Weekend Confirmed 133 - Resident Evil 6, Tokyo Jungle, Borderlands 2

Jeff, I completely agree with a lot of what you said about RE6, the story is all there for those that enjoy it and I do but the mechanics are so broken and the camera get's in my way more often than not that I can't see what I'm even doing. When I finally say screw it and run around melee-ing everything, I just end up kicking air half the time, it's all just so fidgety.

I found myself dying a lot because the controls are so clunky, it's almost unplayable. I'm playing the Jake campaign too and honestly as big a fan as I am, I might just end up watching the cutscenes on youtube.

I'm going to give the Leon campaign a go but woof...I still can't believe it, I'm playing a Resident Evil game and I'm not having any fun, what's happening? I think this is my Ultima IX.

I don't know how many of you guys are still playing Mass Effect multiplayer, but with the today's free DLC, they added fucking Volus characters. Awesome.

Wait, in Tokyo Jungle, the costumes do show up in-game !

I could see my pomeranian wears baseball cap while munching on a cat.

On the RE6 talk, I think Jeff went into the game with entirely the wrong midnset. I did not, even for a second, expect to find horror in RE6. I've already accepted that RE4 killed the genre on consoles. It's dead. In a previous episode of this show Garnett, after having checked out an RE6 demo, accepted that Capcom had dropped all pretense of survival horror. I think we should all expect this.

After finishing three of the campaigns, I think RE6's core combat is actually great. It's a pretty good evolution of RE4's combat and plays nothing like Gears or Call of Duty. The controls may be similar but the tools at your disposal are different.

RE6's problem is that it's dragged down by some downright clumsy design oversight and some sections of pretty awful level design. The first two chapters of Jake's campaign (what Jeff played) are indeed pretty bad, but in my opinion the quality skyrocketed once Jake chapter 3 started. Chris' and Leon's campaigns are similar - great much of the time, but dragged down by some really shitty gameplay here and there. The sheer size of RE6 probably ended up making it a game of both highs and depressing lows of quality.

Jeff Cannata was right at the beginning of the episode. Resident Evil 6 was already beaten to death on the internet and not really worth talking about anymore by now. At least not for 45 minutes.

But maybe my opinion is biased because I was quite disappointed by the bad reviews and I just didn't want to here about it anymore.

People have a really skewed view of RE4. It's opening hours were amazing. Once you are out of the initial town, things turn to the poop that RE currently is. Munchkin Napoleon. Robed idiots. Horrible A.I. partners.

They need to kill off their current protagonists and start over. Their stars are now indestructible. Until that changes and people fear their characters death more than a game over screen, RE is screwed.

This will be the first one I've passed on. It's just a terrible thing.

Silent Hill gets knocked for its failings, but at least it has stayed true to its genre.

Hi... Considering this weeks Resident Evil 6 discussion, and how to re-boot the franchise, I think you hit all around the mark but never got there.

What the franchise needs is to NOT BE a triple A title.

What?! Exactly, in this day and age, triple A means tons of money, tons of money means tons of people involved and tons of people you have to cater to, and that means you loose focus.

Resident Evil needs a smart producer, with a smaller team, that doesn't have to answer to so many bosses and who loves the franchise. That is the only way they could make the game we miss and not be influencde by so many comittes wanting a little of column A, a little of column B...

I hope someone can see this and save the franchise, before the next iteration includes Milla Jovovich as a playable character and call it a re-boot with a New NeoUmbrella organization....

Thanks for the podcast!
Keep up the good work!

A sequel to Pushmo is coming out! Who else is completely psyched!?

I really would have loved to be there to provide a counter argument for the "referential humor" segment regarding Borderlands 2. I haven't read any of the criticism that Garnett was brought up so I can only speak personally. Also, I haven't played BL2 , so these comments are based solely on what I've heard on WC or other outlets. For me, what's annoying about the type of humor in BL2 is not that I don't get it or that I don't like the media that it references, but instead, I'm simply tired of seeing this type of humor everywhere I look.

It's like the source material is a replacement for any sort of creative or meaningful idea. If you engage in "geek" culture online, you will encounter a nonstop torrent of image macros, memes, u mad bros, epic wins, epic fails, normal fails, bacon, "remember old Nickelodeon shows?" and on and on and on, creating this flimsy proxy for actual conversation, but in the end saying nothing at all. If you just reference the correct 80s sitcom, or post the appropriate rageface, you'll be accepted and loved. I understand the appeal of these things and I do derive a certain amount of pleasure from them, but only because I can avoid them and limit my exposure to them.

Except, sometimes, I feel like I can't avoid it. I can't seem to surf the internet for 5 minutes without running into some mashup picture of Dr. Who driving a DeLorean that has a million comments screaming in joy because, like, those are things, that, you know, I love, and here they are, together!

So when I see promotional material for BL2 or hear an interview with Anthony Burch talking about how he loves writing characters saying "fo' dizzle" (or whatever he said a couple weeks ago on WC) I can't help but worry that this same same type of humor that gives supreme reverence towards classic media, where simply referencing something is a punchline is becoming that much more inescapable. To be perfectly clear though, I will likely play BL2 for tens of hours and enjoy it immensely and will have little trouble looking past anything I'm not keen on. However, I feel the need to comment since the WC crew was one-sided on the subject. Nothing wrong with that, but I just want to provided some alternate perspective (though I appreciate the attempt by the crew to empathize). I think it's great that people can enjoy these silly references, but some people (maybe just me?) are getting a little tired of it and are frustrated by it's growing prevalence.

2 things:

1. Garnett is wrong about the Tokyo Jungle cosmetic unlockables. That was a big piss off to listen to especially as he used it as a criticism against the game.

2. Why can I not buy Sacred 2 on steam? I don't even see it anymore. I

capcom sold out. they abandoned what made the franchise great for sales numbers.
anyways, Jeff - Resident evil revelations is one of the best resident evil egames and it allows you to move and shoot. i am very surprised that it did not come up in the show. It has the mansion like atmosphere and puzzle solving and they throw action gameplay in through flashbacks. plus it has one of the best online modes of any game released this year.

you all owe it to yourselves at resident evil fans to play revelations.

Since the subject of "games being made for everyone" was brought up.

I wanted to share a video of someone talking about the supposedly "easy mode" from Dark Souls. It has many interesting points that I agree with.

- - - - - - - - Why not every game needs an easy mode. - - - - - - - -
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-b91BWzLigs&list=UUI6keWArpxmfeiuAATv7jZw&index=14&feature=plcp
- - - - - - - -

Video is quite long, but after 10 mins you'll understand his point... And I couldn't agree more.

I think it's interesting that they started talking about Shadows of the Damned on the question of whether Andrea should try out RE4, and it shows how important RE4 was to current gen gaming.

Damned, Dead Space, and Gears of War probably all owe their existence to RE4. That game basically laid out the initial blueprint for a modern 3rd person shooter (that Gears then refined).

By the same token, people have been comparing RE6 to Vanquish, Mikami's most recent shooter that I've heard people call the best 3rd person shooter on the market right now.

Lastly in that regard though, I think people should anticipate Mikami's next game - Project ZWEI, which he has confirmed will be "pure survival horror". He could very well be making an effort to rebirth the genre he popularized.

I can't believe you're suggesting that Resident Evil should take inspiration from Uncharted, Last of Us or Tomb Raider. That's the most ridiculous thing I've EVER heard.

Resident Evil is a japanese game.

I want Resident Evil to take inspiration from the Japanese videogame or manga culture. The Manga scene is so rich in Japan, Resident Evil can easily takes inspiration from that.


That constant push for Resident Evil to take inspiration from other Western franchises is what has ruined Resident Evil 5 and 6...

If Resident Evil 5 and 6 showed 1 thing : the videogames mechanics of the major western franchises like Uncharted, Gears of Wars, God of War, or Call of Duty are brocken...

For example, the Uncharted series great story and stunning set pieces, made us forget how the shooting and melee mechanics are not good... Same story in RE6.

You know, the banana and orange thing was kind of cute, but I have to agree with the guys from P1P. If you can't talk about a game, then just don't talk about it.

Dancing around and hinting at what games you can't talk about yet is the gaming press equivalent to saying "hey guess what! Nevermind." It's only one small step above cock-teasing.

Please could we move on from Borderlands 2 please ?

They are plenty of games there that you never mention, it's unfait to spend so much time on just 1 game.

I think you've covered Borderlands 2 enough by now.

Can next week's podcast open with Jeff talking about banana (XCOM)? I am jonesing for a story in its universe too-inns-won-tea style.

So, uh, Dishonored is really fucking good. I've been playing it since pretty much midnight.

The stealth and combat mechanics, as well as your "magic" powers all work near flawlessly for me. I'm having a ton of fun just sitting on a rooftop and thinking up ways to take down everyone on the ground non-lethally....or how to skip them entirely. The "take control of animals" power is my favorite. Can't wait until I upgrade it to allow me to control people too.

Also, a little thing I've noticed in this game that should be in everything - when picking up "junk" items, instead of lugging them around to vendors, you just automatically get the monetary value for them added to your pouch.

The story is just your usual framed/revenge cliche affair, but considering I don't really play games for story anyways, Dishonored still has me super engaged.

I'd like to point out, that while it's not really a survival horror game, Minecraft has some of the best jump-scares of any game this generation.

I was listening to Episode 133, and on the discussion of Borderlands 2's Shift code system, you guys (& girl) were all in agreement that more loot-driven & item-centrif games should do this more. In my car, whilst on the podcast, I was reminded of Animal Crossing on the GameCube. To this day what makes that version much better was the inclusion of playable NES games as furniture items. But I recall that Nintendo once had a banner on their website which (after a few clicks) displayed a code that unlocked your very own copy of NES "Soccer"! This wasn't Punch-Out, sure, but at the time, I felt the same excitement Nikole, Garnett & Jeff described of wanting to rush home and try it to be rewarded with an in-game item from a real-world source. Nintendo did it occasionally (Yoshi suit in 3DS Mario Tennis), but to this day, I still don't know why Nintendo (or any other developer) hasn't done this enough. The digital age has eschewed a lot of past distribution problems & improved patching and upgrading to be sure, but that doesn't mean we can't be creative in integrating some bit of "4th wall breaking" in our beloved medium.

TGS seemed flat again and now RE6 hasn't lived up to expectations. Do you guys think Japanese game developers are making games they want to play anymore? How can they get back the passion of earlier decades?

Your conversation of "hand-holding" and understanding the mechanics of the game instantly made me think of Egoraptor's Sequelitis episode about Mega Man X (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FpigqfcvlM). He touches on almost every point you guys do.

(Yes I accidentally posted this comment on the previous episode. I'm new here.)

Guys, please have Nikole on more frequently, she's hilarious.

Also, Banana, Orange, what.

I'm listening to the latest episode right now and had to get on here to tell you guys Nikole is the BEST! Can she come back on the show more often?!

I really felt the nerdy nerd love of pokemon come through her pokemon discussion and it was just awesome to hear somebody have such an un-ashamed love for something. Makes me want to play pokemon again. Especially Pokemon Snap. Can we please get a Pokemon Snap 2 on Wii U? Please Nintendo???


Also I just wanted to chime in real quick on the RE discussion. I feel like I have a unique perspective in that I've played through the mainline series through all for the first time in the past year. And I can say that my favorite RE games are all of the older ones that have the horrible tank controls. Yes, I'm a modern gamer that feels the best RE games have the worst controls. But Garnett, you perfectly nailed why they were so tense sometimes, and that's because of the inner struggle you have with yourself when managing the items you are going to carry with you. That's such a huge thing that makes the old RE games (And RE4 and a little bit but not as much in RE5) tense and adds to the horror. Also, and I feel this is a big also, is the typewriter/saving system. One of my favorite things when playing a RE game is when you are struggling to survive, and then you finally find a save room. That melodic piano starts playing that is oh so soothing and calming, and you finally feel like "phew, ok... I'm safe for now. Now I'm gonna rearrange my items... and save and just take a small breather and get MENTALLY ready for the struggle to come. This balance of action and tension then breather and feeling of total safety is AMAZING in the old RE games that gets lost starting in RE5.

And here's the thing. I don't mind the RE series going totally action crazy here on out. I wish it didn't but I've come to accept that fact that action sells more and Capcom is going to try and make one of it's best selling series of all time even more best selling by making it more acceptable to a bigger audience, but as long as it's still good. From what I've seen and played, RE6 is just not a good RE game, but just not a good game period.

Anyways, thanks for giving me an outlet to rant, keep up the great work on the show, and bring on more Nikole!

Unfortunately, RE4 is the point where the series went into decline. RE0 was okay as it was a little more traditional but RE4 felt like a total stylistic shift to not only a different genre, but a different game.
Adding the things in RE 5 and RE6 that they have takes it further and further away from what made the series unique.

Jeff is right. Resident Evil is just another corridor shooter now.

Good to see some Anachronox love being passed around, however it was made using the Quake 2 engine, not the Unreal Engine. Yeah, a American made JRPG using the Quake 2 engine. Crazy.

"Nintendo, lightbulbs going off? I don't think so" /sigh.

Have to post this because during the "how to save survival horror" talk I was yelling at my headphones because the Triple A big console release modern franchise that does all those things.

Demon & Dark Souls.

Atmospheric, check.
Forces the player to have to make that trek around the corner, check.
Haunting music, check.
Terrifying enemies that constantly make the player struggle for victory, check.
Exploratory levels filled with secrets puzzles and traps, check.
New Franchise and groundbreaking, check
Innovative co-op that adds to the atmosphere, check.
A story that is kinda over-the-top but grounded in the survival and terror of the moment to moment, check.


Survival Horror exists it just got a new costume and got its ball back. When the mechanics work and the game is more terrifying than ANY game I have ever played Survival Horror is alive and well.

(Seriously try to play the Tomb of Horrors or the Painted World of Aramis and not get scared.)

The Pokemon discussion was delightful, but one point bears mention.

Yes, on the surface, the games are pretty much all identical, but the metagame can change drastically from one iteration to the next. The monsters are constantly being re-balanced, and the underpinnings that affect their stat growth is tweaked, and mechanics that might not appear to have an obvious impact are changed around.

One example of such a thing is that in Black/White Version 1, you could use TMs as many times as you wanted, which means you don't have to worry about wasting a rare move on a monster that ends up not having any place in your team, so you're free to experiment, and particularly useful moves can easily be shared by multiple monsters.

B/W also added 3 on 3 and rotation battles, thicker grass which enables 2 on 2 random encounters, seasons,feathers that incrementally affect base stats, not to mention completely overhauling the way experience points are distributed when more than one monster contributes to a fight.

These might seem like minutia, but it's worth remembering that there is a competitive aspect to Pokemon, and just like fighting game or sports game players, hardcore pokemon fans care very much about the quality of these underpinnings from one game to the next.

If you don't believe me, just google "Pokemon EV Training" and see a glimpse of how far down the rabbit hole goes. (even I don't EV train, and I'm hopeless at a tournament level because of it)

Also, to Jeff, it surprises me that you're not more into Pokemon, seeing as building a strong, balanced team has so many deck building elements to it.

Anyone here playing The Simpsons Tapped Out?

It's my first foray into the free to play sim kinda game. The art is incredible, they've beautifully and faithfully recreated the houses and props from the cartoon and playing on the iPad is really sexy! I'm hooked and so far I haven't spent any real $$$ so I'm happy.

Anyhoo, my Origin ID is shadowtheart if anyone wants to visit my Springfield.

I can't wait to hear you all cover IndieCade next week.

I apologize in advance for this rambling (error littered) message, I am in the middle of some homework and was listening to Weekend Confirmed and had to get this off my chest.

I think Jeff’s statement around the 33rd to 34th minute about the wrongheadedness of art. His claim that the leaders make money in the long term while followers only make money in the short term seems a little too general. I am really honing in on that line because I feel like that claim is wrong more often than not when it comes to videogames.

I think the videogames industry is littered with examples of instances where followers make money. Considering all the sequels and reboots, it is easy for somebody not involved in the industry (other than playing games) to see why developers get the impression that new, innovating mechanics and games don’t make money (enough to run a huge studio) and turn instead to copycat games. Now before you shoot me in the parking lot over this next part, I love all of these games: look at almost every Zelda game after OoT (with a lot of similar elements), look at every Halo game, look at every Uncharted game, look at all the JRPGs in the PS1/2 era, Madden, COD, etc… – you could make a strong argument that from a bird’s-eye view these are games that are the same and they are hugely successful franchises. If I were a developer I could look at the industry, look at what actually sells (not this lala land stuff where innovative games all make money in the undefined “long term” and see what games sell enough copies to actually run a large studio. I think developers look and see COD and Halo and Madden at the top of the sales charts and think “that is what consumers are buying, lets make a similar game.” As for “long term” success, what the heck do you mean by long term? In the accounting sense, it means greater than a year – and in that sense I’ll say there are plenty of repetitive franchises and games that are successful after one-year. But I will say after 5 years, after console generation, there are markedly fewer that still can maintain that success (though rereleasing games and making old games available for download on consoles and PCs has the potential to change this). You could make the argument that there is no long-term success in videogames, as true success for a game (mainstream or indy) seems to be determined by sales figures in the launch window.

I think for every innovative game that sells well, there are plenty of innovative games that don’t – being aware that what is innovative is in the eye of the beholder. I agree with Jeff that games like Amnesia are doing innovative things and are selling well – but that game wasn’t a $60 retail console game, that game’s developer probably didn’t have the overhead of a huge studio to eat into that margin. They oftentimes sold that game on a Steam sale for something like 5-10$, maybe less. If you really want innovative games, look to a lot of the developers in the PC space. However, I think it is very tough to draw some kind of parallel between the studio that made Amnesia and the one that Made RE6 (Capcom) – one has a lower overhead and can afford to take risks (I think you know which).

I know that this is a bit of a rambling message, but I felt somewhat passionate about this subject (not that I care for RE6). It seems like the whole industry (largely on the console side) is built on repetitive, uncreative games. But reviewers and people in general will get games in genres they love and look for the innovative parts (new health system, new HUD, new battle rifle, whatever) and assign that to the game as whole, when if you take a step back and compare it with what came before – they’re the same freaking game more or less! It is nice to be a reviewer and a consumer and to be able to pick and choose your battles and poo-poo one game for lack of innovation as a whole but adore another that may actually be less innovative because you love the franchise or whatever. I’m not saying loving or hating the repetitive/innovative is wrong – but I just think that if you put yourself in the shoes of a large developer with all the problems and benefits that go with it, you’ll be able to empathize with why they make the decisions they do about the content of their games.

Thank you Nikole for a 10 minute nostalgia-bomb! Pokemon Snap/Stadium are two of my favorite N64 era games. Speaking of pokemon, I'm curious as to how common my thoughts on it are. Try as a might, I cannot get into any modern pokemon games. It has nothing to do with the type of game or the incorrect notion that "they are just for little kids"...it has to do with time. The inane dialogue,the hand holding tutorials that assume you are a complete idiot , and random battles I just can't bring myself to get into it. The only I can play a pokemon game is on an emulator with the fps limit turned off (pokemon red...still awesome!).

I think Game Freak could attract more players by simply having an "Time Saver Mode". Remove the random battles (make the pokemon appear on the overworld like many modern JRPGs are going), skip the tutorials and story (choose a pokemon and bam you are right outside of the first town that has a gym) and ratchet up the difficulty.

Anyone else feel this way?

Regarding the conversation about integrating smartphone gameplay into the experience, Kojima has revealed that he has this in mind for Ground Zeroes. Remember the base building element in Peace Walker? You organized your departments, sent troops out to deal with regional conflicts, and developed weapons. Kojima has revealed that this Mother Base building will still be a part of Ground Zeroes and he plans on integrating this gameplay into a smartphone app.

God of War 3 was the game which had positional Quick Time Event prompts. As someone who had the same issues with PS3 QTE events as described in the episode, this smoothed over the single point of frustration I had with the previous God of War games.

It's hard to believe more developers have not utilized this added relational element. After all, isn't the point of QTEs to show cool moments, which can't be done with the regular mechanics, while keeping the player engaged on a minimum game play level? Not annoying "pop quizzes" of the platform's chosen button labeling.

Haha could not get this out of my head when I heard it.

http://www.iceclimbers.net/misc/vote_cannata.png

haha no I love u guys, just seemed funny in my head :)

I am sick of arrows pointing me where to go. I've only played the demo of RE6 but I already can't stand it. There is a door icon pointing you in the direction you're supposed to be going at all times and if that isn't clear enough, you can hold down a trigger and follow a magical arrow. Looking at a map, figuring out where you were and where you were supposed to go, wasn't just a thing you had to do to get to the gameplay IT WAS PART of the gameplay. You had to use your brain and engage in figuring out the space you were in. You could get lost, you could get stuck, and exploration meant something. I have no reason to take in the details of the environment which surrounds me when I know for a fact I just need to follow the big magic arrow. It might as well just be a long straight corridor like Final Fantasy XIII.

What Would make resident evil better setting. Look at left for dead you have a creepy farmhouse, a great tunnel chase, a epic battle on top of a skyscraper. What are the best resident evil one and two setting wise a lonely mansion, a police station it's been decimated by zombies. thats a creepy air tension the helps completely gone you have nothing to rely on.

Next you need a Jurassic park styles story where the madmen in charge are at Civil War with each other. The civi war that's basically unlocked the prisoners to roam free and there's no ability or no one put them back in their cage.

And then just a combat mechanic that creates tension. Like say having to reload each bullet in the shotgun one time and it taking almost a real world like time.

Banana=X-comm
Orange= dishonered

That's my guess and Jeff still didn't play the game of the week CODE OF THE PRINCESS!!!!