Weekend Confirmed 140 - PlayStation All-Stars, Wii U

Ariel should be a regular! I loooioooooove her. Is she that busy that she can't be a semi regular guest? Or is it something to do with conflict of interest or does she just not like podcasting? Ugh she is such a good foil to the Jeffs

What could Zelda do that would surprise me and make me happy. Become more like original Zelda aka GTA and god of war. Great open world to explore with dungeons strewn about (none of this dungeon 1 dungeon 2, no a optimum order like mega man games, but not forced down that line), and simple turn the lever puzzle with satisfying combat mechanics. Zelda combat has become as dull and as Seth said canned combat as possible. That would be what I want to see from Zelda.

Anyone else checking a little of ipl5 on ign? LoL the map and game isn't the size I envisioned I thought it would be bigger.

Details about Bungie's next game, Destiny

http://www.kotaku.com.au/2012/11/story-details-art-leak-from-bungies-next-game-the-sci-fi-epic-destiny/

Go

How'd everyone do Black Friday?
I got Max Payne 3 and Ghost Recon for $23 from Gamefly, Dishonored for $25, Forza Horizons for $15, and X-Com for $25! :)

Am I the only who does not like it when Developers are Guests?

What's your favorite console of all time?

My answer surprises even myself: GameCube!

Now just wait a second before you troll me! My first console ever was the NES. My brother had Atari and we played it a ton, but the NES was the first one that was mine. I have up console gaming for a bit, but got into it again right at the end of the N64 lifespan. I had a Dreamcast and loved it, but felt a nostalgia for Nintendo that went into full throttle in the lead up to the release of the GC. I preordered the black one and eagerly awaited release day. I set my alarm for 4 in the morning- a time period unseen at this point in my college career unless I was up drinking. I went out to get in my car, only to discover the tires slashed. Someone had done this to almost all the cars in our apartment complex. Undetered, I woke my roomie up and forced him to drive me to get it. I waited in line and was so excited when I got my hands on the box.

When I hooked it up, I instantly fell in love. Star Wars Rogue Squadron was a dream come true. Luigi's Mansion was fun, even if it wasn't the Mario game I craved. Smash Brothers was right around the corner and I got it as soon as I possibly could. I have so many wonderful memories of the time I spent on that console. It was more than the sum of its parts.

Sure, quantity-wise I'd say I had more fun with my 360, but quality-wise I can't ignore the Cube. It's that intangible thing -including the amount of free time I had over its lifespan. I'm sure Nintendo doesn't want Wii-U to be another GameCube, but I think it will, and couldn't be happier about that.

So, uh, I think to think I have a pretty good game-dar. That is, I usually have a hunch about what games are going to be good/fun, and which ones are going to be disappointing. It's a mix of good research (previews, precedent of the developer, development history) and intuition.

Gonna be honest: Didn't see this one coming.

http://www.metacritic.com/game/xbox-360/far-cry-3

Granted, it's only a dozen reviews so far and metacritic averages are waaaaaaaaaaaaay more likely to go down than up over time. But still, awesome scores and a very surprised tone in almost all of the reviews so far (yes, I read them).

So I guess the question is, does anybody think it was a mistake for Ubisoft to release the game in December, when games released that month tend not to do so well. There's always one or two that try to make hay on the tail end of the games rush, and only ever end up getting ignored cause consumers blew their load (excitement and money) on earlier heavy hitters.

Oh, and additional question: Do you have intuition about what games are gonna be great vs disappointing?

Andrew, I find it funny that you lead with "This isn't Smash Bros" when NOTHING that followed convinced me otherwise. Everyone even kept referring to it as both "a Brawler" and "a Smash game." Why is it so bad to admit that Sony copied Nintendo? It makes you sound like a Sony PR guy who insists that Move isn't a Wii rip off because it has a glowing ball at the top.

I hope someone is playing is Persona 4 for next week. Though I guess it is the busy season...

First let me thank you ALL for that fantastic Weekend Confirmed, what a pleasure to listen ! Thanks again.

On All Star, I think people are pretty harsh. I mean this is a first for Sony and I think the reviews are pretty good for a first try. Then taking on Smash in brawl games is pretty much like taking GTA in open world games or Mario kart in kart games. It takes few games to get the forumla right. I'm pretty sure the Santa Monica team will hear all the feedbacks and improve the formula for the second game.

On the Wii U. I think Nintendo deserves lots of credit for the Wii U. Let's not forget that console is quite a huge step for Nintendo : Online and Entertainement as the main focus ? That's somehing unNintendo !!! To see that the most positive feedback on the platform are for the Gamepad integration with the TV and the Miiverse, it's pretty encouraging. Ok, the OS is slow and the firmware update was a epic fail, but those issues will likely be resolved soon. Ok the first games are not great ports from 360/PS3, but WHICH CONSOLE IS JUDGED ON ITS LAUNCH GAMES ? People remember the PS3 and 360 launch games ? If I had to judge the 360 on Perfect Dark Zero and refuse to play the 360 again, I would have missed one of the best console in history of games. So let's be patient with Wii U...


I'm surprised to see that Ariel preferred the Last Story over Xenoblade. That's interesting to have that opinion, quite in opposite of - let's say - the general consensus ( that Xenoblade is the best JRPG in years ).
By the way Ariel,did you have the chance to play Bravely Default ? That game has been praised by all the critics in Japan and even in the West in import reviews.


On the Zelda discussion, I agree that a Zelda game will never be able to satisfy everybody. I would love to see a Zelda game taking a darker route a la Dark Souls. I would also love to see less tutorial. Nintendo should give the option - as it's the case in the Witcher 2 - to skip the tutorial phase. That's really annoying for Zelda veterans to go through long tutorial sections everytime. And on the last 2 Zelda games, Twilight Princess and Skyward Sword, the tutorial were far to long.

Hey Garnett and crew, I should say that I thoroughly enjoyed this week's episode (Ariel needs to be on more often) but the joke about the WiiU's audience just now getting HDMI-compatible TV's felt a little 1%-y making fun of less fortunate folks out here in the mid-west. I'm not sure you guys realize how true the joke actually was. Most families are here either still don't have HDTVs or are just now getting 720p, 60Hz TVs from WalMart. If anything, Nintendo is moving their technology with their audience and provides a safe, easy-to-learn environment; perhaps at the expense of excitement of enthusiasts. I even know people who are buying HDTVs in order to play the WiiU.

I'm not really complaining as I laughed at the joke, but maybe you should keep people outside of your demographic in mind when making predictions and whatnot.

I just have a point to make, maybe for the next episode.

How is it that we've allowed the phrase "lazy developers" into the gaming community's lexicon? Any message board or forum is filled with people casually discounting games due to "sloppy cut and paste programming" and "lazy development".

From what I understand, working more than 40 hours a week is standard in the games industry, and ungodly work hours come around during crunch time. I think it's absolutely unacceptable to allow anyone to call these people lazy. You can say that their finished product wasn't effective, or wasn't right for you, or even showed signs of a lack of a budget, but please let's not call them lazy.

I just want to say Weekend Confirmed and The Totally Rad Show have been my one two punch for Sunday morning/afternoon for years. I have been a fan for TRS for years and I am surprised to see it go. Thanks Jeff for all your work and the rest of the guys work on turning out many great hours of entertainment on TRS.

So just a little time spent with the WiiU. Mid castle of level 2 in Mario, game looks fantastic and yes the challenge level is way up there compared to recent entries so far.

All the clamor about load times and such is very true, but the other side of the coin. Most of the feature are accessible during the game and don't require you to quite. If you where to say surf the e-shop in the middle of a level once your done surfing right back to the level you where playing.

I've been contemplating getting blops just to see what the online experience is like.

I don't remember where Yoon and Renee stood on Vita, but its so interesting to me that he is loving the console on a handheld type of experience, when the Vita got so panned for being exactly that.

I hate to sound like a pc snob but as someone who doesn't own any current gen consoles I found this week's podcast to be pretty terrible. I'm not saying "consoles are teh suck!" but i would be nice to throw a pc gamer a bone on this episode and talk about something non-console-only.

"A new report suggests that Microsoft's next generation Xbox will come in two very different models.

The first is the console we're all expecting, providing true next-generation gaming experiences, while the other will be a more affordable unit aimed at the casual market. The latter is said to use Windows 8 as the basis of its operating system, and won't be able to run the latest triple-A titles, but will support downloadable casual games from Xbox Live.

There's even talk of making it so that a phone could be capable of delivering a full Xbox Live experience. "
http://www.ign.com/articles/2012/11/22/report-two-versions-of-the-next-xbox

For months I've been saying the Vita should have been designed to do this exact thing...........
Sony is going to be in a world of hurt if they come upon 2013, and have to develop high end games themselves for 3 independent platforms (PS3, Vita, and PS Orbis). I wonder if they could reverse engineer Vita games' compatibility with the next Playstation, but I doubt it. SCE is basically dividing and conquering itself.

Remember earlier this year when that dude did a pretty good job of turning the Uncharted games into "movies"?

He's apparently doing the same thing with Assassin's Creed now, and the first one came out not too long ago. It has like a three-hour runtime, which is actually shorter than I'd expected.

Here's the link if anyone wants to check it out.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ub9JUDS_6i8

Ariel, thank you for the real talk @cannata near the end. Sensible through and through.

Ariel getting excited about NSMBU was incredibly adorable. Hold on to that one, Garnett, cause I'll woo her away at the first opportunity. ;)

This is the official(ish) Crashmo Appreciation Thread!

Come one, come all, and discuss your love for Crashmo.

Sourpusses need not apply.

Shame you guys didn't swing back around to Gravity Rush because after getting it with the 2.0 Vita update I am having an absolute blast with it.

Easily the most fun open world game I have played in a while.

Ariel, I hope you will directly read this comment.

I will happy to buy PS All Stars - when the GOTY edition is out with *all* of the DLC included on the disc.

DLC characters for fighting games are a ripoff and I won't support it.

There's a very easy solution to getting my money, now get to it.

Happy thanksgiving drive safe people.

On character buying, I guess for All Stars particularly I feel more willing to spend $10 and getting a limited experience rather than spending $60 on the game at all. I guess $10 could definitely be construed as a lot for just one character, but I guess its just a relative thing. And if you still provide a value incentive for people who want to buy a large roster, or just lower the minimum barrier to entry in general, it could work.
That said, I think that kind of idea is just the beginning of a pandora's box of digital distribution models. For example, I can imagine a future where you get invited to a multiplayer game that you don't own, and essentially you can buy a digital ticket to only play 1 round, or a timed session (for say $1.99). Then later if you want to buy it, maybe the developer deducts the cost of your rented time from the cost of the full game.
Or like making a one time purchase of a character in a game like Borderlands, but every time you log in you pay a dollar per hour or something. Monetizing the social interaction that naturally occurs around games seems inevitable---and ideally would help mitigate the industry's dependence on record breaking on mega hits.
Its like I was saying the other episode, how store fronts themselves are becoming the next gen version of UI. Like Steam is a sort of UI in itself. The psychology around buying games to get achievement points. The prominence of user reviews. Amazon.com itself becoming an extension of using various digital content. Also Google is going to kidnap your children, and use their brains to power its super computer.