Video Game Afternoon: Hot as Heck Edition: Part 02

Dave Lang played Knack.

We should all play Knack.

60 Knacks per second

"I'll let you folks enjoy this fine piece of 'animation'... that's English for 'anime'."

Not gonna lie, that got a good chuckle out of me, Brad.

Brad talking about himself in third person. Quality content

That intro was great. Brad has a real ..knack.. for comedy!

Hate I missed it live, but hey thanks Brad for keeping the content flowing and admitting your dark windjammer secrets!

All these years and you never learned how to properly spin dash? No wonder Sonic has been a terrible experience for you lol.

Windjammers!

Am I the only one sitting here feeling a strange compulsion to play Knack? Like, the first Knack? That art style is totally doing it for me.

Breaking Brad: Knack 1 & 2: confirmed!

I usually get the urge to answer these type of questions sarcastically, but in this case, I'm fairly sure that you actually are the only person feeling that way. I played the demo of Knack 2 and thought the gameplay was, if not amazing, then at least decent but the art style is so aggressively bland and bad that it puts me off from playing it.

Anyhoo, this was enjoyable enough...well, except for that Sonic Mania bit. Come on Brad, JUST SPIN DASH AT LEAST ONCE, for crying out loud.

@lachrymost: I like the look of humans,and even the silouette changes as knack grows bigger, but not knack's face. And when knack spoke (like Brad I knew little about the game)... I was never going near the game.

Hope the sequel is good, if only so the knack 2 meme crowd can stop.

@julesodies: Bradchete don't text.

I would love to see Brad play through Heavenly Sword - the story and characters in that game are both bizarre and unnerving.

Brad you keep playing Sonic wrong. You gotta just go with the flow duder!

Knack 2: You Can't Stop Mark Cerny

So Knack is now the PS mascot, who'd ever thunk it?

Now that you've said it out loud, this Knack play-through of yours has to happen, Brad. Maybe save it for the lowest, most tired point of your Extra Life stream this year. You know, a bit of that it's always darkest before the dawn stuff. The dawn, of course, being Knack's resplendent, shining face.

"There is something to the idea of getting drunker and drunker on a Friday night as I finish Knack. I don't think I'm quite that wild. I don't think I have that in me. I don't think I have the zest for life to pull that off. We should table that idea for later."

And people think the West Coast is out of ideas.

Brad, you have spent all of these years building trust and credibility in the gaming press. The time has now come to spend that capital and break the Knack 2 review embargo.

Uh it didn't capture the end when Brad belched lol

I really enjoyed this stream solo brad not playing DOTA is quite enjoyable.

boy o boy i never realized how difficult sonic could be to someone who hasnt played it before

Nobody can be that bad at Sonic.

Brad is pretty bad at Sonic huh?

I dunno what it is, but that slightly subdued "you motherfucker" around an 1:00:40 in cracked me up.

Knack is still a mistake.

A meme is born!

Brad really is comically bad at Sonic the Hedgehog. That could almost be a badge of pride though.

Ok, so Knack is actually this guy, right?

The music carries this game so hard.

I think the secret real answer — and I've always held this opinion — is that Sonic was always a bad game. Some good music at times, I'll give it that. But the gameplay always felt to me like it didn't know what it wanted to be. You can go really fast, but you'll run into bullshit. You can collect a whole bunch of rings, but you only need one to be protected. And so on. All that said, the dichotomy between it and Mario was and is pretty silly too. They're very different games; they're hardly even comparable.

"I don't think I like Sonic. I've decided; I feel like this is an opinion 20-something years in the making. I think I'm way more of a Mario type when it comes to platforming."

I would be too if I were that bad at Sonic... good lord...

Oh, hey! I never realized that opening animation in Sonic Mania had different audio if you let it loop a second time.

Honestly, I like the version with the sound effects better. The music is better too. I don't know why they bothered to put the trailer version in there, or at least... I don't get why they put it first. If the second version played first, it'd be so much more hype.

I'm also curious now what happens if you let it loop a third time...

I was scrolling through and quickly read that as Breaking Brad: Sonic 3 & Knuckles.

After seeing his performance here, I feel like that would not be much fun for Brad.
It'd be great content, though. It could also potentially be the first Breaking Brad that actually breaks him?

This video should come with a content warning for the Sonic Mania part

Looking forward to Breaking Brad: I am the one who Knacks

Yeah playing sonic like this is the equivalent of not getting a forza motor sports game as you keep crashing into walls full speed each turn cause you dont slow down. I would hate sonic too if i boiled it down to "you just press go right in the first level so the rest of the game must just be that right?" Benefit of the doubt Brad's opinion on this game mimics most people on the half who hate sonic/compare it to mario. So i get the audience.

Sonic part was cringe.

@tgjessie: Seems more like you don't know what Sonic is, rather than the game "not knowing what it wants to be." Yes, you can go fast, but the second Zone of the first game forces you to go slow. That's a pretty clear indicator that the game isn't just about going fast. The whole idea is that the harder levels require more practice and playthroughs to master, eventually getting you to the point where you can always go fast. Plenty of levels are about navigating a maze-like structure, solving short puzzles, and tight platforming. There's also the various bonus stages to go for to get different endings, sometimes even a new final boss. Sonic's got a lot going on, but if you just assume it's a game where you hold right to win you're not going to have fun.

The bit about getting progressively drunker while you play through all of Knack is why Brad will always be my favorite duder.

Breaking Brad: Sonic Edition

I've been playing Super Mario World for pretty much the first time recently and can not get used to the controls at all compared to Sonic where I always feel the character is doing what I expect. It was pretty funny watching Brad play Sonic Mania.

brad solo streams warm my soul

Knack has the look of a game that could have been a fun action adventure platformer with a lot of charm, and yet it is one of the most excruciatingly boring, repetitive games I've experienced this gen. That said, it was short enough that I finished it, unlike a few games I played this gen. While I am not a fan of the first Knack, I am curious how the second game pans out.

Brad's sarcastic animosity towards Knack got old pretty quickly. Knocking the tutorial while getting hit by the first enemy was great.

Brad is terrible at sonic gatdam.

60 KPS. Nice.

@avioto: Sounds more like Knack and 40s

Mega Drive Sonic is trash fire game design and always has been. Not liking that garish, juddery, stop-and-go zero-rhythm mess just means you're a person who knows good things from bad. Congratulations, you don't suck!

Sega was an arcade game company that thought glitz and loudness was what made a game. Meanwhile, Super Mario World is a goddamn bonsai tree of expert economy and game design: Sonic was made for a hypothetical arcade nobody goes to, Mario was made for the living room.

Ironically the master system Sonics are genuinely good but nobody fucking ever talks about them because BLAST PROCESSING KNUCKLES FNAFFFff