Giant Bombcast 05-15-2012

@Lobster_Ear: Proud of you. :D

I call it THREEABLO

OH GOD, I HATE ALAN WAKE with a passion. As much as I loved Max Pain 1 and 2, AW was so lazy, half baked and worst of all the game play was just boring and sloppy. If they never make another AW game the world would be a much better place. What a wast of Remedy's talent.

These podcasts are the highlight of my week. Thanks for the hard work, guys.

Also, I really like the recurring segment you guys have, where you explain to Brad that he's wrong about whatever he's talking about. It makes my day a little brighter.

At first I thought Ryan's pronunciation of Diablo was just him joking and then after like the 5th time it dawned on me that this is how he really says it... how do you live in California and not be able to pronounce diablo? Every fucking city around you is a spanish name.

I have been arguing that MI3 is the best movie other than GP, which had me out of my seat because I am afraid of heights. The second was garbage. My parents watched it when I loaned them my MI collection and they were like, "We really don't want to watch any more of these if they are like this." I think MI 2 was too over the top. That says something, when I complain about over the top productions.

Does anyone else find it peculiar that the majority of video games involve guns but when we're presented with realistic results of these tools some people have issue? I mean I certainly understand where Patrick and Ryan are coming from on the grounds that Max Payne can be uncomfortably graphic, but I also think that as gamers it's incredibly hypocritical for us to gobble up uber violent games, to find humor in violence like Saints Row and GTA, and then to suddenly become uncomfortable once a game actually presents us with the messy reality of guns. Now I'm not trying to say Max Payne is trying to send a message, nor am I saying we should desensitize ourselves to the violence, but we cannot chastise R* for that design choice (if you even want to call it that) when it's really just a natural progression in what gamers want. If you want violent shooters, don't get all pissy when they're actually violent. As games become graphically better we're going to have to begin to deal with the reality of death being more graphic as well, gone are the days of Vice City where it is just "Haha that dudes head blew off".

@WVUEers said:

At first I thought Ryan's pronunciation of Diablo was just him joking and then after like the 5th time it dawned on me that this is how he really says it... how do you live in California and not be able to pronounce diablo? Every fucking city around you is a spanish name.

Actually Ryan always says stuff like that on purpose. He purposely pronounces words the wrong way, it's a weird thing he likes to do. He knows it's the "wrong way" but he just like to be different. You get used to it.

Way too many excuses on this podcast regarding Diablo 3, sorry. Especially from Brad. But it's the Blizzard hype, so I'm not surprised.

@Xeirus said:

@WVUEers said:

At first I thought Ryan's pronunciation of Diablo was just him joking and then after like the 5th time it dawned on me that this is how he really says it... how do you live in California and not be able to pronounce diablo? Every fucking city around you is a spanish name.

Actually Ryan always says stuff like that on purpose. He purposely pronounces words the wrong way, it's a weird thing he likes to do. He knows it's the "wrong way" but he just like to be different. You get used to it.

I do it as well. A LOT of people do that. Makes words fun.

@Luthorcrow said:

OH GOD, I HATE ALAN WAKE with a passion. As much as I loved Max Pain 1 and 2, AW was so lazy, half baked and worst of all the game play was just boring and sloppy. If they never make another AW game the world would be a much better place. What a wast of Remedy's talent.

I would totally buy another Alan Wake game. Just saying.

@Vod_Crack said:

@simkas said:

Goddamnit guys, if you're saying that you really liked the first two Max Payne games, why the hell do you keep saying stuff about them that's downright wrong?

Was thinking the same thing.

Simple: you can remember liking and enjoying a game AND misremember the specifics.

Great podcast! I usually love 'em to begin with but this was a complete winner from start to finish. Every single topic was interesting and stuff I really wanted even more background to, especially D3 and MP3. Blood Money and general Hitman talk was great, glad Patrick got around to it and even enjoyed himself. Absolution practically can't come quick enough.

Also this was the second time in short order that the Suburbs Hitman level came up on GB which is unecpected and excellent. There's so much crazy interaction in that level alone. My personal favorite here, other than dumping a body or unconscious person into the garbage truck and hearing that nasty fucking sound of it getting crushed, is putting the knockout poison on the teenage daughters panties in her room to take out the creepy guard that keeps sniffing it while on security detail!

All this Bombcast goodness and Jeff wasn't even on surprisingly.

@Lobster_Ear said:

@immortalmishima69 said:

A few things: Where is Jeff? Usually we are made aware when someone is missing and why. Secondly, Ryan, this is not a movie podcast, and if it was, you still fail. Kate Beckinsale IS in the second movie. She was missing in the third one. Also, Ryan why are you defending repetition in a game. You can have an unpopular opinion on a game, but defending the repetition and nothing else doesn't really prove your case.

I hate everything about you and what you stand for.

Agreed, Please leave. Your stalker like tendencies are not needed here.

Is Jeff at that E3 Judges event again? It always seems that their one man out lately.

@Xeirus said:

@WVUEers said:

At first I thought Ryan's pronunciation of Diablo was just him joking and then after like the 5th time it dawned on me that this is how he really says it... how do you live in California and not be able to pronounce diablo? Every fucking city around you is a spanish name.

Actually Ryan always says stuff like that on purpose. He purposely pronounces words the wrong way, it's a weird thing he likes to do. He knows it's the "wrong way" but he just like to be different. You get used to it.

This reminds me of Jamie and Adam's Tested.com's Will Smith's pronunciation of executable as "Exzécutable."

@NakAttack: All I was trying to say, we could have used some more varied opinions on the Max Payne talk. Personally I've been listening for years, and I'm a huge fan. Lately the fact-checking has fallen by the way side a little, and I'd like to hear more accurate testimony. I meant no disrespect.

@WVUEers said:

At first I thought Ryan's pronunciation of Diablo was just him joking and then after like the 5th time it dawned on me that this is how he really says it... how do you live in California and not be able to pronounce diablo? Every fucking city around you is a spanish name.

Yeah my thoughts exactly. Once I thought it was a joke...then it got to be overboard

Endurance Run: Rogue Galaxy - Part 01, coming soon from your favorite gaming website Giant Bomb.

@immortalmishima69: When I first moved to California 10 years ago it drove me freaking crazy. I lived near Mt. Diablo and I shit you not, everyone pronounces it like Ryan does. I'm not exaggerating either, EVERYONE pronounces it that way. They even recognize that they're saying it wrong, but still refuse to correct themselves. It really pisses me off to this day.

Damn I feel for those with hand problems due to computer use, I've been using one consistently for the last 15 years easily 8 hours per day on average and don't have those problems. I gotta say now that I'm on a couch my hands and arms rest at a natural height, when I lan play and I'm back to a desk my wrist doesn't like the contortion and does hurt after a while, same with my fingers getting numb. That's my solution, be a lazy ass, use your computer on a couch!!!

Now I have to go play Hitman: Blood Money again. Then go buy and play Rogue Galaxy.

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/heat-vision/twins-triplets-arnold-schwarzenegger-danny-devito-eddie-murphy-306026

Triplets with Eddie Murphy is the Twins sequel. LOL.

now I want a DnD endurance run, full cast.

Man, these guys can sit there and talk about types of drives and cables for several minutes at a time, and I will listen to it. The joke is on me, sirs.

@immortalmishima69 said:

@WVUEers said:

At first I thought Ryan's pronunciation of Diablo was just him joking and then after like the 5th time it dawned on me that this is how he really says it... how do you live in California and not be able to pronounce diablo? Every fucking city around you is a spanish name.

Yeah my thoughts exactly. Once I thought it was a joke...then it got to be overboard

Still a joke.

PLEASE do a TNT where you guys play a tabletop RPG or board game.

Where is Jeff?

@NocturnusFatalis said:

Where is Jeff?

He left. The rumors were wrong, it wasn't Brad.

the dream sequences were the best part of Max Payne...

@Brad There's quite a massive difference in quality from motherboard sound and a discrete card. Try a Xonar DG or DX (both fairly cheap) with decent headphones and compare.

the dream sequences were the best part of Max Payne...

To humor myself I just imagined Jeff was there but did not said a word. Just sitting there with his arms crossed.

Steam has offline mode and doesn't kick you out of the game if you go offline while playing.

I'm sure this has been mentioned but I'm mentioning it again. The comparison between Steam and Battlenet just doesn't make a ton of sense.

Also this comment was in no way influenced by the fact that Diablo III crashed on me while they were talking about Battlenet.

Also, I enjoy that Brad seemingly believed for a second that Max Payne 3 was 800 GB on PC.

The dream sequences in the first two games were good except for the blood trail parts in MP1, which were a hate crime.

EDIT One more thing: I started drinking coffee when I was about 8. No big deal.

I bought HL2 on Steam day 1...Steam was fucked at the beginning. The difference is that Steam was new back then, Blizzard has been doing this stuff for ages.

Skyrim removed attributes and classes. They were pretty important in the previous TES games, and RPGs in general. I think that classifies as dumbing down. I would say streamlining is making those systems easier for the user to understand, rather than treating them like children and stripping away key mechanics that defines the genre/series.

Things get really nerdy around the 1:50:00 mark

@Brad if you have hand problems then why don't you get vertical mouse for pc and an Xtended play for both your 360 and PS3 controller.

@Potter9156: I think their argumentation was solid enough. The attributes did not influence anything directly, it was just a roundabout way of saying "So do you want more health, mana or stamina?" - I mean, there weren't very deeply set aspects of the previous games where it specifically checked, oh, do you have this much wisdom, or this degree of agility?

It didn't add any value, it just made things complicated to a point where most people didn't know what to do with it. Removing it in favor of just saying "What do you want to upgrade?" is an honest solution.

The classes were similarly artificial. If you were a "bard" class, you most likely spent the game picking locks, shooting fireballs and hitting stuff with swords, unlike if you were an "acrobat" in which case you would... pick looks, shoot fireballs and hit stuff with swords.

I agree that attributes and classes are central to the RPG genre, but removing them from Skyrim was an honest admission that they were insignificant to the game. I don't think that warrants the term "dumbing down" - it wasn't smart in the first place. What they could have done was make the attributes have significance, like in Fallout where you do Intelligence checks for instance, or make the classes have significance, such as a thief character relying on a thief storyline, but that would not be within the scope of the game.

@Incapability:

Attributes like luck, speed, and personality greatly affected how the game is played, and the base attributes like strength and health were much more in-depth than "gives you more health" "increases stamina". Classes were useful in that they gave you an initial boost to skills your class is specialized in, so starting off as a thief for instance was more viable in DF, MW, OB early on because your most important skills like sneak were higher than say blunt weapons. It removed a lot of the grind, and just made sense. Playing as anything other than a guy with a shield and sword required hours and hours of grinding early on for it to be a viable play style.

The complete neutrality of your character in Skyrim made no sense, was your character just born seconds before the game started?

In conjunction, these attributes/classes/skills allowed for true freedom in play styles that Skyrim did not have. I wouldn't even call Skyrim an Elder Scrolls game.

@blacklab said:

I bought HL2 on Steam day 1...Steam was fucked at the beginning. The difference is that Steam was new back then, Blizzard has been doing this stuff for ages.

This. Diablo 3 has (I think) been the first Blizzard game I've been actively frustrated with. When playing my single-player game, I don't want to suddenly find myself running on the spot, disconnected from the server and 15 minutes back in my progress. It's a pain in the ass.

@AssInAss said:

CORRECTION @Brad@Ryan : In Max Payne 1, you can turn on bullet time by itself, no need to shoot-dodge to activate it. I just played it again today.

Also "bullet cam" where you shoot the last guy in the cutscene continuously is also in Max Payne 1.

The only new mechanic in Max Payne 3 is the "last stand" mechanic.

I just booted up Max Payne and noticed both of these things, which they seemed to take umbrage with as newer mechanics (though they thought the bullet-time without a dodge debuted in Max Payne 2)

I used to be impressed with what they could remember about old games, but now I'm getting the feeling they are probably misremembering quite a bit.

@Fearbeard said:

@AssInAss said:

CORRECTION @Brad@Ryan : In Max Payne 1, you can turn on bullet time by itself, no need to shoot-dodge to activate it. I just played it again today.

Also "bullet cam" where you shoot the last guy in the cutscene continuously is also in Max Payne 1.

The only new mechanic in Max Payne 3 is the "last stand" mechanic.

I just booted up Max Payne and noticed both of these things, which they seemed to take umbrage with as newer mechanics (though they thought the bullet-time without a dodge debuted in Max Payne 2)

I used to be impressed with what they could remember about old games, but now I'm getting the feeling they are probably misremembering quite a bit.

Maybe they would remember if the game's really old like NES or Genesis games :P That's how memory works I think, you remember the very recent and very old stuff.

I lost my headphones! oh man, why I am so cheap :(

@AssInAss said:

@Fearbeard said:

@AssInAss said:

CORRECTION @Brad@Ryan : In Max Payne 1, you can turn on bullet time by itself, no need to shoot-dodge to activate it. I just played it again today.

Also "bullet cam" where you shoot the last guy in the cutscene continuously is also in Max Payne 1.

The only new mechanic in Max Payne 3 is the "last stand" mechanic.

I just booted up Max Payne and noticed both of these things, which they seemed to take umbrage with as newer mechanics (though they thought the bullet-time without a dodge debuted in Max Payne 2)

I used to be impressed with what they could remember about old games, but now I'm getting the feeling they are probably misremembering quite a bit.

Maybe they would remember if the game's really old like NES or Genesis games :P That's how memory works I think, you remember the very recent and very old stuff.

To be fair the bulletdodge mechanic was very prominent in MP1 and your time ran out way too quickly when you just activated it. Max Payne 2 introduced a much more lenient bullet time. It lasted longer and Max moved faster the more you used it. Also killing enemies replenished your meter in MP2 as well.

I almost never just activated slow-mo in MP1 while I almost never bothered shoot dodging in MP2.

Ryan's Fez story is hilarious. love you, giantbomb

max payne 1 is pretty fucking hard by today's standards. max payne 2 is pretty easy, and also you have more options. and also the story is better and the graphics are better. and also, as they mention in the podcast, hilarious physics. I think I like max payne 2 better.

around 50 minutes shit gets weird :]

also, holy fuck, I would watch the shit out of giantbomb tabletop gaming videos!

edit: oh my fucking god, "SHOW-PIN"? really, patrick? you better be trolling :/

Loved it when Vinny said: "This is you... you sick fuck."

Whenever someone's missing, they always seem to stay focused and actual talk about games. I don't know if this is good or bad.