Weekend Confirmed 154 - PlayStation 4, Revengeance and Assassin's Creed 4

I don't think I could be more trepedatious for the reveal of the next Xbox. Microsoft has ridden excellent third party support while pushing away some of their best first and second party developers. Kinect is an abortion that has failed on so many levels, yet somehow has still managed to be a success.

While the PS4 reveal disappointed me because it didn't do more than what I expected, it at least managed to satisfy me, if not assure a year one purchase. MS will have to do more for me to ever think of getting on board with them. They just aren't the company they were when 360 launched.

I'm not the type of person to dig deep into the multiplayer of Gears, but I'm really excited for Judgement. The campaign has improved and improved with each iteration in the series, and it's going to be interesting to see what People Can Fly can add to the formula.

I'm with Andrea on the Locust. Especially in Gears 3, the enemies may look generic but the way they fight and the different races you come up against like the Serapede, Theron Guards, the Kantus and the Bloodmounts really mix things up, and it's always a blast to play through levels over and over again because the AI is so dynamic.

1)Anyone else upset that Xav basically said everyone taking the time to add a comment didn't matter and that he didn't even bother to read them anyway. This is especially weird coming from a guy who works for Joystiq, a website that relies on people going to and viewing its content. I thought it was out of line and turned me off of the podcast this week.

2) Last time I bring up KillZone: Shadow Fall- We have had this conversation many times on this thread but to bring up a FPS like KillZone and not mention the impact its multiplayer can have is crazy to me. This is especially true for a PS4, which now has a headphone with the system, a new community based UI and all of the share features that may change the way multiplayer games like Shadow Fall work going forward.

3) Guerrilla Games showing another KillZone game instead of a new IP for the PS4 launch is smart in my opinion. KZ is a known franchise, it has a strong Playstation fan-base behind it and it has a very strong multiplayer that can show off the new features listed above in 2. Rumor is that Guerrilla has another team working on a new IP. I feel it was smart to come out with a known and respected game first and then, when the PS4 has a greater user base, come out with something new. And let's be honest, if Guerrilla would have shown a new IP and not the next KZ at the conference then many games media would have said, It might still be terrible because these are the guys who made KZ and NEGATIVE, NEGATIVE, NEGATIVE talk.

With all the Sim City talk, I am sure Tomb Raider and MLB 13: The Show will be breezed over. I do want to say that while I am enjoying both previously mentioned games, Sim City is like video game crack! Consumers have spoken and I hope that EA and Maxxis hear us. We pay $60 for a game and expect to be able to play it. Not being able to play it offline in a single player capacity is ridiculous! I would have loved to play this on my plane ride to Vegas next week, but will have no such luck. I knew what I was getting into and as a consumer I should vote with my dollars. It's a great game though......when it works.

Garnett, have you and the crew thought about what implications the SimCity fiasco may have for Microsoft if they decide to make the next-Xbox have an always-online connection to play all games on the system?

It may be apples to oranges since the next-Xbox always-online thing is most likely just a DRM feature while SimCity is doing that plus a lot more on the server side.

But it makes me wonder how big of a gamble that is for MS. If it goes wrong and they face the problems and server outages that plauge(d) SimCity and Diablo 3, it could make the RROD fiasco look like a walk in the park.

Plus, if it went badly on Christmas day for instance and you have consumers lining up on Dec 26th to return their Xbox720's in exchange for a PS4, it could potentially be a deciding factor in the next-gen.

Holy Crap!!!! Garnett said " john rubbed off on me" best sound bite ever !!! Cant wait for the song.

* I'm moving my thread from last week here since it didn't have a chance to spread its wings. *



Assassin's Creed 4 could be one of the greatest video games ever.

If you need me to tell you why an open world ship-based game in which you visit ports and islands is one of the most exciting concepts then kindly return to your parents and ask for a real childhood.

Red Dead Redemption is one of my all time favourite games cause it was an open world cowboy simulator. Cactuses, trains, deserts, coyotees, riding into sun-sets, revolvers, dynamite, bank robberies, hats being shot off... That's what video games is all about, letting you step into a fantasy. And ever since Wind Waker I've ached for someone to make an open world sea captain simulator.

Sailing through trecherous storms,naval battles, sinking ships, swinging from ship to ship, climbing to the crows nest with a telescope, tropical islands, burdied treasure ... This game feels like it could be incredible. And there's some amazing possibilities with co-operative and competitive play. Imagine a naval based multiplayer death match.

But this game could also be the biggest disappointment ever. After AC3 was a buggy, sloppy effort with so much supurflous junk weighing it down, I'm worried this game could sink.

I'm a long time listener, but I've never commented until now. I hope to become far more active in the show threads, but for now I just wanted to hit the following points:

@Jeff & Ryan- You will be missed! I can only keep praying that one day there is a WC Reunion show and we get to hear Bleahy's song once more time as well! Seriously, this better not be the last we hear of Jeff.

@Garnett- I appreciate your commitment to this show. Honestly and sincerely, I love how personally you take the fan feedback, and I truly admire your constant effort to improve the WC formula. Also, you always apologize when the show spends too much time on political or social issues in gaming, but the mature and open way in which you have always discussed those issues is one of the biggest reasons I love your show so much.

@Andrea- I love the fact that you are a constant on this show now. Your enthusiasm about games is refreshing and wonderful, and it's nice to have some female representation on the show. Keep being such an unabashedly huge fan of pokemon so that I don't feel bad about being one too!

Just a side comment about the microtransactions in Mass Effect 3, and why I think they may be some of the best examples of how to do it right: Mass Effect 3 could have easily been what we were all afraid it would be, which is just another traditionally single-player AAA release that tacked on multiplayer so they could put it on the box. Instead, they invested in it, creating and supporting a multiplayer system that makes sense and is fun to play. More than that though, and what justifies the microtransactions is that they have continued to add value to it for free. Multiple expansions that add new levels, new challenges, new character and weapon packs, and even new difficulties have been coming out regularly since the launch, all completely free of charge. This goes directly in line with what Garnett was saying about producing content to keep players around. The game can be completely unlocked without ever paying a dime, but they encourage you to pay by adding in new content frequently, and hosting weekend events as well. While I understand the frustration of buying a pack and not getting the character you wanted, by randomizing player unlocks, they have done a wonderful job of keeping the multiplayer scene diversified, instead of letting everyone figure out which classes to min/max and leaving the rest alone.

Dear Garnett and company,

I rarely comment in any internet community but have felt compelled after the past few episodes of the show. Recently Garnett solicited a request for a review on iTunes or a comment as to how we think he can make the show better. I'd like to do both. I've just gone and left a five star review and I'd like to right here humbly make a request.

Please, please, PLEASE....stop being so neurotic. PLEASE. All of you. At various points over the past few months I've heard Jeff say his job has never made him so depressed because of the comments here, Andrea receive an onslaught of undeserved (and occasionally sexist) hate remarks, and Garnett comment and retract, comment and retract. Nearly every show someone says, "I know I'm going to get blasted in the comments for this but...."

Stop it. Please. You guys put on a wonderful show. It's sweet, electric, and sometimes caustic. But that's what makes it great. I understand the desire to build and maintain relationships with the community, but the people that scream the loudest and the most passionately are usually the ones at the extremes of the bell curve. The people like me who just tune in each week, get the news, enjoy your chemistry with each other and just have a good time often DON'T comment. Personally I don't because there is little to no accountability in anonymous online communities like this.

In geek culture, if you're not a creator like you guys then you are a consumer and your only identity commodity is your opinion. And it seems a recent trend in our culture to hate and shun everything that runs contrary to our personal opinion. Perhaps this is a byproduct of us becoming more mainstream in the last decade? We are allowed to speak now but still see abuse when someone expresses a contrary opinion?

But I digress. The point is that in this particular way the community here is making the show worse not better. A show of retractions, clarifications, and 'I know I'm going to get blasted for this but...' makes for dreary listening. My favorite shows are actually the drunkest ones, as you all seem the most comfortable and relaxed with each other. We listen to the show because we like you and value what you have to say. I'll bet even the belligerent elitist dongs who rant and condescend each week here, are some of the first to hit refresh in iTunes and grab the latest copy of the show every Friday.

I'm sure it's a tall order but please, try and let the bullshit slide off a bit more. Just because some of us seem to forget that video games are entertainment and outside our dens a very big world keeps on spinning, doesn't mean you guys should.

Your grateful and avid listener,

@iannitram

Jeff's 2N1Team Kickstarter: http://kck.st/XMuYdm

Don't think it'll have any problem reaching its goal but worth a share anyway ;)

So its a copy cat league right this years SF tournaments its the akuma show. Thanks to infiltration, can't wait to see next years big fighter. Not really running into a large amount of akuma online at least:)

Hey guys, wanna vent about video games industry. Specifically about how UbiSoft turning AC into a yearly franchise, and as you have pointed out Call of Duty is the poster child for this strategy. This shit doesn't make sense from business perspective either. This is equivalent of some Mobile company releasing the same smart phone every single year, with slightly altered user interface. Here's a sustainable advice for these developers and/or publishers. Beef up your bottom line through innovation, don't make generic flip phone shit. Make iPhones. Invent new ways to push game play forward, new advancements in graphics, inventive narrative. Really, this is pretty straight forward. *Note: when you create a great game, don't fucking switch your perspective to short-turn and start milking these products. Let them be art and move on.

Here is the thing. Andrea doesn´t sound like a PR person, she sounds like a hyped up fan, which I can relate to, but would be wary of as a member of the press.

I totally understand why people get sour about it because in an era "post ACM" especially journos should be more sceptical than ever.

Don´t talk about a game you signed an NDA for if all you can say is stuff like "it is gonna be awesome, developers really spreading their wings, going new direction". It only gives all the haters nails to nail you to the cross.

I guess that is my "advice" to Andrea.

Didn't see anyone bring this up yet,but for the record Garnett's description of the skill upgrade system for Crysis 3 is incorrect.

He mentioned that after unlocking the skill you would have to meet certain requirements to use them.That's completely false.The requirements that are met for each skill gives you an extra bonus for that skill.

For instance,the skill Super Stealth skill has the effectiveness of 50% faster cloaking and 50% scanner radius (along with being able to see enemies footsteps).When you meet the condition of remaining cloaked near enemies for 100 seconds,those 50% bonuses go up to 75%.

So again,once you unlock the skills you will have them,it's just that you get more effectiveness when you meet certain condition requirements.

On the subject of rating your podcast on iTunes... well I don't use iTunes. I listen to you guys through my Windows Phone in-built podcast support which I think goes through Xbox Music/Zune. They don't have a rating system. Does my listening count in your numbers? What about other people that don't use iTunes?

Regarding micro transaction in games right now. I think people need to take a look at Gungho with their game "Puzzle and Dragons". It's the highest grossing app in Japan right now and is making more than $2million a day for the company. The game has been out for over a year now and it's still going strong, unlike most free to play games on mobile devices, the trend only usually last a couple of months than it tails off and no one talks about the game anymore because people who are willing to pay, will get to see everything they wanted and the ones who don't want to pay, will get tired of the game.

Because the game isn't available in EU, I have to get the US and JP version to play with, which means there's no easy way for me to buy anything in game even if I wanted to. But, and this is a big but, I'm still on par progress wise compared to the people who DO buy the in game currency. The reason being that the in game currency buys you a chance to roll a rare pet from the gacha machine, you'll still need the skills and patience to level them up.

Unlike most other companies that does micro transactions, who's out there to squeeze every penny out of you by putting up road blocks for every step you take in game. Gungho itself is VERY generous with giving players free in game currency, even if you don't spend anything, you're still able to save enough stones pretty quickly to play with. It's very enticing for players who don't normally pay for in game purchase to actually spend some money because they tempt you so much by giving you some really good stuff for free.

The culture in Asia is more receptive to micro transactions than the western world, but if more companies adopt Gungho's way of dealing with micro transactions, by giving away lots of free stuff first before asking you to pay for it, I think more and more people will change their mindset about micro transactions in the western market. Most importantly tho, the game has to have substance and depth to be able to lure people in and make them stay in the first place.

And if you haven't already tried Puzzle and Dragons, I think you're missing out on a great micro transaction game that doesn't actually need you to pay for it (but you'll feel obliged to)

Just wanted to say that I'll miss Jeff and Ryan. Sad to see them go.

Why can't we have more games with purely cosmetic microtransactions? That's what Sega is doing with Phantasy Star Online 2. Path of Exile's microtransactions are only for cosmetic items, variety items, and starting private leagues. DODTA 2's microtransactions are entirely centered on the cosmetic store. I'm sure there are other games that operate in similar ways.

If Epic made some kind of free-to-play Gears of War horde mode game where all the maps and weapons were available from the start, I would probably be willing to pay for extra character and weapon skins. I'd buy Griffin in GOW3 right now if they offered him as DLC.

Capcom is free to do interesting things because they have one of the biggest Golden Eggs in modern video games and probably got a ridiculous money hat from Nintendo for it on the 3DS / WiiU and that of course is Monster Hunter.

If you have that franchise in your stable you have a CoD or a WoW.


(Please Capcom PS4/Vita Cross buy/play Monster Hunter I will pay nearly anything for that game with all the announced features of that console.)

AC4 trailer! Enjoy before it's pulled!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kaUj2uBQFLg

You guys are entitled to your opinions as far as how you felt about the PS Meeting. I think its the perception that you're looking at things in a vacuum that riles up your listeners.

Everyone this involved in games should know how the cycle works. We've seen it before. Launch games aren't representative of what a console is truly capable of because devs are developing on a moving goal post as far as hardware, service features, and launch deadlines. Not to mention they are transitioning from old engines to new engines. To compare Killzone: Shadow Fall (a launch title) to Crysis 3 (the 3rd iteration of a PC game) is a little silly.

Now extrapolate that out to the conference, and know that every developer showcasing a game is under those restrictions, and that is February. It just seems like people have unrealistic expectations, and from show to show...we never check them with regards to realities of development. I don't think you have to be a coder to recognize that, just reasonable. Call up J. Stevenson to testify. Its this exclusion of context and macro level view of the industry, with the addition of criticism and proclaimed disappointment that reads as cynicism. Just try to connect the dots more.

***SIDE NOTE / TANGENT****
While Capcom hasn't made too many new IP that I care about, I applaud them for trying. Another company we don't really give that credit to (maybe because they double as a manufacturer) is Sony. Gaming needs Japan. Gaming needs Capcom. Gaming needs Sony.

Garnett micro transactions work because of artificial gates. Every game is a serious of artificial gates. From progression gateing to time gateing. You can't play level 9 til you pass levels 1 through 8. In GTA you can't see the entire city until you hit a certain story progression. In ni no kuni you can't level your character until you've spent a certain amount of time to grinding. Certain items in say dead space need to be leveled and they are gated until you put the time in... Unless well you know.

Think about this if you buy a DVD you can acces everything on the disc before watching the entire movie in progression. Video games don't offer that.

I know how this audience feels about micro transactions, but lets face it we are hardly the voice of the people. this is a small 5% or 10% of the gaming populace that participates on boards such as these.

The name of the UT mod was Tac Ops

Hi Andrea Rene!

About the free-to-play/microtransaction talk

I think I managed to find the game that personifies the worst way to handle microtransactions and was a blatant cash grab by Square-Enix: Final Fantasy: All the Bravest.

It's available on iOS for $3.99, which is cheaper than the full games ($15.99 for Final Fantasy IV), but it's loaded with microtransactiony goodness.

I did a full write-up of it (link at the end), but here's the cliffnotes version to save you from wasting $3.99:

The entire game is swipe to make your side attack. No strategy, just wait until the bar is full and attack. One hit from the enemy and you lose a guy. Lose them all and you have to wait three minutes for each one to recharge. Don't want to wait? Here have some magic hourglasses, 3 for 99 cents. Unless you spend a lot of time grinding (i.e. replaying the same exact battles over and over), you're not surviving most boss battles in one go.

The characters you get are the generic classes (fighters, mages, sages, etc.), but you can unlock your favorite characters from other FF games (Cloud, Squall, Lightning, Cyclone etc.) by plunking down 99 cents a character. I'm sorry, I meant plunking down 99 cents for a 1:35 shot at your favorite character. The 35 bonus characters are 99 cents apiece with no ability to choose who you want.

Also the game offers more generic swiping for $4 each in three other areas. At least with those you can choose which ones you want.

All in all, this $3.99 game can theoretically nickel and dime you out of $50 easily.

And it's not like SE didn't mean for this to be a cash grab. There were no previews, no announcements about it ahead of time. One day, it just plopped onto the iTunes Store with the promise of retro graphics, retro characters and the amazing music of Final Fantasy. Those three things it delivered on, sort of. The rest? A sad cash grab.

http://kylebuis.com/blog/2013/02/01/final-fantasy-all-the-bravest-the-cash-grab-to-end-all-cash-grabs/

During the talk about tutorials vs. dropping the player in the game blind. I recall Jeff Green's comment about Portal where he states that the first few hours of the game are a wonderful tutorial because you the player don't know it's a tutorial.

like exposition, teaching players how the game works can slow the pace down. in theory a tutorial should be entertaining and not a mere info dump putting players to sleep or confusing them like a badly written fantasy book.

*this has been captain obvious stating the obvious*

Truly sorry to hear about Jeff (I'm not as familiar with Ryan's work, but I'm sorry about him, too!). I saw the news yesterday and wasn't sure it would affect the Shacknews "arm" of the company or not, but apparently it did.

Thankfully, Jeff has displayed a remarkable amount of talent and drive throughout his appearances on the podcast, as well as in his writing and coverage of indie games. With that kind of record of success, his chances at finding great things at another outlet are high. I can only assume that Ryan's in the same boat.

Good luck to you both and, again, I'm sorry to hear the news.