The Metagame with Nick and Matt: Round 1!

EVEN. MORE. INTERN CONTENT. HANDLE IT.

In this video, Kess and I try our hand at playing Local No. 12's The Metagame, a kickass debate-fostering card game given out at GDC 2011 this year. Essentially, the game is two piles of cards: Game Cards and Question Cards. Each Game Card has the name, stats and picture of a specific video game on it, while each Question Card poses an interesting game-related query (such as "Which game lets players express themselves more?" or "Which game should be put in a time capsule?"). You can see how this could get interesting!

So, after making up our own rules (by which I mean "stealing the 2-player ruleset Anthony Carboni created for Bytejacker"),, Matt and I tried our hand at a quick debate. The results...well, you be the judge! Tell us who you think won and why in the comments!

This is just the first of three rounds we filmed today, but depending on how you guys enjoy them, you could potentially see more of these in the future starring other Whiskey personalities. Get excited, homeskillets!

Oh, and as usual, thanks for watching! <333

EVEN. MORE. INTERN CONTENT. HANDLE IT.

In this video, Kess and I try our hand at playing Local No. 12's The Metagame, a kickass debate-fostering card game given out at GDC 2011 this year. Essentially, the game is two piles of cards: Game Cards and Question Cards. Each Game Card has the name, stats and picture of a specific video game on it, while each Question Card poses an interesting game-related query (such as "Which game lets players express themselves more?" or "Which game should be put in a time capsule?"). You can see how this could get interesting!

So, after making up our own rules (by which I mean "stealing the 2-player ruleset Anthony Carboni created for Bytejacker"),, Matt and I tried our hand at a quick debate. The results...well, you be the judge! Tell us who you think won and why in the comments!

This is just the first of three rounds we filmed today, but depending on how you guys enjoy them, you could potentially see more of these in the future starring other Whiskey personalities. Get excited, homeskillets!

Oh, and as usual, thanks for watching! <333

Don't you guys have like a couple of weeks left or something? You really started pumping this shit out. Finding it hard to keep up.

Hot damn Kessler. Good argument.

This is truly the summer of the interns!

This game looks great, but none of my mates are really into video games enough to know enough about various titles. A few of them are pretty much the dudes I play Halo/COD with, and as such I don't think they'd have any views on how Mario jumping through a painting into a new amazing world where he can fly seems akin to something you'd experience in a dream state.

Oh, and that was a very impressively delivered argument, Matthew. It was also wonderfully undermined by your hilariously (and deliciously) craptastic pun you rounded it off with.

I agree with Matt that Mario is more of a dream-like experience.  Not sure if I'm supposed to "vote" here or on YouTube, so I shall do both.

I accidentally got some of these at GDC. At the time I thought it was dumb (ok, I still kind of do), but in retrospect I wish that I had played a few rounds. It would have been cool to try my oratory skills and gaming knowledge against members of the industry.

This would be a really fun thing to debate in the forums.

I think Kessler made a better argument, but it didn't change my mind. Super Mario 64 seems more like abstract fantasy than dream-like. The game, and universe, has elements of magic and spells as well as objects and environments that make no logical sense whereas dreams are usually grounded in reality with few elements that defy or bend the perception of realism. Minecraft presents many rules and visual representations of real world qualities that can be understood and accepted while at the same time providing just enough fantasy to make you question it. Dreams also provide little, if any, context as to how and why everything is happening around you. Minecraft provides no preconceived motivations and is very aimless (infinite even) in its own existence and limitations.

I think this one breaks down to what the individual will believe are the limits of a dream based on personal experience.

Hot damn you guys! This looks awesome, and gets those video game brain juices flowing! Keep is up! 
 
Also, Kessler, you gave a great argument and I was with you from the beginning, but I gotta go with Nick after he explained his reasoning. Minecraft totally is like a dream now that I think about it....

This is neat. I wish I had a deck.

Metagame! Thought I wouldn't be seeing this again, let alone at Giant Bomb. Good job stealing Anthony's deck, Nick.

As for who won, I suppose it would depend on what kind of dreams you have. Personally I have more crazy, all over the place dreams like Mario 64 but I can see how building giant things out of whatever could be more someone else's "genre" of dreams.

Kessler totally won that.

I've had dreams where I'm in the castle from SM64, lol.

Wow, cool video. I think that Matt had a really well put together argument with Super Mario 64, and against a different game I might agree, but overall I'd have to agree with Nick - you really shape your world in Minecraft and have a great deal of aimless control, but (if you choose) there's still threats out there that can inspire fear and wariness in the player, which reminds me very much of my own dreams. So I vote for Minecraft. 
 
Looking forward to more of these.

I vote Minecraft.

Voting for Mario, excellent argument Matt.

I have to say Kessler had the better argument.

This is a shame because at first I was totally thinking Minecraft too, but Kessler's argument sold me.

You didn't give very much argument for minecraft being like a dream- just kinda that it is haha (I'm paraphrasing you poorly I think, i apologize i'm tired). I would have said more along the lines of "the logic works in a dream like way. Things get broken down in a simplistic way in order to create other things- in much the same way things just happen in dreams and in the dream they make sense. And like a nightmare zombies pop out at night for no apparent reason other to terrorize you." =P

Since this is a vote on who won the debate and not what I would have picked- Ya, sorry Nick, I gotta go with Kessler. I felt he created a stronger argument.

minecraft wins

I think Bodega delivered his argument better and was more cohesive, but I still think that Minecraft is more like a dream in the way that there is no concrete goal and you're free to shape the world in virtually any way you see fit.

So you have to flip a coin, to argue for a game, to settle a draw, to win a card battle, to eventually win a deck? Inception style gaming is here people.

Super Mario 64 wins.

I would have to say that Kessler had the better argument and that Super Mario 64 wins in my personal opinion. That games lonely and bizarre atmosphere always came across as being very dreamy to me.

Minecraft is more of a sim than it is dreamlike.

Compared to mario 64 anyway.

I agree with nick, but i would like to add that minecraft also has a NIGHTMARE side to its dreamlike qualities. Every night in the game various awful monsters come from the darkness and attack you, and like a nightmare, they will come endlessly with no real purpose other than to hunt you.

Matt swayed me with his serpentine tongue. Gross.

I personally would have chosen Minecraft, but seriously, Kessler won. Props duder.

@GunslingerPanda said:

I've had dreams where I'm in the castle from SM64, lol.

Same, which is why I feel a lot of difficulty arguing either way.

Minecraft would win if it weren't for the crafting system that forces you to hunt for ingredients and memorize recipes in a very methodical way.

I'm voting Mario.

Also a cameraman would help a lot.

Man I bet this game would be so fucking awesome at PAX in the following years.

I would love to play this game, sadly I have no friends that could actually debate over video games.

I think Kessler won this one. Nick really had no other options on what to throw, and I think Kessler sold the dreamlike points of SM64 perfectly in 1:30.

If I were Nick I would have taken a full-on Inception argument, focusing much more on how Minecraft allows the player to construct worlds strictly from imagination. Nothing about Minecraft's gameplay is dreamlike at all to me.

This is an awesome idea though, I really want to see more of these. I bet Gerstmann can throw dark in some game debating.

Agree with Kessler, he also did a much, much better job constructing his argument on the fly.

Kessler gets the square!

Nick looks like Matt's thinner brother.

Matt Kessler

But Minecraft isn't a game!

I would have initially chosen Minecraft as the more dream like game but I think Kessler's argument for Mario 64 might have changed my mind.

Why is the BBC on those cards? o.0

This should be interesting...

Minecraft. Definitely Minecraft.

I'll join the chorus - Kessler's argument in this case was better, but Minecraft is still so obviously the right answer.

Minecraft is nothing like a dream, I don't understand people who say it is. My dreams are fluid, strange locations and events, riding penguins and shit. Never do I dream that I am building a house, or mining iron.

Minecraft wins easily, it really simply is a more "dream-like" game, which isn't to say that it's better than Mario. It allows you to create a world, very much like dreams and you have no real objective. So yeah, motherfucking Minecraft.  
But yeah, Kessler did deliver a better argument.

@Tylea002 said:

I'll join the chorus - Kessler's argument in this case was better, but Minecraft is still so obviously the right answer.

This. Does that mean Kessler won?

This is cool as hell. More of these please!

Mario 64 for sure

While I think Kessler made good points and conversed them in a better manor Nick's points are resonating better with my own opinions and therefore I choose to vote for Minecraft.

This should definitely be a feature with the Whiskey Media staff.