Giant Bombcast 11-15-2011

Not to be that guy complaining about spoilers because frankly I don't care that much and you gave fair warning anyway, but you really could have just said, "At some point you can get a dragon to fight for you." instead of,

Skip the specifics.

Just in time for bed

Can't wait to hear more Skyrim. I've played about 30 hours so far and can't get enough.

Desmond is the constant? Wait a minute...

you keep saying we need new consoles, but your the only ones that actually want them.

@kingzetta: Nope.

@Artigkar said:

@AndrewB said:

I'm listening while playing Skyrim and at the exact moment Brad started talking about how cool it was to open a random book and have a new quest start, it happened to me.

Dude, that sounds like an awesome coincidence.

It was! And a little creepy. I burst out laughing. I love it when stuff like that happens.

you keep saying we need new consoles, but your the only ones that actually want them.

@kingzetta: Nope.

@kingzetta said:

you keep saying we need new consoles, but your the only ones that actually want them.

I may be dirt poor, but I really want to see new consoles. I don't want the next generation held back just because of my own selfish concerns.

@Jolt92 said:

@kingzetta: Nope.

ooh yay $500 dollars for a new console and 70 dollar games, plus two to three years of bad games till the devs learn the hardware. I can't wait for that!

@kingzetta said:

@Jolt92 said:

@kingzetta: Nope.

ooh yay $500 dollars for a new console and 70 dollar games, plus two to three years of bad games till the devs learn the hardware. I can't wait for that!

Solution: Stay on 2004-ish hardware specs for another decade and keep playing the same franchises year after year. Brilliant!

My fucking internet is too slow to stream this podcast. A video, sure, but a podcast? I hate everything.

@kingzetta said:

@Jolt92 said:

@kingzetta: Nope.

ooh yay $500 dollars for a new console and 70 dollar games, plus two to three years of bad games till the devs learn the hardware. I can't wait for that!

What would you rather have? Never bring on a new generation of hardware?

Your comment is so confusing to me.

I love sock puppets too.

@kingzetta said:

@Jolt92 said:

@kingzetta: Nope.

ooh yay $500 dollars for a new console and 70 dollar games, plus two to three years of bad games till the devs learn the hardware. I can't wait for that!

What would you rather have? Never bring on a new generation of hardware?

Your comment is so confusing to me.

Guys, put perks into smithing in Skyrim. You get some awesome shit from it that makes it totally worth skipping out on a few combat perks.

@kingzetta said:

@Liquidus said:

@kingzetta said:

@Jolt92 said:

@kingzetta: Nope.

ooh yay $500 dollars for a new console and 70 dollar games, plus two to three years of bad games till the devs learn the hardware. I can't wait for that!

What would you rather have? Never bring on a new generation of hardware?

Your comment is so confusing to me.

I don't see the point. it's not like going from the PS2 to the PS3.

So because it's probably won't be quite as big a jump as that, don't bother bringing on a new generation of hardware despite this generation of hardware already pretty much at it's limit? I'm sorry but I want games to move forward in every possible way.

Actually VATs would be great for Skyrim. Close ranged combat kind of sucks. Also inventory is no good and the game was clearly designed for a gamepad, not a mouse. Otherwise Brad is right though, it's awesome.

@kingzetta said:

@Liquidus said:

@kingzetta said:

@Jolt92 said:

@kingzetta: Nope.

ooh yay $500 dollars for a new console and 70 dollar games, plus two to three years of bad games till the devs learn the hardware. I can't wait for that!

What would you rather have? Never bring on a new generation of hardware?

Your comment is so confusing to me.

I don't see the point. it's not like going from the PS2 to the PS3.

So because it's probably won't be quite as big a jump as that, don't bother bringing on a new generation of hardware despite this generation of hardware already pretty much at it's limit? I'm sorry but I want games to move forward in every possible way.

@SpunkyHePanda said:

Desmond is the constant? Wait a minute...

oh shi----

LOST.

FYI: Skyrimsells in 2 days more than Gears of War 3 and Fifa combined in a week - 3.4 Million retail copies (digital sales NOT included!) [source].

Info for RPG Noobs:

• Light Armor is NOT LESS ARMOR than Heavy Armor, once spec'd out! You can have the same amount of protection, but won't be over-encumbered/can carry around more.
• Companion System works in this game! (way better AI than in Fallout!) If you take a NPC with you to fight, he's gonna stay with you, fight with you, carry stuff for you, and auto-regain health - it's worth budding up. ´
• If you play it on PC (you really should) you can TWEAK THE GRAPHIC SETTINGS - and you can play it with your gamepad!

... and it's almost 5AM over here. Downloading the podcast before going to work.

Oh Jeez! I am getting to the elf racism part. podcast of the year.

Goddamn elf-lovers!

@buckybit: The AI of the companions in Skyrim isn't really any better than what we saw in FO3 or NV. Yeah, they can do more, but you have to ask them to and that isn't AI. When it comes to trekking around with them, they'll still stand in your way pretty often.

@kingzetta: Hmm? It wouldn't be doing it just for the sake of doing it. Current consoles have hardware that is at least 5 years old. At best they can handle 720p and 2xAA, really The improvements wouldn't be all visual, though. If you beef up the hardware we'll be able to see bigger maps (see BF3 on PC vs BF3 on Consoles), greater physics, better AI, more enemies on screen at once, just to name a few things.

Those big thugs in UC3 will straight up knock your weapons out of your hand. It's awesome!

Skillbooks are always worth 50+ Gold. And they always have the symbol of what skill it's going to increase on the cover.

@Hef said:

Skillbooks are always worth 50+ Gold. And they always have the symbol of what skill it's going to increase on the cover.

Some do, but not the majority of them.

Personal-post-listening-to-Bombcast-observations-akin-to-AVClub-television-review!
 
- I love it when you guys dedicate so much time talking about big new releases. A lot of the time in the past you've glossed over stuff, or tried to dismiss talking about something even if you never really spent a ton of time talking about it. Fallout 3 comes to mind, because after going back and listening to a lot of old bombcasts, it never actually seemed like you ever spent too much time in one place or another talking about it, despite how it became a running joke for about a year of "weelly Fallout 3 news." Spending like, a half hour on Skyrim was great.
 
- Brad's misuse of Louis CK's "You have everything and you're not happy" joke bugged me, because it seemed so disparaging and totally unfair. I adore Louis CK and that routine specifically, and it's just not at all comparable. Just brushing over the increasing lack of originality in games of the latter part of this generation and instead using people's fatigue with the same games as an excuse to basically call such people entitled just strikes me as not only really silly and wrong, but also frankly a real discrediting moment to his very career as a critic, in my view. No one's denying that these games remain good, but they don't remain as interesting or special as they once did. At some point you can't keep scoring such games the same just because developers have boiled development down to a cold hard calculated science.
 
- The first Assassin's Creed is not that bad, guys. I understand the hate in retrospect, but the game isn't a piece of shit as a standalone product. Graphically it holds up just fine, it introduces the concept and gets us used to the characters. It's nowhere near as good of a game as 2 and Brotherhood, but the treatment of this game as if it's a piece of garbage is incredibly hyperbolic. 
 
- I feel like Patrick didn't really do himself any favors in the Zelda section of the show. His review received a lot of criticism in the comments for being muddled or unclear, and he didn't really seem any clearer or more concise here either. I was hoping or a more direct explanation of why it's a 4-star game and more clarification of his issues with it, and I don't really think he accomplished that. It doesn't bother me so much, but I know it will bother others.
 
- Some DLC is awesome, some; shitty and bad, and taking a hardline approach may be satisfying in the moment but it's not a very reasonable position to take. Vinny was spot-on in talking about how DLC has basically taken away things like cheat codes that once upon a time used to be in most games in the generation of yore. Unlock codes (sometimes for entire modes) are also super sleazy regardless of how you try to rationalize it, and "don't like it, don't buy it" is never a good excuse. People are stupid and should be saved from themselves lest they doom the rest of us with a bunch of costs we don't deserve to be saddled with. Unfortunately we already seem to be there. The curve of digital download prices has also been pretty gross, as we've gone from 5, to 10, to now 15 being the standard for very nearly everything. Some stuff isn't worth the price.
 
- I've really warmed to Patrick being on the bombcast, especially from the consumer-advocate angle of things. Patrick doesn't seem to be as business-y or as settled-into-the-system as Jeff and Ryan have become, and that's a really great dynamic to finally have. Patrick brings the caliber of discussion on some of these issues up an intellectual notch, and that's one of the best developments the bombcast has had in ages. (Though I still miss taste-testing!)

Bring on next Xbox next holidays with complete editions of skyrim, bf3 and gta v at launch.....profit

The reason Blood Gulch isn't in Halo Anniversary is because Reach already has Blood Gulch. It's just called Hemorrhage now.

Hey who shreds the guitar for the intro song? Lol its dope.

Ryan talking about Desmond being the constant gave me Lost flashbacks.

"Look, you can't just wave it around"

annnnnnnnnnnnnnnd that's what she said.

SO MUCH SKYRIM.

The Inception-y stuff in AC isn´t all that crazy they even talk about that stuff in Brotherhood, so what the hell guys.

This needed more Jeff. I also want him to play Zelda.

Pretty early example of a game that felt like content had been removed just to be sold as DLC: Lumines Live! 1200 points at a time before XBLA games were being sold at that price, and most of the modes were sold separately. That game didn't paint a pretty picture for the future of DLC.

Wow, these podcasts are getting looong. Not sure if this is good or bad, since I rarely have 3 hours of free time to actually being able to listen to it all.

Shazam! I missed loading this on my zune on the way home. Tomorrow!

I've never played Minecraft in my life but I want to go to that convention just to see Deadmau5

Apart from the keybinding issues, mouse & k/b is best for Skyrim. I find it so much easier to one-shot enemies, even if they are moving quickly.

I like my passwords scattered, smothered, and covered.

Aw, my jeep.

Any chance the bombcasts can be video recorded for subscribers like the tested podcast?

@Javes said:

Any chance the bombcasts can be video recorded for subscribers like the tested podcast?

I think at least two of them vehemently hate that idea since it would just be a bunch of dudes in a hot room sitting around for three hours, so probably not? I feel like this was briefly discussed somewhere on the site recently, but I could be wrong.

Also, it'd probably be a bandwidth hog to serve up 3 hours of HD video to subscribers. I mean, that'd have to be like at least 2 gigs even with serious compression, downloaded by a couple thousand people every week.

@Javes said:

Any chance the bombcasts can be video recorded for subscribers like the tested podcast?

They already said no a while back.

@Unenthusiastic said:

@Javes said:

Any chance the bombcasts can be video recorded for subscribers like the tested podcast?

They already said no a while back.

do they sit in there... naked?!

It took DS a long time to get any traction, people shitting themselves about the first 6 months of the 3DS lifecycle always seemed ridiculous to me. Anyone remember Feel the Magic XY/XX?