The Giant Beastcast: Episode 193

Hey, it's February, we made it!

Is someone really up this early from GB East? >__>

:D

It’s Friday time for some Beastcast

This Triangle conversation. lol

@danryckert I inserted a video here but its not showing up on my screen so here : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mLeNaZcy-hE

This is a gooood Dan episode

I'll take the Mario Galaxy 2 box for $100 if you guys sign it and I'll donate the money to Extra Life.

Apple sucks and right to repair is important.

Also, correct me if I'm wrong but isn't everything on the epic games store exclusive while nothing on steam is.

The triangle thing......

Anthem impressions are weird to me because everyone seems to have very different ideas about what they liked or didn't like about it. Jeff, Brad and Alex seems to like how the flying feels - but I've seen any number of people claim that it controlled "unplayably". It's weird to me because usually impressions seem to aggregate and align somewhat, that doesn't seem to be the case with this game. I think I might start to feel like the people who enjoyed ME:A did.

I also tried Anthem, I thought the shooting was decent, the flying and mobility great. And the little writing they had available in the demo seemed funny and good to me. Certainly better than any writing I saw from ME:A videos. I also don't get the impression that the starting javelin is boring - it's still much more mobile and active to play than your character in any given shooter.

Also the cosmetic customization was out of this world detailed, I'm surprised no outlet has mentioned that AT ALL from what I've seen. Excited to play detailed dress up with mechs.

My two concerns after the demo really is that the menus are legendarily poor to use, and the map seems very small. Regarding the map I've heard people mention the increased verticality but all the points of interest seem to be on one layer - there was vertical space to move around but nothing practical to do in it.

TRIANGLESSSSSSSSSSSSS

Getting rid of a geometric form completely would create a universe beyond our comprehension. Like a universe where 1+2=4.

That triangles debate was some of the best Bestcast content I've ever heard. This is why I originally fell in love with the Beastcast.

For the last 2 weeks, I haven't been able to get any sound out of the beastcast. Same thing is happening on spotify with the beastcast too. Am I the only one?

Regarding Metro and Steam->Epic:

Definitely not seeing the "unfair" argument over the store move. If you haven't put your money down, then you're not a paying customer and really shouldn't feel like you're entitled to anything. Moreover, the hardship being placed on those non-customers is their having to use another storefront.

I can't think of a less offensive way to benefit the studio/publisher than move storefronts, especially when the gaming media spends most of its time complaining about an industry where publishers have been more than happy to throw their own games under the bus in order to chase new revenue models (micro-transactions, loot boxes, games-as-a-service, gradations of premium versions, etc.)

In this particular case we're also talking about the Metro series, which has primarily been a PC-centric franchise and is by no means guaranteed to recoup the development expense of the last 4-5 years. The timing is also not the least bit unexpected, because the initial launch period is naturally going to be the time where you move the most copies. If they were going to do this at all, the time to do it would be now.

Even taking his thought experiment in the spirit it was intended, what immediately came to mind to me were molecules and chemical bonds that utilize that structure, so you'd probably destroy most complex molecules. But yeah, as you said, even conceptually his thought experiment isn't really coherent.

Anything that makes Steam have to actually react instead of lazily keeping Steam the same with its Windows 98 UI is a good thing. Also the game is definitely 10 bucks cheaper on the Epic store. It was 60 on Steam the entire time, unless there was a 5% off for preorders type thing. And lastly, the Epic store might not have the install base of Steam but it is getting a TON of eyeballs from Fortnite players alone.

If I had 5 months to do anything, it would be to finally research, buy, build, and paint a full Warhammer 40k tabletop army and start playing the actual game. I've played a lot of the video games and read a lot of the fluff but have never taken the plunge into actually collecting and playing.

Hmm... If the Bermuda Triangle disappears, does all that shit come back? Top drawer Dan hi jinks this time, jolly good.

triangles man how do they work? glad Reggie made a cameo

Triangular Magnetic Pulse

Goodness gracious, the triangle debate.

No mention of NoClip documentaries?!

For shame.

Dan Ryckert has a beautiful mind.

oh, 3d games are made of triangles

Yeah, don't get the reaction over the Metro/Steam deal, given the pre-orders will be honored and even DLCs can be purchased through Steam.

But I also have pretty much a negative impression towards Steam, so, there's that.

The Social Network is 100% saying Zucker is a fucking sociopath and its great. The woman at the beginning literally tells him "you're going to go through life thinking that girls don't like you because you're a nerd. And I want you to know, from the bottom of my heart, that that won't be true. It'll be because you're an asshole."

I would be extremely sad if gamestop going under meant game informer went under.

The a cappella group The Bobs do a song called "Triangle Man". It is about a superhero who fights "Particle Man". It is quite funny.

@no8axel: ehhh they humanize him quite a bit by the end. After all, I believe the last line from a different woman is "You're not an asshole, Mark. You're just trying so hard to be." Anyway, it's still a great movie just don't take it as some kind of documentary or exposé.

Abby likes the Apple store AND Gamestop? Man, we just don't see eye to eye on anything. I literally think they're the 2 worst brick and mortar stores of all time. I'd rather hurt myself than enter those establishments, it would be less painful.

Anthem is so damned fun if you realize the shooting is not the attraction like in Destiny. With just a little gear you can increase how long you can fly significantly and the vast amount of abilities and gear/build customization seems really fantastic to start with. It's a games as a service so I'm really hoping Bioware nails it and keeps adding good content because they nailed it with the gameplay/story/music so far for me. It's similar to Quantum Break with Jeff and how he played it as a 3rd person shooter when the guns were there to combo off the time abilities. Sometimes things just aren't built the way you want to play, but for me flying around and hovering like a maniac iron man blowing shit to bits has been absolutely incredible.

@vinny If you really are looking to buy an Android phone next time, may I recommend looking into Xiaomi. It's basically a high end budget brand. I bought a Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite a few months ago. I payed less than $180 for it, and I expect it to last for at least 4 years.

One thing to look for when you're browsing for Android phones is to check if it's part of a program called Android One. If it is, it's guaranteed to get priority with software updates from Google for at least 2+ years. Worth looking into.

Super Mario Galaxy 2 would be an amazing follow-up to Steal My Sunshine. "Grab My Galaxy"? Maybe some phrasing issues with that one. "Gumballs and Galaxies"? I should probably just let GBE (the inventors of "Mass Alex") figure it out.

@alex(not being political) since the president was elected Brady has not supported him in any way (hat in his locker was put there by the asshole owner) and in fact has only said things are becoming to heated/angry and that's on the leadership. Hate him if you want (they never cheated, Spygate was cameras in the wrong place and Deflategate was 100% explained by science) but he is not pro anyone in politics and instead preaches for less hatred and anger from those in charge.

@tfarcevol *cover a song called "Particle Man."

Fixed camera angles are A-Okay with me and I don't have much nostalgia for them. I actually was hoping for a fixed camera mode in the RE2 remake!

@doncabesa: Brady has voiced his friendship for Trump long before he became President, so to me, if you've ever claimed friendship with Trump, you're a bad person.

@subcan: oops right you are!

Trump likes winners, Brady is nice to everyone. "Long before he became president" and isn't now after so either you can damn someone for doing something you don't like once or understand that things have changed. The former is the same type of close-minded thinking that so many of us despise.

Hilarious to say they never cheated. The penalties and punishment say otherwise. They won those first superbowls due to spygate.

This is some serious revisionist history. I don't give a crap about the Pats cheating, but Brady has repeatedly said that he is good friends with Trump.

https://www.boston.com/sports/new-england-patriots/2017/04/19/here-is-everything-tom-brady-has-and-hasnt-said-about-donald-trump

Regardless, Brady hasn't exactly stood AGAINST Trump on anything either, up to and including Trump's reprehensible quote on Access Hollywood (which, when asked about, Brady just walked out of the room). These are all moments that would have been easy for him to speak out against Trump, and instead he always acts like a coy son of a bitch. It's beyond lame, and generally not saying anything can just as easily be considered giving your approval. Especially in clear cut situations where Brady is asked directly for his opinion on shit Trump has done that is comically villainous.

It's amazing to me that in 2019 whether or not Brady is a dickbag is still up for debate.

Anthem was fun to me. Abilities were on a rapid cooldown which is a huge improvement over Destiny's BS. World is beautiful and the damn thing is a demo. Looks fun.

I'm still amazed by the praise for Breath of the Wild. I've loved zelda since I started gaming in the very early 90s yet this one is a huge miss for me and arguably my least favorite zelda. It'll be the only console zelda i've played that I won't beat (I got several hours into it then realized how miserable of a time I was having and quit with no desire to ever return). I have several issues with it and none of them are made ok by "oh look I can use an ice block this way to solve a puzzle instead!". In contrast, Link Between Worlds was downright phenomenal and arguably my favorite in the series (tied with wind waker).

I leave it with this "Spygate" = legal cameras in public from the wrong position, mishandled so terribly by an incompetent commissioner that it became a national story when any other sport would have squashed it quickly. "Deflategate" easily explained by the ideal gas law. I'm not going to get into this in more detail as this isn't the website for it, but you sound ridiculous.

Brady is one of the genuinely kindest people in the history of the sport, his refusal to talk directly about politics is just for shit like this. You probably hate the team, you (same as me) greatly dislike the president, so anything that can add to your opinion you latch onto and ignore the rest. I'm not getting further into this as it's not the place for it, have a nice weekend.

@doncabesa: Fair enough, but I'd be remiss if I didn't say it sounds preposterous to me that you speak so definitively about how nice a guy Brady is when none of us know him. I'm just going off of what he does and doesn't say in public, and that, to me, makes him a dickbag.

Triangles are my favorite shape three points where two lines meet

this might actually be the first time i've felt myself losing brain cells listening to dan talk about this incredibly dumb triangles conversation

@doncabesa: I don't know, he didn't start being bad when they swore him in, it was well known for decades.

Ok, so here's my 2 cents on the Metro Exodus thing and why I don't like it. Feel free to call me some sort of Steam fanboy or whatever:

First of all, a lot of people talk about how "it's time someone took Valve down a peg for sitting lazily on their monopoly." Now, according to oxforddictionaries.com, 'monopoly' is describes as "A commodity or service in the exclusive control of a company or group", the key term being "exclusive."

Now, I don't have any insight into Valve's dealings as a retailer with publishers, but I can't imagine they have contractual obligations to release their games via Steam. If publishers elected to, they could sell their games directly through their own stores or websites (like Ubisoft already does for instance or Bethesda does for Fallout 76 and Rage 2) to circumvent Valve's 30% cut.

The fact that even completely singleplayer games at retail stores come with Steam keys suggest that publishers chose to use Steam's features including their support backend, customer forums, DLC distribution, friend list, etc.

Steam is the de facto standard platform for digital distribution on PC because they have been doing it for the longest time, has accumulated a huge customer base publishers can advertise to via the Steam store and provides solid backend features like automatic patch distribution, cloud saves, game-specific forums, multiplayer servers, as well as a lot of fluff features like the ability to directly spectate games.

That's a lot of convenience for both the publisher and (what we as players mainly should care about) me as the consumer. Whether that's worth Valve's cut is absolutely up for debate (and in the case of Deep Silver as well as Ubisoft for Division 2, it apparently wasn't), but don't act like Valve somehow has all of pc gaming under their menacing thumb.

Now, as for Metro Exodus specifically, I can't say I was super looking forward to the game (I played about half of Metro 2033 while Metro Redux and Last Light are in my long, long backlog), so I'm not all up in arms about it on a personal level. However, I do think it's a shitty practice to remove the game from the store two weeks before launch, and I don't intend to sound like "oh, they exploited poor, little Valve" (they'll live, I'm sure), but the game was very much advertised in the store. And while pre-orders will be acknowledged by Deep Silver (which is a great move in all of this, but also raises the question of why the game is exclusive, other than Epic threw a lot of money at them upfront), there is also this whole "DON'T PRE-ORDER GAMES" mantra and people who were waiting to buy the game on Steam if reviews were positive are now forced to wait or buy it from Epic.

Which brings us to the whole crux of the matter, that the Epic Games Store, by all accounts, is a feature-poor piece of garbage and if Epic wants to actually compete, they should use their Fortnite millions not to buy exclusivity but making a better product and let the user decide where they want to spend their money. Instead, I'm asked to further fracture my games library (like I said, I have the other Metro games on Steam), give my credit card information to another company, having to manage another launcher (minor inconvenience) and my main point here is that this entire thing is to NO BENEFIT TO ME as an end user. People will cite the lower price to pass part of the savings on to the consumer, but that's only in the US, I checked the EGS and it costs the same for me and I read for some people, their price went up because Epic doesn't have regional pricing.

To finish my point, I think Epic challenging the long-standing publisher-retailer relationship of the 30% cut is good and Valve adjusted their policy slightly as a result. However, if your intent is to compete with the de facto market leader, offer the consumer a better experience, rather than buying up the market to force them to shop with you. If publishers offered their games on either store, but it was sligthly more expensive on Steam due to a "features tax", it'd be fine. But taking away the choice while giving me a worse product in every way makes me not want to buy the game.

We're all in this together.

They have a fight, Triangle wins, Triangle Man