The Giant Beastcast: Episode 250

I don't agree with Vinny with people having to be able to get used to how old games look, there's a resolution issue of course but you can up-rez old games, at which point you're left with the rest of the content, which was put together probably with a higher budget than most modern indie games.
Lots of indie artists have put out some very impressive retro inspired games, but there's often caveats such as rogue-like's without bespoke level design, retro aesthetics reducing the art burden, indie games usually have a low price to be competitive where as old games were full price because they were mostly fully developed games, where even the moderately budgeted games were trying to compete with AAA.
The innovative worlds of older games still have lots to offer, regardless of the age of their graphics.

F

(Mike's kinda great. Also Dragon Age and Space Ace are undoubtedly FMV games because they were drawn on paper and then digitized as video, as opposed to created on a PC. I don't know enough to be sure, but I think the same method of drawing then photographing was used for Cobra Command, which is def FMV.)

(Abby get well soon)

the nvidia stuff probably boils down to the pubs claiming broadcast rights/transition over state lines type stuff

Great episode! It's hard to believe its already been 250. THIC!

@john_wiswell: A TV show is also for a much larger audience. The Last of Us had sold 17 million copies as of mid 2018, that’s combined ps3 and ps4 numbers.

By contrast in 2018, HBO has around 140 million subscribers.

Fare thee well, Mike, but looking forward to the new Discovery Channel series Fighting Things: With Michael Mahardy.

Look at this and tell me 'this aesthetic was never good'.

Everyone is jumping the ship recently, the only good news is that Brad & Will Made a Tech Pod...

All the best for the future Mike; definitely a member of the Giant Bomb family, officially or not. Always appreciated your really detailed analysis.

I feel like MDK is one game for me, where it's unique style makes that game hold up wonderfully graphics-wise, even after twenty years. Obviously I don't know if I'd say that, if I saw it for the first time in 2020, so there's some nostalgia at play there.

Live fast, Mike hard, lemonade.

I've been holding this in a long time (years and years of GB content), but that misunderstood phrase/idiom discussion prompts this comment: A correction to professional talking people who say this wrong all the time, and try as I might it annoys the hell out of me, in equal proportion to when people say "nuke-yular" and "I could care less". (It's "I could'nt care less, as in you could not care any less which is the phrase and is the actual most annoying misspoken phrase when I hear it).

I couldn't care less about nu-cle-ar being said wrong when it comes to serious discussion, except that it informs me on how well educated a person chooses to appear or be,

But here is one my late dad explained to me as he thankfully cursed me with the pain induced by anyone in any context saying "Based off of -". Vinny says this, alex says this sometimes, Jeff says it, mike, dan, abby, everyone. It's ok, and I love you all dearly, but listen-

"__based off of___" makes no fucking sense. You don't build your house off of the base foundation. You build it ON a foundation. Baseball players OFF a base when holding connection to the bag makes no gosh hecking sense either. Nor does it in any other context in which this colloquially is said wrong.

IE ; it is not "This movie is based off the book", it is "this movie is based ON the book." Just to drive it home.

Sorry, but this stuff was driving me around the wall.

@glots: MDK is a masterpiece.

@knoxt: Language is fluid, and its primary goal is to convey an idea. If you did this successfully, mission accomplished.

Wow, I just learned Dan isn't at Giantbomb. I might start watching content more here again. Dan was a complete idiot.

Oh god, that FMV discussion. FMV originally meant any pre-rendered video, as opposed to the type of "partial motion" cutscenes that started popping up in the late 80s. Prior to FMV, cutscenes tended to behave kinda like those old cartoons where you had the static background and animated elements on top of it. It's the kind of videos where characters can be entirely static, but their eyes and mouths are animated, or where a sprite of a ship or car moves across an otherwise static background. It's not about if the video is shot with live actors or not, but that the entire screen is updated with the next frame, instead of just the animated elements.

Back when CD started replacing floppies you'd see games doing both kinds of cutscenes, the partially animated ones for the floppy version and the full motion video version on the CD. System Shock 1 is a pretty clear example, but you can also compare the intros for Dune 2 vs Dune 2000. The original Wing Commander 1 and 2 cutscenes are also clear examples of partially animated cutscenes as opposed to the later game's FMV.

Here's the System Shock 1 intro (FMV CD version from 0:00-2:00 and Floppy version from 2:01 onwards). Take note of how much of the city background is animated at the start of the intro, and how the Citadel station is animated compared to the space background behind it. In the floppy version only the station is animated, with the planets behind it being a static background (which you can also see scrolling in the landing sequence), while the planet is rotating in the FMV version.

Here are the Dune 2 and Dune 2000 intros too, obviously of different eras, so not as direct comparisons as the System Shock 1 stuff, but you can clearly see how Dune 2 uses animated elements on top of static backgrounds, while Dune 2000 uses FMV, and the opening shot of the moon crossing in front of the planet is a pretty obvious point of comparison:

Here's your Joel. Anson Mount.

@fisk0: So are we on the same page that “FMV” referring specifically to “prerecorded cutscenes with some real world elements such as footage of actors or cel animation” is some weird invention of Vinny’s? In common usage on Giant Bomb I willingly use Vinny’s definition just for the sake of convenience in describing FMVinny video content, but I distinctly remember multiple different PC/console video game publications using FMV to mean “fully animated cutscenes” in a way that is much more in line with your explanation than Vinny’s.

maybe the last place i expected vero beach to pop up

@bisonhero: Yeah, sorry for bringing up Dune 2000 and the later Wing Commander games that are FMV both by mine and Vinny's definition, but I think we're on the same page. Essentially, anything that plays a video file - be it pre-rendered, drawn or actually shot with a camera - is FMV, as opposed to in-engine cutscenes or partially animated cutscenes.

Wow total miss on that FMV talk, there are literally video artifacts in Final Fantasy 7 stuff

aren't Dragon's Lair , Space Ace and Cliff Hanger FMV games?

commented before you guys brought up Dragons Lair.

I stand by it the ones I listed are considered FMV games.

"No matter where you go there you are. "

people tend to forget the first part ,

"you don't have be mean. "

@coldsnapbryan: A lovable idiot.

OK, the features he made happen (Mario Party Party, Steal My Sunshine, Burgle My Bananas) are only enjoyable if you like seeing everyone else being tortured while Dan is having the time of his life, but that has some merits...

But the man found a way to Forrest Gump his way through life.

I agree with Vinny's take on the Nvidia stuff... from a consumer point of view, EULA's be damned, I should be able to play my stuff where I want, when I want. From a game publishers point of view, my game shouldn't be an unpaid building block in somebody else's cloud gaming empire (an idea Brad shared). I really hope there is a solution to this that keeps cloud gaming affordable.

First Dan, now Mike leaves... Very sad to see him go. He's not even a GB employee but he sure felt like one, and it'll be tough replacing him.

As a Welsh speaker I was in stitches at the ever wonderful Jeff Bakalar mistaking a Brythonic Celtic language for something else, while also fully understanding exactly why, because Welsh and the other Brythonic languages (Cornish, Breton) are wonderfully/usefully weird.

However, Gaelic (sometimes called Old Irish/Old Scottish) is a different bunch of Celtic languages. Irish, Manx, and probably obvious from the name, Scottish Gaelic, and possibly others I may have forgotten. It's a weird thing where Gaelic in popular use has taken up a slot which covers *all* Celtic languages in many places, and probably a boring correction to hear but yeah!

Anyway, pob lwc i ti, Mahardy, on all your future project/s!

My sister and I had never encountered the name “Hermione” before reading Harry Potter, being 11 year old Americans when the first book was published.

We made it through at least the first three books before we heard it spoken and found out it wasn’t “her-me-own”

Alex putting my boring ass hometown Melbourne(its pronounced mell-burn) on the map!

Mike saying "I'm a polygon guy" during the retro aesthetics conversation.

Very sneaky, Mahardy.

Alex hates Star Trek: Picard??

Don't be a stranger, Mike!

Man, that secret message at about 20 minutes in as to where Mike went. Smooth. Well, almost smooth. Vinny nearly gave it away laughing knowing what was coming.

Mike literally says I'm Polygon.

I like to think that some cigar chomping executive listened to last week's episode and was like, "People are going gaga over this Baby Moon character! Get me this Mahardy kid pronto! I'm going to make him my executive vice president." Alex is back and you know what that means.

Good job dropping those hints to your next employer, Mike.

I'll miss ya!

Just a reminder to @vinny from Ep. 228 that you'll have email music in the podcast by episode 300.

I really hate to be this guy and apologies in advance (I'm trying to say this as nicely as possible), but I honestly don't understand why Jeff Bakalar is on the Beastcast. Like, he seems like a cool, funny dude and I like him as a personality (I follow him on Twitter), but every time Vinny goes to him during the "what have you been playing?" section he just talks about some other random stuff he did over the weekend. I've started skipping his sections because I honestly have no interest listening to stories about his skiing trips or about a Monopoly card game. When he talks about games—he's great! But he doesn't talk about games enough, IMO.

@knoxt: To try and validate my own usage of "based off of" I've read a few articles that show that you are right and the saying has no old reading or cultural reason for existing...

But based off of my own time worn habits I'll use it till I'm in the grave.