Giant Bombcast Live! PAX 2010

M M yeah. Hey everyone, It's Friday, September the third, and you are listening to the Giant Bomb Cast, a very special edition of the Giant Bomb Cast coming to you in front of a live audience here at packs ten. Hi. Yeah, Hi. I will be your MC and host Master Ryan Davis, joined by Vinny Caravella. Hey, everybody, how you doing? Brad shoemaker echo, and of course Jeff Gershman starting center a shoemaker yeah. And how are you guys doing? Good? All right? Good, real good, Jeff and Brad. You guys went up for dinner? How did that go? It was good? We got well, what are Palomino his name of the place? Yeah, and they had something horse I you know, I asked for for horse, yeah or yeah? They thought I was saying horse and it all went kind of sideways from there. But that's something on the menu called the Incredible Pepperoni pizza. You know, yeah, it's not it's not a bad pepperoni pizza. Do you think maybe overselling it a bit incredible might be overselling it a bit? Cocktails are all right though, Brad, how did you do it? pH bores snows and I am stone cold, sober Vinny and I went to perhaps the most apathetic subway that I've ever been witnessed too. Holy shit, Hey, hey, do you guys have Swiss cheese? Well, why don't you just tell me what you have? Oh, you've got sandwich. They'll make you proud, Why don't you? Uh, it's like no eye contacts. Just what was the level of artistry? And they are of light? Nothing? You got like you and Drew both got an You thought it was getting iced team, but it ended up being like root beer with no like carbonation in it. And I'll see how you can make that mistake. So it was like, oh, this is so so if if Vinny and I have to leave the stage dramatically planned incredible bathroomy, what did they h? I mean? What was what were they pitching? Was so incredible about that pizza? Nothing? That was just how it was listed on the menu. It just said incredible pepperoni pizza. So maybe it was the pepperoni. The rest of the pieces did not brag about their quality. Okay, so it was the pepperoni, Yeah, just specifically it was. Yeah, So I guess maybe the idea was that the pepperoni itself was incredible. It was large. All right, that certainly doesn't hurt. Yeah, I don't know. I ate it. I mean whatever, I ate it. That's all that matters. You ate it. You're survived, and you're here, and I'm glad to have you guys here, And you know, I'm glad. I'm glad to be here. I'm glad to have all these people here too. Yeah, we thanks for coming out. We came in here earlier and I was I think we were a little bit terrified of the size of the room. Yeah. We ran in here this morning during the Harmonics panel and just like stood inside the door and did some dancing. I don't know if if if you guys saw us back there over there, Drake did Drake sees all he does the scene. Not much of a dancer though. Uh well, let's let's get into the meat of it then, gentlemen. Let's talk about like that good that's a pro music. You see. We never hear the music one hears any of this ship. I think that's the first time I ever because I hear something. Let's start down here at the end of the panel. Jeff Gerstman, what have you been playing? Brother? No? Yeah, earlier today we went and played Duke Nukem forever. You guys, Uh, you're heard of that? Did you guys wait through the line to the theater and see all that stuff? Show a hands how many people went went through it and played it. I'm sorry, Oh wow, mat pretty long. I'm good. I'm concerning how goddamn line that along that line was two hours? Two hours, thirteen years? You know what, you're a shirt that you win. We don't have T shirt shirts. I like this because now all our best view paper and claim it after the instant feedback, So what what the fuck? Right? Like? What it's like? Decided like, no, we're we're gonna take it the rest of the way. We're gonna we're gonna pick this up. Like it looks kind of like the footage the leaked out. I don't know, you know, if you haven't seen that footage, it looks like a fairly modern shooter, right you'd say it. It starts out with you pissing and so it's classy and it has Duke Newcombe receiving oral action from two ladies. So it's a Duke nukemb game. I guess that's that's the most you can ask. I mean, it's it sounds like, you know, Gearbox is talking about how you know, they want to try and make the game that was supposed to be made, and it sounds like they're at least hitting the tone as I think, like tonally they're making a Duke newkembe game and you know it has the weapons, has the shrink ray, the shotgun looks the same. No, no foot as far as I can attack is I understand the foot would be DELCTELC foot. All right, look look for that and then foot armor after that. So pretty excited, Pretty excited for that. How long was the stuff they were showing. I don't got a chance to see it. They showed a pretty amazing trailer that I don't think they've put out yet. I don't know that the trailer is widely available. Trailer is better than the demo. Actually, it's got that Prodigy song in it that makes anything better. But but yeah, you know, it's a demo of a of a game that can't possibly live up to any expectations at this point because it's been well I don't know it like it's been canceled, rennounced, right, so expectations reset. It's probably garbage anyway. Oh wait, it's gonna well, maybe it'll be all right, but it's it's been in such a fucking quagmire for so long, Like isn't like if it's even playable. It's like, that's a big win for that game, right, the fact that he could even be product. I played it and they had belt buckles, so they were handing out belt buckles. Five stars. You're hear it here. First, I don't know how to use a belt buckle, but I got one. So that's you heard. We know how to wear a belt. I just learned this year. Actually this morning when I was putting. Maybe I don't want to tell this. You're saying this is not a family appropriate anecdote. No, I'm just saying that I honestly had to like put a belt on a pair of shorts today because they fell off in the dryer, and I was like, how do I do the two rings? How do I? It goes Try to look at another pair of It goes through the back and then brown. Literally you're not trying shoes, man, It just goes through the little loops. Oh you should see me tie fucking shoes. Brad. Your thoughts on on Duke forever. I mean, it kind of feels like a ten year old game, you know. Yeah, I mean it is a shooter, not not a bad way, but it's you know, it's kind of serious. You run in the straight line stuff. You know. You shrink, guys, it's got a shrink. He talks a lot. Yeah, the mirrors work. Okay, oh shit? Yeah. Can you flush the slush the toilet? It was there, and you can flush a toilet, You can draw, you can pump a soap dispenser. You can pump the soap dispenserboard next year. That's next gen technology. Wait, if you say it's a ten year old or it plays like a ten year old game, that's not so bad considering it's you know, been in development for thirteen years. So it's sure sure ahead of it. It's still ahead of its timeline. Really yeah, but it's funny. So it'll go up on the site. Uh when we get back next week. Uh. Some of the guys from Gearbox came through the show the New Borderlands DLC, and uh, that's all right. We had we had Randy Pitchford in the office. Yeah, So Randy Pitchford was in and we shot an interview with him while he was in there. And so the whole thing is this was before Packs and we couldn't put up the interview until after Packs. So you know, we're we're talking very casually about you know, kind of the the Heat game and some of the other stuff that Gearbox has been assoiated with, and I was kind of it's like, oh, so there's been other rumors you guys have been associated with, like this Duke Nukem forever. Keep in mind this until after Pax Panic broke out. It's just like a lot of like I don't have everybody looking at somebody else like an answer like, hey, they're right, it is Could we do we? No? No, no, what no talk about it? No sos not a complete mystery to us coming into this show necessarily, but it's one of those things I think, like, you know, the game will be judged when it's been but right now, the interesting things are the house and the wise of how that occurred. It's you know, when you hear that it's happening, that's one thing you're like, that's messed up. I don't understand. Okay, fine, but it's it's gonna be like how and why and when did they get involved, which is apparently sometime in two thousand and nine. But you know, at what point did Gearbox say like, yeah, we want to take these guys from three D Realms and we're gonna We're gonna take this thing and finish it and put it out. And I still have to wonder, like how much of that is like them finishing it and them just starting from scratch, Like like some of the stuff in the demo looks like some of the leaked stuff that came out right after the game, like three D Realms kind of shut their doors, Like there's the monster truck stuff right and some of that. So, now, Jeff we I believe we have you on record recorded saying that you were not interested in a Gearbox Duke Newcomb game. Now that you've seen what Gearbox is put out there, what do you think of what they've shown. I will give them the benefit of the doubt and see how it goes from here. Yeah, but I'd still think they need to do a special addition to that game that comes with every iteration that they killed along the way. Ye patch that you know, don't don't even patch it up. It's just gonna crash the desktop over and over again. You know, just compile what you have and put that out along with the finished game. I mean, most of the engines they were using the going than an art book, right, but most of the engines they were using previously have gone open source by now, so it's right, yeah, and you know they can get doss box on there, going on whatever. I know, I still that division emulator that is more interesting than whatever this finished product will be the process. Oh, I mean if if they put out something like that, that would be more interesting than whatever this this maybe maybe I don't. I mean, I mean, this game is more history than it is game. But if it's amazing, what if it comes out and it's fucking amazing, if it's like like why did breathe? That's like worrying you, Like, oh, I just can't fathom the world like where the games ships and then where it's ships and it's not a mess, and like what are afraid this is that we're like Anna enters side Ways world from Lost or something, and this is just gonna split split the sky into I don't have a television. I don't know what that means. All right, I think we've about to rung out the Duke talk. Let's Jeff pre packs. You went down to LA and pre packs, I mean like yesterday. Yeah, it's kind of a you've got a refue Uh. Yeah. So I was down in Los Angeles for the Call of Duty Black Ops multiplayer reveal where they were finally talking about that stuff and just to you know, keep the throwback shooter vibe going. Uh, they're adding more deathmatch modes and bots. Wow. Really yeah, that's that's I mean, you know, the future video games is here. That's perhaps a little reductive. Okay, yeah, so you know they're adding this wager mode where you can so okay, so they first of all, they have changed the way that the leveling system works. You will earn experience points to gain levels, but all that unlocks is the right to purchase the weapons, not with real money. I know. That's everyone's like activision. You use CP or COD points because it's an acronym within an act hold on, So it's CP CP which points, but with COD standing for Call of duty, I don't know. They didn't say I can't. I can either confirm nor deny what CD stands for in this case, So why not just CDPs? Well okay, actually that's a good there's that's answering it my own question right there. Yeah, you know, let those Activision guys smarter than they see and I expect to see a dp's leading and so the orgy st right, that's true? Is that nice? Yea, Yeah, let's let's wrap this up. We're gonna hey, thank you guys all for coming out tonight. It's been a pleasure. So they're doing some interesting stuff with that game, with with with wager match and the and the weapons are a lot of fun. I think the leveling system is changing in an interesting way. And you know, beyond that, it's you know, it's that kind of Call of Duty multiplayer that has sold millions of copies and people are still frantically playing. So it's they're at that stage where it would be foolish to change too much about it because it's it's reached that kind of competitive point where they have to make it like that, you know, like Bungee has to make Halo play like Halo, right, whoever is working on a Call of Duty this week has to make it play like Call of Duty and uh and it goes from there. But the game looks super slick and you know, we who have some footage of that and some interviews that we shot that we'll go up on the side at some point. I just have to point out we've had this conversation, I think in private a few times. But so we're talking about uh bots okay, and we're talking about about Deathmatch, and we're talking about uh Duke Newcomb and we're talking about moral kombats. Yeah, so is it? Is it nineteen ninety four? Is that what happened? Has time actually looped back around? Yeah, it's it's finally happened. The games that you cared about when well, I won't make any assumptions about your when you were in high school are cool again. Yes, your dad's games are cool again. Kids. H fuck, I know, I know, old man. So Mortal Kombat is here and they're showing the two characters that they added back at Games Calm, Yeah, Cyrax and Katana. So Brad and I kind of immediately made a bee line for that. And then I decided to play funny. I snuck up behind ed Boone while he was watching someone play the game. Uh and uh, he didn't see me sneak up, and I said, it's gonna I guess this game looks okay, I don't know. He turns around like and then we cut through the line to play it, and it's cyrax is so much fun. The bombs in the net and that stuff is still really man, I'm into that game. Brad, Brad engaged the man. Let him get his get your m k oh man. I'm still tripped up by how many of the moves they've changed, Like I spent half of the first round trying to figure out how to throw at that's because you didn't play a lot of the later model Mortal Kombat games. Some of that stuff is still kind of in line with that stuff, so so it kind of adheres to that stuff while kind of having the balance and and the juggling of kind of the older mks, which is pretty sweet. But the net doesn't draw people in when you hit him with it, it actually just freezes him in the air, and I don't know, like you have to you have to get over there and get to him now, which is just fine. It's more of just a freeze. Yeah, but it'll you know, it'll freeze guys in the mid in mid air and all that sort of stuff, and and that's pretty cool, and yeah, man, that that game. I don't we we actually just played I don't know how you saw. On Thursday, we actually played two hours of Mortal Kombat. We played MK two and then Ultimate MK three and uh yeah those games still hold up really well. I hope they're making that HD whatever the hell that is. Yeah, like the retailer listed thing, Yeah, that could be. That could be amazing. It's it's this weird, like it's weird to think about Mortal Kombat undergoing this like huge renaissance and becoming relevant to this huge wide ro I mean, you know more, Mortal Kombat is always like appealed to a pretty wide group of people. Yeah, you took a picture of that guy in the Trench code earlier with the ponytail all just talk about half the audience here, Yeah, the other half. I looked at this student and said, that's a guy that should be standing there playing moratal Comma. Clearly they are doing this right, So uh yeah, I don't know, it's it's just weird to think that. You know, fighting games are kind of back again. I mean, you know, Capcom kind of revitalized some stuff with like HD remix and Street Fighter four and all that, and you know, S and K has been doing what they do and it's been exciting as someone who went out to arcades and played a lot of fighting games to see this stuff kind of coming back and seeing online kind of matter again in a in a big way. And that's been that's been awesome because it kind of fell into this spot where it was like just super competitive and there was like a very hardcore uh segment of people that were all about those games, but they were playing at such a level that it I mean, I was never going to get that good at that stuff ever again, So it's good to see a wider audience stuff like intermediate level players and just kind of people at all skill levels having fun with video games. Well you kind of gotta do that. I mean, it's it's it's times have changed, man, I like video games that has not changed, has not changed. Do you want to talk at all about Bastion? Yeah? Sure so so yeah, Bastions Bashton is one of the games in the Packs ten. It's a it's an indie game and we took a look at and this is from Super Giant Games, who's a you know, a group of x EA LA guys who are working very hard on that, and they just announced yesterday that a former co worker of ours, great Kasavan, is joining them as as creative director. Yeah and uh yeah, yeah that's that's so these guys are gonna be chasing their indie dreams with this really cool action RPG. And we ran some footage of it, but it's here. You can actually go play it, and I recommend you you seek it out whereever the hell it is. We walked around the floor and I haven't seen where the gets on the hidden Hidden Level? Anybody been to the what to the hidden level? Show hands? Is that what you have to? Like jump through the brick wall and then get to the ward down for three seconds and yeah, exactly, and then the treasure chest appears. You open that. That's the card key, but the warst So you should definitely find that and seek it out and make sure you wear headphones because it does this whole thing with It's got a narrator to it that is kind of responding to what you're doing. So it starts out kind of almost tutorial like where it's kind of saying, you get up, you do this, you do this, But as you go it you realize that it's actually not just telling its story as you do what EV's it's very much like reacting to exactly what you're doing. So you know, as soon as you pick up the hammer, if you start just beating on stuff, the kid thrashes around a bit, kind of goes in that direction, and h the narration is really cool. The narration trick is awesome, Like it's it's a touch that I don't know, just gives that game a specific tone that's uh, I don't I've never seen a game that that's tried to pull something off like that, with that style of storytelling, and it's, uh, it's striking. Yeah. So our our plan is actually, you know, we we've known right for a while. I don't know if you know that, but we are going to be doing ongoing coverage of the game and kind and kind of follow these guys as they are attempting to live out their grand indie dreams because they are, yeah, they are super indie. They are like living in a house together for the most part. Yeah, it's like it is it's almost like they set it up to be a reality show. What if four guys got together in the house and tried to make a video game. Yeah, and we provided the camera, so yeah, yeah, so they have a camera. They'll be filming some stuff, and we'll have them on the site next week kind of talking about their experiences of packs and and we'll kind of follow them where it goes from here to kind of just show what's really going on with game development. I think that's something that a lot of people want to see more of, but it just gets so blocked behind all these walls of see our plans and marketing plans and all this other stuff that everyone wants to do, like, well, this we want to release one half of a screen shot, and you can't really talk about any of these weapons yet and all the sort of stuff. So it's we kind of want to just hopefully cut through that and and kind of show it as they're making it and kind of go with them as they're figuring out what they want this game to be and making these decisions. I think it could be pretty exciting, and uh, you know, we'll all find out together. But yeah, and with any luck, they'll be big enough to start blocking us from coverage, you know. Yea, by the end of it, it'll be like, well, here's a quarter of a screenshot. We've made a deal. Well, I mean that's that's the thing is, like most developers, if they had their own way about it, we just tell you absolutely everything about their game and any given to you, which is even more frustrating. He's like, we can't, you can't talk about this, but here are all these awesome things about this game, and it's like, ah, it's a make that very well, it's not really I mean like that. Yeah, it's kind of like that. Then hey, Brad, what you've been playing? Oh man, it's right on the spot. Let's go just just StarCraft yep. But you guys don't want to talk about that. I think there's aye, there's a continued end of the audience that wants to hear about what the leagues are you guys in I'm gonna say all of them probably up front here. So I guess there's a tournament tomorrow. Oh yeah, according to I don't think so come on, I don't think so okay, good come on. Peer pressure. I don't know. I don't know if there any audience pressure and peer pressure and it crows a foot here. I don't think I want to embarrass myself. It's too eight man I think it's really messed up to be in Diamond tier of StarCraft two and say I don't want to embarrass myself playing. I mean, honesty at a certain point kind of becomes bullshit. Click monster to make die. I don't know you've been reading my tips and tricks. Yeah, thank you for that pro tip. I consider being in diamond to be proof of my competence, but not much more than that. There's some really, there's some really good StarCraft players out there, all right, So diamond players in the audience, hands up? All right, that dude one one over there, gold or platinum in the other platinum and gold, gold, gold, maybe a silver who's not playing? Star who's not playing? Who's not playing? All right? Moving on? Alright, I'm saying as far as skill levels go, you know, you're in a room people, and you and another dude over there, so sure, sure you guys should probably play. Let's le's talk about those is all a cool down change after this? Why let's do right now? We've got nothing else going on? Everything to say, we got all the time in the world where we yeah, whatever, uh, what else? You anything else else? I haven't had a lot of time lately. Yeah, now, Vinny, you haven't you want to talk about switchers and uh yeah man, SDI ports and who wants to talk about gen lock and SDI signals and x stripping an XLR cable that we got a lot of stuff to do next week. Yes, So Vinnie has been preparing on the back end for the our big live live show Live, which is happening next Thursday, starting at ten am Pacific daylight time. We'll be late, we'll start late. Yeah, but it's a long show, so that's fine. Absolutely, yeah. Six hopefully it's a long show. We're scheduled for like seven hours. It's seven or eight. I keep forgetting it's like until five or something. But then the party continues outside then we get started king. Yeah. And if you're in there, yeah, and over twenty one you can come join us after five anyone, anyone from the anyone from the A area. Here there we go see September Septemb ninth, Come on down. We'll have actually what is it, go to a whiskeymedia dot com slash block party and we'll have all the details there. We have all the details there. You do it on your phone. If this is boring for you, so let's uh, we're at packs. Let's talk about packs a little bit. It's pop packs. Sorry, yeah, no that was Bratt. Bratt did that one fix it doesn't work. So this is JOHNA. Bomb's what third year here? Yeah? No, Rich Gallup? That's not right. Yeah, everyone out for Rich Gallup. He's still back back. Where's where's Matt Rory? Still working on games that don't have titles yet? Oh? Come on, that game totally has a time. So this has been I've only spent you know, we're end of day one here and I've only spent a little bit of time on the floor. But my impression has been that this is a way bigger show big I mean, how many of you guys have been here in years past? No, alright, alright, defenders, all of you like it. That's right, we're all going it's a little more three. Yeah, I'm I'm almost concerned for the future of packs. Uh, Like, you know, I'm kind of I'm kind of with you. Like there's all these ornamental booths in there and like pr people all over the plays. I will say that the thing that jumped out of me most was like, yeah, booth designs like like Disney has. They're basically they're exactly what we're their epic Mickey and Tron booths from E three, which you know, big professional ass uh booths that obviously costs a lot of money. So I don't blame them for wanting to, you know, ring more out of it. But it's just it. I remember years past it was just like we got some TVs and we got some games and out and blame them and it also it was you know, it's it's this has always been kind of a big show for for indie games, right Like that's that's where still a lot of them around. There are still a lot of them around, just you know, seeing more of that floor space kind of being taken up by by big ass games like that. Although there is now more floor space as well. That kind of I feel like the last two years it had been pretty much the same size as far as the four space, but now that holes other section where like Warner Brother and uh so, Yeah, it's just a lot of theater stuff too, a lot of behind closed doors. Yeah, like the Duke Nukem thinks kind of weird. They're like checking I das, which I guess you know is like ESRB plus the company that brought you hot coffee. They want to be extra sure before you go see the game that has a three boomed monster in it. I'm not I'm not talking about Dragon Age two, right yeah, DRAGONO. This is Mafia two new DLC. Yeah, it definitely seems bigger, but the crowd also seems to fill that space really quickly. Yeah, it seems like they're adding like ten to fifteen thousand a year. They're saying like seventy five K for this thing. D Yeah, so congratulations packs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. Uh that's good. It is good. But I and you know, it's maybe kind of an asshole move to sit up here on the stage at a pack panel and critique packs and the size of it. But I just don't want it to get overrun. And I mean it's you know, I only go to Packs East now all the gold bean bags, man, they really sold out. You know, It's just it there is a specific field to packs, and there is a kind of an inclusive field to packs. It's it's it feels very safe at packs. You can come out here and just be a goddamn geek and you know, kind of revel with a bunch of other goddamn geeks and get everybody sick and video games buh so. So yeah, like it just at a certain point, I don't know, there is a size where I think that you start getting dominishing returns on that. But at the same time, and you know, it's hard to argue with the point of like, hey, what if we had more games here that people could play? What if we had more games here, Yeah, that'd be cool, right. I mean, there are a lot of games coming out over the next few months here, and then you know, like they're even showing you know, some twenty eleven games here obviously, and uh, I think that the more of that stuff that people can get their hands on ahead of time, the better. I mean, you know, a lot of this is stuff that was shown in Germany, and some of it is the same stuff that was shown to us back at E three. But I think it's it's it's probably useful for developers even to to kind of see people play in the wild. I mean, obviously people run their sterile focus tests and do all their quantitative qualitative analysis and all that stuff, but I think that there's probably some value in the anecdotal evidence of just like sitting there watching someone play your game and going like, yeah, all these people are missing this part. Everyone's dying. And and then you find out in the middle of your live web stream that the graphics need some polish. Yeah. I don't know if nobody nobody saw that here that happened to Duke nukembe No, what was like they were you were talking about it, right what they're running the webstream people, Yeah, yeah, there's something first luke warm reaction they got, they just like cut the interviews after that. Yeah. Yeah, they were taking interviews like would you think of Duke nukemb And apparently someone went like and they went, okay, let's not talk to anyone else about Duke on the live stream. But I will say one of the things that that that I realized that dat of me last week is that there is nothing more fun. It's it's fun to watch people play games, but it's more fun to watch developers while they watch people play their games. Arms crossed watching watching people just lose their like yeah, just like there's you don't even know what just happened, Like they picked up a box or something and suddenly the developers like scribbling down furious notes or like one will just start kind of pointing at the other one like it's just like there's you know, there's there's there's eighteen months of inside jokes and fights and frustration and passion that are are just kind of simmering just below the surface that they're trying to hold back because you went left instead of right. Right, Yeah, yeah, exactly like I told you they would always go left. It's uh, why don't we even put the right side in't there spend all the time buildings? No one's gonna use it. Yeah, you know, that's that's that's just a symptom of of yes, long hard fights. All right, what I think we're done. That's it. Frecks for coming. How about a little bit of news, Yeah, okay, yeah again, you guys don't know what these music ques are sure, I just say, is happening? I know if you guys are about the Penny ar Kid Expohington this year, it's good. We can get like that hometown right here in Seattle, Washington. That's good. That's good. Nice homes for mix a loon, Yes it is, he sermon's not here. We actually we were talking about trying to get mixed here and he's saving a music video. Okay, I'm fair enough, all right, is it about? Is it in one of the rooms here at the hotel cars? What's it about? Like, it's about yeah, record kas loves ass. Everyone knows this, so it makes total sense. Well, maybe we can get kids sensation here next time or something, you know, close enough. Not no, don't possibly nothing, that's no no yet. All right, So let's talk about tell Tale a little bit, a kind of you know, indie indie developer that's gotten a lot of love at packs in years past, and they've got back to the future in some capacity here. I don't know. I haven't seen rampast the booth, I don't know exactly what they're talking to. The poker game is not here at all. Okay, I don't know. Back back to the future. So so yeah, this poker game. Now, they've been kind of teasing this on their site for a while. They had, you know, some silhouette of characters and people kind of fear Oh that's the heavy and that looks like strong bad and that's probably Tycho and so paper we think like, oh, they're gonna make some sort of like crazy giant crossover adventure game. Like those guys love to do. And it was revealed I think like last night and earlier this morning that nope, it's a poker game. We're making a poker game. But didn't they say it was gonna be a poker game with like dialogue trees, like dialogue trees and like unique tells and uh yeah, so it's it's gonna have uh yeah the head v tycho all that stuff and it's five bucks. Yeah, it's like the part of their pilot program. Yeah, it's coming out of that like crack Splinter group that made the puzzle. Yeah. Baffling, but just a just a just a baffling. It seems like the sort of thing that they would have had to spend more time like getting the paperwork together to get all of those characters in it instead of like making the you know, like rather than make the game or something. But the game already and it was just like, all right, we'll drop these dudes in once we get the once the ink dries. I don't know, I don't know anyway, for me, it almost seems like something that should be like for charity, like and we're giving all of the money to Child's Play or something like that you're thrown down, Like that's I'm just saying you make money off your game and the fact that it's five bucks in it. It's kind of not in there their usual wheelhouse of adventure game stuff. It Uh well, I don't you know who knows if it has like dialog like how do you have dialogue trees and poker? So well say stuff like I raise you? Then what do you say back? I don't raise you. I guess those are technically kind of dialogue trees, except it's just poker. Did you design this? No, No, that's not I think that type of crossover stuff is really exciting whenever it happens, and whatever it happens to you mix anything with anything, I'm there. I don't care what it is. Whatever you got, put it with something else. I'm showing up hat in handle, like, let's do this, all right, Jeff, chocolate peanut butter? What do you think? No, I'm not into that. All right? Maybe well we'll figure out some other combo that. Okay, that'll work for you. Oh what else is going on? Airplane? Yeah? What do I always get the cart with the bad wheel right? Like three of them? If I go fine, we're going this way and I'm like, white people drive shopping carts like this. So there was so Apple had brought out the uh, the ghastly skeleton of Steve Jobs again earlier this week. Dude, come on, tell me that shit isn't scary like for like, it's it's impressive that he that they keep the man is in shape. You are just envious. It's it's uh, it's I don't know, it's terrifying. But part of the thing, Uh, they they like to talk about the the iPhone and uh and the I touched, iPod touch whatever you want to call it. Yes, the eye devices as you know, these big gaming platforms, and so to kind of back that up during the show, they brought out, uh some who was it was? It wasn't Mark Rain, it was Mike cap Caps and then d must Donald Mustard Mustard came out there and showed off Projects Sword. Yes, I think yes that is, yes, that exactly right. Epic Citadel is like the demo version you can get now. But yes, Projects was Sword Swords around it. Yeah yeah, Brad, you looked at this sum along with our good friends at tested dot com. Give it up for Norman dot com. These guys are awesome. Will Smith could not be here, So I mean from the presentation that ship looked awesome. It looks amazing. But then also they had the the fake controls on screen again, and so it was like, I'm like, this looks great, except that you're doing the same bullshit thing that every other you know, So I actually downloaded and played around the thing. Yeah, and it's the Citadel is kind of interesting because there's that other control scheme where you can kind of tap to move and basically just kind of tap on the side of the screen he'll start walking, and once he's moving, you can kind of hold on and look around, which might work for a non action game or something like that. And and and that looked like a viable way to play a game that did not run the shooters pace. But if they are making some kind of action game, then yeah, I wants to play games with a touch screen controller like I like action games like really, Like, you know, it's it's fine that they come out and say, you know, the the iPod and the iPhone or the world's largest gaming platform, because they're technically correct, because you know, there's a lot of people in those things, and there are a lot of things that they can classify as games. But I mean it's time and we should talk about like real games when I talk about this stuff and and a lot of that stuff is just is it doesn't excite the people that play actual games, right, like like mine. So it's just kind of annoying to see like over and over again, Like check it out, we made a dual joystick shooter. It's like, oh cool, So I put my thumbs on it and cover like a significant chunk of the screen to play it. Awesome again. I just I don't sense sincerity in that voice. No, that's time. You're right, I'm not being Yeah, you have pegged that. What were we talking about? I don't know. Good to seats share working. Although that that you know that that kind of begs the question of like what does this mean to shadow complex too? Right? Like if that's even a thing, if that's that has to be a thing, right, I don't think it has to be a thing at all. It should be They should make another shadow complex. In fact, they if they tried to make one on iPhone that you know, maybe that would work too. They would have to make a lot of changes to wait, don't do it s what are you doing? Here's you're you're just blowing up the thing you just it would be like so it's just like you get a bunch of points and then you click on it and say like fight, and you push the fight button and then fights and then when you run out of points, you can pay them real money to buy more points. It's just the whole I have a button, it's just the whole screen. You just hit, just hit the screen, screen somewhere, appreciating somewhere. Yeah, shake to win. I'm very excited about the dependat and pending. Bac Man for Kids is now coming to iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad Classic. The original controls are simple enough. Uh. Odd World Strangest Wraths remake coming to PlayStation network next year. Odd World Strangers Wrath remake coming to PlayStation Networks next year. Just add Water is working on this thing alongside, you know, with the blessings of Lauren Landing and the Odd World inhabitants. Dude, what company exists anymore? Apparent Landing is still a person exists, that's you know, assuming he ever did exist in the first place. Or it's pretty deep. Yeah, No, I don't like this. I don't like all three of you staring at me like that, like hmm, oh no, what did I say? My fair No, this is kind of awesome to me because I felt like that was a really underappreciated game in all of the like people really go nuts over the first few Odd World games, but I think by the time Strangers Rath came out, people had kind of I don't know, it's like it was only on the Xbox. It was only on the Xbox and yeah, it just had an Xbox and it was kind of it was also kind of late in the Xbox Live suh. So I don't know. This is an, I guess, an odd thing and it's I get weird for Yeah, panel's over. It's an odd thing, all right, A alright, alright say something. So that's a pretty good game, Mortal Combat. My favorite thing about the Odd World games that my favorite weird thing is that there is that Lauren Lanning like did a lot of the voice stuff for it, and he would not hesitate to do it in front of you anytime he possibly could, like unprompted, like kind of unprompted. There was a demo they did where the voice effects weren't in yet so he was planning no, no, in person and do it and doing the voices and then you're gonna work to this guy. He's gonna like hey, and you're gonna go here and seriously, seriously that is could could I pay Lauren Landy to come to my house and do that? Would just like any game, Let's see how strangers raft us and then that'll dictate. So they're I guess they've only announced this for PlayStation network, but they're also not necessarily saying it's a PlayStation network exclusive, but they're also putting in move support and making it could okay a few other things like that. So it's uh, there there, it's not. I don't know exactly what it is, if it's a remake or a re envisioning, but reimagining it's now you pushed the button marked fight and then he uses the ammo or bugs and it's a living bug. But it's like it's ammo. A cool concepts in that game, absolutely, Yeah, got kind of weird at the end. Yeah, a little thing's weird. Yeah, yeah, weird that an odd world game would be weird. You know what the fuck I'm talking about? Do you know what the fuck is when his legs come out and you find out that he's a different Are you gonna sit there and tell me what I do or don't know? I could, I could stand up, I don't. I don't think you should. I don't think I got the podium there, that's cool. Whatever, man, maybe this is a good time to have someone else stand up then yeah, so too so uh. I don't know if you who here follows iced Tea on Twitter? Is it just me? Yeah? Yeah, it's awesome, right, it's it's it's the most batshit crazy thing to think that you know, og original gangs to Iced Tea is constantly twittering and often twittering about games. Iced t lows video. Iced Tea is basically putting me out of work, and that's fine. I mean his games reviews are both shorter and more you know, definitive than I think anything. They're already written in the last like twelve years, so yea, yeah, they're concise, they're hard hitting, the point take a lot of time. You know what ice Tea thinks of a game, what he has done. I have been asked, people have said, I read the review, did you like it? Like? Uh? And so any of you guys listen to our E three podcasts at all or is he any of the live stream stuff that we did some of that. So one of the revelations from that was that a friend of the site, John Viniaki, does a pretty amazingly awful iced tea impression. Uh. I mean, it's it's it's it's brilliant in spirit. Let's says the essence of iced tea is there spot on. It doesn't need to sound like ice tea to invoke teens the what you heard me? So, uh I would at this point, now I like to invite one John Vianaki to the stage. John Viannaki, ladies and gentlemen, everybody. So, I can't believe I signed up to I can't believe it. I John, are you doing I'm doing good? I mean, like you send me a message on Facebook like, oh, this gonna be no big deal. I want you to come and talk it like do your I see voice like okay, And then we walked in here. I'm like, holy shit, I'm about to commit careers to side. So I fifth time you've done that with us. You keep getting worse more funny? What up? John Bomb community? Thank you guys so much. From being here. Applause yourself please, right, maybe we should hire this guy? All right, So I'm completely nervous and put it on the quote in there, so I've I've gotten this fun of game related ice tea quotes that we are now going to get getting reading of from mister john and yoking himself Johnny taken away. Well, okay, so no one tells Cliff I'm doing this because I'm really concerned he's gonna tell I see to come kick my ass. These are actually all lines of dialogue from Gears three. This is charable. Actually, I have one of my associate producers in us, Matt Soley. Could you please stand up? Everyone give him my answers embarrassed and Matt could please join me on stage? Share real quick? Hold on, you don't get him flunkeys. No, he's got a cast. Okay. If I if I I'm going down, I'm bringing somebody with me. Right. Well, there's rist of us up on stage. So yeah, do me a favorite stare at the back of my neck real quick. One A million troops all right, little inside joke anyway, Okay, so here we go. So you just want me to start from the shop, just yeah, let's let's just hear him and then you know, go from there, all right, from iced tea switter. Oh my god, I'm gonna get my ass kicked. Here we go. This is the best idea. I'm so worried about that. I am still I'm still deep in this audi all game. I really think I can ride a horse. This was the best idea. I'm so fucking smart anyway, been playing Red Dead Redemption single Playoff for three days straight. Scheme's got no and I'm fighting grizzly bathes. M we're those players after that. By the way, you can find me on LinkedIn. If you're hollering, uh yo, dude, there's no nudity and video games, then a real people something to think about, something to think about, kid, I see, gets deep. I just s meant two of the writers from Lost. Sorry, I just meant two of the riots from Lost. They also have the owned show tim Eric's awesome show, Good job. I include that one because I thought that shit was just funny. That shit was just funny. So super gangster, stupid stuper gang super gangster. Oh this is terrible. I know I can never get a job from me. Yeah, but all right, we go Final Level Quick Review Medal of Anna Beta sucks FLTG can Lynch to instant review. I've only played the game for two hours so far. Two words stuper gangster. I use those same words in my review, and I'm still here. And last, but not least, excuse me popping at packs. Been playing the New Dead Rising two download stuper dope. It's Harry for John Vanaki and I stay yes, uh tron. If you guys haven't checked it out, please do is Jeff Bridges in the game. Hey, easy multiplayer? There's multiplayer up to damn people and that all right? One jump suit? All right, so you're gonna kick me out the stage now right? Yeah? All right, thanks Johnny, Thanks guys, Thanks super stupid games up. One of my favorite things about John Vanyaki is that he is constantly worried that he is going to be fired, and it always involves us somehow. I wonder why. I'm glad we could help. Oh that was exhausting, even just I don't even know where to go from being the presence of that. You guys want to take a break. I've had a lot of water. Yeah take a break. Yeah, yeah, I could do. I could use one. All right, Well, why don't we take a break here and you know what, let's just go down to the audience. So one of the things about packs is we don't really have a lot of time to go see panels. So we figured why not just have the most awesome panel that we could have in the middle of our own panel. So we're gonna just take off here for a second, and I would like to invite to the stage, Gary Witta, Jeff Green, and Michael Pactor. Give it up, lady, gentlemen. Here we are, ladies and gentlemen, the Golden Girls. First, Michael's he here's the awake? Still where is he? Oh God, that's a tough act to follow. And that's a tough act to follow. First of all, thanks to the giant Bomb Cast. Guys, uh Giant Bomb my favorite gaming website and I think best gaming podcast on the air right now checks in the mail. Thanks Jeff. Also, this is a personal to Vinny. When your internship internships up, I'd like your job, and Jeff, I'm sorry Jeff the soul Patches styling, I'm like, you know, I'm gonna do that now. So I don't know exactly why they invited us three old guys up here. I don't. I don't know why. I think our cumulaty of age is actually greater than the cumulaty of age of the audience of the entire audience put together. It probably is. It's like the grumpy old men's section of the podcast. It kind of is. And and if we want to start getting grumpy, I have socks older than the cumulative age of the audience, and you're wearing him now you No, no, dude, flip flops. I don't know. Oh, dude, nobody needs to see that. I is so now, guy, we were, we were flip flops twenty four second. No, you had a panel this morning. You're only people there. So if if any of you ate or here, thank up. Dudes. I personally greeted each of them, thank you very much. Go back. So, I don't know if we need to introduce ourselves. You got, you know, Gary Wide, Hello writer, a Book of Eli, and and and if you don't, if you don't own the Book of Eli, go buy it. You can't watch it with your mom. It's not that kind of movie. Garious. Seriously, I just saw it. I love that movie. You didn't see an dude. I know, god, you know what. Look, the last movie I saw in the theater was Gladiator. That's how old I am. All right, Wow, I got kids. It's like you know you you spend your time with people like you, you don't go watch a movie in the theater. Please it was really awesome. Thank you, and please do it again because it was the same movie. No, do it. Just keep writing because you're good. All it was really good. Look, and my experiences Jeff Green is that I sat next to him while he was talking about how tan the cu of Take two is, which is all you need to know about this guy. That was my so Gary is a is an accomplished film writer. If you haven't seen the Book of Eli, buy it, don't rent it. It's really good. It's it's worth watching again. I'm I have no idea what I You know, dude, I have no idea what ip IP? I help people. You have a career, yeah, exactly. I help people invest. That's what I do. I'm a stock market analyst. I'm I'm actually spend more time on CNBC than things like packs. I have no freaking clue why anybody cares what I have to say. So you are free for the HD week because you guys can throw shit at me. Yeah, I'll take it. You guys can throw shit at me if I say anything you don't care to care to hear. I too, am a huge giant bomb fan, and I actually called you guys out, So I'm sorry. Shout out you guys out last time I was on Bonus Round. So I've liken you guys. Although we are going to probably talk about how game journalism really sucks since these two guys left it left. No, no, we're not going to do it all. No, No, Gary witows the former editor in chief of PC Gamer, that you were editor in chief from ninety n Well, the UK edition from the PC Gamer is originally a British magazine and from the launching ninety three to ninety six I was the editor, and then the US edition ninety six to two thousand. Yeah, and yeah, you're the effort. Why am I saying out? Sure? And here's an interesting factory. The very first cover of Duke Nukem Forever was on Gary seven on the cover, and here we are, and you know, Gary, Gary is a little bit out of shape, but Duke Nukem, the character was based on Gary's physique. Yeah, it's totally totally nineteen ninety seven and two times subsequently I was on It was on the cover of PC game Run to My Watch three three times, and then I went on to write on the game. I wrote some of the cinema. I don't know if any of this is in the game anymore. It's been through so many iterations, but yeah, it's been. It's been weird to come here and see it finally, I guess coming out. Although when I went over there are stones at the gearbox guy and I said, oh, so this is finally coming out. He goes, yeah, well you've finishing it. I said, girl, do you know when it's coming out? And he said no, So I guess. I guess. Not that much has changed, but it's been. I don't know, it's it's weird. I love George Brossard and all those guys. I said, I used to work for them, but I just feel like, doesn't it kind of reflect really poorly on three D row that they struggle with this game for thirteen years and then you give it to give Box and they're gonna finish it. It's like you can't open this jaw you went to someone else, they don't. There you go. It's like, oh, well, I mean I'm so employ you. I know, how many how many people beats have ever played at Duke Newcomb game? Oh that's okay, that's impressive. All right, that's impressive because you know, we think like this is like this is a try twenty six hundred time. I mean, this is so old that yeah, it is amazing. Thirteen years and it's a long time and counting. I mean it's not over. Yeah, yeah, you know what you know, that's you know what I'm gonna tell you now, Mafia two has no freaking prayer of breaking even and and the CEO called me out on that one. I mean what you know. I'm sorry. But here's I'm gonna give you guys some simple math on game economics. You spend sixty million making a game and you take in revenues of forty million, that's not a profitable game. Okay, wait, how many of you bought Mafia two? Okay, there you go. Yeah, major prophets. So I'm there, all right, I'll take my side of that bet. Wow. Wow, Pantry is bringing it. He's usually so dry and polite and nice, have you been drinking or something. That's there. You go. Some somebody else paid, so I drank. You know, it was great if you went. If you went to Michael's panel earlier today, everyone who went on every seat there was a little a free button with his face on his face got him. We were gonna wear I brought you guys. Oh, thank you so much. I know I know just where to put it and make sure that the pin is unhinged when you put it there. Thank you, Thank you so Gary, did you actually get the Sea Duke or not? No? I couldn't be bothered to stand in line if they had let you cut in, would you? Yeah? I mean I was able to cut into a couple of lines. I mean I haven't been like day to day involved in the games industry for many years, but you know, I did it for so long that I still, you know, can call in some favors and get in to see things. But I don't know any of the guys working on Duke Nukem anymore. So I wasn't able to know Randy. You know Randy, Randy Pitchfrock. Yeah, yeah, he taught me how to do the David Blaine levitating trick. Could get in. He has some Paul, I'm not doing it for you, but no, I'm not doing it. It's it turns out it's really easy. It's like, it's such a bogus trick, but he did. We were in a bar once because I don't know. Randy Pitch from the Gearbox is a actually a really good magician. He's a country He can do all kinds of crazy magic tricks. And I just see one of these David Blaine street magic shows. This is years ago, and I said, David Blaine, he goes ad guys at hack. I'm like, I like, this would be fucking levitating because I can do that. I said, bullshit. He gets in the blindy fucking does it. I'm like, oh shit, you want to tell me how you do that? And he's like it's pretty cool. Yeah, he can levitate and and bring out Duke Nukem forever the guys in jus. So Gary is gonna levitate Ryan Davis after this panel's over. What else do you want to talk about, Michael? I actually I'm fine with like, white game journalism sucks. What do you guys think? I mean, no, I do not. I'm not saying giant bomb. It's like there's obviously something some places stand out, but I mean, it's getting so freaking isn't it boring? It's the same shit everywhere? What would you like to see, Michael? What would you like to see at your game? You know what I actually would love to see? And I know you guys are gonna hate this, but it's it's like if you think about the movie industry and you think about like how we have People magazine, right, and it's like, we don't care what movies are in. We're like finding out that George Clooney gives back or or you know, Angelina Jolie adopts kids, and shit, you guys don't even know who the developers are, Like you do you know their names? You don't know anything about them. I'd like to see game journalism like talk about these people and what is it about these people that makes them soul? Right, saying that games journalism sucks because it's not enough like People Magazine. No, Well, you know what I'm saying that if we if you migrated, the games industry needs a Brandjelina, is that what we're missing? I'm saying that I think games developers they're just like us, they're shopping. I think that's true, though, I think if you guys, I do think I am saying that who has the ten was Developer Beach Bodies, you know what. By by the way, I can tell you, I can tell you exactly the rust is there is the fact. No. I think I'm thinking that, like you know, like Halo reachs coming out in a week or two, Pete Parsons, you know, Harold Ryan could walk down the street unmolested. I think that's wrong. I think that's Solar is probably okay with that. Michael, Dude, I have people come up to me and ask for autographs. I'm like, people don't know who Pete Parsons is, and that's just wrong. I create nothing. I have zero value to society. And those guys are freaking talented stars and they just like I was just I was just at a restaurant. Wasn't the professor? Guys, people don't even know who they are. It's like, that's wrong. Well to be I mean, to be fair, these guys gary with it. There's not there's not anyone unlike the movie industrilative industry that where People Magazine makes its money, there's not really anyone, you know, in front of the camera. These guys were all behind the scenes. I mean, and to be I pride myself on the fact that Dream PC game. You know, we tried. We made a real effort to try and make celebrities out of developers and bring them to the forefront. Like we did a game like about ten years ago. I worked and we did an issue that was called Game Gods, and it was like, yeah, it was meant to be kind of like the val Well. That was kind of a weft, don't you think. How So we had like what was her name from iron Storm, you know, Danner Meryll's girlfriend. No, that was Rob Smith. After me, I had the legit one. Oh you had the good one. No, we had like Carmack and sid Meyer and and those guys we had. We had the legit ones. And then afterwards they tried to do like the next generation. It was like Stevie case And and Cliffy who you know, fair enough he could he was legit. Yeah, what's he's been doing later it? Yeah, But we train and we tried to make celebrities out. He's god at the end of the day. You know, the guys who are with the possible exception of you know, like Cliffy and a couple of others who love the camera and you know, love being that celebrity element like Karmack and sid And and those guys they're not they're not they're not crazy about it. Like Warren Spector, who gave the keynote here. I mean, I'd tell you a great story about Warren. We wanted to We wanted him to be one of the twenty five guys, and he was one of the lynchpin guides where we kind of felt like if if he's not on the list, people are gonna know, and the list's not gonna have any credibility. Like if we're going to say the twenty five, you know, most genius people in PC gaming, Warren's got to be on that list. He's not there, people are gonna know. And he was the hardest time. He was the hardest one to get. He took the most convincing. Everyone else signed right up, and Warren said he was really uncomfortable doing it. He said, I don't feel comfortable getting in front of the camera and making it about me because games are a team, collaborative effort. And I said, but when you gotta do it. You gotta do it. Any said, I'll do it under one condition. She said, I'll come and I'll mug for the camera and do your whole celebrity thing, but you gotta let me write a sidebar about how games and not just about the individual it's really about the teams that make the games. And so we gave them that a little sidebar. And I thought that was entirely to his credit that he insisted on making about teams and not just analogies. And I think that's the bigger point, Michael. While we don't see that stuff because it's really the studios themselves, you kind of control that that kind of coverage. I mean, all of the sites and magazines are sort of beholden to the publishers to give them that kind of access. And in general, they don't want to make stars. There's some exceptions, but most of them don't want to make stars out of these out of these guys when you're talking about sixty seventy one hundred people who are all working hard on a particular game. In addition, even if they did, what they really want is they want the coverage that they want, which is usually about a specific beat that they're trying to push, like, you know, July, we're talking about the plasma gun. You know so, and that's what every website and magazine enough to go out and here today's our plasma gun article because they said we can do one. And that's why I'm saying I think game journalism has gotten boring because because you can get the same information everywhere, and there's there are very few sites, certainly no print where you get any real personality. I think when it's missing stuff like Giant Palm. I mean when you think when you think about journalism, and the reality is even during my tenure, I mean this has not really changed. Games magazines have always really just been kind of glorified catalogs for what's coming out, and there's not really I mean there is some, but it's a few and far between what you really think of like investigative journalism, like where's the really great behind the scenes story that gets to the bottom why Dunco took thirteen years to make, Like I would love to read that story, but no one's writing it. I think that's the kind of thing that's missing from games, like what you think of as real, you know, journalist investigative journalism, and I mean, I think, you know, I don't know if you guys you can't go to dice. But Mattias mill Wren from from Remedy was up talking about Alan Wake and why it takes six years to make a game, and he put up a graph and he said, you know, it takes two years to just to get the game where you can play something. And he goes, that would get about a seventy five, you know, game review score, and if you spend another two years, you get up to maybe eighty five. If you spend another two years, you know, maybe you get to ninety. And his point was, we will never finish a game, will never finish any game, because we can always make it just a little bit better as long as we don't run out of money. And I think that I think that's really the story behind Duke Nucom, that those guys made it and made it and made it until they ran out of money because they just kept trying. I don't think they were making it well. They were, they were. I think they were fucking around in their office. Alright, let's get some supposing thoughts. You have no you have no sound. I actually want to do just tell one quick story that happened today at packs about aging in this industry and the subject to which we both know something about. It's so much about it. I went to see kills one three today, Uh, basically because Gary had had tweeted about three D and how awesome it was, and I've been sort of down on it, so I wanted to go try it. And actually at the kill zone and three D it looks pretty cool. But my what I wanted to say was my experience, you know, running a magazine for years, and I'm used to like cutting in line and all that stuff and having access. And I went up to the to the Sony booth and the guy there had no idea who I was, and that was cool, But what I realized was like he was uncomfortable because I was so old, and he actually was like looking at me, like is this old dude in the right line? You know, like there are this is why I wear flip flops. Keep you young, right, So he actually asked me if I was here for a kill zone and I was like, yeah, big kill zone sign right there. You need a bendenna or something. You got aging well? And as we as he walked me to the to where the monitor was. He was holding my arm up. Then I'm not ninety anyway. I am ninety, and I'm just gonna tell you keep playing games because it'll keep you young. It's really it's a great it's a great activity. All right. Thanks to Ryan in the Hall game to give it up for Gary, Jeff and Michael once again. Thank you so much. M hm. We are so fucked for the rest of this panel. Uh we I had some other stuff we were gonna try to do, but that was so awesome I didn't want to cut it off. Oh yeah, your head, make a voodoo doll out of it. Yeah, he needs some of his hair, right. I think it's it's it's really interesting to talk about, you know, like celebrities in like the game development. And one of the other things is, you know when a company has a guy that breaks out and becomes a celebrity, he is then worth that much more money and then is that much more likely to go somewhere else. Like all kinds of weird stuff can happen. So its cases like some companies try to keep a secret who's really making this stuff? And that's crazy. But you know, when we start a Giant Bomb. We actually thought like, wouldn't it be cool if we could do some of that style of coverage and and you know, kind of shine a light on people that are out there making games. You know, they're leading these interesting lives and doing that sort of stuff, and you know, you just can't get that level of access unless it's attached to the plasma gun article and that sort of stuff. So we just kind of went about creating our own celebrities in some sense and just kind of like, you know, finding cool people that that would be down with us and are are down for some crazy shit like like Adam Boys over there, who's over there looking at his phone? Adam Boys? Yeah, the world's most dangerous Canadians. That's right. Brett Harton got nothing on and you know, and Johnny and you know, like like it's been it's been good to you know, because those guys have shipped products, they have put games on shelves, and they understand the what you have to go through to do that. And as it turns out, it's fucking impossible. It's it's incredible anything it's made the stories. Yeah, that's you you hear you hear people say that again. It again, and it's really true, Like it's amazing that any game ever comes out ever, because there are just so many things lined up to prevent it from happening that I guess it's too bad that some of them are terrible. Well, I think now is the time that we shift to a little Q and a yeah, a little live what do we call them, brad emails? That's right, So send your so just get on your phone and send the email. Send us an email BombCast at giant bomb dot com is an email address. But we're not gonna be reading of those emails. We're gonna be forming a little line here in the center aisle if you would like to participate and a little see the gentleman and answer. You see the enforcement. They're in the blue shirt. He's got a microphone. Uh, just you know, go tackle him, you know, while everybody's getting up forming a going back to the different between a few people doing stuff and a big team doing stuff. I'd like to give it up for Drew Scanlin over there. Yeah, look on a carnabra. Look at this guy, mad mad. And before we get going here, I just got this text message from from Johnny and he says, you need to mail the announcement about our playoff immediately. I think he means make but typing up in his strong suits. H So we're gonna have He and I are gonna play. We're gonna find a blitz machine somewhere in this town, an NFL Blitz machine, and play it. Okay, good, Yeah, we are going to games after this and he and I are gonna play Blitz one hundred dollars Winter Take All money goes, money goes to child's play. We're doing it, and I'm gonna whip his fucking ass, all right, all right. Our first email comes from the guy with the microphone is oh song, Okay. You guys are just talking about when you started what you uh trying to do celebrity stuff. You guys have all been smaller cogs and bigger publications and stuff like that. What's been kind of the craziest, hardest, best part about being a small operation that you're running yourself essentially, and you decide what's going on, what kind of content you're doing, the difficulties to come with that? General comments, Well, I think that for me, it's turning stuff down. Like as weird as that sounds, there are a lot of companies that kind of come to us with that the plasma gun article of the month and that sort of stuff, and we're able to take a pass on that under the guise of like, due there are five of us. We can't cover your game forty times. It's just not effective. There are other games we need to get out there and cover. And then I think the hardest part is then striking that balance of we just turned down your weird preview events, but please invite us to the next one because we might want to write about it later. I think it's it's both sides of like so much more freedom to kind of make those choices, but also the like so much more accountability for that stuff of like, this is not a big organization to pull back and say, oh, it's because of that. It's like, no, it's it's because of me. So it's because we didn't want to see that game again. It's because we knew that Mafia two wasn't gonna break even about six months ago. Oh Mafia, that about you do it for? Yeah? Thank you? All right. Next email comes in from what's your name? Dude? Hey guys in Russell. Hey, Russell is going good? So I think you might have answered. My first question is is there a giant bomb after party? Uh? Yeah, we're we're hitting game Works right after this, uh, and then we'll figure out where we need to go from there. There's a billion bars in downtown Seattle, but there's also it seems like about a billion parties, so we'll get in where we can fit in. But game Works after the panel, we will be there right on. So I know, I know Jeff loves Borderlands, and this Duke Nukeham business has me a little worried that we might have to wait that much longer or until Infinity for Borderlands too. What do you guys think? I gus will find out tomorrow? Right, we talked to Randy. Yeah, yeah, we're we're gonna talk to to Randy Pittchford tomorrow kind of we'll we'll definitely ask him about kind of what impact this has on the team. But as I understand that, there are a lot of dudes working for Gearbox, so I think they're probably capable of making another Borderlands while they're making a Duke Nukem forever, if that's what they wanted to do, I'd rather they take their time with it and and do something grand, you know. I mean they're still putting out one more DLC for that and that's for for the first game, and that's crazy. So uh yeah, they should make another one of those, but hardline position there, Jeff weekly break music please, Uh next question, sir, Hey, my name is Eric Kong. Uh. Jeff apparently is really good at Blitz. Yes, Brad is apparently very good at StarCraft. I uh, you know, you guys kind of play a lot of games, but I think Jeff sort of specializes in like Super Blitz. Brad right now a StarCraft. I'm curious, you know, Ryan and Vinny, what do you guys like to play repeatedly? If you guys play any games repeatedly? And Rad and Jeff, how far do you guys play on going with the games that you do really like and go back to over and over and over again. I you know, for me, I'm just not I've never been much of a competitive gamer. Uh. You know, the game that I played tend to be you know, more single player experiences. So it's I don't know, it's it's it's not a format that necessarily lends itself to that kind of repeat play, like an MK or a StarCraft or or Blitz or something like that. So I think that's that's part of the thing for me. Yeah, I'm kind of the same way. I don't really get really down and dirty and multiplayer competitive games. I like multiplayer co op stuff. Uh. I don't really like narrative focus games. I like an adventure games and games with a strong story and stuff like that. So I can get behind role playing games and adventure games for a real long time. But when it comes to competitive multiplayer stuff, I don't know. I just don't have that that drive to spend it all that time and then just get beaten over and over and over and over again. So basically you're saying you guys are soft. I'm saying I suck. Yeah. Are you gonna dump our books now, tough guy? Yeah, push you into the lockers and mess your hair up. All right, Well, you know, let's play. I'll just play some ask a sleepy guy tonight. You guys have no idea what we're talking about. Don't worry about that. That is that is the footage that needs to get out. That's that's that is. That is like some of the last game spot footage I'm holding onto. Oh, yeah, dude, that's the Sleepy Guys, the best game ever invented. At it, we got keys to people's rooms at E three, which you know, everyone's like working fucking twenty hour days, so what better thing to do than to sneak into the room, turn on the lights with a camera in their face, and say, like top ten Honda Aftermarket Parts go three of the morning. It's just like people like some of them are still drunk, some of them have like just gotten to sleep and haven't really slept well in like four days. Top ten Oakland Days go, CARNI answered ten times. Is that about to answer your question, sir? Yeah, I guess sort of the follow up. Maybe it's like any games you guys returned to, kind of like you know, some people have their yearly like I go play through Final Fantasy three, you know, once a year just to make sure that I keep playing it, or you know, there there are some other games I can think of anything like that for you guys. Well, I find like when a new game comes out in a series, like when StarCraft two came out, I ended up playing through all of StarCraft and brood War up to StarCraft two. When Mass Effect two came out. I played it through mass effect again like when again, like when there's narrative and story involved. I like the refresh and I don't know why. I don't know I got I'm an idiot. I've heard there's this thing called Wikipedia that Brad keeps telling me about. It's like a database for video games. Who do that? Have no idea? It's crazy, an I'm still game chasing that last fucking achievement in geometry. That's right. I used to play Target Earth for the Genesis on a like pretty regular basis. YE got Street Age two, Super Super Mario Brothers three. I'll go back to on a semi regular and chip around Creebo's shoe, shoot rockets at bad guys stuff like that. All right, excellent, thank you sir. Next question. Hi, my name is kier Iron, and I first wanted to say that I was the guy that sent you that indie game in the Pakistani pop mail bag background Valentine's Day this year, you guys remember it. It's all it's all kind of a blur. If you say so, dude, I really really bad way, I couldn't hear what would you send? I send an indie game? Like I sent this xbox box that I kind of made my own box out for for YESI game I made. You guys were completely baffled. Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking to. Put nothing on the back and I get some chocolates and it was in duct tape and you guys just say Canadian twine? What was your favorite? How did that do for you? Sales wise? Like most iosive Indian games horribly. Luckily I'm professionally employed now so that's working out. But question, my question is for packs, what's your guys kind of goal? Is it to see stuff that you saw before that you were a little iffy on. Is this to see stuff you didn't see it at other shows? Or is it just to kind of have fun? It's this, It's just this. It's mostly this. Yeah, it's pretty much you guys, like seriously, like packs is not about coverage. It's not about like get seeing the latest builds of games, because that's really not generally what what's at packs? It's to come and kick it with you guys and to just there is this is a feel good event for us. This is like it's it's low stress, low impact. It's like, come up here. Fuck around on stage for a bit, you know, get to talk to you guys, see some cool indie games and you know that's that's that's pretty much. You know, tell Drew to hold the camera for an hour and a half always, yeah, you know, casual stuff that we would do anyway. Yeah, I think any any That's exactly right. What Ryan said is it's great to come out here and see all the people that make Giant Bomb possible and on the other end of it. So, you know, glad to be here. Thank you, thank you. Next question, thank you, Hey, thank you, thanks him. Michael Hey, Michael home, what's up. Yeah. I really enjoyed the video content on Giant Bomb. Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, Vinnie, thank you, thank you, Ryan Picuarly. I enjoy the background music for interviews, and that's why I'd like to ask if you ever thought about releasing a Giant Bomb original soundtrack. It's it's an idea. I guess it's an idea that has been brought up a few times. There. We do get a lot of requests for the music, but some of it is not ours to give realistically. The music comes from a lot of different sources, all legit and all legal. Yeah, we're feeling anything. But yeah, we don't have all the rights to republish that and make money from that in that kind of way. But we do have some original stuff and I don't know, there's a lot of Jeff's music on there, so yeah, some of the stuff that that I've written is there and that you can download that at midnight brand dot com if you go. So that's but let's feel Reno responsible for the music in the podcast itself right and feels it feels it Damjius. Also wonderful Universe of tang. Yeah, wonderful universe of this ain't no game. He did the opening theme for that with some secret assistance and right now, ye that which is a great opening, one of my favorites. Absolutely, But yeah, I don't think we can package a lot of that stuff up and sell it. That's illegal. Just go rip it out of the on cast. I mean, I don't care that much. It's it's there and you just go steal the break music making your ring tone them. Thank you, Thanks, Hey, what's up, guys? I'm reready from a Saint Louis, Missouri. St. Louis the lou Are you hung out with yeah, we work now that arch. What else? I'm sorry, what is your question, Sarah? Earlier I was in the free play gaming area. I don't know if you guys know about it, but you essentially just run games and play them. I was talking to a guy that works there and he was saying that they basically published the top ten list of games being played there. Earlier, they were using a game to test the three sixty games consoles, a game called fifty cent Blood on the Sand. What is that? Yah? It's this game by t out all right, Okay. That essentially bumped it up into the top ten lists, and people saw that and wanted to try it out. It's just great news. It persistently kept it going. It persistently kept it in the top ten for a good chunk of the day. I just want to ask, how does that make you feel? What has the developers of fifty cent Blood on the Sand. Yeah, we're just happy that people are enjoying what we created. It's it's our level letter to the community and to the g unit of our hate letter to the fucking helicopters. Yeah, it's our hate letter to helicopters and hitting the guest ramps. Racist helicopters shot out of the sky. Why would they hate on Tony yo like that fifty Yeah, we just like the sound of our voices amplified. That's really all this is. Thank you so much, Thank you, sir. Next question, all right, Jared Johnston with that video game blog dot com. I have a question that only you four can answer. Blood Sport or Kickboxer blood Sport, blood Sport as well. Okay, just making sure yea was that wait? Wait, hold on, was that the right answer? Yeah? Okay, okay, hey fucking kickboxer. Come on, hey you're not a Kickboxer fan, are you? Is that what this is? No? No, I am oh, I'm Sean. I just wanted to point out, have you guys noticed that spider that was up? I only watched the crawlins Ryan's ear. Then I lost track. You know what now I do want to fight you? Yeah? Yeah, this is gonna work out. I'm pretty happy about this now I am. I am an avidator or spiders can fight together. I just have one question. This is my first packs and I didn't know that there was such a big presence for tabletop gaming. I am a DM for my tabletop game as well, and I was wondering if you guys have, do or will play any tabletop games on a regular basis. Do they have shoots and ladders over there? I'm more of a popmatic trouble guy, I said, because it's hard, sounds like the feeling makes it. But you guys don't play right when I like when I DM, you'r poplematic trouble games. You guys just you don't get into it. You don't You're really in DM screen has the sickst stopping sticker on it. Bro I play, I Am the Red Pig. Okay, what is your tabletop game that you DM? Three point five D and D Okay, I was talking about getting a four point zero game running in the office in September, UH that I have no interest in playing, but someone will play. It's it's daunting, like it's something that's kind of always been in my peripheral, like the tabletop games in the D and D type stuff. One time I played the D and D I was in UH. I was in high school and it seemed like a good idea at the time, and the people, you know, I was good friends with a guy who wanted to run the game, and I was like, okay, fine, you know I've I've read the books and stuff. You know, I know I've read the Monster, man, you want to know what this is about. And then I got there and like people were just too One girl brought a whole loaf of French bread and she just sat there and ate it while. And I decided, right then and there, the Dungeons and Dragons was not for me. He got a carbo load before you, uh, before you d and D. Man, It's it's true. I actually tried tried to play car Wars for a little while. I will see, I've I've been known to enjoy some some catan, some settlers every once in a while. So you know, something something lighter like that. I think it's you know, something that's closer resembling a or eight Shoots and Ladder. Sorry, something like that that our simple minds can wrap wrap themselves around. Uh, it's a little more. I'll play anything. Let's do it, okay, man, if anyone from like Doctor Who tabletop. Actually, we've been making our character sheets over here the whole nime. This is not a giant's Yeah, that's a picture of penis. I'm not joking right right there, I think Pactor drew that. Thank you guys, Thank you. Hi. I'm Mark from Seattle, Rod. How's it going, Seattle? Mark from Mark from Seattle, but Seattle. Before I get to my question, I just really needed to know Duke Nukem getting oral action from two women he has two penises. Okay, yeah again, yeah that it works really well with the boss monster that has three tits. This panel is over what I'm just I mean, okay, pretty actual question is kind of like a defending your game question. I was wondering, what are some of the games that you really enjoy that weren't necessarily critically or commercially well received. State of Emergency. Oh yeah, State of Emergency. Never that we were so stoked about that game. Yeah, I think I don't hate Brute Force as much as everybody else does in the world. I know that was a question. Yeah, that was a question. All right. I got Metroid other aim apparently, thank you very much. But this gentleman in this dapper ass hoodie. Oh yeah, so Clint Giant. My friend Mark and I were actually talking and we were kind of going, well, there are a lot of games coming out, high profile games coming out for the rest of the year, but none that were really necessarily at all that excited about. So I kind of wanted to see midyear checkpoint each one of you plus the one game for the rest of twenty ten that you're most interested in. Oh man, you know the thing that that I keep finding myself surprisingly excited about is Assassin's Creed Brotherhood. I think that game looks like I saw it at E three, Like the multiplayer in that game looks sick as hell, Like that's mute. That stuff works way better than you think that it would. And it's that's not I'm not trying to you know, faint praise here, like that's it's actually very awesome, and I believe they have something uh playable of that here. So I highly recommend you to check that out and dance Central because yeah, that was he stole My answer was that yours. Yeah, oh sorry, I would totally need to see a release. I can never remember what's coming out this year and that's next year. It feels like it all slipped the next year. Well, but that's the thing, right, Like that happened last year too, was like becoming a thing. Yeah, it's kind of awful. It obviously that's I want to say. That's the thing that I think is radical is not every goddamn game coming out in November, actually having some games spread out through the year, Like you know, every's talking about like, oh, twenty ten sucks, but it's no, you just forgot that the first half of the year was full of awesome games, which it you know, yeah, whence all right, Tron December seventh is Jeff Bridge is going to be in it. Now you're in trouble, Johnny, that's right, grand the reason because I want to see somebody lose it, Bet Bradley, Oh StarCraft, I'm not trying to be cute. I'm just you'll be playing that for the rest of the year anyway, pretty much. Yeah, I don't know, Like I it's it's hard to you kind of feel like a chump when you fall for the peripheral game. But I very much want to play a lot of Dance Central, Like it's just gets that's fair, And I think that's like maybe maybe there's just some kind of weird offshoot because we have a platform to look like assholes, so games like that are perfect. Oh yeah, that's really been like the best thing about all these motion control stuff all the connected move stuff is just so many more opportunities for us to be jackasses on camera. So yep, it's pretty much we're drive us. Thanks guys. All right, we've only got a couple minutes left, so let's let's see if we can crank through a few more questions. Remove all vowels from future questions, please, gas. My name is brent Al right about like six six and a half. Hey, so after the epic sagas that were Persona four and Deli Premonition and the lesser known Bad Dudes and Durrance Runs I was the wonder in then if you wanted to announce here at packs and Durrance Run four. No, no, really, no, we're not talking about that right now, really focusing on the panel multiplayer. Just wait til Space World. That's some exciting announcements. Well dude, thanks a lotting. Hey guys, my name is Michew Us. Your name Shuttle skill Leven on john bomb dot com. Oh I'm doing just fine, right, Hey, I'm just wondering, after the recent review of Canon Lynch two and everything that's happened or fall to eventual rise back to gaming gods on Giant Bomb, how do you Uh, like like, how did you bring it? Uh? Have it within yourself to get the game a fair shake with the review instead of just like saying one point of abysmal piece of crap. That's it's, it's what we do. There's nothing personal about it. It's it's a game. And you know it's I don't don't I don't hold anything. I don't hold anything against the io guy as you know, for that stuff. And I don't know, Jeff, maybe you feel differently, but I'm trying to like go through my head and see like what I can say. Okay, well you can say anything. Absolutely, yeah, I mean it's it's And also, honestly, I was fucking stoked for Cane Lynch to the stuff they were showing off on that game. The first Cane Lynch should have been awesome. There were great ideas in that game, and it had a great tone and a great feel, and I love just some gritty ass criminal action. It looked like that's what they're going to deliver, and it just it didn't come together. And you know, I kind of felt the same way about the second one. If anything that happened with the first Knea Lynch game, which I wouldn't know if it did or not. The people at Iowa would have nothing to do with it, So to lash out against something that may or may not have happened would be totally fucked so and uh and with that, lazy and gentlemen, we're gonna have to bring it into this panel. Thanks everyone for your questions, and I just want to thank the audience here for showing up, ranging out everybody