@alex I'd probably recommend you try not to read any more about the game going forward. I've been playing through it for a few weeks and not looking anything up and so much of it is way funnier when you have no idea it's coming: dialogue, side missions, everything. Like you, I've never played a Yakuza game before, so I had no idea what to expect and that makes everything so much better.
At least in this episode, it sounds like you've read ahead to get a sense of what's going on and what you guys should expect, and while that's admirable for trying to steer the ship here to ensure an entertaining show, yeah I'd definitely recommend to stop looking up stuff and (largely) try to steer clear of tips and info people send you and just enjoy it all as it comes up.
Otherwise, keep up the great work! This has been really fun so far.
@danryckert Just agreeing with some of the feedback about dialogue. The game actually builds in timing for the non-acted dialogue, so it helps you read it the way it'd be spoken, and the characters' mouths move in time with it. If you skip past it just to read a little faster, you're throwing off the animation and still need to wait so people at home can read it. Plus, there's a fun typing sort of noise as they talk.
@tonyblue87: Same. I'd rather watch @drewbert and @danryckert actually reading the tutorials or even doing a few VR missions to get a handle on the core mechanics of the game, which then makes the rest of the run much more entertaining to watch, than have them burn through the opening moments, not super paying attention to anything because they want to keep things fast and entertaining. As you said, really it just means that it's a little frustrating to watch. @brad got a taste of that kind of thing when watching everyone else play Hitman.
Also like you said, it's still fun to watch and they're clearly having a great time with the game. I just wish one of us could pop in and assure them that watching someone take a few minutes to learn the core mechanics and then use them throughout the game is much more fun than watching someone fly past it all then ignore those core mechanics throughout the rest of the game and occasionally hit a roadblock because of it.
I totally get the impulse to want to rush past unexciting bits of games when others are watching, like right now I'm playing Dishonored 2 and whenever my girlfriend watches, I feel the urge to not stop to loot or read anything because I know she's not that interested in games. But here, everybody is, so I feel like the comments in response to these videos are almost always "why are they ignoring X mechanic" or whatever. Solve that by actually learning the game you're playing and trust the audience to either enjoy that part or fast-forward through it.
@pillclinton: If it does, I hope it does become a seperate thing to download. I believe it works better in audio format.
Same. They said having video wouldn't change the Bombcast but I feel like they pretty often reference things happening in the video version that I can't see.
YES. Same. I know everyone here seems to just want longer longer longer but seriously there's no shortage of longform videos on this site. Makes it impossible for me to introduce anyone to Giant Bomb these days and makes it way harder for me to find time to watch most of the videos anymore.
@blerg: To be fair, by the end they absolutely did start arguing why Hitman is legitimately better than DOOM rather than why DOOM is worse than Hitman, and that's what started to sway Brad and Alex and the rest.
I agree with Drew completely on this one. I've played the first half of DOOM and really really loved it and intend to finish it but haven't touched it in months. I've played the two tutorial levels and Paris all several times in Hitman and still want to continue going back to them before moving on because there's so much to do and that's more exciting to me. I love the way it encourages creativity, though I do believe DOOM does very much the same. They're both fantastic games, but I'm with Drew in that while DOOM is really really fun, Hitman is inspiring.
Beyond that, I do agree that it'd be nice to have less tearing down and more building up, but all the same, I do think it's a valid argument to say — for this category specifically — that DOOM dropping the ball on multiplayer is a bummer and should count against it. I don't think that's the reason it gets dropped to #2, but I do think it's a valid criticism to levy. But I don't think you need to tear down DOOM to build up Hitman because the latter is strong enough on its own.
What came to my mind while they were discussing the PLEASE STOP category was certification. Isn't there a system in place to make sure that games ship not broken? Over this generation it seems like Sony/MS/whoever else certifies games for release doesn't care, they just want them out the door and they can patch in the fixes later.
GOD YES. This absolutely should've come up during the day one patch topic. It's insulting to spend hours downloading a massive day one patch then having the game still be broken. The platform holders are kowtowing to publishers and they need to stop.
@redhotchilimist: I get what you're saying in relation to VR stuff, but let's actually break it down a bit.
When it comes to how the experience doesn't translate when described, keep in mind that VR is super new so they're still learning how to cover it. Everybody is. It's a really difficult thing to convey to people. It'll get better over time both as they learn how to do it better and as more of their audience gets to play it, but that's gonna take time.
Similarly, when you're talking about access to it, I totally agree that like you, the only time I played anything in VR was PAX East this year and by and large, I left kinda underwhelmed, even by stuff I was really excited for like Thumper. But that said, it's still easily the biggest innovation with the most potential happening in games now so what do you want? For them to just ignore it until VR is cheaper? This could potentially be the next frontier of gaming so it doesn't make sense for them to refuse to cover it just because it's early days, still expensive, etc.
I don't buy the argument that VR is too dumb or expensive to cover and therefore they shouldn't. In the early days, this is when it's potentially most exciting to cover. We're literally watching a new medium crop up.
Now, that said, I also agree that complaining about the complaining is pretty silly. In general I feel like the Giant Bomb duders are pretty even-keeled and level-headed and willing to understand perspectives not their own, but I think they fall victim to the San Francisco bubble way more often than they'd care to admit.
Man. I am so surprised to hear Jeff and Alex defending the day one patch cycle just because they're not developers and don't want to speak to that and say "so what do you want, for developers to be disciplined, better scheduled and not market unrealistic release dates?" as though it's something incredulous to ask for. Yes on all accounts. That's literally what Jeff himself was asking for when making the case for Q4 games that inevitably get pushed into Q1.
As Brad, Vinny and Jason said, stop pushing the onus onto the consumer to download 12GB of data on day one when you just want to play the game. Jeff is fooling himself into thinking those massive patches are somehow necessary just because he wants to sympathize with game developers, and I get that, but look at Titanfall 2, for example, which Jeff even mentioned on the podcast. That's a big budget, EA-published multiplayer game and yet the day one patch there made news cycles for being "surprisingly small" at 88MB. It can be done. You just have to demand that developers and publishers start being realistic about release dates and stop pushing the burden on the consumer. You have to demand that the platform holders actually hold these developers accountable by not letting them abuse the cycle. Jeff is right in that game development has been changed by the internet and increased complexity of games, but that's just not an excuse for developers relying on the final six weeks prior to release to, as Brad put it, "finish the game" rather than fix unforeseen and lower-priority problems caught after disc pressing.
Also, good on @brad and @vinny for taking a second to step outside of the San Francisco bubble to recognize that not everybody is hooked up to blazing fast internet without data caps. It is so crazy to hear Jeff downplay SF internet speeds by saying PSN is still slow therefore he understands. OK, then think about what it's like to have legitimately slower internet and data caps and still having to contend with PSN. Like, c'mon, man. Have some sympathy for the consumer too, not just the developers.
Just want to say I appreciate the time stamps. The only improvement I could suggest would be putting them in the show notes so I can see them in my podcast app as well. Or even putting in chapters.
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