The Giant Beastcast: Episode 272

I'm surprised Jeff doing the podcast on his LTE. I hope he doesn't have DATA CAP

F on Vinny's power

Just curious as I'm from the UK, is everyone else hearing this UK-themed advert at the start?

@bathala: Jeff has done the Beastcast on his days off and through all these trying times. Jeff is a real MVP.

@flstyle: Yes, both this and the mid ad on the Bombcast had a UK ad. I am also from the UK

Abby yawning and looking at her phone for shame

Kinda weird to compare Stranger Things and Dark the way Jeff did... Pretty much the only thing the two have in common is they're both horror-adjacent.

@undeadkink: I think a lot of people just see teens and horror themes and compare them based on that.

Dark blows Stranger Things away IMO, I couldn't make it through ST season 3, got too boring. I'm so glad Dark was finished before it was cancelled. Seems like everyone is jumping on the Dark train now that it's over.

@maxxcanti: I do think his point about Dark having more meat on the bone, being deeper, that still stands, but then I don't think anybody making Stranger Things believes they're making something especially deep anyway.

I guess when you look at a lot of popular shows out now then it's the closest comparison you can make. They're both quasi-supernatural with nostalgic throwback elements. Although Stranger Things is built around the 80's while Dark kind of piggybacks on the aesthetic in the first season and then gets progressively..err.. darker.

They're not all too similar as the tone and stories are vastly different but I do think saying "Dark" is like "Stranger Things" for grown ups isn't all that far off. Season 3 kind of jumps the shark a bit in my opinion but as a body work it is extraordinary and the way Jeff is watching it now after all the seasons are complete is the best possible way to do it. Having watched it as the show was released I was first of all forced to spend a lot of time getting myself up to date on who is who and when and where, and then still ended up missing out on a lot of details. A friend of mine has powered through it and she instantly recognized the specific similarities in a lot of shots between S1 and S3 while it completely flew past me cause that first season was a while ago.

That said, hey it's a great show, go watch it!

I will never tire of Abby's cool-ass, chill-ass setup.

I appreciate now knowing how everyone hits a bowl.

I think Stranger Things season 1 sorta makes you think it could be deep. The rawness of Will's absence gives Joyce some intense scenes, similar to Ulrich's desperation to find Mikkel. Hopper is a drunk cop archetype (like Egon), but you at least get some background on him losing his daughter. Eleven's feral performance in the first season is solid stuff. Steve has a little venom in his bullying of Jonathan. It's tame, but it had some kind of edge to it. Post season 1, I think they've struggled to actually do anything as good with Will and Joyce, all they do with Steve is stick him with the kids so he seems comically uncool, Hopper just becomes Han-Solo-but-a-sheriff-dad, and Eleven gradually gets less interesting each season. It has become easier to dog on some of the character writing over time, but season 1 is a lot better than people give it credit for.

Agreed overall that if you compare Stranger Things and Dark they're kinda night and day, but they have the similar premise of "boy goes missing in small town due to sci-fi reasons." While Stranger Things makes things comically light over time, Dark is sometimes almost comically dark and edgy. I feel like I could count on one hand the number of times someone laughs or jokes in that entire show. Perhaps the only scenes of genuine warmth and friendship are 2 episodes with brief house party scenes, or some scenes where the show explicitly set up that two characters must become good friends at some point so they had to eventually show them growing up together and bonding. I know the point of Dark is to be a tragedy, but it's almost absurd how dour and serious everyone is, even before they suffer some grave misfortune. Even Donnie Darko or something could manage some black humour or dry sarcasm along the way towards its time travel tragedy. Also on the edgy topic, I feel like Magnus and Franziska exist almost entirely to just put some hot teen ass on the screen, because nearly all they do in the first 2 seasons is have sexual tension or be nude around each other.

I bought that same facemask that Alex has and can confirm, it makes me very happy. My wife hates it but it's very fun to wear

Dang, I didn't realize Jeff's hair was so long! I wanna see what's under that hat...

At Abby, curious about the "Canada Moist-Talkers", it's a reference to this: https://globalnews.ca/news/6792967/coronavirus-trudeau-speaking-moistly/

Alternatively, singing it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eySDeBdqxGY

That is such a sick shirt though on Jeff, Mastodon's art is always so freaking epic

Don't worry Jeff i don't get Halo fandom either, i have nostalgia for the first game on PC and 3 looked quite pretty on the 360 when it came out, but beyond that it's just a shooter with very little story.
I'm currently playing through the MCC on PC, so far the second half of the first game is terrible and 2 feels extremely rushed, the gameplay is fine, it works, i've never found the shooting in Halo to be all that good but i don't hate it, it's keeping me occupied.

I always get an electric car ad in the Beastcast, and multiple "Squarespace turning your dreams to reality" ads in the Bombcast. I guess Hawaii doesn't get many focused ads, other places must get ads that suit their locales better.

I think Halo lore can be pretty interesting, but the people who are REALLY into it can't stop telling you about how good it is. Halo 1 is pretty straight forward without much story. Halo 2 has some interesting insights into the Covenant with a dumb boss fight at the end. Halo 3 suffered from rushed development time and a change in writers, so even though it had some interesting ideas, its story suffered... though its set pieces were pretty cool.

One of the polygon guys did a really funny video based around forcing himself to read all 27ish books in a year and giving his opinion at the end, having never played any of the games. I'd highly recommend it for a good laugh: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WEWEdIcx1DI

@adamkerr: I played them as they came out (except 2 because i had no Xbox) because it felt like the world went nuts over every release but i was always disappointed, Reach was the last one i played through.
I like the flood :D, but i can't believe they gave them shotguns and rocket launchers, it's a totally bizarre design decision that just leads to frustrating deaths out of nowhere, the constant Serious Sam-esk horde elevates the god awful level design in the 2nd half of the first game.

@emuleader: I kept seeing that video pop up but now that i'm playing through the MCC i'll give it a watch.
So far what i'm getting from Halo 2 is that the covenant are pretty silly.
It's also weird playing with remastered graphics, the cutscenes are gorgeous, but then you drop into gameplay and animations are all kinds of janky, the Warthog has lost all its great physics from the first game, i keep switching to original graphics because visibility is awful, and i just played a flying section with this music cringing the whole time, it's so out of place and weird.

Blaseball definitely seems like this year's "SaltyBet." But the form factor is more like Lost Souls or Archmage (old text-based games that ran only online in a browser).

The fact that they were still able to deliver a podcast with Jeff hosting it over an LTE connection on his phone is incredible (regardless of the delay in the video). Thank you crew!

Wii-U, wii hardly knew u.

and Jeff you kicked ass hosting, good job and thanks for having a cast this week gbe-people

Just gonna roll through and agree with Jeff that Dark is fucking incredible, having seen the whole series.

Yes to the Schweppes Mansion, but, after doing some reading up on it, no way on earth would I move into The Watcher house. Those letters are some of the most unsettling and menacing things I’ve read.

Skipped around the vid just to see the doggo.

44:30 for the cute puppy.

That is a new piece of music for the MCC (there are a few new pieces) mainly for situations where they couldn't license for the song for the remaster that used to play. If you switch to the classic view in these parts, the old music plays. That particular song used to be a song called Follow (1st Movement of the Odyssey) composed by Incubus of all bands, but I felt fit a lot better. I completely agree that the new song doesn't feel like it fits tone of scene or any of the other music.

Everyone will have different tastes, and maybe you won't end up liking any of it. It was also very much a time and place thing as well. May not hold up quite as well as other games, but I recent watched a new person play through all of it and had a good time (may be nostalgia).

Not all games will always be for everyone.

I definitely feel Abby on that old games thing. There's a reason something like UFO 50 (if they pull it off, Game Center CX2 was pretty good) is more appealing than just running thru 50 random (S)NES games. Modern games often look better (in terms of 2D obvs), control better, have more complex mechanics, run in HD natively, are more polished, and even if they look "retro" they have a lot more going on under the hood than a SNES could ever do.

Obviously there are exceptions, most new platformers aren't as fun or well crafted than Mario World. Most modern top-down Zelda-likes (i.e. Oceanhorn or Ittle Dew) are not as good as Link to the Past...except maybe the sequel. It's VERY similar to that first game but makes some rad upgrades. Both are a lot of fun, but 2 does run/play slightly better for sure.

Sadly this isn't always the case. Something like SolSeraph is not everything a modern ActRaiser could be, and there still isn't as basketball game as good as Street Hoop.

For movies it usually isn't the same thing. That's because movie technology is pretty slow evolving/flat for the most part, unless you're really knowledgable and working in that field. Even really digital cinema was not much of thing until the last decade-ish with Arri's Alexa line (and comparable cameras), and now the Alexa65 is an incredible camera. Yet movies from the 1930's are just as if not more fun and engaging as recent ones, and there really aren't any kind of technical hurdles to get over that video games often have.

@cikame: aye turns out getting repeatedly one-shotted in a corridor by a zombie with a rocket launcher isn't fun. Who knew?

I don't really hate the flood in all contexts, there's certain points where they're a lot of fun to fight, but after playing the Cortana mission in Halo 3 I was ready to never see them again. God I hate that mission, although admittedly it's probably because I'm pretty bad at the game.

@spiketail: Thank you for this! Was trying to scrub through the video so I could show Marty to my wife, but was having a tough time. This made it loads easier, thanks again!

who's that in your avatar?

Bakalar I love your love for Maine.

When we can safely go outside again you should visit Portland and I'll buy you an expensive craft beer -- that we have too much of.

I too like the joycon d-pad. In fact, out of the current controllers it’s my favorite d-pad.

@i_speel_my_dreenk: yup, although the dip in quality/clarity in storytelling from season 1&2 to 3 was remarkable, and almost completely put me off it.

@jstaunton: Yeaahh, S3 had some issues - imo it would've benefited from a couple more episodes to elaborate and flesh things out better. Still though, I greatly admire the audacity to go for what they did, and I was satisfied enough with where it all landed.

Vinny was severely missed this episode, couldn’t even finish it. So much wrong information what stated and then they gripes about said wrong information. I really wish they would at least listen to the Bombcast if won’t do the proper research before discussing topics/news. 😞