The Giant Beastcast: Episode 53

Yes yes my work day has become a hundred times better with the Beastcast.:)

Overwatch, baby!

Gotta love that spicy Beast.

I wish more game outlets would talk about the console version of Overwatch, and in particular, how busted the aiming is.

FRIDAY IT IS

It's the Giant Overcast.

Just in time for my drive to work =)

That mighty no. 9 trailer is just the drizzling shits.

Since Sony and Microsoft are gonna start selling a new console every 2 years now is a good time to switch to PC gaming.

I wouldn't trust a pie chart made by Polygon.

All the Doom talk has made me get it even though Overwatch is really good.

I very much enjoyed that 538 reference at the start, though I still believe that GBeast are the kings of data journalism.

I foolishly listened to half of this on the non-premium version. What an idiot!

I don't know who is worse at french, if Austin or Dan :D

So what kinda engine is in that van?

I like overwatch... its not the end all be all people are talking like it is.

The Beastcast is my favorite Overwatch hero.

I have never seen a PotG that wasn't a killstreak. And it's usually Bastion or Reaper.

If you want to know the timestamp to bypass all the Overwatch stuff (MP shooters don't interest me in the sliiiiiiiiiiiightest anymore) it starts to ease up around the 38:30 mark

We need one of those guys (like the one who does idle thumbs) who breaks up episodes by categories / keywords / timestamps.

This is almost reminding me of the 1up days listening to Rockband / Guitar hero casts, man is Overwatch getting some press.

EDIT: Entire segment ends at 43:25.

Overwatch is really fun, but I find the console price of $60 a bit of a gouge.

Can't say I expected Man is the Bastard to ever come up here, but I love it. Great van segment!

It's possible, but those are rather hard to do. Let's say you manage to res 3 or 4 people with mercy and those people continue to take a point 5 seconds later you might get a PotG.

"Imagine a game that used the X-Men universe that was a multiplayer action brawler"

Overwatch is kinda making me wish that Anarchy Reigns did better. But honestly, I didn't like that game too much. I guess what I'm actually wishing for is that Overwatch was a third person brawler too.

all games with hereos have the problem with tutorials, overwatch has 21 charecters it still a small number compare to moba games with over 70 charecters

dat thumbnail tho

They mention Man is the Bastard? That's pretty great. I'm guessing Alex made that reference?

@regular_kirk: It was in an email he read, so sort of - so it mostly made me feel good about the audience for this 'cast.

It's kind of frustrating when you obviously lead the team to victory with a great ultimate or a tactical flank.. only to see play of the game be a Bastion tank mode triple kill in the middle of the match. Not a big deal but last night I pulled off this amazing final push for my team as Pharah and the Play of the Game was a Junkrat tire double kill. Kinda deflating.

"I live my life a quarter mile per gallon at a time"

YAY! Having fun in the comments!

Overwatch looks like a slick, well-made Blizzard game but I don't honestly get all the superlatives. I played this game like 8 years ago and it was called Team Fortress 2. It seems like a lot of games journos haven't really played that in a while so this all feels refreshing to them.

Not to slight said journos or even the game. It just strikes me there's a bit of a recency bias or something going on here.

That Mighty No. 9 talk is bound to be great.

Just like the game.

Always hope for the best.

I'm actually really interested in GBEast's opinions on DOOM.

My spare PC has an HD5870 in it, which is a 7 year old card at this point. Contrary to Vinnie's shaders comment, I can actually max out most games I try on it, if I limit the frame rate to 30 (not that I play them that way). I think progress got stuck a little this generation, until the last couple of years anyway.

Just watched Doom 4 reaching 200fps maxed out on the gtx 1080, so I think we're back on course now though.

Jeff's Vita dig was fucking hilarious.

Trust me ... as someone that mostly plays support or tank I feel you.

It's been a year. Let's be done with "dunking on..."

Victor Van! ;P

@abrasion: Thank you so much for that stamp! As someone who played the beta and doesn't understand all the love Overwatch is getting, you're my hero for that!

The reason Apple's business model seems to peak is the same reason why the PC market is struggeling and shrinking. Smart phones have reached a level of "good enough" now and people are less inclined to upgrade.

PC gaming is a small subset of customers and most people I know who are not gamers are still pretty much content with computers they purchased 5 years ago. Samrt phones are at the same level now.

I think I'm a bit with Alex in being skeptical about these approaches by Sony and MS. I personally have zero desire to buy an XBone Slim this year, but in a few years if the improvements are substantial enough and either MS or some retailer has a good trade-in program, I might throw down $200 or so to upgrade. I do think that this is probably going to just lead to confusion, especially given how many people STILL confuse the Wii and WiiU.

All this talk about a beefed up Xbox One can only mean one thing: THEY'RE BRINGING KINECT BACK!!!!!!!! No? Okay probably not.

@austin_walker

I'm skeptical about the MS leaks because MS has built its business on announcing vaporware that will be available "next year"(TM) usually right after a competitor announced a product.

This leak harkens back to a time where Microsoft did this constantly to basically cause the effect that you described: "Why should I buy software or system X now when Microsoft's new version of Y will be available next year (TM) and will be Z amount better"

The fact that the leak is oddly specific about one particular benchmark number that is meaningless to a large number of potential customers yet sounds good and that is also subject to change due to availability of tech and cost of bill of materials on a > 1 year timeframe makes me doubt it more than if they'd just announced the system.

The fact that a similar number has leaked for the PS 4 Neo (again, not a Matrix reference just greek for new) makes sense because if they release it this year there have to be prototypes available. Also AMD has pretty much corroborated the leak by telling analysts on what type of silicon the Neo will run during an earnings call.

A 2017 XBox will probably be holiday quarter 2017 so 1 1/2 years from now. Nobody will be able to realistically project what types of components are available at that point in time to hit a $399 price point. So handle that 6 TFLOPs number with a huge grain of salt.

Not that I think MS won't go forward with such a plan, Phil Spencer's "testing the waters" comments earlier this year pretty much indicates that. I also think though that Sony is much further along the path of actually introducing a new console than MS.

Also Microsoft's endgame seems to be to at some point drop the XBox and make the PC the new console going by their Windows 10 strategy

I just don't think that 1 to 1 works. I can't stand playing TF2 and it's not just because everyone got really savage at it when it was around for ages and ages. Overwatch does what blizzard always does which is take things they like and improve on them. Unless it's a narrative.

OH! *topic related statement*

Hey, Elliott, the guy who sent the email about the van, here. Just wanted to say how tickled I am that the email got read, and to discover that anyone listening to the cast got the Man is the Bastard pun.

Here's a link to the last Harvey Pekar full length if anyone is interested:

Harveypekar.bandcamp.com

Oh I appreciated it. I might have to dust off my Born Against/Man is the Bastard 8 inch. Wait...that sounds weird.

Man hearing people say the exact shit about Overwatch that makes TF2 amazing but never really gave it a chance is triggering me. Basically the entire staff of GB (excluding the Tested guys) back in the day completely wrote off TF2 and now that a game is literally doing the exact same thing almost to the point that you could view Overwatch as a sequel to TF2 is maddening! I know people are going to respond with but it's the differences that make me like this over the other, but the thing is EVERYTHING people keep mentioning of what makes Overwatch brilliant is what TF2 was doing.

As far as Sony Neo and Microsoft's 2017 plans....

It would be crazy if they actually makes iterative systems. I really think they are not doing that at all despite what they rumors are, but if they do they are screwing up.

Disappointed not to hear Bonfire of the Van-ities suggested. Although, it's not really a pun, but maybe it's bad enough to still count as one!