The Giant Beastcast: Episode 149

Beastie time

Aww yis!

Early cast

Jeff made great points about the cult, except I finished Wild Wild Country yesterday and reality as always is crazier than the made up milktoast fiction. Nothing excuses a poorly told story but, the numbers, experts, and facilities available to the cult are not outside of recent reality.

Best in the universe.

That's a nice picture of Bruce right there.

Ubisoft. You-bee-soft. You're soft.

Another great thumbnail

No one can know my secret.

Is it surprising that they still say they can't afford to buy the games they are talking about? Can't they expense it for the site since its part of their job?

Drink every time someone says a first person shooter has nothing "important to say." Also when someone vaguely refers to the current "climate." The deep dives that Far cry 4 took on Indian/Nepali culture and use of little helicopters really set up some heavy expectations.

Oh well I was only going to play Far Cry it if it had something important to say. I certainly wouldn't just play it to kill outposts. So thanks giantbomb for letting me know it has nothing to say in every place on the site in every possible way you can.

Innerspace is a Martin Short movie.

This is what happens when the first impression they give is that it might be something different. It is a pitfall they have dug themselves.

@rocketraccooncmro: Yeah duder, you certainly can't get any information, via text, video, or spoken word, that exceeds "narratively it just disappoints" ANYWHERE on this site about Far Cry 5, can you? It's just a wasteland out there. Or is it...?

@efesell: When all the prior games have been nothing but sand box exploitation pieces, expecting something more, regardless of advertising, is a little naive.

I`m 100% with Vinny, sonic all-stars racing transformed is better then Mario kart. You can dodge anything in sonic, it`s great.

When will people get tired of nintendo IPs? Mario kart 15?

@adamlcook: This seems like a bizarre approach. The game is what it is, I think the disappointment would be there regardless of whether or not it was originally pitched as hopefully improving where the narrative has faltered in the past. Being more disappointed because they seemed to be striving to do better hardly seems unfair.

@adamlcook: I think they have the same attitude that Jeff G. had towards Fallout 4. The crew had already decided the series was stale; thought Far Cry 4 was too similar to 3, and was completely disappointed in Primal. They were going to be disappointed in this Far Cry 5 even without the initial marketing push; that just added to the disappointment.

Non American here - In the Far Cry talk, what sensitive time politically exactly are they referring to that they feel should've been talked about in the game? Anything specific?

@armaan8014: How much time do you have? Without going too deep into it at the risk of it completely sending things in these comments into nightmareville, the Cliff's Notes version is between Donald Trump becoming president amid a tumultuous campaign, a lot of racial and sexist tension, and school shooting, things have been exceedingly tense politically here since basically mid 2016. Again, this is about the most reduced version I can give you.

I didn't see whatever this behind the doors preview event they keep talking about was, but I never once got the impression from their interviews or marketing that the game would have anything to do with white supremacy or gun control or militias. Unless they specifically namechecked that stuff in that preview event I don't really understand why people were expecting that stuff? And there's also the fact that this game was written and started development before most of these topics got thrust to the forefront of the news.

Everything I saw them talking about was how they researched Jonestown and Heavens Gate and stuff like that. How the power of a charismatic leader and religion can bring a community to do things they didn't think they could do etc.

I also just hit 30 and badly coping with creeping in baldness, y'alls goofy but real-ass insight helps, thanks guys

@sethmode: Yeah this is kind of what I assumed, but was wondering if there was anything else that had happened that I wasn't aware of. I couldn't really make the connection between that and a religious cult, but this article I just found kinda explains things: https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/donald-trump-far-cry-5-and-the-fallacy-of-political-video-games

I'm guessing the main parallel people expected the game would draw would be about not accepting outsiders?

Such apathy for Destiny 2 and yet it was up there for their GotY talk.

Well, most controversial opinion in existence, but Far Cry 3 had the best story. It's a commentary on stupid rich white people going where they don't belong, similar in feel to the book/movie "The Beach", hence the 2 bad endings. The "bad" ending is no worse than the "good" ending: it's the protagonist attempting to embrace the idea that his former life was vapid and meaningless, but of course he ends up dying anyway because of course he doesn't understand anything about this culture; he's just a dumb tourist high on his latest adrenaline rush, thinking he cares, but given a week back in San Francisco or wherever he's from he'd be equally invested in the no-cooked-food diet and marathon hot-yoga benefits. Citra is fucking and killing him because she just wants his strong warrior baby; she doesn't care about hearing anything his privileged irrelevant ass has to actually say. In that vain it had the most satisfying story and ending out of all the games for me. "Look at this idiot get caught up in things he doesn't understand, and take to murdering 'for the greater good' without a second thought."

Sorry, that's probably not the most strictly American thing I've ever written.

@armaan8014: I haven't played it yet, so I have no clue, but from what like, Austin wrote, it just seems like they say really nothing at all, so the incendiary background just seems sort of pointless. I don't think they were looking for any 1 to 1 cult or militia comparisons, but a more nebulous comparison to nationalism and xenophobia, at least based on the early stuff that came out around the game. So yeah, probably there was some expectation that a take that would come up would be one of not accepting of outsiders due to race, religion, what-have-you, especially considering that's kind of a major focal point of the tension right now. But yeah, I think as...Dan I think? summed up, I don't think anyone expected them to nail it, just they're bummed that everyone always kind of hopes that the envelope will be pushed.

To the metal concert guy, Alex was right on all counts.

If you're concerned about hearing, don't stand directly next to the speakers!! I've been to hundreds of shows, and Wednesday was the first time I was truly concerned about my hearing. I spent 4 hours next to a giant speaker, afterwards everyone sounded like robots or chipmunks and I still have ringing today. It was fun when I was younger despite slowly messing up my hearing, but at 32 it was starting to feel like I need to start taking care of my ears more.

Metalheads are generally nice and fun people, and you won't get forced into a mosh pit if you don't want to be (the crowd might push into you, though). Just relax and have a good time, it's not as scary as you might think. I remember being terrified before my first one back in the day.

Sonic Racing fans are so weird. It's like.. who hurt you?

Sure but I would have said thinking you could enjoy a Wolfenstein game for story and characters is patently absurd too and that happened.

The point being they introduced the idea that this time it might be different when instead they clearly were still wanting to just make Far Cry.

Money spent on Siege = Money well spent, Vinny!

Yeesh that Mario Kart discussion. If it wasn't a Nintendo game, none of them would ever accept "it's always been a part of the game" as an excuse for a bad mechanic.

@efesell: I am not sure Wolfenstein really applies considering Return to Castle Wolfenstein started the story the New Order continued. 5 Far Cry games have been released in 10 years that have never taken a strong narrative stance, they have a mouthy villain and his cronies and basically palette swap them to fit their environment.

To each their own.

Loving the Sonic Kart vs Mario Kart discussion :)

To add to that, there's an unspoken etiquette to it that, despite looking violent and a mess from the outside, keeps things quite safe and friendly (seeing a circle pit stop dead because someone's fell over, then only resume once they're back on their feet/safely out of the way is quite a sight).

[1] and [2] are worth a read.

The Mario Kart discussion is a perfect example of "Nintendo games get judged on a curve." Vinny is the only sane one.

@csl316: Audio tech for gigs here. Start taking earplugs if you stand next to the speakers. If you're a regular at gigs, start taking earplugs anyway. That goes for anyone reading. Do not dick around with your hearing, it's not like, oh a broken arm or something. Your ear tissues degrade naturally, essentially from birth, loud noises increase that degradation and it doesn't reverse. Your hearing basically gets worse until you die and you can only slow that down or avoid marked damage.

Hearing damage can just happen - your warning is that you're in an environment with loud noise, so don't act surprised - can be temp or permanent, and if it's an unnatural injury like a burst eardrum can be operated on, but isn't worth risking having to go to the hospital for.

Sounds a bit scary but it's not really, just be sensible about your hearing if you expose yourself to a lot of noise.

Happy gigging!

Agreed.

One of the things I appreciate about Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed is that you have more ways to counter stuff thrown at you. A drift boost breaks the lock-on of homing weapons coming at you. Bees, this game’s blue shell equivalent, lays a few lines of bees ahead of the first place racer, with a few gaps. Sure, you’re going to get slowed down, but you can minimize the lead loss if you’re careful enough. Super weapons aren’t doled out randomly, but are instead in special pickups on sections that may be a bit trickier to get through. Losing places in Mario Kart just feels like random chance; it’s sometimes like that in SASRT, but a lot of other times I get the feeling that messing up is my fault.

"It's always been bullshit" is a terrible justification for anything

Oh man... I'm wasted.

brutal episode

I just got to Dan's story about Noobz and I don't know how I can be surprised about his "feuds" still, but I always am. He truly is a unique treasure.

Tetris, Pac-Man and Space Invaders. Done

Blue shells aren't BS, lightning is. Blue shells can be boosted past, knocked out of the air by shells, bananas, and bomb-ombs. The Boombox's main function is to counter the Blue Shell. Lightning can only be countered by stars.

I don't know...all this "Hey, lets make fun of each other and tease each other" makes it a bit hard to listen to the Podcast recently...could you maybe take it a step back? Pretty please? :>

@petefic: yeah, maybe this behind closed doors thing set the game up for a media backlash. Because, even leaving aside that Far Cry games are more Resident Evil than The Wire, I don't see cults and automatically think white supremacy as it seemed the media expected. Which confused me to see the two being conflated. I wasn't sure how to get from cults to Trump and his racist, misogynist fans (aside from their cultish mentality at times, but Trump and much of his most avaricious base are pretty plainly atheist). This explains it.

I mean Jonestown was explicitly supposed to be a place of refuge from racism, wasn't it? The Branch Davidians weren't white supremacists either.

I can see why the coverage has been so odd, now.

Mario Kart has long been bullshit on top of bullshit. Sonic Racing > Mario Kart.

Mario Kart is a party game. That's what it's designed to be. Random chaos, not a skill based contest.

If you're analyzing Mario Kart like a legitimate racing game, you're missing the point.

Same thing with Smash Bros. and the fighting genre. Though at least that game gives you the option to strip some of the random nonsense out... but its still not even trying to be a legit fighter like SF or VF.