Weekend Confirmed 149 - Nintendo Direct, Strike Suit Zero, The Cave, THQ death-rattles

So, call me a total troll/critical asshole but how come this girl is the most stereotypical brat contrarian xbox-gaming girl I could have seen from a mile away. Not liking Ni No Kuni, 'meh'-ing the PS announcement, and of course contradicting herself at every turn by name dropping tens of hours long games that are 100 times more popular than Ni No Kuni. How predictable can someone's gaming taste be? Gross.

On a kinder note, I hate this podcast because all I want to do is TALK TO YOU GUYS when I hear you talking. I seriously love the education and understanding you guys bring to the stuff you talk about, and it's so rare to get out of another person. Without getting an eye roll or a quick change of subject.

Anyway, great job guys. Nicole is grating my ears though. I guess you need to cover all your demographic bases.

SHE BASICALLY SAYS SHE HAS NO REASON TO DISLIKE NI NO KUNI EXCEPT THAT HER XBL FRIENDS AREN'T PLAYING IT.

Dan Simmons' "Hyperion" is the single greatest Sci-fi book I've ever read. Awesome to hear Jeff's reading it. I'd be surprised if he doesn't jump straight into it's sequels upon finishing. I know this isn't a podcast about books, but I'd love to hear what he thinks of the novel in a future episode. Cheers guys. Love the show!!!

Hoooly crap I disagree with almost everything you said about DMC Garnett. It really was disappointing to sit and just listen to him troll the game without someone else there who played it, enjoyed it and was there to defend it. DMC was so so so good and way more accessible to casual players. Play the game on Son of Sparda and you will see how long air and ground combos are necessary to to the most damage and survive many rooms. Not to mention older enemies show up earlier, Bosses have new animations and the game scales the difficulty up depending on how well you are doing. Also, you *can* break out of most of your combos by using dodge btw. Finally, it's a beautiful game. One of the most creative, visually interesting and overall amazing-looking games I have played in a while.

There! I vented my rage against Garnett trolling DMC. Whew!

"I don't want it to be, forgive the term, 'Girlfriend Mode'..."

Please can we all, never again, use this phrase ever? Hopefully then it will disappear into a place where it can't hurt anyone. Can you imagine saying, "homosexual mode"? It's very hurtful. Using it perpetuates sexism. Sorry for the rant. Love the show, love what you do Jeff C and have muchos respect for you and heck I've said worse in my time, on air. Maybe we can think of a better way to say it and get that trending instead?

P.s. Don't take away my Zelda hearts!!!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2013/01/24/halo-out-and-cod-in-at-major-league-gaming-but-why/

So 343i's failure is now complete.

Hopefully - though not likely - they will take this as motivation to go back to the drawing board and create something more in line with the pure, competitive nature of the previous Halo games, and not let their penis-envy of the CoD population dictate their design choices.

Given the choice between CoD and CoD lite, why would anybody choose CoD lite? Instead of making CoD Lite, how about they try making Halo again, and if they feel the need to evolve it, then evolve it in their own way.

Piss away your hardcore fanbase and the rest will follow quickly. Lose enough people, you become irrelevant.

343i - The company that killed Halo. Let's see if they can somehow bring it back from the dead with Halo 5.

I'm trying to get my head around people who thought the severed zombie torso was shameful.

Let me preface this by saying I find the statue gross and I would never own something so gruesome. But I can't see what the harm is that something like it exists. If you don't like it, don't purchase it. Why do we have to project our tastes and standards onto other people?

I don't like violent movies, I can't stand them. And there's some really messed up movies out there. But I don't complain to the movie studios and demand they stop being made because they are outside the boundaries of what I consider tasteful. There's extreme movies and gruesome movie memorabilia out there also. And that's none of my business case it doesn't interest me.

Why shouldn't people be able to have a disgusting gruesome video game prop if they want one? Because you don't like it? That's hardly a sound reason. People were practically saying "I personally find this disgusting, so therefore nobody should be able to have it, and I want to be apologised to".

That's ridiculous to me.

Every day people purchase, consume or participate in stuff I find personally disgusting but as long as they're not hurting anybody, what's the harm?

I actually really really liked Jeff's comment about the Elders Scrolls online trailer this week. I think that's one of the great underdeveloped conversations in video game culture, and its one of the reason's I find GameTrailers.com as a site to be so wrong headed. Like GT.com often regards game "trailers" based on the arbitrary self interest of "a video that generates hits." Its also one of the many reasons I think the Spike Video Game Awards or w/e are completely disastrous. Because even though the notion of using an awards ceremony as an E3 esque press event is kind of ok, the trailers at that event are typically canned animations that have as little to do with the games as possible. It becomes almost like this really weird film festival where all the films are actually like 30 second commercials for products that may or may not even exist.

Like I think all the examples raised in the conversation are good and bad for different reasons. On one hand you have the PS3 hype trailers, like the one for MotorStorm. There the big lie was really the fidelity, however if you compare the trailers to the final games, the original trailer is actually fairly representative of the game substantively. Its basically the equivalent of the early PS1 days where every game regardless of genre had a mini CGI film before the title screen, just because CGI was so cool and new at that point.

But, that said you then have way back in the day a game like Final Fantasy VII, which had a commercial built entirely on the CGI that's actually used in the game to help tell the story. So in effect it kind of betrayed audiences because the in game graphics were so incredibly primitive compared to the CGI, but the CGI was legitimate in game content. That kind of goes to one of the great virtues of Hideo Kojima as a designer, which is that he does all these incredibly directed cinematics based strictly on the game engine.

I actually remember MGS2 being criticized because the character models didn't have the animation capacity to convey crying well for instance---but that's sort of missing the point, because the great thing about Kojima's team is that they put so much effort into realizing a virtual world where everything is created not just for technical competence, but for sort of believability. It kind of goes to that idea of DMC being a "venue" for gameplay, vs. having a real story to it.

On a base level, I think the reason Devil May Cry 4 seemed like a death knell for the franchise is that in the HD generation Dante had been reduced to such a cartoon character. It wasn't just that he didn't have character, it was literally his aesthetic design. He was almost like Capcom's "red" character to Mega Man's "blue character." Really the whole idea of DMC1-3 was meeting the challenges great 3D action gameplay. When the original came out I remember people commenting about it filling the void of a 3D Castlevania in a way---which was much derided on the N64.

So the other example brought up about game trailers was of course Blizzard's CGI, which is of a similar style to the one shown in Bethesda's trailers. But the really important distinction WoW CGI and ES CGI in this respect is that Blizzard has actually done the legitimate work of building a world to hock. If you look at Warcraft 3 there were like 6 different CGIs introducing and cap stoning each race's campaign. They actually conveyed story translated from what you did in the levels, and they added to the experience, because like Starcraft, WC is an isometric rts with tiny character models.

Blizzard can't do with Warcraft what I was talking about with Hideo Kojima (and I think this is was Uncharted has taken the mantle up on in the modern era) by nature of the kind of game they're making. If the task is to create a virtual game world where character models aren't just gameplay devices, but attempt to convey humanity as well, it becomes very difficult in an isometric title where the characters are like 3 inches tall.

Ok, I know I'm super late to the party on this, but I need to gush over Journey for a minute.

*SPOILER WARNING*

Wow.

It's impossible to say all the things I want to say about this game without sounding douchey and hyperbolic, but it really is the most emotionally touching experience I've ever had playing a game.

And I didn't even play it!

I sat down with my wife, thinking she might enjoy playing it for 10 or 15 minutes. She proceeded to play through the entire thing from start to finish (took her about 2 hours). My wife was in tears by the end, and I wasn't far behind her.

I think the visual and audio presentation goes a long way towards creating such a powerful experience. It gets under you skin real fast, because it looks and sounds so beautiful.

I also think the pacing is masterfully done. I loved how often the designers would say "just go play and explore" rather than directly guide you or throw endless hazards in your path. It shows a confidence in their mechanics as well as the world they've crafted.

But above all else, I think the multiplayer mechanic is what takes Journey above and beyond other games.

For my wife, having people play with her was a huge part of what made it so emotional. Some players would just come and go, but there were two in particular who she really bonded with.

They learned to communicate with each other, gave each other signals so they could move together and avoid hazards. At one point, she failed a jump and fell way down the mountain. Rather than ditching her, the other player jumped down after her so he could help her all the way back up again.

They got back to the top and she failed the jump again. The other player followed her down again and said goodbye to her before leaving. It sounds silly, but in the moment it was very touching.

There was another player who helped her through the last half hour of the game. She got very attached to him because he was really helpful with avoiding the monsters towards the end. My wife gets stressed easily while playing games, so having someone with her was really comforting. They made the climb together through the blizzard, and collapsed side by side. Going through this section with another player was very distressing: watching not just herself, but also her friend die in the cold, and not being able to help him.

As the next sequence began (the final flight to the top) my wife and her friend were seperated. She fell and watched him continue flying onwards towards the top. It was a really upsetting, yet also uplifting moment. Knowing that she couldn't catch up and would never find him again was painful, but she was happy to see him succeed.

It just makes you feel things that other games don't. It has also killed any desire to play anything else for the time being.... how could any other game live up to such an experience?

Regarding Zelda, a pattern that's existed perhaps since Ocarina of Time is actually very similar to the discussion they had on Mario during this episode. The last several Zelda games have each centered around a gameplay crux -- usually related to the hardware.

Ocarina being in three dimensions was a crux in and of itself in 1998 (Navi herself WAS the lock on reticle). Majora switched things up centering around the time mechanic. The DS games revolved around the touch screen controls, Skyward Sword was all about the sword controls, etc. Nintendo is even willing to contort the lore however they need to in order to accommodate that gameplay crux.

This is the same thing they do with Mario. It's a pattern -- Mario is usually the first game to legitimize whatever hardware Nintendo brings out, and Zelda tends to become the ultimate refinement of this. I think all guesses as to what Nintendo might do with Zelda should be based on that observation.

Great shiw guys. It was a lot a fun.

3 points :


On DMC. I'm one of those gamers - and we are many - who refuses to play DMC no matter how great the game is. I don't want to play as an androgyne hero. Capcomhas to deal with it. I come back to the series - as many foks outhere - when the "proper" Dante is back. That Dante new look turned me off completely on the game.


On Nintendo.
THIS is what we wanted. A ROADMAP !!! It's about time Big N.
I still can't believe a new Mario 3D will be playable, I mean that thing is going to be EPIC : Mario 64, Mario Sunchine, Marip Galaxy 1 & 2, Mario 3D Land, that's a "pretty good' record for the 3D Marios until now. I just can't even imagine what those guys can pull off on Wii U when we see waht they did on Wii with the Galaxy games... And if the "X" game is any indication, we can dream BIG !

I will leave the excitement that has already been echoed by all the Nintendo fans outhere to focus on 1 really interessing developement : the Crossovers. Will this be a new trend for Nintendo ? We have project X Zone coming later this on 3DS and we have the Shin Megami X Fire Emblem game coming on Wii U. Iwata hinted as other similar annoucement. This could be REALLY cool.


Far Cry 2
THANKS, at least some love outhere for Far Cry 2. I absolutely love that game and I'm not really interested in Far Cry 3. I wish Far Cry 3 was just Far Cry 2 without the issues. But unfortunaltely they took a different direction. I really echo that letdown from some Open Wrold games that are too guided. I'm playing Kingdom of Amalaur right now and I wish there was more freedom.

Regarding Fire Emblem x SMT

I was as baffled as everyone else when this was announced, but then I realized something. The characters of the main series Megaten games are dull as paste (subjectively speaking), but what those games do have is a HUGE bestiary oh demons and incredibly elaborate charts of their elemental strengths and weaknesses.

Then I remembered, Megaten has, in fact, made strategy games using this roster of demons in the past.

So there are some precedents here, at least. I would dare say that this crossover game is at least potentially more justifiable than some of the others.

Regarding games causing violent behaviour.

I absolutely think it's possible. I think any artistic medium can evoke powerful reactions. We are emotional beings and we are unable to consume media from a totally disconnected position. Like a sponge, we absorb a little bit of everything we come in contact with. To suggest anything else undermines the entire medium.

We can't have our cake and eat it too. We want to believe video games can make is laugh and cry and feel powerful emotions, so why can't anger or violence be one of them? I really believe the interactive power of video games makes it am extremely potent medium. Through video games, my mildly autistic son has made leaps amd bounds in his writing through spelling games and my wife has kept fit through Kinect, I have had a glimpse of the horror of World War 2. Games have made me happy, depressed, educated and they've made me search my soul. They've even helped me forge life long friendships on the digital battlefield. We want to shout from the rooftops the positive ways in which video games have spilled over from the TV to our real lives, and we simultaneously want to deny the opposite of that occurring.

I don't think games cause school shootings. I don't think COD can make someone an efficient killer any more than Guitar Hero can make someone a musician. If video games cause massacres then, by the millions of copies of COD sold alone, our world surely would have torn itself apart with gun violence. They're just a gateway into other realms. They're not powerless to inspire anger or violence, on the contrary I think they're quite potent. And I also think that like books or movies, they're an extremely healthy way of exploring the human soul.

Video games can make us feel a plethora of powerful expressions, and that's a good thing.

I'm still pretty disgusted that Vigil Games wasn't picked up by anybody. Even if you didn't LOVE the Darksiders games, it would take a complete and utter moron to look at those games and think 'nah, there's no talent or equity here, this studio isn't worth anything.'

Just pathetic. This industry sucks.

/rant

Since Jeff didn't mention this again I'll give it some more love: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1865079920/cowboys-and-engines-a-steampunk-western

This looks cool and I want it to be a real thing. Please give it some of your money. I mean even if you aren't the biggest fan of Jeff 2n-1t then you should still fund this. I mean it'll probably keep jeff real busy and he'll miss some Weekend Confirmed shows. See, everyone can win. I'm bad at helping.

One of things that struck me about this episode is how hard it is to advance an existing franchise. Garnet said something like "lets get radical lets talk about hearts" during the Nintendo segment. Having never played a Zelda game I was like that is the most radical change they could make? An outsider it seemed trivial, but Jeff was so passionate about the elegance of the existing system.

Just making a new IP is not always a great an answer because as a publisher it is stupid to abandon a successful franchise just to chase a new game mechanic. Change is hard to get the audience to accept a lot of the times.

What's the problem with no ni kuni and other JRPGs. I'll keep saying it they need to get a vs. mode adding a multiplayer element. I don't say this just for multiplayer.

What it would force into these ATB systems is the bungie effect. They need to nail the 30 seconds of fun repeat methodology. If they could actually nail that down, it would remove the problem with grinding. Lets face it grinding isn't fun, because the battle system isn't fun.

Personally I would love the removal of leveling in a JRPG. Turning the battles into just a better mastery of that skill. Create a load out like system rather then level grinding system. Load outs ala you could only have a preset number of spell books or weapons, or skilled attacks (ala jump, steal). Removing levels and getting to a battle system that could just stand on its own.

First off, let me say that I love game mechanics. I'm the type of person who pores over frame data and damage/hitstun prorating systems to figure out what works. Here's some of my work: http://www.giantbomb.com/profile/starvinggamer/i-got-blisters-on-my-fingersthumbs-a-skarlet-bnb-kombo-video/30-83528/

Let me cut to the chase: Ninja Gaiden is to DmC Devil May Cry is as a waltz is to jazz. Hear me out.

Games like Ninja Gaiden with extensive move/combo lists tend to encourage a certain style of play. Test out everything until you find the best combo(s) and use them over and over again. To this day I still have the phantom memory of the Izuna Drop in my right thumb. Your notes, tempo, and dynamic markings are there on the page, your success is measured by your ability to regurgitate it accurately.

DmC, on the other hand, has no set combos. Instead, the developers have given you a large toolbox of different attacks that all flow in and out of one another. The impetus is on the player to be creative and improve their way through every situation. And while it's true that you can mash your way through the first three difficulties, you'll be lucky if you ever make it beyond an S rank, and playing a game where you're only earning 75% XP isn't really playing the game.

After all, that's what the spirit of DMC has always been about hasn't it? Stylish action? Any old God of War can be Savage, it takes a Devil to be SSSensational.

Okay, so I've poo-pooed Xenoblade in the past, so keep that in mind and take of this what you will, but I really don't think the teaser for the new Xeno game looks very good at all.

For whatever misgivings I had with XB, I thought the art direction was easily it's best asset. It was rich and otherworldy, filled with vibrant colours and an almost painterly quality about it. I would have stopped playing much sooner than I had if it weren't for how much I loved just looking at the scenery.

But contrast that with what we've seen of the new game. Sure, it's HD... but what else is there? Where did all the colours go? Where's the giant flowers and glowing crystals jutting out of cliffs, or clouds of violet mist, or caves tinted with green light... or really anything other than some grass over here, some water over there, and shit tons of desaturated shades of brown?

I'll grant that the game isn't done yet, and maybe they're just not ready to show the pretty stuff, but there's nothing in what they've shown thus far that says to me "this game is going to be gorgeous."

Had a couple of thoughts on Jeff's Nintendo segment.

First of all, I think you guys are overthinking a voice for Link. If each Link is supposed to be a different person, why should there be one definitive voice? Should the Wind Waker Link sound like the Twilight Princess one? Hell, in one game you'd need two different voices for the same Link: the young and adult versions in Ocarina. Perhaps this is one of the reasons Miyamoto is so adamant about not giving Link a voice when Mario has one. He might think it would be confusing for people to always hear a new voice.

And in regards to the Mario Wii U game, if Nintendo were to make it Galaxy 3 it would likely be perceived as a big failure. The first Mario game for all of their consoles have always had something to really set them apart from their predecessor. Mario World had the big world map full of alternate paths and secrets, 64 had 3D of course, Sunshine the water pack, and Galaxy the, well... galaxy.

Especially with people criticizing the New Mario Bros. series for being repetitive, the last thing Nintendo needs is to have the main Mario series lose its creativity.

Not to be Captain Obvious or anything, but I'm going to state the obvious:

The Original Legend of Zelda was non-linear!

Ocarina of Time Speedrun:

http://www.twitch.tv/speeddemosarchivesda/b/356165937?t=05h03m20s

Rest of the marathon:
Part 1: http://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/165o4k/agdq_vods_with_timings_english_updated_frequently/
Part 2: http://www.reddit.com/r/speedrun/comments/16gcrh/agdq_vods_english_and_french_part_2_thursday/
-----------
I am constantly surprised how many people (like the Idle Thumbs) give Far Cry 2 a pass for its insane game design decisions. I managed to play for like 6 hours, but when you add up malaria, guns which work perfectly for the enemies forever but jam on you after three shots, and infinitely-respawning enemies who jump in their jeep and chase you across the entire map, I had to put it down to preserve the safety of those around me. Dark Souls is obtuse and perhaps poorly-translated, but it did this type of experience a thousand times better and didn't make me feel like throwing my controller across the room.

Show notes links and track list!

Flotilla Xbox 360 Indie Games version: http://marketplace.xbox.com/en-US/Product/Flotilla/66acd000-77fe-1000-9115-d8025855048b It's only 400 points!

Blendo Games: http://blendogames.com/

Seriously, everyone here has probably played because I was way late getting on the train but Atom Zombie Smasher made me smile so much.

Track list:
Last Week:
Banda Sonora "Guitarra G (G Club original mix)" http://www.traxsource.com/title/30564/guitarra-g-incl-funkagenda-warren-clarke-and-afterlife-mixes

This week:
Kabuki "Tempest (Atjazz remix)" no idea where to send you to get this broken beat gem other than YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BblpIo_C08c&feature=share&list=PLD16586757664F1DF

The next Mario shouldn't be Mario Galaxy because there is no way Nintendo can do better with that concept than they did with Galaxy 2. That came is mind blowing.

Hey guys,

In Brandon's segment there was much talk about games where the world really exists and is simulated even when the player isn't there. There is indeed something magical about games where the world carries on even when you aren't looking at it.

For a simple example of games that do a bit of this check out the games from soldak.

For example, Droxx Operative is essentially a simple 4X game that the computer players are playing with each other, but then you as a player control a single ship and inject yourself into that game.

Also an old game called Space Rangers 2.

Decent writeup on Droxx from RockPaperShotgun: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/12/21/wot-i-think-drox-operative/#more-136275

Been listening for ages but finally decided to get involved in discussion. When Jeff C said he didn't want missions to have boundaries or fail states it brought back something I was thinking about when you were talking about save-states. Jeff said he wanted the game to justify his failure in the narrative (he ran away too fast, there's a mountain in the way etc...) Why not have this attitude to saving? I can think of two games that do it well. The first one is Heavy Rain, if your character dies, they just die and that's what happens in the story. I think this is definitely one of a few system things Heavy Rain did better than Walking Dead (although Walking Dead's writing is fantastic). The second example is Braid, where just the fact that I'm rewinding my death without seeing a black screen, feels so much more immersive and so much less 'faily'. Admittedly, these are both very unique games and finding other ways to do this might be challenging but it's something I've been thinking about a lot recently because I find myself being naturally anti save-states.

I'd like to preface this by saying I hated DMC 1-4, but DMC (2013) is some of the most fun I've had with a video game in quite some time.

I know it's just one opinion, but Garnett calling DMC "nothing special" is entirely reductive. To discount the amount of fun that a player has with a game and not even mention the creative level design or the great voice acting work that made those characters is is a terrible way to go about giving your thoughts on a game. I also have no idea how you call this game "ugly".

What I gather from his thoughts is that he didn't feel this game had the "spirit" of Devil May Cry and wrote it off regardless of the numerous things the game does very well, not to mention again, the amount of pure fun that the game is to play. The game goes and tries reignite the franchise as something new instead of trading on your nostalgia of prior games. If that's not for you, fine. But you don't need to go about trashing a good game because it's not the game you thought it should be.