The Giant Beastcast: Episode 306

Replaying Disco Elyuism cause of the final cut. Man that game hits hard. Easily a top five for me. I just want to exist in the mood of that game.

I've been playing sooo much Evil Genius 2. I personally love it, I do understand where Vinny is coming from though, it's generally a slow paced game. I think Vinny will enjoy the sandbox mode more. Highly recommend playing as Emma or Ivan for the story modes

P.S. the original was indeed also Rebellion

More guests!

*pounds table*

More guests!

*pounds harder*

MORE! BRING ME MORE!!!

Great show! Lovely guests!

Lucy James is rad as hell, saving this one for my walk tomorrow

Oh yeah nice. I've been feeling lately that the Beastcast needs a few more voices.

EDIT - I like Superman for the same reasons I like Star Trek. Heck they more or less have the same type of stories (getting depowered, fighting an equal, fighting a god being, engaging in some moral/ethical quandary).

But I like them because they are good people who do good for its own sake and they are free of the fears that shackle us (fear of others, of losing a job, of being embarrassed, etc). Thus, they live lives we cannot relate to, but maybe can aspire for.

Lucy speaking the truth about tea!

Tomb Raider 1 is wierd; it's pre-Mario 64's 3D standardization, its VERY zen with its level design like Jeff said, and its rather analyitcal and computer game yet spawned this LOOKIT HAWT LAURA CROFT ZOMG effect.

And, its one of those games that hits that sweet spot that is inticingly intricate while not being cloyingly explicit like later games or crudely mean like earlier games. It pushes back while luring you forward (so the Dark Souls reference works here).

Big Drew vibes from this Jake fella, especially hearing the audio only

Jeff, recommendation for your group would be Dota 2. Has a bit of a learning curve but it's worth it. It's kind of like a shooter in that most of the characters shoot some type of spell.

These two guests were great.

this quickly became one of my favorite beastcasts. glad vinny is back and healthy. cheers to everyone.

@zoofame: ummm, except that the roast directly affects the caffeine content...

Jake and Lucy are excellent guests!

Great show this week.

Another great episode. Great guests!

really fun episode, glad lucy and jake could join.

Holy shit my excitement went through the roof after a few seconds when realising Lucy was going to be on this podcast. They should have got Tam too but I’m still happy with this :)

Dishonored absolutely is not the kind of stealth game where you need to quick save and load to achieve the best result. It works great as an action game, the high/low chaos impacts the ending sure, but the high chaos final level is more fun anyway

Suggestion for Jeff: Hell Let Loose. It's an early access Steam WWII shooter that might be a good mix of familiarity and freshness you're/they're looking for

Jeff--

I had/have a similar issue with my buddies. Their idea of something different than Warzone is to play Modern Warfare :|

Any who, a few months ago we decided to give "Golf With Your Friends" a shot, and it's our new go-to, late night, three-beers-deep, laugh and hang out kind of game. I can't recommend it enough. It won't replace Battlefield and CoD outright, but it's at least a nice side game that you can boot up for a few rounds each week.

Tomb Raider II had the opera house Jeff was referring to. Creepy ass level, and the whole game had some of the coolest environments in the series (well, except the level where you start underwater surrounded by sharks).

It's really, really due for a remake. Tomb Raider: Anniversary was darn good and the sequel deserves something on that level.

Hey Jeff, have you tried Vermintide 2? It's a fantastic co-op shooter, tons of replayability, basically Left 4 Dead reskinned in the Warhammer universe with rats, with a solid loot and character progression system bolted on. The only thing is, you'll mostly play in groups of 4. So if your group of friends is up to 8, you might have to split into break-out groups of 4. But it really is great fun for fans of multiplayer shooters.

Great guests, great show, thanks everyone!

I feel like maybe there's a growing number of people who feel like Jeff about Tomb Raider, yeah there's always going to be people who instantly hate how it controls, but there's plenty of Youtube documentaries asking whether it's worth revisiting and the answer is usually yes.
Everything about it is specialised, mostly due to necessity, there were few genre expectations back then so almost everything about how it controls is unique to those PS1 Tomb Raider games, so if you want to explore large PS1 tombs using a unique and demanding movement system that requires time and patience, you can't really look anywhere else.
My opinion of the PS1 entires after having played them over the last couple of years.
1: Very good, by virtue of being the first it's the most "pure" or "distilled", it's the template.
2: Maybe the high point of all the PS1 games, flashier and longer than the first, but human enemies can be annoying and some of the new level design ideas are difficult, not impossible but you will get stuck.
3: Questionably difficult, similar in scope to the 2nd, but i found the level designs far too large and impossible to navigate without a walkthrough, i saw reviews at the time suggesting not many would be able to finish the game, and to me that's a big negative, i think the devs were giving up.
4: Better than 3, but the game takes place entirely in Egypt and 17+ hours of sand is extremely tedious, it's so boring to look at.
5: Part of me wants to like it more because of its variety, but the combat encounters are haphazard and it's quite buggy, it doesn't really do anything unique compared to the others, it feels like dlc for 4 for people who want to see something other than sand.

Great podcast. Nice to see Lucy and Jake on.

Moment of solidarity: I put this on in my ears just now as I'm preparing to go to Safeway (!) to get my vaccine. I heard Alex say he's going to get a vaccine too but won't believe it until he sees it going right into his arm.

Me too! I'm fully ready for something to happen and somehow I don't get my shot. :( I was telling myself almost those exact same words. Need to see it enter my arm and only then will I believe I'm getting it.

I think I got it! \o/ I saw a syringe with liquid in it and felt the sting of it go in. Felt some liquid go in. :D

@alex, did you at least get some kind of liquid put into your arm?

I think that Lucy has been a Brit in the US longer than I (4 years in my case)... and perhaps because it is something I notice in myself (with mixed feelings about it), I think her accent (or perhaps more accurately her intonation) is starting to Americanize.

Watching it now. Terrific show so far!

Gotta come in with some corrections though:

The first Austin Powers came out in 1997, followed by the second movie in '99, and the third in '02.

Trent Reznor indeed has an Oscar for scoring Thr Social Network, but hasn't won for Soul yet because this year's Oscars don't happen for another three weeks.

Disappointing to hear that the PS5 version of Disco Elysium is so bugged. I've been playing the Final Cut on PC (waited for the patch) and have been loving it. I actually prefer using a controller since there's no combat and I can lay back on my couch in front of the TV. I also wasn't expecting it to be as funny as it it.

Great guests. Have them back for sure.

Superman email was on point, and is the exact reason why Superman Returns is unironically the best Superman movie.

This isn't really worth emailing about since it's a bit of a killjoy and not really a correction, but everyone got a little misled by how seemingly impressive it is that Andy's wife "secretly" knew Spanish for 14 years. You see, most Italians can actually hold conversations with Spaniards and vice versa without having to learn the opposing language, because both descended from Latin and have an 82% lexical similarity. If she already knew Italian, she basically knows Spanish.

Okay the "my wife speaks spanish" email was insane, I mean I would have so many questions and doubts lol. If they were married for 14 years that means they dated beforehand for probably around 2-3 years, so in 17+ years it never came up?!?!..............................huh!!......................

For action/shooty multiplayer stuff I would suggest games published/developed by Tripwire to Jeff B.

• Rising Storm 2: Vietnam
• Road Redemption
• Killing Floor 2

Good on Jeff for finally admitting he used guides for Tomb Raider :)

Brainfog sounds depressingly familiar and I'm not sure I could cope without medication if I couldn't exercise outside.

Also yorkshire accents are pretty cool.

Thank god they had a brit on for the tea discussion, perfect timing. This might be the first time I've heard a correct tea explanation on an American show.

Please, Jesus Christ, Lord and Savior, never ever allow @vinny to operate a wrecking ball.

I can relate to Lucy's problem of not finishing a game so much, but instead play as much games as possible. xD

Sometimes I feel like that I just play games to see if they have an interesting premise.

Hot damn , i played that same Microsoft golf game. Also i think they were thinking of EA's Ignition engine?

My nr 1 memory of Tomb Raider is spending a lot of time to line up my jumps by shimmying left and right and making small backsteps before attempting a jump. The jump also took half a second too long to 'pop off'. I will say that the anniversary version of that first game holds up fine and made me actually enjoy the game.

Back in the day i also played a whole lot of Prince of Persia 3D which felt very Tomb Raider-like in it's movement, and had a weirdly deep combat system. That game's platforming is very frustrating though, but same goes for Tomb Raider 1 so it might scratch that itch.

Jeff:

• "they are not very open, in terms of expanding their horizons"
• "they like action, they like shooty stuff; any major sort of deviation off that might be catastrophic"
• "I really wanna play something new with these dumdums"
• "Overwatch is not a bad one [...] Even Overwatch is like such a departure for them"

Response:

• [suggests an extremely complex strategy game with no shooting, that is very difficult to get into without at least 1-2 people who are already well versed in the game to mentor and coach the group]

Jeff, do not even consider playing Dota 2 with the group you have described.

Maybe Remnant: from The Ashes is action / shooter enough to give a whirl. Or Destiny indeed. Or go back to some classics. CSGO, Team Fortress 2

I don't think they've been married the full 14 years, I believe the line from the email was something like "we've been together 14 years," but still: 14 years is a super long time to be around someone and not be aware that they know fluent Spanish.

She is for sure an international superspy. Or a time traveler.

This was a really fun episode. Having some guests over was great to freshen things up!

This is one of the funnest beastcasts in a minute.

Also, Vinny painting that picture of sad Trent Reznor playing a Vegas buffet was funny. In reality, the dude has been nominated for two Oscars this year!

@bisonhero: Dude, 100% total spy lol, no other way......

Lucy I think brain fog is largely due to too much screen time ie video games