The Giant Beastcast: Episode 71

Well, currently I'm for giant meteor for 2016. Everything in the news has done nothing but pit everyone against everything. Sad to see it transfer over to something I consider one of my past times.

As a film teacher there is only one controvercy this week:

IT'S ELLIPTICAL EDITING, NOT JUMP CUTS!

Sorry, just had to get that off my chest. As you were.

What's that podcast title image from?

Edit: Apparently it's concept art from Beyond Good & Evil 2. Even if it's not saying much, it already hits a tone that I very much dig.

Ever heard of GamerGate? the two are quite heavily affiliated. You keep making the comment that nobody needs to be informed about this, but you don't seem to have a grasp on the situation at all. What you advocate for is essentially this:

bleeding into beloved Beastcast? *snort*

@mechanized:At one point it sounded like he meant actually ad reads and I thought the same, but I think he was referring to the guys mentioning the advertisers outside of the ad reads while joking around on the beastcast. Which, why one would then jump to it being nefarious is beyond me. If you trust those at Giant Bomb so little then why are you listening in the first place would be my question. I listen to opinions of those I don't agree with that much quite often (I often disagree with GB staff) but would never if I didn't trust they were genuine. I don't get it. To each their own.

The Bulletstorm remaster was also rated for PC, and that definitely needs to happen because the original version was saddled with GFWL and never patched it out.

People Can Fly only worked on the first Painkiller and its expansion, Battle out of Hell. Every game since then has been made by different teams, and all of them are of a markedly lesser quality.

@ilikepopcans: what is the genuine complaint you're referring to

@johnnymcginley: We weren't trying to tiptoe around anything. When I called the kind of shit that group was involved with grotesque, I meant it. When I said it wasn't simply a matter of differing political views, that's precisely what I was getting at. That I did not use the words "white supremacy" or "misogyny" does not mean I was trying to dance around the heart of the issue. The words just didn't come out of my mouth during the course of the conversation. That wasn't a purposeful thing, it's just how the convo went.

Personally I couldn't care less how much of the alt-right movement is comprised of "trolls" or "nihilistic teens", or whatever you want to call them. They are fueling hate speech, racism, and supporting white supremacist ideologies. And Palmer Luckey associated himself with them willingly and knowingly, and has so far not given an apology. Therefore I will not give him the benefit of the doubt.

"Street Fighter" is not a great, or really even good, movie.

However, Raul Julia's performance in it is inarguably the best performance ever given in a movie based on a video game. There was a man enjoying every single bit of the scenery he was chewing!

@bacon: Reddit hasn't shut down every racist subreddit, far from it. They've had a couple of purges of hateful subreddits, but by and large they let openly sexist, racist etc. subreddits stay open. So that's not really an argument either way.

Just like on the last Bombcast, if someone could tell me a timestamp to when the political talk ends or how many minutes should I fast forward, I would really appreciate it, thanks!

@johnymyko: Starts 04:25 and ends at 17:04

@magmamud: Thank you, I really appreciate it!

This x100

As someone who's trying to cultivate a friendship with someone who claims to be "bad at social interactions/friends," is "bad at social interactions/friends" code for "leave me to wallow in my loneliness"?

Because I'm awkward/bad at social stuff too, but I want to get better! I would think others would, too. But instead I'm trying to reach out to this person and it's not working and I'm wondering what *I* did wrong :S

No more politics on beastcast please.

Don't you hurt me again Michel Ancel. Don't you hurt me.

@toug: I want to believe.

That's some interesting concept art. I don't fully remember the story of BG&E, but is that supposed to be Pey'J as a baby pig and the man is Jade's father?
Or are we to believe Pey'J had a kid.

What is that image? Adam Jensen in a new beyond good and evil I don't know what it is from the description here for the video

Great episode guys.

@alex: OK man. I hope it didn't come across as if I thought you guys were doing anything nefarious, I know you are all good people.

My thoughts weren't particularly about not using specific descriptors for the nasty shit that lot are into, but more the general "he's young, naive and dumb" type attitude to the sitch that I felt came across. I know you countered that point on the pod.

Obviously the nature of the podcasts is conversational and it's hard to tick the boxes everyone wants to hear, I just wanted to express my feelings are that this dude deserves to be dressed down verbally in the strongest terms, especially in places he has featured as a personality.

I know 100% none of you were defending any of it.

None of this is nice and I look forward to commenting on Civilisation VI or Castlevania instead of this toxic bullshit.

Have a good one.

How can anyone say the Beastcast crew are shills when everyone knows it's Jeff over on the Bombcast pushing Rockstar Energy Drinks™ and Red Bull™ that's the real shill. FOLLOW THE MONEY

I bought my Oculus. I have bought games for it. And I will continue to do so. And while I dont agree with Palmers politics, it is his right to have those opinions. I agree with Alex and Vinny in that its more the way with which he is trying to exert his wealth, power, and influence that I find somewhat reprehensible. I agree that this is basically just toxicity that is practically pitting people against each other and that makes us ignore and avoid the bigger, real issues. "Shitposting" gets us nowhere. And I dont know to much about who is behind it all but I have been hearing its some real scumbags. White supremacist ties type thing, but I admit that could just be hearsay. And I feel developers coming out and saying that they arent going to release their games on the Oculus platform are only hurting their business, Oculus's business and potential as the mainstay VR headset, and the consumers of VR, none of which should are a representative of Palmer Luckey as a person. He did what he did and not everyone should suffer as a result.

That said though...it is more than acceptable and understandable if they choose to not release on said console. If Luckey is afforded the understanding that it is his right to have the opinions he wants and the right to express said opinion, then we should also lend the freedom to let developers choose whether they would like to express their displeasure with his opinions by not releasing on his proprietary platform. If I recall a lot of them would simply like Palmer to step down, then they would be more than happy to release their games on the Oculus. I think thats a bit much, but when Palmer is in the situation he currently is in as one of the figureheads of the burgeoning business that VR hopefully is, he should know that his actions are going to be analyzed to the nth degree. He needs a filter. Plain and simple.

@magmamud: That seems to be the prvailing theory. Maybe the game would be partial prequel, flashing back to Jade's dad. That could be neat. I would have assumed that he and Pey'j would be the same age though, so *shrug*.

NFS Rivals is better than Burnout Paradise - that game hasn't aged all that gracefully and as much as people around these parts like to hold it on this high pedestal it's not the gold standard it once was.

That was my assumption as well. But yeah maybe they took and raised him as a piglet, then he became a resistance fighter after they passed, or something. I don't know how a pig man in the world of BG&E actually ages though.

King of Kong is the best videogame movie.

Please tell me you're joking.

It does have the perfect villain.

@nta_luciana: I bet he's not, sadly.

I really have to disagree. I've played Burnout Paradise relatively recently, and it's still pretty great in my opinion. The multiplayer Freeburn Challenges also remain very cool, and they're something that few games have even attempted to duplicate.

@chaser324: I similarly have played it recently and thought it was a dead world with some alright driving and fairly timid challenges that lacked creativity. After all this talk from Jeff and as heard on this podcast Alex who keep talking about Paradise like this amazing achievement in gaming that can never be topped I was incredibly disappointed.

Have you tried Rivals? It has a really awesome free form approach to progressing the game and a really fun risk-reward system of banking points. Most importantly it has this awesome world that transitions seamlessly from dense forests to deserts and then up icy mountain peaks. You get great highways that let you put the pedal to the metal as well as winding roads that test your ability to drift around corners all while jockeying for position with other racers or brushing off cops. It really is an amazing open form factor racing game.

I hate comments

@yodajones: I feel there are plenty of good movies about or related to video games, but there are very few, like two or three, good movies based on video games

Really none of my business if someone (rich or not) spends their money in a way I don't see fit. My opinion if it is "money well spent" is quite frankly irrelevant and unnecessary.

I encourage Palmer to continue spending his well earned income however he wishes without worry of how other people may feel.

In addition, I'd be fascinated to see if the outrage would be even 1/2 as great were he found to be funding a "Shitposting" Meme Factory that were instead trashing Trump and supporting Hillary. Considering games devs and especially games media trends strongly liberal, I posit that the outrage would not be nearly as high. In fact, his financial investment in such an endeavor may have even been praised or encouraged.

+

I kept waiting and waiting for that last email to reveal itself as being from Gerstmann or Bakalar, but instead it just kept tumbling down that cliff face like a baby bird learning to fly.

It didn't make it.

Just wanted to say I have no problems when you guys occasionally mention sponsors in some way. It's never been something that has upset me, and typically its in relation to a joke. (Only time I noticed is when I think you guys accidentally attached an ad to the end of the podcast, but hey, mistakes happen.) Shoutout of thanks to all the GB sponsors over the years who have helped to bring us great content and keep the lights in SF and NYC.

@cementface9: Progressive isn't a dirty word. Maybe you're thinking of something else.

@vinny Epic and People Can Fly are doing Fortnite. Apparently they are still making a game together? Maybe that is their project.

The game is in closed Alpha right now.

@humanity: I didn't care much for Rivals. Most of what I liked was in the core gameplay that carried over from Hot Pursuit. I felt that the progression system and the always-online unpausable open-world filled with aggressive cops primarily just added potential sources of frustration and didn't really do anything to improve the game.

I wish Bakalar didn't seemingly try to halfheartedly excuse Palmer. Why point out that he's young, rich, and naive and we've all made mistakes at that age? Funding a toxic, alt right movement isn't a mistake most people can empathize with. It's not as if he totaled his Lamborghini and we're mad about it.

Talk about whatever you want to talk about on the Bombcast and Beastcast please.

@cementface9: "Progressive" exists as a term not to be smug, but because in the 90's the right wing of American political discourse carpet-bombed the term "liberal" into massive negatives. Consider how much, much worse, to so much of America, that being called a socialist by the right--something most of the industrialized world can cop to--is than being a fascist is by the left, despite a world's worth of evidence as to one over the other.

"Progressive" is the only left-wing appellation that has managed to not be completely torched by the right-wing's (much more effective, if insular) PR machine over time. You're reading a lot into it when you read divisiveness in it.

@smurf_in_a_blender: Yes, usually the start of the podcast are pretty upbeat and fun but this just killed my mood and it's the first time I've ever stopped the podcast.