The Giant Beastcast: Episode 218

Yeah! It's my birthday. Perfect :D

I listen to GBEAST for random subject talk.

I watch RE4 stream for RE4 talk not movie talk

Why was/is dropping out of high-school even allowed?

You couldn't do that in Europe. You are going to school and that's it, end of discussion.

Always sounds weird to me when people say "I dropped out of high-school".

@tr0n: It happens in Europe too. Usually not for the right reasons :/

Sometimes the typical education path isn't right for every person. Some people lead very fulfilled lives without having completed high-school.

Backalar: Yup, the Spotted Lanternfly is a big problem! My mom's house in SE PA had them all over the yard and originated there via a received shipment from Asia. Very, very invasive.

The idea is to get some base knowledge about various topics, so you don't walk around the world uneducated and it teaches you to follow through (finish what you started). It also gives you a better perspective about what you wanna do and what is out there. There's no down side to it.

@tr0n: That's all correct. But being that theres no down side to it, doesn't mean it fits all :)

Knowledge can be gained in a number of ways, same goes for perspective. And doing something you're forced to do doesn't necessarily teach you followthrough.

the next "y2k" thing vinny is referencing is in 2038, which is 2**31 seconds since Jan 1 1970, and the consequence of using a 32 bit counter (one bit is used for sign).

Most things ought to work fine already, since 64 bit counters are more common now, but there will be some breakage on old storage formats or old systems.

School dreams always remind me of the movie Summer School when Jerome asks for the bathroom key, never comes back until the test, and gets the highest grade.

As for movies better than books I will throw in Jaws, Total Recall. Bladerunner, and The Princess Bride.

My dropping out story seems exactly the same as Alex though I ended up becoming a depressed, anxious shut in for years after (stay in school kids)

It's True, TRUE! tue and the raaaainbow kinggggdom. Yeah I have 2 kids too. This show is actually one of the better ones.

You missed the invite option at the beginning, Abby. When you start the game you can simply start it together. Same cutscenes etc. - like in every coop game, I don't know what’s different here than anywhere else to be honest. :D

Also I got to disagree with the “there’s no benefit playing it coop” stuff - the corridor thing (symmetric level design) is pretty nice and it’s pretty fun playing and planning that way.

"Uuuuugggghhhhhh I'm pale" ~Lady in Dracula 1897

Alex dropping out is cool because he's a very well-informed and eloquent person. He's made a life for himself and did it in his own way because school wasn't quite working for him. I have a few friends who have done the same and I respect them a lot for striking out on their own so young.

What's not cool is when you drop out in tenth grade and turn into some slackjawed racist idiot who thinks loving weed and working in a different factory every month is all there is to life. That is uncool.

Edit: I really wish I liked Judgment more than I do. The cast of characters is great, but the story feels so bloated and it's broken up in a way the kills the pacing. They build in some mechanics for you to investigate things, but they never require you to piece things together yourself. It feels like a Yakuza game with a far worse pace.

I could not believe Alex thinking Wolf has bad shooting.

I love hearing Alex talking about Yakuza/Judgment because he describes my feeling towards these games perfectly. They're my favorite thing in this generation of consoles (Yakuza 0 is EASILY my game of the generation). I'm currently in chapter 3 in Judgment and so far it feels like a delightful balance between new and familiar in comparison to the other dragon engine games. Certainly feels like it's gonna be my GOTY as well.

Thats basically what I was going to say. I agree school is good for a great majority of people. Less so about the base knowledge gained as that is very much dependent on the individual (just look at Dan) but more about having structure and a path through life so to speak. That said if that environment is actively working against a person I see no reason to force them through it.

the tech company my dad worked for in 1999 had him (and us) come out to DC for NYE in case of any Y2K bugs and I remember being like...damn. my dad stopped Y2K (when in reality he and his coworkers probably spent 5 minutes tweaking shit for their company). it seemed VERY cool though.

yay my letter was read ... Ok, now I just feel like a bigger vampire nerd than anything ... :3

All of my nightmares are about being back in highschool and finding out I have a big paper due next week and then not being able to figure out where my next class is. I'm 29 now. Sounds like this is normal?

@tr0n: Not everyone is the same, I loved school and miss it sometimes but I realize that it is not for everyone. People are able to go on and live completely normal, successful lives. Sure school is cool but it's not for everyone. Judging people is definitely not cool.

@scylo: To be fair, i spent a number of years post-high school largely bumming around different bands and only doing odd jobs until I finally started getting my shit together when I was like 20. in a way, I needed that time to figure myself out, but also I definitely didn't go straight from my equivalency exam to being a functioning person.

I have the same nightmares(?) about college. I graduated many years ago, but occasionally have the dream where I realize that I didn't attend a class for the whole semester. The dream ends as the university is telling me the degree I have isn't real.

@tr0n: Basically, kids who are failing, not attending, or just need to get out have a path if need be. The GED is more or less a high school diploma you can get by taking a test. It's also something adults who want to get their degree later in life can take.

Hunger Strike may be the worst track on Temple of the Dog.

I can't believe Alex, Jeff, or Vinny haven't at least heard "Say Hello 2 Heaven."

This. I consider "Say Hello 2 Heaven" to be one of the greatest songs ever written. I also think "Hunger Strike" is one of the worst tracks on the album.

I know the exact point I started to feel old.

It was a couple of weeks ago and I was driving home when I saw a lawn sign promoting someone I went to high school with for mayor. I almost crashed the car. Partly because I felt old and partly because the guy should absolutely not be mayor.

Thanks for the story Dan about the Elite controller and the grips coming off. I got the run around from MS when I tried to get the same issue fixed, so maybe I'll try to hit up the physical store and see if they can do anything. Bakalar is literally the worst just like his website.

Oh right, the time Dan used a Phillips head bit instead of a drill bit to drill holes in a wall. That’s a classic.

This may end up as a blog post, but I have a slightly different reaction to Gloomhaven's digital release than Vinny had.

First off, I don't dispute a lot of what he says about things feeling not as exciting as when playing the tabletop game. I think that's due to a lack of emphasis on showing the random result of your attack "roll" in the game; I've trained myself to not watch the character animations but to watch the VERY SMALL bar above character names where they surface the attack base and modifier.

Where I take issue with Vinny's reaction is I'm pretty comfortable with the streamlining they've done to make this a digital product. I think if I had to watch a long/showy card flip animation, I'd lose patience. For reference, I have a Gloomhaven tabletop group that's been playing for just under a year, damn near every Saturday. Vinny's dead right that there's a TON of set up for each scenario, there's action/card maintenance and item management during and after scenarios, and playing the tabletop game is an investment of money, time, and patience with your fellow players. I LOVE my group, but we spent what felt like 20 minutes one time discussing line of site and ranged attacks when the board/tile set-up included an area between tiles where there weren't other hexes. It's not easy to explain, but we really spent that time honestly discussing how to handle the enemy activities because we wanted to get it right. It can be exhausting, and it's also exhilarating when you overcome a tough scenario by the skin of your teeth.

Digital Gloomhaven, in Early Access, is far from perfect but shows an incredibly promising application of the tabletop's core ruleset to make it accessible for people without a dedicated group and/or the time and/or the space for a full Gloomhaven tabletop experience. The "Adventure" mode that's launched is a rogue-lite-like creation that hints at the full campaign, but still allows for bite-sized adventures that, for me, tide me over from Saturday to Saturday. I think there are certainly improvements to be made to the UI/UX aspect, but I wouldn't write this off based on what's available now.

Vinny - “Alex, anything else making you happy?”

Alex - “uhh...no...”

???

Alex thinks the shooting in the Wolfenstein reboot is poor. The only way I can reconcile that opinion with reality is that he didn't play the game and is playing his classic "edgy pessimistic guy" card to BS us.

Oh for fuck's sake, let Vinny talk about Division 2.

Its really infuriating how much of ass the rest of the podcast people are being about that.

I said that last week, and I think its worth repeating.

damn, daniel.

All modern music makes me feel old and all my friends have babies it's terrifying

Dan and Alex's opinions about The Witcher 3 are completely wrong. That game just gets better and better as the story progresses.

You can totally start Youngblood together with another person, no need to sit through a bunch of cutscenes or anything first.

You can also jump into a game in progress at whatever point the other person is at, without needing to sit through cutscenes either.

I don't know what the specific issue Abby ran into was, but it's definitely not the intended experience nor how it's worked for me at any point.

Honestly life is what you make of it. I have a dear friend who had to drop out of high school due to being constantly ill and couldn't make up the classes. He got a GED and moved abroad. I'm really proud of him.

I clocked about 55 hours into Judgment, completing 48/50 side cases and really took a chomp out of the game as a whole. I absolutely had a blast with the story and characters. Easily the biggest triumph of the game, though, is Kaito (your partner). He's 100% Kiryu-light down to his fighting style, pants, the Yakuza 0 shirt, and mannerisms yet he's different enough to be his own character. It's a good bridge between the ending of Kiryu from Yakuza 6 to this game.

Abby's problem with the Wolfenstein co-op was definitely weird. A friend and I joined up from the get-go and saw those opening cutscenes together. May have been a bug on her end? Either way, that's a really bad first impression for sure.

I'd guess the reason MLB is testing a robo ball/strike machine is because they track every call, and the human(and aging)umpires percentages of incorrect calls has gone up over the last decade or more. Also, attendance is down, and the "fast moving' sports are stealing the pro sports dollars. Anything to speed up the game is what they're after, more action, less down time for our impatient, "give me what I want now" phone zombie generation. :-)

I would have liked their impressions on the super cringey elevator scenes in Youngblood. To me it seems so off. I am so happy I didn't buy it. Not even in a sale is it worth my dollars. But if cringey shit is your thing, go for it! For me, any game with that kind of BS would be a no no.

You know, as someone who loved them as a kid, I've been waiting for Micro Machines to make a comeback, and I was wondering what was taking so long. The "choking hazard" thing never crossed my mind, but that most probably is it. *Sigh.* Time to hit eBay.

@therealturk: That was a great story.

Is Vinny's son Jay Leno?