Unprofessional Fridays: 06/23/2017

lookin' good already.

Is there a new Jazzpunk game?

FRIED DAY

Alex doing a guest spot. Dope.

Battlegrounds or it didn't happen.

Glad it's finally come to the PC.

We're living in a post No Man's Sky world, where a demo that would have blew our minds 2 years ago makes us shrug.

I still believe in my BG&E2 conspiracy post :P

BG&E didn't sell well but over the years it has gained a similar status as games like Starcraft Ghost, OG Prey 2 , FF7 remake, Duke Nukem Forever (before it was released) and Half Life 3 (although this one is an extreme case of that status). Just look at how social media responded to that announcement of BG&E2. Look at the articles that got written. Is there any Ubisoft property out there that would have invoked a similar reaction? Throughout the years BG&E2 has taken on a life of it's own. The desire of finally getting that announcement is in my opinion more valuable than any other Ubisoft property could be. Even if BG&E didn't really set the world on fire, it's clear that in 2017 there are a lot of people that care deeply about a sequel to that game.

Now think about the position Ubisoft is in. (April 26th, 2017)

"Vivendi is moving to the second phase, everything will take place this year," one source revealed to Reuters. A second source posited that buying Ubisoft would be a logical move for Vivendi, but the company "could consider other targets in China."

Vivendi has its fingers in many pies, so to speak, including the video game sector. The firm was previously a majority owner of Activision Blizzard, and it currently claims a controlling stake in Gameloft — a company originally founded by the Guillemot family, which also founded Ubisoft. If Vivendi exceeds a 30 percent stake in Ubisoft, it is required under French law to submit a public offer for the company.

Yves Guillemot has seen what Vivendi did to his brother's company at Gameloft. He knows that this might be the last E3 with him as CEO. After all, Gameloft's management was replaced once Vivendi took over. Wouldn't this be the absolute moment to reveal your trumpcard in BG&E2? A game which troubled development has made it one of the most desired announcements? Ancel even has to combine his work with BG&E2 with that Wild game that got announced a few years ago. Almost like there's significant pressure behind this game and they need to do whatever it takes to make people believe that this is truly happening now. The creator is even on the stage saying that it's happening!

Even if the presented game wasn't necessarily conceived to become a BG&E game, putting that title on it made people care about it immediately and did wonders to the stock price. The higher the stock price is , the more it costs for Vivendi to buy these outstanding stocks and perhaps decide to invest more heavily in the Chinese alternatives instead. Now that this game is called BG&E2, they will put some stuff in for fans of the first game. In that way, they're not even really fooling the stockholders. They're just making an entirely different game that will contain sprinkles of the first game's lore to honestly tie it to the first game.

In the video they watched, Ancel already set the groundwork for this.

Listen to him trying to tie this demo to the first game, hinting that there's human trafficking / slavery to discover , that the Russian doll mechanic harkens back to the characters getting in a hovercraft which gets inside a spaceship. Especially that Russian doll mechanic feels weird to me, since you get the spaceship after completing 90% of the game, and the only new place that it opens up is a bonus level where you can gather enough pearls to make it to space and the space-level itself. That whole Russian Doll mechanic was never THE thing of BG&E and feels similar to saying 'hey both games let you hang out in space'. It's a mostly empty bulletpoint to warrant this being an actual BG&E game. Honestly, the code interface was more of an iconic BG&E feature than the Russian doll thing ever was . I still remember reviews praising how fast you could type in the codes with an analog stick because of the spiraling design.

Because of the announcement i played BG&E this week. Now when i think about the strengths of that game i think about the characters, the atmosphere and the conspiracy story which has you shoot photo's to alter the behavior of the 'people' as they learn more and more about what's really going on. The game even ends with a few cliffhangers that beg to be answered (Jade being a Domz goddess, Peyj being corrupted.) Calling this a prequel is a good way to distance yourself as far as possible from answering all these questions. It makes no sense to me to not take advantage of these strong points as the base for your sequel. A game like Half Life 2 was created 6 years after half life 1 and still made sure that the iconic parts of that first game carried over (Crowbar, first person silent protagonist , mysterious G-man, science stuff, interactivity with the world, no cutscenes)

If they manage to keep Vivendi away and finish this game, it will contain some BG&E1 fanstuff, but this was not originally conceived to be a BG&E game.

@80poundgames: they flew around in a space ship. theres nothing mind blowing in that demo even if it was pre no mans sky

@onemanarmyy: i think where i lose any expectation this isnt some stunt or fakery is there is no info out to indicate it will release. no word on what platforms its on, not even the vaguest hint to a release time, and like 5 million words about what it is but nothing concrete on what you do in said game or even its relation to the first one.

Jazzpunk made me laugh like no other game, it's just filled with simple and great humor

@clain4672: yeah either Vivendi takes over and the game will be known as the casualty of the hostile take over, or the announcement helped to keep Vivendi away and they'll make a Sci fi game with spaceships that has some winks and nods towards the first game as a reminder that you're playing a sequel.

Just think about Ancel's role in all this.

1. Leave ubisoft

2. Create indie studio

3. announce first game: Wild

4. Turn up at Ubisoft's conference to talk about his involvement with BG&E2 (which is in a very early stage)

Why the hell would this guy agree to take on these 2 massive jobs at once? It's the first game his new indie studio is making!

Thank you Alex for immediately responding "The funky monkey" to brass monkeys.

Gotta love Alex for his opening statement . Declaring how he was 'Feeling good' very emphatically, with that straight on hard stare with the dark quarter moons under his eyes and general impassive stoic demeanor.

Alex manages well....Miss Drew also.

Ben looking almost like Doctor Strangelove with those sunglasses.

Scuuuuuuuurvy!

That was a good ass UPF. Thanks guys!

I gasped earlier when I saw the beyond good and evil and they pulled out from the statue to the world. I don't know if they can pull it off ... this is like the dream game if they can do it where you can actually go anywhere and there is actual content. There is no way they can fill a whole galaxy with meaningful content but this tech demo is insanely cool.

I just don't get Jazzpunk though. It felt like forced unfunny jokes and I don't get the point of the game

I had some weird sound leveling issues when listening to a voice.

@onemanarmyy: Hotdang, that actually sounds plausible!

@steveurkel: it's okay to be insanely wrong about Jazzpunk. that is your right. to be that wrong about it.

@lestephan: honestly, i'm glad to see these posts because i know it sounds like i'm a crazed conspiracy nut :D

Seems to me you get it perfectly fine but you just dont find it funny, nothing wrong with that. It doesn't make me laugh at all either. And the jokes are all there is to it so when they dont land theres obviously not much left for us.

Edit:

How did the tea thing never happen to any of the duders before? It totally travels up the string, it can even drip to the point of creating a puddle on the table if you leave it long enough.

I'm very happy the cartoon cocaine dealer Ben could show up

That deck would have been so much better if they added the word "monkey" in it.

Soooo many fighting games from the west now a days, if we have to watch bad games being played I

Grog is funny, it was originally only done to prevent the sailors from saving up their liquor rations(liquor was easier to store and use as a fresh water substitute because the water would go stagnant over long trips) and getting drunk. The lime thing was basically a happy accident, it was never expressly added to grog to prevent scurvy.

Another fun sailing/alcohol fact: IPAs were basically invented because you needed to add extra hops to a beer to preserve the beers travel over the seas to places like India(hence the India Pale Ale name). Once British soldiers got so used to the flavor they started to intentionally use Hops as a bittering agent for domestic beers.

Hooray future murder island! That is a good looking shirt. Also that hunting game was fun to see.

No, not the spider pizza!

Did post E3 Ben get cool?

Don't DocLocke me, man.

It's ok, Alex. You can never be the most wrong due to how hard you fought for Thumper in the GOTY awards. That's a lifetime pass.

Amazing introduction there.

I love how Jason found the most anime way of displaying the duders during the last segment. Perfect.

Persona 5 spoilers:

Jeff's high school life was a Persona 5 character.

I will never understand the attraction of Jazzpunk

Alex is gonna murder Jeff one day. This video will serve as the evidence.

@onemanarmyy: I think you completely nailed it about the whole BG&E2 deal. At least that's how I mostly feel about it. After it was announced, I checked the Wikipedia page and that's when I started to get suspicious. It seems really weird that they're going with this prequel that barely resembles the first game, specially when during all this time Ancel always said that BG&E was written as a trilogy and how he wanted to continue Jade's story. Even the teaser trailer and the leaked footage showed Jade and Pey'j.

Anyway, I hope this new BG&E2 we're getting really comes out and it's good, but yeah it seems that there's some stuff going on behind the scenes. I hope Danny can do a NoClip doc about it one day!

@rubley: It's just nonsensical fun. It appeals to me because I'm a human cartoon. Might just not be for you. That's ok, I personally hate all televised sports.

Dem microphones this week destroyed my ear sockets at 40:40.

@onemanarmyy: I completely agree. Also that text entry system was totally rad and makes me wonder why we don't see it any where else, like for HTPC's and current gen consoles.

Big Buck Hunter was a popular game and it still is

Jeff gets more props and stunts than Bruce Willis

GANBARE!!!

If only Alex could stay longer we could see him and Jeff chit chat more.

I see my man already nailed it but basic grog is watered down rum. There used to be a time when drinking water that didn't have some alcohol in it was dangerous (hence small beer, extra weak beer that children would drink). Many drinks have an interesting history, such as gin and tonic.

Welcome back to Playstation.

This lighting is so much better than the darker space they had. I know it's probably because the lighting equipment is still packed up from E3 but this is bringing me back to old giant bomb strangely enough.