-an-assassins-creed-movie/4255/

In regards to the power gap between the Wii U and whatever Sony and Microsoft have cooking, Iwata might be right to a certain extent. The latest rumored specs on all three systems are making it look like the gap won't be as big, and ports between the three platforms will likely be a lot easier next gen.

First of all when it comes to display tech, most Xbox and PlayStation games right now are in 720p, if that. We might get more 1080p games next gen but most developers will probably forsake resolution for additional eye candy. Running a game in native 1080p means putting out twice as many pixels as 720p. This will probably be the case for all three next gen consoles. So I think there's a greater chance of there being resolution parity between Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft.

RAM being the bottleneck is a good argument and we still don't really know where that's going. According to leaks/reports/rumors, the Wii U is looking more and more likely to have 1.5GB of RAM - 3x that of the Xbox 360. Sony and Microsoft's next gen systems will probably have between 2 and 4GB of RAM (I could be totally wrong). Take that for what you will.

More importantly though, the Wii U is shaping up to be a system that performs on the level of Xbox 360 (or slightly above), but has more modern features and architecture, like functionality at least matching DirectX 10.1. A lot of 360 and PS3 games could not be ported to the Wii no matter how much the developer sacrificed because the Wii hardware just didn't have the right features - no programmable shaders for one thing. It doesn't look like that problem will exist with the Wii U, so ports down from PS4 or whatever should conceivably be easier on a technical level, they just won't look as pretty. In my mind, it might be like the difference between the PC version and Xbox version of Battlefield 3. It's also a question of whether it makes any business sense.

I'll have to agree with the sentiment that up-ports from 360 will look like 360 games for the most part. The guys developing Aliens: Colonial Marines have already admitted that the Wii U version will have higher quality textures because of the additional RAM available, but I haven't heard anything more than that.

Moving into the future, I think the best scenario for Nintendo would be for the Wii U to compare to the next gen systems the way the PS2 compared to the Xbox and Gamecube. The PS2 was weaker, but established a userbase early on and became the baseline spec for multiplatform games. If things go REALLY well for Nintendo and they can actually establish a leading userbase in 2013, some developers may just choose to start multiplatfrom games on Wii U and then port up to the PS4/Xbox8.

Jeffs, check this out.

"Stockholm Syndrome: How Six Men Kidnapped Me in DayZ"
http://games.on.net/stockholm-syndrome-how-six-men-kidnapped-me-in-dayz/

Also, Jeff C, it's time to joust:
i5-2500k @ 4.6ghz, HD7970 @ 1.2ghz core

Come on. Whip it out.

So over the weekend I'm pretty sure Korea just became the place where the best professional gamers reside. Did not see that coming hey Korea got game:)

I wanted to bring up that Andrea made a very good point that was dismissed rather quickly on the show. The iPad has very cheap $.99 games but it's a very expensive $500+ purchase.

I was reminded of this by vinny mike who was saying why would anyone spend $300 on a wiiU when the next Xbox and PS4 will come out soon. And I'm thinking to myself what do you guys think the PS4 and Xbox are going to be inexpensive? Really the better the tech they put in those box the higher the price rises.

To my point why would someone buy new hardware with old tech, because new hardware with new tech is going to be twice the price, and that's not easy for a lot of people too swallow. After all how many people have dumped there PS3, and 360 for a $1,000+ gaming PC.

Did we ever get a spoiler-filled wrap-up on Mass Effect 3? I remember everyone saying that it definitely should happen at some point (with Andrea there, of course) but I can't seem to remember if they ever looped back to it.

Now would be as good a time as ever with the extended cut finally out.

Personally, I liked the original ending I got and left the game satisfied with what it left open as the future of the galaxy.

With the new ending, I thought that a lot of that openness was unnecessarily filled in via some clunky explanation. This article sums up a lot of my thoughts pretty well: http://kotaku.com/5922029/the-most-important-character-in-mass-effect-3-never-even-showed-up-until-after-the-credits

BUT, I'd be very interested with what the crew thought of the game in retrospect, as well as the new content (especially Andrea -- the resident super-fan).

I have to contest the separation between the narratives of Diablo 3 and Skyrim because I don't think there is anything different about them, just Skyrim uses illusions to make its story seem more important than it really is.

Skyrim is to me one of the most frustrating current gen games because when it is working right it is firing really well but it breaks flow so easily and so often that I find the only way to enjoy the game is disengage with the story and just go roaming the landscape being Fantasy Indiana Jones.

The NPCs in that game are the weakest part of it and when they are barraging you with the same repeated 10 lines that are now playing in your head, they may have the distinction to be part of a question that offers the semblance of choice without really doing it at all. Most of the quests are completely linear regardless of your choices they just give you choices that don't effect anything so you think you had input. Some examples of what I mean:

Really early in the Mage quest a character mentions that the government liaison at the college is untrustworthy and you shouldn't tell him what you discovered at the ruins, he confronts you seconds later and either option you pick he already knows the piece of data, that prior conversation and your choice was meaningless.

The Dark Brotherhood opening is predicated on you killing a person based on choosing which one deserved to die the most, and it was really about following orders and killing someone period something that could have been gotten across with having a single person.

The Markarth major quest with the family in charge of the banks, now at the time that I got to that city I was a pretty high level, so I had already robbed the bank blind one of the books I looted that was a quest item that I couldn't delete if you read it mentions clearly that they are plotting against the thane. Does my possession of that book change the fact that I will have to do a massive run around prison quest either way? No.

These are just 3 of countless examples I have run into in the game where the fact that you are given choice for no reason other than the illusion of the narrative actually mattering.

It is a game that punishes you for paying to much attention to what it is doing. Coupled with the fact that the actual story is a level of ridiculous and old hat for fantasy stories that it comes off as very slight and just a means to kill stuff in the world doesn't help, also that main quest being incredibly linear doesn't help much. Also the fact that at a certain point the combat is much too decided on stats before it even begins and based on how many potions you are carrying rather that skill with your controller (something a Dark Souls absolutely murders Skyrim with).

They get the look of the world, and the fun of excavation down but everything else just grates on me so much.

The best game for the Wii is Opoona. I will hear no arguments to the contrary!

some other THIRD PARTY reccomendations: (including a handful of downloadable titles)

Lost in Shadow
Fragile Dreams
A Boy and his Blob
Tatsunoko vs Capcom
Muramasa
Lost in Shadow
Sin and Punishment 2
Bit.Trip
Rabbids Go Home
Bittos+
Kyotokei
MotoHeroz
Cave Story
Baroque
Xenoblade
Monster Hunter Tri
No More Heroes
Ultimate Shooting Collection
Gradius Rebirth
Toribash
And Yet it Moves (which is enhanced from the PC version)
Klonoa
Blaster Master Overdrive
and Rayman Origins

Great music during the breaks this week. I was sorry when the first song ened

It drives me crazy when people refer to current gen games as being "1080p". Aside from a few downloadable titles, they are NOT. At best, they are upscaled to 1080p from 720p. At worst, much lower than that (COD games run at a slightly higher res than the 480p Wii everyone complains about)

We'll have to wait and see what the Wii U can actually do. If it is actually capable of playing games in NATIVE 1080p, then it is already a LOT better than current gen. If it is 'just caught up' with the current generation... RIP Nintendo

That being said, I don't expect much from the next generation of consoles, so Wii U may not actually have a tough battle. The current generation's graphics were already outdated when they came out, and I expect the next to follow that trend. I expect DX11 capability of course, and the ability to (finally) play games in 1080p natively, at a locked 60 fps frame rate with "reasonable" graphics settings. Probably something along the lines of "Medium" on last year's midrange PC DX11 cards (likely something akin to a GeForce 560 or a Radeon 6870)

I just caught up with the show and I missed writing this on last week's show notes. Anyway when you guys were talking about how episodic content I was screaming "Asura's Wrath," to my MP3 player. It is unfortunate none of you guys played as it is PERFECT example on how episodic content should work. Asura's Wrath shows what happened in the previous section and even shows part of the next section in a style reminiscent of TV shows.
I also think AW would have sold better as an episodic game as its style makes it so that you want to see what other bat shit insane things happen next.

Garnett, it sounds like you just don't like Assassin's Creed very much. If you don't like either the missions or the way the game controls then you should stop now. It is basically the same all the way through.

I think Diablo 3 having a shorter lifespan than D2 was somewhat predictable. Mostly because the skill system removes any incentive to make a new character of the same class, whereas in D2 you kept making new ones just to try different builds. You also hit the level cap much earlier in D3. In D2 you felt like you were making some progress even as you were farming for items, because you're still slowly leveling.

Also, regarding loot, the problem is twofold. The auction house is a large part of it, because the reason people got addicted to farming items in D2 was because it's psychologically similar to gambling. Every time you're about to kill a boss you have that moment of anticipation, and regardless if you get a good drop or not you want to kill the boss one more time because it'll just take 1 minute and maybe next time you'll get something great. Farming for gold is just a grind, it's monotenous and there's never a moment of anticipation.

The actual loot itself it also just not as interesting. Specifically I don't like how there's mostly a linear progression in terms of stats and how higher level items always obsolete lower level ones. A decent lvl 63 bow is just like a lvl 62 one but with higher numbers. In D2 item progression was much less about finding an item that had the same stats but higher and instead about finding an item that did more things at once. In D3, everything just gives you stats and resists, it's so homogenized.

D2 had more item stats that were so powerful they had a profound impact on your character and a lot of them were restricted to unique items, which made uniques feel much more special. For example, in D2 you can get a 100% chance to freeze or knock back enemies on hit, just from items. That's extremely powerful crowd control. In D3 similar effects are limited to like 2-3% and all crowd control comes from skills.

When you guys were talking about Day Z and PC games that don't hold your hand, I kept waiting for the conversation to transition over to Spelunky.

Any shackers tried it? I still play the PC version from time to time. Great Game.

Also I don't want to be "that guy" and if I didn't post this I'm sure someone else would. But "Whiskey" is just as correct as "Whisky" - it depends on where it's from. American and Irish versions are called "Whiskey" while Scottish and Canadian versions are called "Whisky" (Fireball is Canadian Whisky). The Japanese use "Whisky" since it's based on the Scottish version

I'm not sure how "official" this is, but there ya go :)