Bombin' the A.M. With Scoops and the Wolf: 10/20/2014

Scoops & Wolfie!

Wolfie & Scoops!

Those nachos look so boring...

Nachos are the obvious answer.

Awoo!

Yeahhhhhh! My Friday morning was not the same last week without the podcast. Now my Monday may include my daughter being born! I'll nickname her scoops!

Tacos obviously.

Great way to start the day.

can't start the week without Bombin' the AM!

What's so bad with a 5s? Can you not just have your number transferred to it until you nab a 6 again (different service?)? I'll admit my 5c is definitely starting to hitch up on me since the update however. Thanks for the 'cast guys.

Oh jeez, Matt's Juicy Lucy... My mouth is watering. Anyone wanna go get one, like, right now?

I ended up getting Lego Rock Band for free in a 2 for 1 Christmas deal when I bought Assassin's Creed II. There are some great songs on that soundtrack! And you could export them and play them in a proper Rock Band game!

I've seen the evil within with adjusted fov + removed black bars and it looks way less claustrophobic imo.... but theres nothing wrong with having options ofcourse, I'd definitely keep 'em.

To say that the black bars are cinematic is categorically incorrect on the part of Bethesda.

Widescreen format (black bars on movies) was a result of 4:3 TVs not being able to show wider shots. Imagine a shot of two people in a mansion sitting at opposite ends of a long, long dinner table.

A cinema screen would be able to show this as one shot. On a 4:3 TV it would need to be cut into different shots to fit. So for example you have a shot that shows the left half of the table, and then a shot that shows the right half.

Widescreen basically meant that there wouldn't have to be minor editing changes like that in the home version of movies. The original ratio that the film was shot and edited in would be maintained because the black bars would squish the image to its original size. Since HDTVs are wider this is less of a problem today.

So it's certainly an intentional choice, but to say it's cinematic is illegitimate in this case. Though what is interesting is that the same solution is solving two different technical problems: One about aspect ratio, one presumably about rendering graphics.

I'd suggest that you don't check twitter during the week either. The whole thing is just a cesspit full of crap anyway, you're missing nothing.

Also, people who meet you for lunch and spend the whole time looking at their phones would probably rather be somewhere else or with someone else. Why waste the time on them.

Tacos is the right answer.

I remember getting into an argument with my older brother when DVDs first started getting popular. He couldn't comprehend the black bars and I had a real hard time explaining the difference between a square and a rectangle to a 35 year old man.

I might be a crazy person, but I'm someone who wants to sit down and listen to whole albums at a time. I might throw on a couple favorite songs from time to time but I never just grab a collection of stuff and hit shuffle. I don't really stream music either, I want a local music library in high quality on my PC with a lower quality copy of that for whatever mobile device I'm using. Any of my favorite stuff, especially from smaller bands, I get physical copies and rip them myself. All that being said I thought that was a really great Rock Band discussion, super fun to listen to!

Also woo! More Cara!

Sorta, but that's not totally correct. 16x9 is not actually true widescreen 2:35:1. Since most HD TV's are just 16x9, you still need the black bars to get full 2:35:1 ratio, which is what most films are shot in. So, while you're right that the black bars were made for 4x3 screens, we still kinda need the bars even with 16x9.

The question I have with The Evil Within and The Order is whether they are actually rendering more on the left and right of the screen or are they just doing it to look cool?

Can someone post the patch link for T.E.W.? Please, and thank you!

The default black bars are a huge hindrance to playing Evil Within. Given how the game struggles to maintain 30fps with 1/3 of the screens pixels not being rendered, there is no doubt in my mind that it was done to improve stability with the terrible IDTech engine Bethesda forced Tango to use.

Patrick speaks about the console command on PC that eliminates the black bars by simply zooming in the picture. This is true, and it IS actually worse than playing with the default black bars. However, a fix has come out called "Flawless Widescreen" that gets rid of the bars AND provides a traditional FOV that makes things perfect.

With this fix, I found the game VERY enjoyable. I eventually elected to keep the 30fps lock because uncapped to 60fps has huge swings in fps (often even when no lighting effects or enemies on screen) it is too stuttery using this setting. I get drops into the high 30s anyway with a 780Ti ($730 graphics card a couple of months ago) so I settled on 30fps locked with no deviation.This is not ideal, and it is totally understandable to wait for a price drop for a 30fps PC experience.

The textures are flat out ugly. Lighting/shadows is pretty good, but not top notch.The character design is excellent, and animation (outside of the main character's run animation) are all well done. IMO the sum of the parts add up to a good looking game overall.

I really enjoyed my completed playthrough of the Evil Within, but I would only play it on PC. The severe letterboxing forced on consoles ruins the game.

I don't know what the percentages are, but to be fair there are a lot of movies in theaters with a 1.85 ratio, which is a lot closer to 16x9 (1.78). But yeah, black bars are still necessary on widescreen tvs.

I unironically want to see Patrick review his burner phone's app store games.

IT'S NOT A DRUG USER PHONE PATRICK. IT'S A DRUG DEALER PHONE.

I could absolutely murder some nachos right now.

@freedo: Fair point!

It would have been better for me to say that calling Evil Within 'more cinematic' is meaningless. By which I mean they could have done it in 4:3 and said it was cinematic, or taken up the whole screen, which also is cinematic.

Even something like the camera in God of War is cinematic because movie cameras also follow a set path that the audience can't manipulate. I don't think 'cinematic' is a meaningful way to qualify a game because you can apply it to almost anything.

Whether it's widescreen or not is not a distinction that bears any meaning to something being cinematic. It's a format for maintaining the editing. So to me it doesn't make any sense to say "this video game is more like a movie because of its aspect ratio".

I want to eat nachos now. And pizza. And a pumpkin pie Blizzard. And cake.

Without the internet you guys wouldn't have a job so that at least warrants a one star

Oh man, guys don't use Patricks explosive bolt strat for the invisible guys. The Flash bolt/stealth kill method not only works better, but they are also more common and less expensive to build yourself and those explosive bolts can be saved for more important things.

I hate whoever picked out this thumbnail image. I'm so fucking hungry right now. You jerks!

Oh damn wait till Pat gets to Ch. 9, Alien Isolation all over again.

On Rockband I think it could help if they could come up with a usb adapter that makes all the Rockband 1-3 instruments compatible for a Rockband 4 but I still don't know if enough people would care.

@xanadu: Agreed. Even though all Mexican food is tortilla with cheese, meat, or vegetables. But taco form is the best way to combine these.

Burritos blow Tacos and Nachos out of the water.

I don't have the game, but on a lot of the media that I've seen the QL etc. indoor areas made up of tight narrow spaces, essentially meaning that the edges of the screen don't really display anything meaningful, just wall.

The fov is pretty narrow to start with so removing the crop isn't going to change the construction of a scene in a meaningful way. It might even help you see items on the floor more easily; they worked around that issue by putting those massive vertical line on item indicators right in the middle of the screen.

Given the really horrible framerate in some instances suggests this was purely a technical issue. Imagine how the xb1 or ps4 version would chug if they had to render an extra 30% of the screen.

#NachoShield

We need Dan to weigh in on the Juicy Lucy.

The Evil Within's choice of running at 30 fps is cool because the monsters look really creepy in motion. I wish it was only the enemies doing the 30fps and not Sebastian or the camera.

Also, I do believe the black bars are an artistic choice that failed. The effect of removing them is a cup half empty or full. I recommended playing the game to completion then do all the modding you want.

I still boot up Skyrim when new cool mods are available.

http://www.flawlesswidescreen.org/

Instructions below

Actually I think The Evil Within does give you breaks from the tension. You have the mirror dimension that feels like your own personal safe zone. This is where you level up, use your keys for items and save your game. It's also where you can get some more information on the story.

Also, the chapter structure of the game lends itself to taking breaks where you can release some of the tension between chapters.

awoo

Yeah this was the point where I was assured the extreme crop is solely due to performance issues, and not for some attempt at achieving a certain narration experience like they ridiculously suggested ( I did write a wall of text about this around here I think ). It directly hampers the gameplay to such an extent that they included some out of place intra diagetic visual cues for easier interaction.

I really liked the game and have an absolute blast still replaying it, even without using Flawless Widescreen and fps unlock command ( on first playthrough, all modded in NG+ to be frank). But it's disappointing to see what should have been Mikami's return to genre is hampered by, what I ignorantly assume, engine decisions that were imposed by the publisher ( specifically, using id tech 5 instead of something more flexible to their needs). It's an amazing ride and I'd have liked to see it in its absolute technical best.

My pitch for nachos.

With nachos, you can share a bowl with friends while having a few beers and playing games or watching football. Sharing a bowl is much more social than gorging tacos down around your friends. You can control the ratio of toppings to chip on the fly for each nacho you munch. If you are just looking to ingest as much meat and cheese as humanly possible in a Mexican food fashion, Mr. burrito says hi.

I always felt that sports titles: NHL, MADDEN, FIFA, NBA 2k, etc... should move to a subscription based service. I never really thought about Rock Band or Guitar Hero doing that type of service, and I don't think it would work very well.

My main reasoning for this line of thought is that you would be hard pressed as a developer to select songs that all the users would agree on. Harmonix/Activision would either need to employ a large staff in order to accommodate for the the vast music tastes that their users consume, and/or offer specific genre subscriptions. Not very many people are going to enjoy the Iron Maiden songs they're paying for when they haven't had a new Maroon 5 song in a while.

It would also be hard for the Harmonix to adopt this kind of service, with all the songs they have already sold for their platform. How would those paying customers feel that the potentially thousands of dollars spent on songs are now being offered for $10/month? They would have to offer some kind of loyalty rewards system to those users or not offer any previous releases in the subscription catalogue, which would lead to more work filling out the library..

@rolanthas said:

It is so strange to see them using idTech5. They didn't need the Megatextures and then they disabled the frame rate balancing mechanisms (as the game does not manage to maintain 30fps). They had to hack in the lighting technology as idTech5 did not inherit the dynamic lighting system from idTech4.

The problem with the engine is that it isn't as good in practice as it is on paper and is at an evolutionary dead end. I figure Bethesda has already sunk the costs in developing it, so the studio got it for free-ish (they obviously had a terrible time manipulating the engine to their needs).

A good taco is so much better than good nachos, which at its core is still just chips and a topping dump.

I'm so ashamed in Alex for even having to think about tacos or nachos. Tacos is the only choice! I thought I knew you Alex, I thought I knew you...

@johnked6 said:

Yup, I agree completely. Though to be fair even the Save Room isn't always devoid of tension building.