The Giant Beastcast: Episode 17

NEW!!!

Purrsona!

Perfect way to close out these final 2 Hours of Work!

No! Just, no!

I was hoping for an "UN! LIMITED! ANIME!" during the ad.

*hugs Vinny*

Sorry Vinny, I needed that after the delay. :p

Purr-sona!

i am so glad jeff is not a fill in anymore.

PERSONA 5 AHHH

Yes. At least I can listen to this and not risk hearing about late game MGSV spoilers.

Perona 5, just one more year... For real this time.

Guys... I know they probably won't do it but can you imagine a Vinny/Alex/Austin Persona 5 endurance run!?

Concerning Gamestop, Alex's line "The writing would have been more on the wall if Microsoft had stuck to it's gun on a few things." Actually, no. Gamestop would have greatly profited from the always-online games-locked-to-your-console plan Microsoft originally had. Gamestop was publicly praising Xbox One before it was even announced, and I feel pretty safe in assuming it's because they knew that original plan was good for their business.

http://www.gamespot.com/articles/xbox-720-a-very-hot-compelling-device-says-gamestop/1100-6406315/

The way that plan worked is that Microsoft would outfit certain official retailers like Gamestop with their Azure cloud computing system that would allow Gamestop to unlock games from systems. In exchange, Gamestop would give a cut of used game sales to Microsoft and the publishers. This would have been great for Gamestop because all the business they lose through person 2 person trading such as Craigslist or Ebay would get eliminated and everyone who wants to buy/sell/trade used games would be forced to do so through stores like Gamestop. What Gamestop would lose in cutting their profits with Microsoft and publisher they would more than get back from the increased amount of customers. Microsoft's plan was to make the middlemen like Gamestop completely 100% essential to the used games market.

The Beastcast is another addition to making friday a good day.

Yes!

Yay they answered my question about halfbrick :D Fascinating conversation, thanks for answering it.

Man, The east crew's MGS play style is ruthless and cold. In stark comparison to West, where everyone lives.

Glad we got some brief Kentucky Route Zero love on this podcast. Not enough people talk about that game. That scene that Austin was talking about where you decide the lyrics to the song is so amazing.

I completely agree that these seemingly "meaningless" choices in games are not actually meaningless. I know a lot of the Telltale games end up in the same place most of the time no matter what you choose but when I'm playing, they matter to me in the moment and that's what's important.

@austin_walker I assume it was brought up in the GameStop article, but there are some places in the midwest that have crazy internet. I live in a suburb of Kansas City that doesn't have Google Fiber yet, but the fear of Google Fiber has driven other companies to offer crazy speeds - I pay $70-ish/month and get 300 Mbps down through a cable modem, and once Google finally installs here, I'll pay the same price for gigabit. Who would have thought competition is a good thing?

What I will say is that 300 Mbps is nice, but the only service that really takes advantage of it is Steam. My Steam library is sort of on demand now. I haven't noticed a significant difference in download speed on my Xbox One or PS4.

Canada used to have both EB Games and Gamestop stores about 3 years ago. One of the malls in Hamilton had both.
Also those screams were hilarious.

@dobedobedo: The real unlimited anime is inside each and every one of us. All we have to do is look for it.

@alex Why don't you want sex club suggestions? Already have a long list researched?

@alex Do you do a live draft or is it autopicked?

The Shovel Knight DLC is the first of three (I think) that they're going to do as part of stretch goals from the Kickstarter and it came out for everything simultaneously. I've played all but the last stage and boss fight and it's pretty dang fun. Feels quite different from the regular game without being wholly unrelated.

People that get upset over not understanding Kingdom Hearts is always funny to me. I'm excited for II.8.

I don't think they are upset over not understanding. I think they are humorously outraged by the shitty names.

I love KH but they are right. The names and the plots are ridiculous. At this point half the characters are actually forms of Sora.

re the Top Gear talk: Clarkson, May & Hammond have signed a deal with Amazon and are doing some web thing but the BBC show with the Top Gear branding will continue with a new cast. Top Gear has actually been on the BBC since the 1970s, it used to have a more serious format and was only on for 30 minutes at a time but Jeremy Clarkson and James May were regular presenters on it.

The new format which proved to be so popular around the world appeared to be Jeremy Clarkson's idea when they gave him more creative control and I presume that the Amazon thing will be a continuation of of that, the BBC have given their version of the show to a guy called Chris Evans (no, not the guy who plays Captain America) who was probably the most famous man in the UK for a couple of years in the mid 1990s, he's a radio DJ these days but he's car mad and has been the brains behind some incredibly successful shows in the past. He seems like a great choice to me.

Remember Microplay? That was the Electronics Boutique of my neck of the woods. Apparently it only exists in Quebec now.

II.8 Final Chapter Prologue is indeed a ridiculous name. The story is unnecessarily convoluted but it's not bad like they seem to imply.

Dude, it's a little bit bad. It's mostly melodrama and deus ex machinas, which I am ok with in KH's case, but it's not for everyone. Also, remember when Mickey was 'in disguise' in a robe and everyone acted like they don't instantly recognise his stature/silhouette? It's a silly plot.

That whole spiel about firing the game designers and letting everyone else take over design decisions is a really odd situation. When I was coming up through game design school (yeah, I wasn't really considering my future too well) there was this idea - a tenet, almost - that game design as a singular career (rather than one you laterally hopped into from the programming, artist or game testing fields) would be a tenable option within AAA development because more and more assets, like extant engines (Unreal, etc.) and third-party art asset generation programs like our good friend SpeedTree, could be outsourced and thus require less staff for a game company's art and coding divisions. Hiring instead teams comprised mostly of game designers meant you could theoretically create a speedy production line of constant game releases that were still - at least, this was the idea - well-considered and well-designed.

That a mobile game app company would go the opposite direction is curious and perhaps speaks to how trends didn't go quite the way those university programs predicted. I mean, a lot of the better-acclaimed games in recent times were created by smaller teams (and often just one or two guys) that, due to their size, required that their team-members were adept in several fields simultaneously.

I dunno if an industry is sustainable if it has to rely on a plethora of miracle polymaths able to fill every role. It sounds like an awful lot of stress, for one. Then again, if there's that many people that want to develop games (or talk about them professionally, for that matter), hires are probably going to come down to whoever proves to be the most flexible with their skillset during the interview process. I just hope it doesn't lead to too many teams of average all-rounders instead of complementary specialists.

Thanks Vinny, I was looking for a new little profile pic.

Vinny's Judge Judy was on point.

@flamingeyebrows: I mean, no story is for everyone. It's the same with MGS. People like Dan love it but plenty of others don't. I was talking more about how the story gets called bad because "it doesn't make sense" to those who only play half the games.

IDK what you mean regarding the Mickey thing, SDG recognize him with the hood up almost immediately at the beginning of KH2. It was more like darkness-armor than a disguise anyways.

Kentucky Route Zero gets a lot of love whenever it is mentioned but it also should get a lot of criticism for the speed at which is has been trickling out. I understand it's a small team, but they took money, and are in fact still accepting money for the "season pass" and the last episode was released over a year ago. This game has been "out" for nearly 3 years, and it still isn't finished. The acts themselves are all about an hour long.

The sad thing is that I really want to play KRZ, but I don't like getting episodic content that isn't finished because I forget most of the story in between episodes and it does a disservice to the product as a whole. If they continue to peter out these acts at roughly 1 hour of content per 1 year wait then it will honestly be a little scandalous to think we'll see the conclusion of this story somewhere in late 2017.

I have finally reached my breaking point on the ads. At first, I listened to them because they had the voices of the cast, but now it feels like the breaks are more often, and less entertaining. I've had the option to listen to the premium podcasts for a long time. Today is the start of something new!

The ads are doing that MBMBAM thing were they just draaaaaaaaaaggg oooooooooooooonnnn. Time to move over to the premium version.

@vinny@alex Persona 4 actually came out in 2008 (I think 2012 was when Golden came out). The Endurance Run was in 2009. I remember because I had time to play through the game (and then watch you guys play it) because of the recession and the not working.

Name-dropping Walter Benjamin in the first ten minutes, this is my kind of podcast.

And yeah, I definitely wanted to be able to "fuse" low-skilled soldiers to level them up, my waiting room is bursting at the seams right now

I love this podcast so much.

Austin, I totally remember the bootleg anime tapes being sold around New York. My cousin would actually collect bootleg DBZ VHS tapes, and as you can imagine, they took up a whole lot of real estate in his apartment.

@humanity: I mean, yeah. I wish they came out more consistently too and it's frustrating having no idea when or if the next episode is coming out but that really has nothing to do with the quality of the game.

(Also, Act 3 is significantly longer than 1 & 2. Way more than an hour.)

Same here dude. I was thinking about this the other day as to why the episodic formt doesn't bother me in TV but does in games.

I think it's due to two factors the long gap in between releases & the lack of repetition. Even in Telltale games I tend to lose the drive to play more of them if I take it episode by episode.

I don't think this is realistic to deliver in game development, but I think for a episodic game to really work for players it needs at least a monthly release schedule.

I have KRZ in my library and man I really want to play it, but I'm trying to wait until it's all released before starting it so I can really appreciate it.

Anything spoilery when it comes to MGSV?

@hassun said:

No.

@gwenners: muchas gracias

Uhh, the GM in NHL 16 is great. No idea why Alex hates it. The moral stuff adds some kind of character to the mode. He wants some kind of character in the game, but then bashes on the only attempt they do to try and add character. Makes sense...

Look, Persona 3 and 4 are great, but Persona 2 IS and EP are unique in their genre and tone. I will not defend Persona 1 because **** that but P2 had a well written, subdued gay relationship, sublime story, pseudo-scientific nonsense (that is highly entertaining!) and great music. The second part of P2 that got released in english has very well written characters that have stood the test of time. They're mature, convey emotions and Eternal Punishment has music that conveys the better parts of the nineties.

I love P3 and P4 as much as the next person but P2 with its older-than-average cast and interesting, if bullshit, themes touched on something extremely unique in the genre that SHOULD BE explored in the future. I am very disappointed in P5 following the vein of P3-P4. Characters like Ulala and Baofu are what should be expanded upon in the series. Very few games from japan focus on tragedies and feelings of negativity quite like these characters. I hope to be proven wrong by P5 (I really do!) but from following all interviews and videos I don't think that will be the case. I can't help but feel like Atlus has devolved from its experimental, highly interesting roots into something less interesting.

Sorry for my bad english. I'm just passionate (?).

@dracomaster01: Except the morale stuff isn't especially well-implemented. It doesn't add much flavor to the mode outside of making things slightly more unpredictable. I like the idea of it, but having to play "guess the right dialogue option" every time a player's got beef doesn't really add up to "personality" exactly.