Giant Bombcast 502: Bad Wood

Sick of people retroactively shitting on Mordor as Game of the Year a few years back. Mordor was a fucking incredible game and well deserving of the award. Easily holds up alongside other past Game of the Year winners like GTA 4 and Uncharted 2.

This year's game, not so much.

I'm not sure if it's a bug or not but I just had 3 legendary orks betray me, saying I killed their blood brother when I hadn't killed him yet. When an ork betrays you they get the Iron Willed trait making it impossible for you to get them back unless you work extremely hard for it. Imagine having actually paid money for legendary orks and they just tell you to fuck off because of this arbitrary decision that they can break goddamn mind control because I was trying to recruit their brother.

Almost checked out at the mention that subjugating orcs was something to feel uncomfortable over.

@dasakamov: Yup, also notice how these people seem overly passionate about the entire thing. To me, it comes off like they are not personally happy with the practice so they need to find some "gotcha moment" in order to argue more effectively. They seem to have decided that "gambling addiction" is going to be their go to, but I have yet to see a single study or bit of proof that backs this up.

I think I'd pay them more mind if they just stopped and discussed why they personally think the practice sucks, instead of virtue signaling the bombcast guys for not "understanding addiction."

@crossnomad: Same here. It's weird that you'd feel bad for them lol. They are pure evil and also not real.

I feel the same way, but Ben didn't judge the game in a vacuum and the staff still tackle games as games. All he did was add his opinions to the discussion, something the staff did well, IMHO. Games shouldn't get the same treatment as lets say, fine art, but they're not less worth in cultural content than lets say, a book or a movie, or even stuff like advertisements.

The statement whether it's art or not kind of already implies that its already art, as theres the connotation that it doesn't really matter if a game is art or not. But that doesn't mean it seem this way for others, which is the crux of the issue. There isn't anything wrong about disucssing something that might be impactful to somebody else.

Nobody even mentioned this, that form of art would be a really specific thing to explain to people. What I meant was that if video games are considered art, then the issues that Ben felt were worth discussing over were legit enough to be taken serious and not be laughed over or something silly like that.

I still remember Phil Fish in Indie Game - The Movie and how developing a game can literally destroy you. Does this mean it has to be this way for any dev? Of course not, but if we extent this sort of reasoning to players instead of developers, its easy to see certain viewpoints may attract certain forms of reasonings and that it can be something that can and should be discussed should there be a need to.

I really think people were a bit overreacting when Ben brought it up. So if games really are considered Art, then this is as some people say a non issue to pass over, as the crew did. Its not something to be fought over in the name of an imaginary supreme truth or anything like that. They discussed the thing and after like 2-3 minutes or so came to a simple conclusion. I didn't even notice any implication about "instructing our behavior" from Ben what so ever.

The more I talk about this game the more I want it, though. Maybe thats the instruction there, hehe?

I can see the same talk arise around Mario Odyssey with it's possession mechanic.

Nintendo's idea is probably like : ' we have all these iconic enemies, with their own behavior and movement options. Wouldn't it be really cool to have puzzles in our game that require the player to use these enemies to complete the challenges? Being able to control them directly is key for this, the possession mechanic seems like a good fit.

People might see the game play out and come with the following story:

The enemies are hostile, because they are blinded by their rage. By flinging Mario's magical hat at the enemies, it drains the evil out of them and makes them part of Mario's team. That's why they can be controlled now, and are willing to help Mario with obstacles. The moustache is just Nintendo giving you a funny & charming visual indicator of which guy you control.

or this story:

Mario slings his magical hat at enemies and coerces them to do what he wants. The moustache is an indicator that the enemies are brainwashed and Mario is in full control of them. Mario just uses these guys for their powers and makes bullet bills commit suicide against walls. As long as Mario can progress through the levels, he's satisfied. Just like he uses Yoshi as a disposable vehicle, now the enemies are getting the same treatment. Mario is actually a nightmare person with a 'fuck you, got mine' mentality.

It's fun to think about those stances, but in the end i feel like neither of those stories really come close to the intent of the creator. If it was, we would see some heavy winking at the audience to make it known. That said, if you get more fun out of the game by creating a story around it, why not?

@dodobasse: oh didnt know they didnt like it that much in the first place. Seems like a bunch of good games were out in that year thou but i can see their taste not matching them, such as Dark souls 2, bayonetta, divinity O sin, far cry 4, wolfenstine, shovel knight, dragon age, alien, mario k 8, smash bros. Not amazing but ehh. Makes me wonder if it will get in top 10 this year or get a shrug mention and move on to battlegrounds or mario oddessy. I hope zelda gets on by dan even though jeff is burnt on it.

Additionally looks like the esrb weighed in and loot boxes are NOT gambling since its like trading cards for children and your always guaranteed something even if its not what you want.

@onemanarmyy: I see what you mean about the stance of the creator or their intent. Reminds me of the assassins creed 4 dlc freedom cry and its message on slavery. I got it for free on psplus a while ago and played through it and even though the mechanics were hidden behind narrative that made you think more about what you were doing ie rescuing slaves many people couldnt understand or misunderstood what i think the intention of the creator was. Many spun their own narrative and said the game was ____ or ____ in some offensive way or another. Others even on this site "see the podcast on freedom cry and read the comments" were annoyed by the discussion all together. Overall its what you wanna see and discuss that makes you happy. if you can find someone willing to listen and debate all the merrier as long as your having fun i guess. Personally i think the creator of mario oddessy/mordor just though of it as a gimmic and not brainwashing slavery or something but im not going to stand around telling people they cant think that and try to discuss it. :)

It's just the part where you're brainwashing these people that occasionally gives me pause. Killing someone who's attacking me in a video game is one thing, but collecting an army of brainwashed peons is another, especially when they're designed to have unique and entertaining personalities.

The part where orcs are inherently wicked counters that some, and Talion and Celebrimbor also being kinda evil helps to fill in the rest. Also it's really fun.

It doesn't stop me from playing the game or anything like that, if that's the impression you got, and when I'm playing it I'm not in a constant state of disgust or something. Just occasionally I'll "dominate" a dude and be like "man, this is kinda fucked up!"

Gene names can get pretty weird, since whoever discovers them can name them pretty much anything, and scientists are both weird and easily amused. Coincidentally, there's a gene called SWS, otherwise known as the Swiss Cheese gene. It was named that because fruit flies with a mutation in that gene have holes in their brain.

@jamesm: If others want to have the discussion that of course perfectly fine. I didn't mean to come across as 'I don't think about it this way so nobody else should', just sharing my views on how I take it. As you say it's easy enough for me to ignore this part of the discussion.

Brad mentioned this on the bombcast and found it on youtube!

I Brad ok? He's looking very weathered these days.

I bought Gundam Breaker 3, because it looked fun. But I knew nothing about all the suits in the game. So now I'm watching every single Gundam show/movie in release order and then I can finally play the game.

Method Man and Redman and Cuphead and Mugman

Love the show. I really enjoyed the discussion this week, and I hope you're all doing OK during this tough time in your part of the world.

I've been playing through Shadow of Mordor because I'm a super frugal kind of player, and there is some dialogue with Talion and Celebrimbor about branding. Talion is pretty conflicted, but Elf-Stand is pretty dismissive. But the alternative is what, just straight murdering them? It reminds me of the good parts of Drakengard in that it's difficult to have a super positive character who is also a mass murderer. I don't think Talion is a "good guy". He's sympathetic, but not an outright hero. If anything, he's kind of a hostage to Elf-Stand because while he does want revenge he also just wants to die. These Middle-Earth games are not Good Vs. Evil, they have grey areas and I think that's interesting.

That all being said, other than some interesting nemesis fights I haven't really loved my time with the first game. It feels like a lot of checklists. The combat works for the most part, but isn't a huge joy. I'm not a big Tolkien guy so I don't really know if they're mistreating the lore or not. Even as base of a fan I still wasn't big on Gollum's inclusion. It felt fairly "These are things I know" for LoTR. Hopefully not sounding like I'm bragging but I only had one really constant Warchief series of fights where I kept dying to the guy to the point he was practically invincible. I had to scum the roll-over-stun into enough hits for a critical strike to even dent his health bar. But at the end of that battle I didn't really feel accomplished, just that I cheesed a fight.

I can't complain too hard because I got the game as a birthday present during the Steam sale so there's absolutely no real investment wasted except my time, but if Shadow of War is more of the same with some extra features, I can definitely wait like I did this one.

:|

Complaining about orcs and dominating them is weird. Orcs weren't super fleshed out in Tolkien...they were basically the evil, corrupted, non-redemptive offshoot of elves. In D&D they are the race known for killing, raping, and pillaging entire areas. Hell, until it became non-PC look at how almost all Half-Orc PCs were brought into the world.

Next thing I'm going to hear about how its troubling we want to kill Orcs all the time in Warhammer 40K.

This conversion is the most 2017 thing that's happened in video games. Trying to make more of it seems like an incredible stretch. Not to mention the story doesn't really put the protagonist(s) in a good light.

Also, seeing people getting upset at cosmetic only loot boxes is eye-roll inducing. No one is forcing you to buy it and it doesnt effect the game. If you aren't responsible enough to go, "Nah, I'm good" then its no one's fault but the user. If they are locking off the game or aspects of the experience then that's a completely different argument.

I'm a biochemist, and it was initially hilarious hearing the name in lectures and serious discussions about that protein. It's not inconsequential either, whole labs are dedicated to studying the expression of that protein!

@kanerobot: As someone who has yet to play the first game, the only thing I think is strange is that the issues mentioned by Jeff didn't also plague the first game (or if they did, no one ever said as much.) How did they manage to flub it so bad?

yeah living and working up north has been rough this week.

I'm late on this but re: your reheating fries issue, use a toaster oven at 300F for like 5 minutes. Put them in on an aluminum sheet. Don't store them in the cardboard sleeve or then they take on the taste of that and it ruins them.

And yes they have already invented Microwave 2. I have a convection based microwave oven, you can put metal in it. Get one or use a toaster oven if you like crispy things instead of soggy things. Use low temperatures so you heat them and don't burn them, and put it up to full at the last minute if you want to brown something.

On the topic of a "Microwave 2": while we're talking with a shaky grasp of science, I always wonder why there isn't some sort of Coldwave. As in, it freezes things, but fast like a microwave heats things. Maybe these do exist, but they're not commonly available. Definitely has less applicable uses, but there's still situations where I wish something was frozen or at least chilled then and there.

Dust hasn't been top dog for decades, Brad. Dust 2 ate its lunch out of the gate.

@jasperkazai: I'm no scientist, but my recollection from some physics and thermodynamics courses is that generally it's easier to add energy to a system (creating heat) than it is to remove energy from a system (lowering the temperature of the system). So there's a variety of cost efficient ways to heat things, but not as many ways to cool things. Microwaves directly excite molecules in the food, which is why the food is warm but the air in the microwave isn't hot the way oven air is hot. There isn't an "antimicrowave" because I can't think of any physical process that deexcites molecules that would be in any way practical. The ice beams of Metroid and Mr. Freeze are actually way more unlikely than a lot of other sci-fi weaponry.

Traditional ovens and stoves make a surface or enclosed space hundreds of degree hotter than room temperature, and the food (being at room temperature or colder) tries to reach equilibrium; the difference is several hundred degrees, and an extreme difference in temperatures causes a more rapid change in temperature.

Fridges and freezers usually maintain respective temperatures of something like 5 degrees Celsius and -20 degrees Celsius. So if you throw something room temperature (20 degrees Celsius) into the freezer, that's only a difference of 40 degrees, and a minor difference in temperatures causes a much slower change in temperature.

In short, it already takes a lot of energy for your freezer to be constantly maintaining that -20 degrees Celsius enclosed space, and I don't think anyone has really made a consumer-level device that maintains lower temperatures than that. There are industrial flash freezing devices that are used by companies that make frozen dinners that have much lower temperatures and can rapidly cool food so that less ice crystals fuck up the food, but I don't think there's a consumer equivalent, possibly because the demand is low. If you want to cool something, you're stuck using ice cubes or throwing the whole thing in the freezer, unless you want to get in touch with a liquid nitrogen supplier (Will Smith probably knows a guy).

Sometimes Jeff comes as big corporate apologist

I'm no expert in business, but EA, ohh EA...