The Giant Beastcast: Episode 94

alex is going to be very disappointed if he thinks 9000 years is going to make people from the last game obsolete.

All the talk of Finland, and no one thought of licorice?

Ya, I came here to post the same thing. Heard him say that on the last bombcast too and was confused and then I read and watched a bunch of comparisons and everyone else says the 4k version runs at exactly the same framerate.

Great podblast! GBE remains peak fun, even when at its' darkest......Jeff.

I think of Finland during WWII where the country was amazing.

I'm pretty sure I know what this is. The LG OLED TVs are/were known to have fairly severe display lag when running at 4K. It's possible that the lag between his inputs and stuff changing on screen is what Jeff perceives as the game not being smooth or "off" in some way. They put out a firmware update to address this which Jeff B mentioned. If Jeff G hasn't gotten the firmware or isn't running in game mode, he's probably experiencing that lag.

More info here: http://4k.com/news/angry-gamers-petitioning-against-lg-due-to-input-lag-problem-in-its-4k-hdr-oled-tvs-17341/

Is it me or does Dan pronounce "insurance" really weirdly?

@gaff: INsurance. I thought the same, as I grew up saying inSURance. I was cracking up over that.

Sorry Dan, no way in hell could you eat a 6 Foot Subway Sandwich in 2 hours!!! In fact I think a good challenge would be to eat it in two days.

I love that Jeff has some reservations about Zelda because it's going to make GOTY discussion really good. I hope Vinny will side with him more. Double Jeffcast was awesome!

Don't risk it, Dan.

@fedallah: I was thinking about this exact thing during that bit!

I'll say this: He might make it to three feet. There is physically no way he could eat a six food sub in a short time period. It would take the better part of the day, at least.

Man, I was excited when they first announced a new Ghost Recon but that game never actually looked good and the beta was awful. I wish Ubisoft would go back to making good Tom Clancy campaigns. RB6 Siege is amazing but I miss a proper Clancy campaign

I was excited to see Nier in the shownotes, and then it was literally a 15 second aside before one of Vinny's tangents derailed it (don't get me wrong, Vinny is great). I hope that Alex really does continue to play this game cause it is great. Bayonetta style combat but with elements of twin stick and bullet hell shooters. The story isn't anime and has some great twists and is very well done. 3 play through with different characters with different pieces adds great replay. There's even some dark souls elements with corpse runs and other player characters corpses left throughout the world.

It's such a great game released in the midst of higher profile games so I just hope it gets the buzz it deserves cause it's better than a lot of the bigger releases so far this year. Hopefully the critical buzz it's gotten will get more people to give it a shot cause a lot of the sites aren't giving it the feature cover games like Horizan are, which I get cause it probably wouldn't garner the clicks they want from features.

Just got a chance to listen.

DOUBLE JEFF AWWW YISSSSS

Vinnie, Alex, Dan, and Bakalar should have just left and recorded a fun podcast somewhere else.

Must be, I have a Samsung 4K TV and horizon runs smooth as silk.

good kiss this week

Yeah, I was actually going to mention that myself. It's really nice to have heard, I feel like it's a rare thing to hear these past few years.

Edit: Wrestling discussion is around 1:49:30 ish.

@alex I like inventory management, I like role-playing games. I also don't play a million games. Go ahead and dunk my head in water.

How to Do a Kip Up

Doing research like that is one way to embiggen yourself.

Automata, Autofata, here I am at, camp Granada. Thanks for reminding me how much I love it when Violent Jeff and Vinny Too-Dope preach Transformers gospel. A shame neither of you guys got into Beast Wars, that show was way better than you might think. I can't remember the last Transformers thing I genuinely liked. I guess those Cybertron games were pretty good though largely forgettable. I intend the play Devastation at some point though Jeff's past testimony has softened my expectations.

Big ups to Alex for referencing Ludvig Borga. I only remember that dude because he would pin jobbers with one finger and as a kid I thought it was badass. Thanks as always for being the best Beastcast.

Having this as the first comment is so perfect.

Someone should compile a list of actually interesting facts about Finland and send it to Vinny. Like, we have a lot of lakes and islands. Like, a lot. And I think we coined the term "Molotov cocktail"? We need some industrious Finn to do this - I'm too lazy to source 10 factoids.

listening to the zelda segment in earnest, hoo boy it does get quite negative. many a nit gets picked, it gets kinda oppressive really. it sounds like the best thing they have to say now is, "well, the exploration's kind of fun, for a while." they don't like cooking, they don't like climbing, they don't like (or can't deal with) the interface, they don't like the main quest, they don't like using the map, etc etc etc. i would honestly prefer they just say flat out they don't like the game and stop dancing around the subject (and conversely, i wish dan would have made his voice more prominent in describing the ways it's pretty fucking amazing). i get it's funny to dump on things for small issues, but this got to be a bit much.

@ripelivejam: This is such a weird embellishment that I don't understand.

re: the zelda segment: usability stuff (some of which I agree with) aside, when Jeff calls the combat in Breath of the Wild 'almost entirely pointless' I'm triggered so damn hard it almost astounds me and there's so much I want to rant on about in defense of it being such an amazing pillar of the game but I will not get baited and get internet angry. I hope he realizes that the tools at his disposal make it fun/varied/engaging on it's own and make it so that your weapons arent breaking every 60 seconds (the durability is great and works well in this game with its systems). ohhhhhh boy....man....POINTLESS?!

i cant

@joeshabadoo: I'd say there is definitely a time though when I am no longer interested in creating shenanigans for the sake of it.

Just after awhile it's just oh more skeletons popped up. Your clubs are bullshit byyeeee.

It's me. I'm one of the people down on Zelda. I'm totally with Jeff. I just came off of Horizon and that game's world and, especially, combat are so goddamn good it was very hard for me to get into Zelda. Whenever I'm talking to people and doing shrines, Zelda is grade A awesome, but any time I have to fight or go exploring in that barren over-sized world, it brings me down really low. I just find it tedious. I don't like the weapon durability. I rather have a set amount of weapons that give me different options to tackle a combat situation and I rather have a smaller more interesting world with things to find.

I'm actually doing the Zora stuff right now and it's the first time I've actually be interested in exploring around but the path to get to the place is different and interesting. I wish I could play the game everyone else is. My twitter feed is filled with people going bananas over the game and I'm envious of them. I think the game's alright, but I'm just not having the same experience everyone else is having.

In response to the Zelda weapon durability argument:

how is it an embellishment? 90% of the discussion was basically a laundry list of what they felt the game did wrong. Dan seemed to be the only one to still show some affection for it and bring up more specific things he liked but mostly kept quiet. they would talk about three or four things they didn't like in a row, then offer the blanket generic caveat, "well it's still amazing." if they don't really like it at least be honest about it (well, maybe jeff was to an extent).

i do think they're being nitpicky and maybe just a little not understanding what they game's trying to go for (though i do try to not be a person who tell you, "you're playing it wrong!"), but that's personal taste and it's fine. i just think they're sending mixed messages and not being honest with themselves.

@shtinky He basically said everything I think about the durability in Zelda

@efesell: I feel you, to an extent, but as the game tends to 'level up' the creatures you're seeing spawn given your progression in-game those encounters still can create very effective tension surrounding the escape.

Beyond that though, you get to a level of competency and skill in this game and within it's combat that you can dispense with guys intelligently and efficiently, making you feel progressively more and more like the legendary knight set in stasis 100 years back, only bested by an entire field full of guardians, and still making the economics of the encounter line up (monster parts are well worth gathering en masse beyond cooking up elixirs). Plus on horseback you can get free KOs with a couple passes without having to degrade weapons at all, and it feels awesome.

idk, its just the way he talks about the combat is boiling it down to such a joyless process when it is, in fact, some of the most dynamic and entertaining stuff in the game (for me at least). I'm willing to bet he knows little or nothing about the different types of charged attacks (on foot or horseback), or the jump attack timings, or the downward strikes when in a larger fall animation coming out of a glide normally, or mounting certain things to get hits in. seems like he barely ever thinks to work in the runes within combat, bombs especially which is just baffling, that's most of the fun and another practical way to avoid constant weapon degradation

@ripelivejam: I guess I just don't understand why drilling down on the things that bother them preclude them from enjoying it at the same time, or somehow makes it seem like they are confused about the issue. Keep those critical eyes open with the things you love too, maybe especially then.

Besides this is round two or three of Zelda talk and it's the first time it's been at all negative.

can someone link me the 4k tv their talking about :)

That intro to the Zelda discussion had me laughing. So glad there are at least a few people on the internet not ferociously self-serious about Zelda right now.

Yeah, it may be fun in itself, but if there's no reason to engage with that system beyond the mere act of engaging with it, what's the point? Like Jeff was getting at, once you start breaking it down economically (eg. "Oh, there's a group of 10 common enemies here - I'll probably have to use up 3 of my weapons to beat them, and the loot I'll get isn't useful or interesting enough to make me feel like I'll come out of it with a net gain") a sizable chunk of the enemy encounters become a really bum deal.

That said, I don't necessarily think this is a problem with the durability mechanic (though that's a factor, for sure). Without some clear form of progression tied to combat proficiency - maybe that takes the shape of skill points or buffs, maybe some kind of collectible or lore piece - there's not much incentive for someone to actually engage with all the crazy sandboxy combat they've built.

@solobbos: First comment. Well done!

Hey @alex, the first Nier is not a JRPG. It's an action/adventure/hack'n'slash. I bet there will be several corrections in the mail about this. =D

Also, the soundtrack in Nier is fucking amazing.

maybe jeff should come to the east coast too. west coast is pretty dead.

You can criticize something you enjoy, there are nits to pick with Zelda but its still a great game at the end of the day.

In the beginning I marked things I would get back to but that made me fast travel a lot which was boring so if I see something new now like a kokiri seed way in the distance I go there and get it. Same with shrines and puzzles. I don't really skip things I come across saving myself the hassle of having to mark stuff.

Nintendo stole Steep lore by having you slide on your shield! Steep is really Zelda but another timeline.

@yothatlimp: they barely even talk about why they think it's so amazing, though. they just use sweeping generalizations of "it's such an achievement." at least balance it out with some talk of WHY you think it's so amazing in spite of its issues, or just concede that you think it's a mediocre/poor game or a failed experiment.

Jeff keeps getting one shot because he has weak armor. I finished the game a couple nights ago and almost never used any sort of attack or defense buff, it's entirely optional. The hardest enemies in the game are Lynels and they aren't even that bad once you learn to perfect dodge.

Jeff also says he avoids combat to save weapons... what is he saving the weapons for? Weapons are for combat. Just fight stuff.

Avoiding combat early on is just gonna screw him over later when he needs monster parts to upgrade his armor.

As for cooking food, just get any type of "hearty" item (truffles, fish etc), cook it with one apple, and boom you have a full health recovery item. I made like 20 of them and i've been set for some time. Any item that gives temp hearts will give full recovery when cooked with another type of non-buff food.

Good that the Jeffs were united. I feel like Jeff B. has been absent every single time Jeff G. happens to come on the Beast.

Nightmare Jeff finally calling out the double emails. Although it kind of sends mixed signals, seeing as he repeated a lot of the stories he already told on the Bombcast this week. One decision treats the podcasts as complements of each other, but the other decision treats them as separate entities. Jeff's sarcastic approval of the Coke Zero comment was hilarious.

I think they've already gone fairly in on what they like about BotW in the last bomb+beast-casts. I guess going in on what they dislike is valid. (Even if I feel like they already did that too.)

I don't mind me some inventory juggling, and even thus I feel they're probably blowing it out of proportion, so I'm still all ready to throw down with some Zelda. Y'know, when I get a Switch. Someday. Inevitably.

@dudeglove: bless his dark grimy soul for it.