axemtitanium

Ah ok. Though it would have been hilarious if even long-time listeners are confusing them, whether intentionally or not.

Do you mean Jake? Nick wasn't on the cast this week. Is this the continuing chronicles of Nick-Jake robot-baby? Also, here's a link to the Pikmin 2 article Jake was talking about: http://critical-gaming.com/blog/2009/5/18/critical-gaming-pikmin-course-week-1.html I haven't read beyond the first article yet so I'll form thoughts on it as we go.

Or more recently, Chris "Glory to Me" Remo. Also I would loooove a twitch emote of Chris' face, preferably this one.

Oh man, if you hadn't told them...

Weinhandler is an insane video board game. Pro-tip: read the rulebook carefully, or you might end up playing the game completely wrong the first few times.

What/who is the second one for?

I still have a Xanga... weird. Also, the CKII stream last night was even more incredible than the last. You all should be watching it.

CHANGE THE NAME OF THE THREAD. THIS IS NOT THE TRAGEDY OF RAGNAR. IT IS THE TRIUMPH.

Are you sure? I think his first wife might have been murdered... can't remember honestly.

Oh man, last night's stream was incredible. The extent of my experience with CKII is glancing over at my roommate's screen for about five seconds at a time while he was playing the Game of Thrones mod and thinking "huh, this is complicated" and then going back to whatever I was doing. That said, watching these two guys wife-kill their way to installing Sean Vanaman as the heir to Munster and future king of Ireland was majestic. Hope to see more of you guys in chat when they stream again tonight (I think).

There are 5 "neutral" stages which give minimal unfair advantage to any character: Yoshi's Story, Pokemon Stadium, Dreamland 64, Battlefield, and of course, Final Destination. There is one additional "counterpick" stage which you can select after you lose a match, which is Fountain of Dreams. All of these are pretty basic "boring" stages because they lack certain features which are completely unfairly favored toward certain characters and actually make the game less interesting to play. I'll go over some of them. Stages where you can walk to the blast zone (e.g. Yoshi's Island, Mushroom Kingdom, Onett): Fox can players off the stage and it's impossible to break out of if executed properly. Moving stages (e.g. Big Blue, Icicle Mountain, Poke Floats): certain sections of these stages emphasize movement ability more than fighting ability, giving mobile characters a huge advantage. It's nearly impossible to keep up with both the stage and the opponent as Bowser, DK, Ganon, etc. Temple: It's way too big, allowing a fast character to essentially run away forever to time out the match, after taking a stock advantage. Also it's nearly impossible to die when fighting in the lower pocket. Stages with walls (e.g. Fourside, Peach's Castle): Fox can waveshine players into a wall for free damage anytime (think wobbling but anytime you want and extremely easy to pull off). Of course, even the neutral stages give slight advantages to certain characters. Yoshi's Story is sometimes called Marth Story because the platforms are exactly at tipper height. Two of Pokemon Stadium's transformations have walls for Fox to waveshine into but they only last about half a minute. Even Final Destination isn't perfectly neutral because its flatness and lack of platforms favors projectile users.

This seems like something right up Chris' alley: competitive Binding of Isaac speed runs as an eSport.

Can I have it? I opened iTunes at 8pm last night so I have the version of the mp3 for babies. Anyway, I had the privilege of being at EVO this year in Las Vegas which was tremendous and a ton of fun but sadly made me miss the thing that I liked the most about watching EVO on stream last year, which was the commentary. Weird, right? You can't actually hear any of the commentary if you're at EVO in person because it isn't broadcast anywhere, except on the internet (presumably to prevent the commentators from giving advice to the players, I guess?). But yeah, watching all of the commentary for a particular game is actually a really fantastic way to learn how to watch a game. Props to the EVO organizers for finding fantastic commentators because they seem to have gotten down the skill of evolving their commentary over the course of the 3 days of streaming. On the first day, during pools, commentary will focus on teaching vocabulary to the viewers and pointing out high-level strategy but over time, the commentary gets more and more granular and consequently, by the time finals roll around, viewers are practically familiar enough with the game that they can just commentate how they normally do. I'm really glad the Thumbs talked about EVO because it was really an amazing event this year. Obviously the fighting game community has a long way to go on the social front, but I think there's a strong positive energy that's trying to address issues of misogyny/homophobia/all the other problems in the FGC right now which is really inspiring to see. I believe Prog, one of the main commentators for Smash on the stream, came out as gay this past year and was received positively. Also speaking of Smash, high-level Smash Bros. is bananas. If you haven't yet, go watch all of the Smash commentary on the EVO channels because you'll learn a lot. If you're still interested, go watch some Melee It on Me where you'll see the same guys do really intense breakdowns of some really famous matches. I'd be happy to answer any other questions about competitive Smash here though, to the best of my ability. P.S. That Esperanto metaphor is fantastic and I'm going to use it from now on.

Thanks for the link. Will watch!

I recently finished Spec Ops: The Line. It was very good. The gameplay was a completely bog-standard squad-based shooter with some mildly intelligent AI (except on FUBAR difficulty, when they take stupid pills). The narrative, on the other hand, was something else entirely. While the ending was entirely predictable, I felt that the choices and actions that lead up to it are the meat of what the game is about. I don't buy the criticism of the game that it embodies all the tropes that it tries to critique. No, I don't think the game could have been made in any other way and still have the same impact. I particularly liked when it started going all Eternal Darkness and played with the loading messages (and I wish it did more subversion of systems like that). In retrospect, I'm a little bummed out that I found Spec Ops to be so much better than BioShock Infinite, at least thematically. I found that BioShock didn't end up committing to its themes nearly as much as Spec Ops did, opting instead to explore more of its hilarious sci-fi what-have-you, and suffered for it. Also, Spec Ops: The Line is when Nathan Drake finally gets called out for being the world's most notorious mass murderer. Time to go play Uncharted 3!

I'm glad you got the chance to play with other people. I felt a similar arc of discovery when I first played Journey, confused and probing the boundaries of what it considered "multiplayer", wondering if they were real or just AI. I don't necessarily think it was the transcendent experience that most of the internet calls it. However, I think it was joyous, melancholy, and life-affirming in ways that 99% of games aren't. Regardless, playing online is definitely the way to go and it's really a different and kind of bland experience without it (which is what you did the first time). Thankfully, that doesn't seem to have reflected poorly on your second playthrough in the so-called "way it was meant to be played".

Was it this guy? Please tell me it was.

Hey guys, I haven't been around this past month because I fell down a BIOHOLE. Since I'm a weirdo, I didn't feel comfortable playing BioShock Infinite until I had played all the games that came before it, which I had neglected to play when they first came out. Since I'm a very specific weirdo, I didn't count System Shock 2 as something to play before BioShock. So sue me. I know I'm late to the party but BioShock 1 is a really, really good game. It set a very high bar for the other games in the series. I was definitely spoiled on the ending going in, but it had been so long that I actually forgot what the spoiler was (mostly). I basically spent the whole game with this niggling feeling, "I feel like I shouldn't trust this Atlas guy, but I can't for the life of me figure out why". Also people kept saying would-you-kindly like some kind of code word and I couldn't figure out what it meant. Anyway, I liked the environmental storytelling in Rapture, especially combined with the audio diaries. In a lot of cases, there would be an artfully constructed room where Something Happened and a helpful audio diary nearby would essentially narrate the vignette. I also really enjoyed examining the living spaces of Rapture's inhabitants for clues about their personality (e.g. Sander Cohen's room). They say you can tell more about a person by visiting their dorm room than meeting them. Since most of Rapture is already dead, this works out nicely. I'm the kind of guy who spends 6 hours meticulously exploring each level, rummaging for ammo that I can't pick up because I'm full, stacking all the health kits and EVE hypos in a corner so I can pick them up after I actually use one, and basically stealing everyone's shit. So BioShock was right up my alley. Shame I didn't play it way sooner. One final note, the first 12-15% of BioShock is a horror game with a very heavy, thick atmosphere. I'm not a big fan of the genre, but I liked the amount that was there and its treatment, and was glad when it was over. I think BioShock 2 was a great game and I don't know why people were so down on it. Though not to the same degree as The Walking Dead, I felt that it captured some simulacrum of the feelings of parenthood which really resonated with me (I say this as a person with no children, mind you). The story wasn't ground-breaking but it was elegant and enjoyable. On the other hand, I loved the combat in BioShock 2. It was much more tactical and I felt like I was in control of the battlefield with most encounters happening on my terms. The speargun is probably one of my favorite weapons ever. There's nothing like sniped a dude in the head and pinning him to the wall 15 meters behind him. Also rocket spear + brute splicer = hilarious flying meatsack. I was a little sad that you don't get the Natural Camouflage tonic until late in the game though, since I loved stealthing through BioShock 1. On account of how much I liked BioShock 2, I didn't find Minerva's Den as wonderfully fantastic as some people have been saying by comparison. It's not bad at all—story is fantastic and fun all the way through—but I think other people liked it more in comparison to how much they didn't care for BioShock 2 proper, whereas I found BioShock 2 to be quite good overall. Except for the multiplayer. The multiplayer is stupid and bullshit. And so we come to BioShock Infinite. I thought it was a good game but not a great game. I have a lot of problems with BioShock Infinite, which I believe stem from a combination of playing so much finite BioShock beforehand and isolating myself from most media coverage of the game aside from the early gameplay videos. Let's start with the combat. I haven't really been following the "is Infinite too violent" discussion so I'll leave that aspect on the table. I think BioShock 1 and definitely BioShock 2 have way more interesting combat than Infinite. The skyhook mechanic is fantastic and hella cool, but the rest of the combat doesn't really hold up. The weapons feel light and weightless. Especially with the heavier enemies, even if you knew their weakpoints, they would just drink bullets and headshots for days before dying. My favorite weapons from the previous games where the crossbow and speargun, respectively, and I was disappointed that the sniper rifle didn't fill the same role. I admit that I wasn't too adventurous particularly with using vigor traps but mostly because they cost too damn much so it felt like a waste (backseat designer moment: I would lower the salt cost of vigor traps but increase the charge time in order to encourage more tactical encounters and prepping for fights). I also wish there were more opportunities to interact/play around with the environment in the way that was possible with the Telekinesis plasmid. And while I'm complaining, bodies (and lockboxes) disappear too fast. I know it's probably a perf issue, but it's jarring to finish a big firefight and discover that the bodies of all the people I murderized have magically vanished and I can't even loot their lockboxes. On the story side, I felt that the game did a good job of escaping from under System Shock 2's shadow (from what I understand) in order to tell a compelling narrative. However, I had the same problem as Chris, which was that I feel the audio diary design was terrible. Unlike BioShock, they didn't seem as intelligently placed and there were very few that had a story to tell that integrated with the environment where it was found. There was one Preston E. Downs diary ("Trapped") which was really good but it was the only one that stood out to me. Some of the ones by/about Slate were alright too. On the other hand, there are WAY too many Comstock diaries and they're all dull as nails sermon snippets. His character is flat; he's the born-again Christian through and through and his diaries never show any development or reveal hidden personality traits like Andrew Ryan's did. Daisy's diaries suffer from the same problem. As for Elizabeth, I liked her character, her development, and her story arc but I think she failed as an AI. Her use in battle is fine, whatever, but I was expecting a lot more banter about environmental stuff as was shown in early previews (they took out the Lincoln mask scene ). If you're going to give the main character a voice and a companion to talk to, I would have hoped they had more to talk about than where the next lockpick is. I know it would have been super expensive to write and voice a boatload of extra, optional, non-critpath dialogue but it feels like a missed opportunity. I know it sounds like I'm really down on Infinite, but I honestly did like it a lot. If I had to rate it, I'd give it a GiantBomb 4-star. They were way ambitious; it shot for Alpha Centauri and probably made it to Eris or thereabouts. The Luteces are probably my favorite game characters in some time (Lutecest is the bestest). I apologize if a lot of this stuff is a rehash of stuff talked on the podcast; I skipped that episode because of spoilers. Anyway, yeah. BioShock. I heard it's a pretty good series.

I want to play this game so badly, but I also really want to play it local co-op. Is it weird to ask if there are people in the Boston area who'd be interested in playing this locally? Yeah, that's probably weird.

Steve "Gone Home Gone Home" Gaynor. I really want this game as soon as possible. Also thanks for sharing pabosher. I haven't listened to the whole thing yet but the beginning is good!

It probably depends on the company. This Boston collective is a bunch of separate companies pooling resources for a space. The upshot for them is lowered material overhead and the opportunity to share workspace with like-minded people. Apparently having lunch every day with other developers not working on the same project is massively helpful for hashing out ideas. As for your question, I think it's more towards the former. Finding (or organizing) local game jams would probably be more helpful for the latter.

If you're in the Boston area, there's http://www.indiegamecollective.org/ which is a blob of indie devs and companies sharing a space to work. Their office is really cool. I'm sure there are similar establishments in all the major cities (SF, LA, Austin, NYC, etc.) and they'd probably appreciate whatever after-hours man hours you can contribute.

Yeah, I'm probably talking about a crash in the different sense that any prior "crash". I'm thinking of a crash where AAA development eats itself because it has just become this massive ouroboros and being profitable is actually legitimately impossible (10 million sold or bust?) because costs have gotten too high. If selling a million copies at $60 is not profitable for you, then you're probably doing it wrong. Even so, I would like to see a move toward more diversity in pricing, cf. Darksiders 2. Midcore indeed.

I actually just played Stacking (both main game and DLC) too! I found it quite fun. Adventures games. Who'da thunk it? I wish the turning speed was a bit faster but overall I really enjoyed the creative puzzle solutions and aesthetic. I also played Poker Night at the Inventory after getting it free with my Poker Night 2 preorder. I forgot how good a game Texas Hold'em is and listening to those four dudes shoot the shit while playing made it very nice. I hope they get some animation priorities a little smoother in Poker Night 2. The game should continue as seamlessly as possible while people are still talking and they did some stuff to address that ("what was I saying? Oh yeah") but it's still a little clunky when you're trying to continue playing but Tycho is still monologuing about his sexual escapades with a porcupine and the next card won't be dealt until he finishes.

I'm clearly the worst human being for commenting on this instead of the articles, but the url for PAR article is incredibly misleading. It clearly wants to say "Why your games are made by childless, 31 year old white men, and how one stud is sexing up all the game development ladies". Buh, time to actually try to make an intelligent comment. There are a number of related issues here. One is that "game development" is still mostly staffed by people who would call it a "dream job" and, as such, are willing to put in long hours for little/no overtime in the hopes of impressing their "game dev heroes" or getting that coveted creative director position. The industry is extremely unreceptive to any sort of unionization for better pay and working hours effort because there will always be more fresh, hungry programmers to replace competent veterans. And that's assuming that developers want to unionize, which might jeopardize their climbing the design ladder, risk their jobs in the face of corporate execs, or lose their social standing among the "hardcore dev" crowd who compare working hours as a measure of worth. On the opposite side, Dewar makes a good observation that AAA development is actually not particularly profitable (EA has a 7% profit margin. Ubisoft's is just 3%). Rising costs, especially since the HD console generation, have massively cut into revenues, meaning that increasing wages would be disastrous to AAA. What this means is that AAA development is unsustainable. More outsourcing is a bandage and ultimately amounts to underpaying someone in Asia/India rather than someone in America. I'm guessing that AAA development bottoms out within the next 5-10 years and there's another video game crash. The industry almost needs one in order to reset people's expectations (both the consumer's and the corporate's, re:Square Enix's ridiculous sales expectations for Tomb Raider et al.). In its wake will hopefully be a landscape dominated by smaller projects, mostly indie-driven if this year's GDC is anything to go by. And I think it'll be okay. And just for the hell of it, I bet the next console generation is the last one. There's barely any difference between consoles and PCs at that point, so the generation after next will probably just become some weird modularly updated blob that will run every game forever.