The Giant Beastcast: Episode 38

I can't stand cities cause there's too much noise. Fuck Cities.

http://www.quantumbreak.com/windows10/

The recommended PC specs for Quantum Break are i5 4690, GTX 970 & 16GB of RAM, the ultra specs of a GTX 980ti and a i7 4790 are presumably for 1440p and 4K.

I still call bs on the on the ram specs as 16GB is just used as a lazy shorthand for over 8GB of ram.

'Sclusie is a Comedy Bang Bang term.

Did work for a farm at one point, they described sheep as being on 24/7 suicide watch.

Maybe I'm in the minority, but I don't really care how good my games look when it comes to PS4 versus PC. PS4 looks fine. Sure there's some framerate issues on some games, but I'm more interested in how fun it is to play and if the story and characters are interesting. But the higher resolution of PC is not something that factors very highly into my enjoyment of games. So the consoles are cheaper and give me the same amount of enjoyment.

Starting from this generation, that's become much, much less true. Game installations, poor/broken running releases, large patches, PSN/XBL outages, Season pass and DLC BS....the 'simple' times of plug and play are long gone

That firewatch discussion is so on point. Austin, Alex and Jeff all did such a great job of articulating what made me enjoy that game. Great work guys.

Really excited for the spoiler cast.

As someone who's lived in major US cities for the last 10 years, I think that quiet, isolated feeling really struck (and kind of terrified) me. It made me want to call her every single time that I could and propelled me through the story.

Really enjoyed the console conversation. I've been wondering if it's just me or if games for these new consoles really don't look that impressive when compared to PC's. Heck when not be compared to PC's PS4 and Xbone games don't look much better than games from the previous console generation.

@jedikv: Honestly I haven't noticed that big of a difference in terms of just sitting down and playing a game from last generation. I never play online,and DLC doesn't bother me, I just play and move on. I'm sure it's a problem for a lot of people if you're internet sucks or whatever your situation may be, but I'm the gamer in my group and my friends are far more mainstream with games. They only get the big ones like COD, Madden, and hyped games like Witcher, or MGS 5, and I never heard a complaint from any of them. The second you start talking to them about RAM, or CPU their eyes roll back in their heads.

That was my point, the majority of people who play games are like my friends, they play and move on, and come back when the next big game hits. They buy the box and the worst they have to deal with is wait for a patch to download, but the second you tell all those people that they need to build their rigs instead of just buying an Xbox they're out, and the bedrock to support big games goes with them.

I'm not trying to say people who play consoles online don't deal with BS, and that a lot of games haven't launched busted, but I've had a great time with my PS4.

Besides the reasons about a console vs a pc that were mentioned on the podcast, you're not necessarily going to have a living situation where either one works. Or even just habits! I'm never going to buy a proper gaming PC, because I'm never ever going to sit at a desk to play those games or have a huge PC sitting on the floor next to my TV with a monitor on the table. Nor am I gonna have my laptop hooked up to the TV and a controller connected to that laptop while I sit on my bed to play games. What am I gonna do, sit on my living room table and play games? I haven't even used a mouse in a decade. Consoles are convenient in more ways than just the price.

Contrary to some of the thoughts on consoles vs PC in the discussion, to me it actually feels like the two are on more of a similar level than ever before.

My purchasing decisions kinda just come down to specific elements like.. Is it an FPS where I want to use a Mouse/KB or will controller suffice? How likely is it going to be a smoldering buggy mess on PC? (more often then it should IMO) Is there an online aspect that I might actually want to participate in? One of the biggest actually has to do with how I want to view it: Through my new 55" OLED TV where colors/blacks look perfect (ruined movie theaters or any other screen type) and I can kinda sit back and soak it in vs my also somewhat new 3440x1440 21:9 monitor.. My 980 can sort of handle that res.. Will the ultra-wide aspect ratio give me a better experience or provide some utilitarian benefit? (RTS, cockpit games) Will I want to mod the game? Do I care about having long term saves (PC saves just disappear over the years and rebuilds etc)

Purely graphically though, I find some of the console stuff to be on par with the best of what PC has to offer. It just comes down to whether its a console exclusive which allows them to optimize it very well and/or art direction. Something like Bloodborne looks incredible. Nothing like it on PC.

Yup as I grow older I've been leaning into this outlook a lot more. I think it's different for them since their jobs actually revolve around playing games. When I sit 9-5 in front of a computer all day, sometimes I just need a break from simply being in front of a computer. I haven't used the keyboard and mouse to play games in over a decade and I don't miss it. I especially don't miss the countless hours lost to troubleshooting in the past.

I still maintain a "decent" gaming PC for the few games I want to play on my computer here and there, but the relative ease of a console is something I vastly prefer. This is why news of The Division having different graphic options on consoles is such an awful idea to me - thats exactly the sort of choice between FPS and graphical fidelity that I want to get away from when I game on consoles.

The only first person perspective movie that I thought worked was this Elijah Wood thriller where he is this serial killer. Can't remember the name of it off the top of my head.

That's a very valid point, and one I see Steam attempting to tackle with their Steam Link and Steam Controllers

But they are still a pretty long way still from the plug and play ease of a console.

I do think the day is coming where games become about ecosystems (PSN, NNID, XBLA, Steam, Origin, Game Center) instead of proprietary hardware.

I look forward to Vinny and Jeff being dumbfounded each year as PC still remains that nebulous area that is often taken for granted in the gaming community for the most part. As powerful a PC is there are a lot of intermittent flaws in them that makes it a very fractured mess of a platform. A person owning an X1 or PS4 will bitch but will still be able to play majority of good games that garner attention. Where as if you are on a MAC or Linux you get quarter of the share of games and even then those games are not guaranteed to work. Ironically as much shit gets shoveled onto console games for its performance their in house exclusves work rather flawlessly most of the time. Rather surprising that a game like Xcom2 that is a PC exclusive is having the same issues we complain about consoles. The irony is that when a console releases an exclusives they generally tend to work pretty well off the bat.

The other thing is frame rates and resolutions don't have as much weight as it does on PC. More often people are happy to trade the high end options to settle for ease of access to the best games out there. The ease of popping in a disc and expecting the game to just work for the price of a GPU sometimes sounds like a steal or at least at times I do miss the simplicity of a console. Not that my PC gaming has been terrible but its surprising the amount of workaround one might have to do for that odd game that has optimization issues (looking at you The New Order). and how much PC uses tend to never acknowledge that fact. I think there are tradoffs that you have to look at that each platform brings. If they didn't, the WII U should have been long dead by now. Time and time again its never been the most powerful system that wins, its the one that has the best balance between the two.

Also I think it was always MS's goal to unite their devices under one software. If it happens they will have to work a lot less to make deals and things available. Sony cannot afford this luxury because the PS4 is their only real hardware currently in the market. SOny games also have a reputation they have earned which is also ironic seeing as how a dated hardware is capable of earn so much praise for its graphics (ND games) No doubt UC4 will raise the bar again... while PC got a lot of brawn it aint got no class baby.

Maniac is what you're thinking of. It was...okay I guess? If it wasn't for the point-of-view perspective it seems like it would've been a fairly generic slasher movie.

No GameTrailers mention was surprising.

OK I AM AS OLD AS VINNY NO!!!!!!! What am I doing with my life!!! As for the consoles and PC man I am PC all the way. Remember that PC's are much more upgradable than consoles and you have to take into account the crazy short lifecycle of consoles. Especially with consoles getting up to 400 dollars. My pc is about 8 years old now and I have slowly upgraded things spending at most an average of 200 a year and I run all the games I want to play fine. Am I top tier graphics on everything? No, but you don't have to be. As well I can't imagine not having a computer to access the internet and if you have one that accesses the internet why not use that one to game? I honestly don't understand the difference between sitting at a nice desk or sitting on a couch...but not surprised this is a console centric place ... from my observations I would be surprised if it wasn't. Sigh if only pcgamer had a good forum still ...

@caravellie And VINNY did you watch the wonder years? Winnie Cooper was my first childhood celebrity crush ... and likely the reason I find Asian's as attractive as I do.

Gee so console to pc ports that don't work...hmm what could we be referring to here? Hmm ... that flying night reptile maybe ...? ;)

And wait ... if you are unemployed should you be buying gaming stuff at all pc OR console...?

And exactly how much money he lost due to pirates is largely irrelevant the fact that he did loose money is what matters. And I do think there are ways you can track reasonably how much something is pirated. What will keep consoles alive is that perhaps the pirating is harder - still possible but harder.

// Ok there's quite a lot of people defending consoles in these comments, so I just want to say my part. I love consoles but this is my argument for PC.//

I think that it's fairly obvious that the Giantbomb crew are pro-PC gaming. It isn't really surprising; they are all hardcore gamers and have to have a decent PC for their living.

It doesn't change the fact that PC gaming is becoming easier and more accessible than the console experience(if a new user was to buy a PC and just use steam it would be almost idiot proof). As a long time PC gamer, I get way more confused with setting up a console than I do upgrading to a new windows. Consoles have different systems dependent on manufacturer... different accounts, profiles, saving systems, hardware limitations. With PC it doesn't even matter what computer you are on, most of the things you use are online services so everything is exactly the same. You literally boot up windows and then download your gaming services.

When I want to play a game that I don't have I click 1 button... it downloads... then it boots up in a window and I play it... and at any point during that experience I can alt-tab to windows and do anything I want then go back to gaming. Or if I'm at my desk with 2 screens I can have whatever I want on the second screen whilst I play. BEUtiful!

A lot of comments have been on the ease of use of PC and the "I just want to relax" element. Shit... you plug your PC into your TV with a wire and then you put a wireless dongle in the back of your PC, boot up Steam and WaHey! Your PC gaming on your couch.

Consoles have been the main gaming platforms since gaming started and they will always have an audience but PC gaming is growing. There is no tinkering anymore, they just work. Everything auto updates and there is no downtime during those updates. Windows just chugs on regardless. If a PC breaks (I haven't had one break in 15 years)it is way easier to diagnose the problem(with help from online or wherever) and replace the broken part, as opposed to having to send the entire thing back for repairs. I'd put a bet on Consoles having a higher failure rate than over the counter PCs.

Sorry if this comes across as some PC master race bullshit because I don't believe that. Consoles are awesome but they were way more awesome in the past. Due to the amount of free reign for independent projects and systems in the PC space a lot of the selling points of the current consoles have been on PC's for years. That doesn't take away from the awesome exclusives they have or the great stuff they are doing with social aspects. I just think that PC has all of those things and in any way you want.

I don't play Magic that much nowadays but I almost always check the site weekly for the Making Magic column. It's a really cool look into the inner workings of the game, covering things from how they determine a set's cards to how they make mechanics work. The articles are quite a fascinating read.

Gamespot's own Jeff Gerstmann introduced me to the 24 hour loop of the Enterprise engine hum. Now I can't sleep without it

@jedikv:
Oh I agree, I feel like instead of saying minimum and recommended it should be minimum settings, medium, high and max settings. Minimum or medium being the consoles equivalent and taking into account the game running into 60 fps.

I guess the biggest problem is that not all publishers invest equally into making a good port despite being pretty big sometimes (Warner Bros for example) so even being more specific with more settings won't guarantee being able to tell in advance how well a game is optimized. Nothing beats waiting for it at launch and seeing how well it performs (which is why I think people shouldn't take those recommended settings too seriously).

They tried to reach outside their bubble a bit, but they still seemed to have a hard time grasping that A) Some people don't want to/can't spend the money to get a quality PC and B) Some people just don't give much of a shit if every single game ever made isn't 1080P/60 FPS.

Just Cause 3 kind of chugs on console. That's not why I was disappointed in it; it was more the painfully repetitive gameplay and a feeling that they could have done a lot more.

Focus on making a game fun to play, THEN worry about making it pretty.

The Lady in the Lake is pretty good, and has the novelty of being made 45 years before first-person shooters existed.

which for a communist is rather odd...someone should write in about that ...

@nefarious_al: That adds up! The Run Button dude are who put me on to CBB!

I have a gaming PC because I can play my favorite genres (Strategy and FPS) on their best platform and almost every game with any control scheme I want.

If I want to buy a console, it would basically be how everyone thinks of Nintendo consoles (only buying for exclusives) and the new consoles just don't have enough of those to be worth the investment.

Consoles are just a more limited scope for a lower price. If you're happy with that then who cares?

Oh snap! Shout out from the Berkshires!

"One pack a day" Bakalar.

How is this a terrible idea at all? A simple toggle to allow players the choice to play the way they want is pretty much a total positive - you don't like it? leave it at the defaults. Last of Us Remastered did it pretty well.

@belowstupid: I have friends that are in the same situation as yours - they primarily play CoD/Fifa and a couple of other big games like Arkham. Now last gen, it was relatively straight forward (minus the odd issue like RRoD and a really crappy ps3 skyrim port). However this gen, I'll regularly get questions about why game X is running like crap or why they have to do a 10 min install followed by an 8GB update before they start a game. Or why suddenly their PSN or XBL service they are paying for is not working properly for most of December during their time off. And I'll never forget their frustration when I had to explain why their copies of vanilla destiny completely gutted of features we were all happily playing prior to the Taken King. Like it or not, console gaming is getting more complicated.

The real issue with PC right now is there has to be a more open standard on how developers can interact deeply with the hardware without having to fight with vendor-specific BS (hair works/tressFX). That's why I'm hoping that Vulkan becomes heavily adopted going forward as that could potentially mean true portability between platforms which would mean making it easier to port games across Windows/Linux/Mac and even consoles.

I still use the xbox to play online shooters cause I like controllers. Other games I do get on PC.

It's at times like the guys' PC discussion that the gulf of circumstance between professional game critics and the average consumer becomes super clear. I do appreciate their effort, especially on Jeff's part, to see outside of that bubble, though.

American Truck Simulator: Project B.E.A.S.T.

I can't be the first person to suggest this for Season Two, but I had to drop the title out here just in case I am.

Trucker emails >>>

@blind_evil said: Something that gets overlooked a lot of time in both podcasts' discussions - some people just prefer consoles to PC. I can afford a quality PC, I know how to use them, I just prefer the simplicity of the console. As I get older I have less time to dedicate to gaming, and I have other hobbies. So any time spent trying to maintain the PC's ability to play games, any time spent trying to figure out why a particular game isn't working, isn't worth it for me.

So if you're baffled MS and Sony have sold so many consoles, as Bakalar said, maybe give that idea a look.

Same. Plus as someone who moves around a bit, consoles are absolutely more portable. I don't want to deal with the lugging, the adapters, the maintenance, etc.

That aside I never understood the outrage over PC/console preference. Then again that's the way the internet reacts to anything. It's full-circle dumb. And from the podcast, they don't seem to grasp the difference between the budgets of consumer gamers (varying budgets, genre interests, etc.) and the journalist/games media. Edit: never mind, they do :)

You're right as a fellow nomad a console is a little easier on the old luggage space, however something I really appreciate about PCs is the fact that my purchases travel with me in the long term. My copies of Quake 2/Half life etc from the 90s will still run on my 2015 machine. Unfortunately I cannot say the same for my marios/sonics/halos etc unless I either get back my old machines or re-buy the remasters/re-releases (which I don't find particularly appealing).

Phil Spector? Damn, from music to murder to games... guy is versatile.

As much as i understand vinny's point that there are less console exclusives, there are no PCs exclusives that have really done anything for me in the past 5 years. The only PC exclusive last year that was a MUST play imo was Undertale, and that was definitely not using the PC, s power . As for the point of 1080p/ 60, I have never felt wanting if a game is 30 fps. If it 60 that's great, but 60 fps is not worth spending a significant amount of money on a capable PC for me. I love the safety of a console, and knowing that this machine will be viable for the next 10 years. Yes, it will not look as good as a PC, but I'm not fussed about that at all.

@jedikv:Jeff G. must be pretty bummed out about XCOM 2 working like shit for him on PC.This is a problem that is more universal to today's gaming industry regardless of being exclusive it seems.

I envy Vinny having cables going through his house, but people who aren't this fortunate and couldn't really afford doubling down on that exist you know? They might even be numerous and it sometimes takes reader mails for the giant bomb crew to aknowledge these people in a normal conversation.

I've been a console gamer my entire life, but last month I decided to build myself a PC and I couldn't be happier. After Uncharted 4 comes out I'll be selling my PS4 and probably buying an NX.

The great thing about having a PC is it does everything I'd want to do on a computer as well as play games. You talk about a jack of all trades, and the PC is absolutely that and the master of everything, all in one box.

I feel like people over state how easier it is to play games on consoles, but 99% of the time it is just as easy on PC. Click download and play. Download speeds are much faster too, and you're almost always getting the best version of a game.

Something that gets over looked too is the PC not only has all the current gen games but can also run, with rare exception, the previous gen games too.

Anybody considering the jump to PC, I couldn't recommend it more. Even the process of building one from scratch is fairly easy now and only took me few evenings of looking up parts to order followed with a few hours following a guide as I put it together. It's incredibly satisfying.

Talk of trucking always makes me want to fire up this. It'd almost be worth it to become a trucker just to barrel down the road blasting some Kool Keith at commuters.

RE: The PC/Console stuff

So Vinny and the guys are objectively totally right about the PC and console thing. That said, despite selling the same goods, PC and console might as well be two completely different markets. The best analogy I can think of is it's like cars. The guy commuting in the Mercedes is doing basically the same thing as the guy going to work in his Honda Civic, it's just an objectively better experience for the former. The guy in the Honda is going to get to where he's going same as you, he's just going to do it without the same bells and whistles, he's probably not going to look as cool doing it, and he's also going to spend 2-4x less than you are. Now, if you've got the money and having a sweet ride is worth it to you enough to spend that much, more power to you. But the vast majority of drivers either don't have the money or just don't care enough about the advantages the Mercedes provides to spend the money on it when they can just get a cheaper car that'll get the job done and leave them with more cash for other things.

If anything, PC gamers should be psyched the console market is still strong because last I checked, most multiplatform games still sold more on the consoles despite the inferior experience. If anything, the console market makes the majority of the bigger budget games on the market possible through those sales numbers. When it comes to market share PC is still to consoles what consoles are to mobile. A fraction of the market.

tl;dr: PCs are better, but consoles are "good enough" for the majority of people. That's why PS4 and XBO continue to sell.

Please make the trucking section a regular installment.

Here's that first person Biting Elbows music video that Ilya Naishuller directed.

@samcotts: The ease of purchasing and installing PC games is there of course. It's the occasional troubleshooting that is the bigger problem. If a game is crashing your entire machine, and worse yet this is something that is happening only to you, then better get comfortable and start googling different message boards in hopes of finding someone with a similar problem or at least a solid lead to solving your own.

From years of PC gaming I can say that there is nothing more aggravating than going online and saying "this game isn't working for me/is working very poorly" and then having 10 people in a row submit a very helpful, almost passive aggressive "works fine for me" as if you're not actually asking for help but somehow trying to sully the good name of this product and must be put in your place. The notion that it's obviously something that you're doing wrong as opposed to a problem with the game is something I never quite figured out from the two decades I spent in the PC gaming community.

You guys, I'm sure they have the basic human interaction skills to understand that people buy consoles for the simplicity.

the "i just prefer consoles meme" needs to stop

Hm. I'm really surprised that neither of the Bombcasts mentioned the recent shutdown of GameTrailers. Weird thing to ignore.

Silence of the Lambs has some pretty well done first person scenes. They're very minimal, but very effective.

Back when I worked in food service I played the SHIT out of Cook, Serve, Delicious. Even though I hated that job, there was something nice about running an efficient restaurant. Probably because in the game there's no other lazy bastards who let you down by slacking off all the time.

I'm finally starting to go back and listen to the Beastcast from Episode 0 ... I am loving all the Astoria and Jackson Heights talk. Lived one street over from Astoria Park on 21 drive from 2005-2009.. Moved to JH in 2009. It's actually nice hearing about all the neighborhoods I know instead of San Fran. :)