soggybagel

It's either Grand Theft Auto 5 or The Last of Us for me. Bioshock Infinite may be the letdown game of the year for me.

Speaking of old files, I was looking at some of my MP3's in itunes the other day. I mostly do spotify/pandora these days but I still hold on to about a 25 gig collection of MP3's that I've curated then deleted then redownloaded or lost since my college days. Anyhow, I'm looking at my itunes collection and I right clicked on a song and looked at the info to see the encode date (aka Date Modified) and it was 2005 and suddenly I got very sad because I am 100 percent certain the person who sent me these songs was my friend who passed away two months ago. He sent them to me in a zip file and was probably like "this is a good album." It was this weird rush of emotions that hit me realizing that in some weird way these bits and bytes are a piece of a friendship from a friend I'll never see again.

I love you guys but sometimes you guys do laugh a lot and I get confused at what was actually being talked about or a thread of an idea is dropped and I get disappointed. With that in mind, I understand completely where you guys often are coming from. The closer to an ideal a game gets the more you and we all usually have to say about it. If it is truly a horrific game there isn't much to say about why it's bad. It just is. But when, say, it's Bioshock Infinite and there are genuinely great ideas and glimpses of much more interesting ideas that get lost in muddled exhausting combat and other such things, I think we all have a lot more to say and complain about.

Do you guys still have access. I think it would be hilarious for you guys just to check it now. See how many messages aret here after a couple years of ignoring it.

In all likeliness Gary Whitta is responsible for the name of Will Smith's character name in After Earth. CYPHER RAIGE. THAT'S HIS NAME.

I thought you guys were referring to the IGN McDonalds ad that had the guy that said "I'd HIT THAT"

Well I disagree about your disagreement good sir. I live in Los Angeles and one of the reasons I'm very excited for GTA 5 is that it will give me a facsimile of the city I live in to run around in. I find Los Angeles very fulfilling myself (I get what you're saying) though. I'm really not worried about graphics in this. Yeah next generation systems are knocking on the door but the art direction looks solid as hell...it's creepy how well they are capturing the look of Los Angeles. And having not really read a lot about the game but watched all the trailers numerous times it seems clear they're giving you a condensed version of Los Angeles in that Downtown is visible from what is the stand in for the Santa Monica Pier. I wonder how much of mid city they plan on representing. From inferring it looks like they're definitely doing some Hollywood, a fake Big Bear maybe, and then a Salton Sea type joint. It's all very exciting because I love open world games like GTA 4, Red Dead, and Sleeping Dogs. And getting back to the graphics for a moment. If you look at GTA 4, then Red Dead you can see they made some great jumps in graphical fidelity. I imagine they'll be squeezing every ounce out of the systems for this one.

I will email you guys too but I was too broke to support your kickstarter back in the day but I would definitely buy a record from you guys for 30-40 dollars.

Sometimes I get confused on whether you're even talking about a game or riffing as you seamlessly move from Obama impressions.

Random thought popped in my mind from last weeks show. They were talking about Kerbal's and how they don't like to see them die. I'm sure you guys who are space nuts already know about this but I always thought that the speech that was prepared in event of an Apollo 11 disaster was utterly brilliant and beautiful...thankfully it didn't have to be used. Fate has ordained that the men who went to the moon to explore in peace will stay on the moon to rest in peace. These brave men, Neil Armstrong and Edwin Aldrin, know that there is no hope for their recovery. But they also know that there is hope for mankind in their sacrifice. These two men are laying down their lives in mankind's most noble goal: the search for truth and understanding. They will be mourned by their families and friends; they will be mourned by their nation; they will be mourned by the people of the world; they will be mourned by a Mother Earth that dared send two of her sons into the unknown. In their exploration, they stirred the people of the world to feel as one: in their sacrifice, they bind more tightly the brotherhood of man. In ancient days, men looked at stars and saw their heroes in the constellations. In modern times, we do much the same, but our heroes are epic men of flesh and blood. Others will follow, and surely find their way home. Man's search will not be denied. But these men were the first, and they will remain the foremost in our hearts. For every human being who looks up at the moon in the nights to come will know that there is some corner of another world that is forever mankind.

Good news Thumbs. It sounds like the new GTA will actually have background music during game sequences even if you're out of a car.

The good news is cheetah speed is almost back!

Also, I rarely played SC2 online because I got too nervous. Which is stupid. But I did. I played enough to really enjoy watching high level play though. Its fascinating.

The only video of gameplay or a trailer was that playthrough where you fight a few bad dudes (humans). It was I think about a 7 minute playthrough and it was only dealing with a few guys.

The great thing about Ridiculous Fishing is that there isn't any in game sales or anything. It's just a game. You pay and you get to play it.

Also I never played Bioshock 2 but now I definitely am going to pick it up after hearing this podcast.

I think they are really really angry, maybe too much so, but it does just return to what Chris says on the past page. If you're going to use historical atrocities as window dressing you better earn it. And in this case, many people feel Bioshock did not.

I've said a decent amount regarding Bioshock Infinite in other threads and I by and large agree with your assessment. You managed to make your points more cogent then I likely could have. I agree though I wish you all would have expanded a bit when (I'm not sure who said this now) but pointed out the race and segregation issues were largely toothless. They were made rather toothless by the narrative shifting but it was something I wish you all explored a bit more. As disappointed as I was with the ending I am oddly enough still glad I bought the season pass. I am really excited still as you guys seem to be about the DLC opportunities.

Count me in on that. The way it was sold initially was something happened that fucked up earth. But I was under the impression it was just post apocalyptic human issues and it is a lot less interesting now that their are actual mutant zombie things.

ON the note of the Occulus rift and 3D in movies and other gimmicks. I loathe 3D in films and go out of my way to avoid seeing them. I will admit though that Prometheus was beautiful in 3D as it really didn't overwhelm. Obviously a film made from the ground up knowing its going to be in 3D helps as scenes simply get more depth...but again its not needed. The only film I thought was completely perfect for 3D and I'm not joking was Jackass 3D. They knew 3D was a gimmick so they simply embraced it. It's a parlour trick that they exploited.

I think you're being slightly hyperbolic. My issues with gameplay and story telling near the end aren't new issues that we've never seen.

I do feel like the skylines/rails aren't used as much as I imagined. Now again, I loved the game but looking back I feel somewhat disappointed by the implementation because they're less of the freedom creating lines that were somewhat teased, and more often an optional circular route around set pieced action areas. They do allow for amazing verticality as Mington points out though. So they're good but not as mindblowing as I thought they'd be. Which isn't particularly fair to the game, but hey, I like to complain!

I think you're being elitist and sound kind of like an asshole. I really hate how reductive video game enthusiasts get sometimes. I play a lot of first person shooters. I loved Modern Warfare 2 and every year I usually buy at least one of the three sports series either NHL, FIFA, or Madden. Am I some frat boy because of that? And why does frat boy joe public's opinion matter less. I think its actually sometimes very refreshing to take their opinions because its very easy for a fan of anything to operate in a very tight vacuum. If someone wasn't following the development of the game or really reading up on what this new game was offering, I think its perfectly reasonable to wonder why there weren't Big Daddy's in this game. It's called Bioshock. Bioshock 1 and 2 had them. It could be confusing. I'm not trying to shit on you here, but I think sometimes people need to reappraise their views on the game industry at large. It's a big billion dollar business and lots of people play games. It's pointless in my view to denigrate people who for some reason you might think don't fit the mold or aren't "proper" gamers. It should be inclusive.

That's a great way to look at how shields change gameplay. I hate to reiterate but the end of the game was not fun (Infinite). Now, my feelings were also effected by the fact that I didn't particularly like the ending of the game in the story sense as well. I thought it was not particularly strong. But near the end on hard they do just start throwing out more enemies, bigger encounters, and more annoying things. It's unpleasant.