The Giant Beastcast: Episode 264

Yay!

saw the Play-Asia Pre-order 699.99 (might be place holder)

The free video version on the site is still processing, so might be a bit longer. Sorry for the delay.

It's Fry Fraidy o''

last of us 2 talk ends at 1 hour mark

This still isn’t showing up in podcast feeds.

I'm not buying TLOU2 until it gets a price drop. Still need to finish TLOU remastered.

Did they seriously forget Horizon 2 or did I somehow miss it?

Time stamps for TLOU2:

Bakalar has played it and Alex has played some of it.

Discussion begins at 20:00.

I think Vinny's comment saying he respects the PS5 design is exactly how I feel about it lol. I don't hate it, but I do think it looks goofy & its definitely not my kind of aesthetic. I'm at the point where I don't care what it looks like and its what I figured Sony was going to do once they showed the controller a while back. Function over form. Which is what really matters in the end and I think it's what their audience wants too. I also think its cool they went for a neat design instead of something more generic & gamer PC-y.

The PS5 is roughly 16 inches tall, 10 inches deep, and 4 inches wide with a 6 inch base. It is by far the biggest game console to come out in decades if not ever, and it's ugly as hell haha. Very much a 360 to xbox one scenario where they over-engineered it to hell and back to try and keep it cool and quiet.

I can't believe how many people really care that much what a game console looks like. I mean, having thoughts about it is normal obviously, but to the extent that some people elevate the importance of its design is very bizarre.

Personally, my criteria for a piece of hardware in terms of design is basically it's can't be in the shape of a swastika.

I hope Alex & Jeff aren’t like the other weird reviewers who value a dog’s life over a human that shit really annoyed me

Some just really love dogs.

@sweetninja: Thanks for that.

The ending of this pod was just precious

Oh boy, not a great episode if you're not into Sony stuff.

@lyndbako: They briefly talked about it, don't recall exactly when.

Thanks Abby for fixing the mic clipping when others were talking. Bugged me a lot.

That demo derby game Destruction Allstars from the PS5 trailers seems like a perfect kid's game because the Wreckfest derby mode is a little too punishing and realistic.

Not gonna lie...skipping the shit out of Abby's never-ending Sims 4/Animal Crossing talk.

The Last of Us was surprising enough that i found some enjoyment in it despite hating the gameplay and technical issues, so i'm really not that interested in playing the sequel, they've set the game up to be pretty miserable and while i'm not offended or upset by any of that, it just doesn't sound fun or surprising, "i've triggered the next cutscene where something is going to happen to upset the characters, again".
I think it's the same reason i don't like mafia movies, it's slow and then one of your favourite characters or their family dies and it's a genre trope and i'm bored.

Great show although didn't listen to much of the LOU2 talk. I really like the design for the PS5.

To answer Alex's question as to why Persona 4 golden is being released now I think the main reason is that that game has been trapped on the Vita for years now. As far as I know that is the only way to play it. as much as I love Persona 4 I'd be damned if I was going to buy a Vita just for that so I'm glad for the news if it's true. And as far as I know literally every other persona and it's re-release easily available on the PS3 or PS4. Golden is the only one that hasn't moved to another place.

I am with Abby, I can not wait to get a hold of Last of Us 2. Jeff ranking it higher than 1 has heightened my expectations

The email about if they use subtitles or not must the most read email in Giant Bomb's history, right?
I want to say it has been read at least three times on each coast.

I usually have subtitles on, and I'm pretty much always going with English even though it's not my first language. I find it easier to follow along by reading what I'm hearing.

@smokey_earhole: Yeah, it's pretty redundant and tedious now.

I know Last of Us 2 will be very dark and grimy, and lets face it, the shocking thing will be how brutal and merciless Ellie will be, possibly to people who don't deserve it. Its no secret, one of the lengthy trailers for the game show how brutal she will be over a year ago. I like that the game is long and not in a pointless recycled way. Might be GOTY. Time will tell.

Oh god I bought that itch bundle and loaded up the list and oh my god what have i done how do i

Are you sure the NDA lifted? You didn't describe anything in the Last of Us 2 at all lol

@smokey_earhole: Here also. It's the same everytime. I miss the days when they had to play more than 2 games. It is a gaming website after all.

I wish I had the pre-release window to play the Last of Us 2 like Bakalar did over the span of two weeks. I get there was the story leak beforehand but most sites did an okay job not posting that. After a week I feel like sites aren't mindful enough to use spoiler tags. My gripe is when a site has an article stating "SPOILER character's betrayal" and then having an image a specific character as part of the article headline. Like you're defeating the purpose of the spoiler tag and inferring far too much.

It's weird that's there a question about how backwards compatibility will work with the digital PS5. It would be straightforward like the digital Xbox One. Digital games on your account download and play fine but no dice on disc based games because there's no way to authenticate ownership. Seems pretty simple.

The idea of scanning your disc games and getting a free digital version has been tossed around for over a decade. But it's a pipe dream. There's no way to limit how many times a physical disc game could be registered. And for the "trade in your game for the digital version" method, there's no incentive for a company to take back plastic discs/boxes so you can get a free game. What's in it for them other than a bunch of material to recycle or throw away at their cost?

The PS5 and Xbox Series X will likely have no problem selling through for the first few months, no matter how expensive they are. While unfortunately unemployment may be as high as 20%, that still means there are 80%ish of people that still are employed, some of who may actually be in better shape financially if they are able to work from home just fine and get the same paycheck. Daycares are closed, saving money for some young parents and with people going out less, there's less money being spent in some households. So there will still be enough people with expendable funds to sell through the first few million units of each console into early 2021. When you get past the fans with money or willing to figure out a way to buy them well into next year, that's when the price may become a factor to more general consumers.

Really glad Alex mentioned he's playing on a base PS4 and didn't mention any performance issues. Was gonna wait for the PS5 for this one but now I may just go ahead and pull the trigger.

"For disc-based games that are a part of the Back Compat game catalog, insert the disc and the console will begin downloading the game to your hard drive. After the game has downloaded to your hard drive, users will still need to keep the game disc in the drive to play." -Xbox Backwards Compatibility FAQ

It's not a "pipe dream" it's literally how they do it.

@sweetninja: thank you

@depecheload: The pipe dream is referring to the PS5 model without a disc drive and the idea that you could scan a disc through some third-party method and get a digital copy for your digital-only console. What you quoted works only because there is still disc based authentication in play.

Thanks!

Did they even touch on all of the allegations at Naughty Dog? I dont think I've heard them talk sbout it yet, which is weird, because that's all they talked about at first with Red Dead, everything was couched in the labor issues that had recently came out. No talk about the worse labor issues and sexual harassment issues at Naughtu Dog. Just weird.

@GiantBombTechTeam Can the default playback option be premium video if it sees that I'm a premium member? I always have to switch to audio and it's kind of a pain.