Game Under Episode 7

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News
2:00 Xbox One Conference
8:50 Game.Com  Console Gets Some Respect
8:55 Back to Xbox One Conference
21:55 Tom's Scathing Attack on Microsoft
22:55 Phil's Shameless Defense of Microsoft
26:20 Resumption of Xbox One Conference Discussion
38:30 What the Wii Did Right With Motion Control
48:30 The Positives of the Xbox One Reveal
50:40 The Look of the PS4
51:40 So What about the Copyright Infringing Directional Pad?

Final Thoughts (Games We Finished)
58:45 Malicious (PS3/ Vita)
1:05:59 Resistance 3 Best FPS of this Generation?
1:09:30 Tomb Raider Impressions

First Impressions (Games We Started)
1:31:10 Deadly Premonition: Director's Cut

Tom Tower's Mindless Self Indulgence
2:14:17 An Excerpt From Malicious

Transcript

Phil: There is, of course, only one thing to talk about this week, but we'll also give our impressions of the games we've played, like Costume Quest, Tomb Raider Resistance Deadly Premonition, Last Light, that's the Metro game, Revelations, that's the Resident Evil game, and Malicious!

Phil: It's all in the-

Tom: That's the PSgame!

Phil: From the stuff!

Tom: And for those that weren't able to hear this, I also destroyed his intro before we started recording.

Phil: When I was thinking, one is the onlyest number?

Tom: Now, as you can probably tell from that, this is The Game Under Podcast, episode seven, and this week we'll be focused on Xbox One.

Tom: So why don't we just simply jump right into it?

Phil: Well, before that, we've gotta have our trademark banter.

Phil: This is, of course, episode seven, and I know we've done some market research.

Phil: I know there's, we've got a fairly good following amongst Morgan Freeman, Brad Pitt and Kevin Spacey fans.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: And of course-

Tom: I thought you were gonna say amongst those actors themselves.

Phil: Ha!

Phil: They're not following me on Twitter yet, and you can follow me on Twitter, Game Under Phil.

Phil: But, obviously, I mean, seven, what's in the box?

Phil: And here we are with episode seven.

Phil: We timed it perfectly.

Phil: But as we've discussed-

Tom: Amazing.

Phil: As we've discussed before, we know all this stuff in advance.

Phil: We recorded this back in December, so.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: And honestly, the most mind-blowing thing about the whole thing is that all these features that we knew back in December haven't actually changed.

Phil: No, yeah.

Phil: Well, and also that we were able to keep it quiet.

Tom: Yeah, well, we're good at keeping secrets, so that doesn't surprise me.

Phil: There is only one thing to talk about this week, obviously, and I don't want to get into the inside football or inside baseball talk about the conference itself, right?

Phil: It was a -minute conference, and it basically consisted of TV, sports, Call of Duty and the hardware reveal, right?

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: Not necessarily split evenly.

Phil: So I don't want to go into talking about were they right or wrong to do this conference now, should they have waited until Eshould they have focused more on games and all the rest of it.

Phil: I just want to say this one thing about this conference.

Phil: They were stupid to even bring up three quarters of the stuff that they did after the conference, right?

Phil: Had they just stuck to the conference and then anytime someone brought up any of the controversial things that they did, they should have just said, oh, we're not talking about that right now.

Phil: What we're talking about is the emphasis that the Microsoft, what's it called?

Phil: The Xbox One has on TV, sports and Call of Duty, right?

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: That's what we're talking about today.

Tom: It comes across as extreme backpedaling, to say the least.

Phil: Well, for them to then start answering, just opening questions to the floor.

Phil: Okay, anyone, any questions?

Phil: What about backward compatibility?

Phil: What about DRM?

Phil: What about used games?

Phil: You know, and then just...

Tom: To which their reply is, we're not going to do that, but we are actually going to do it.

Phil: Right, right.

Tom: To make matters worse.

Phil: We will get into the details, but basically what I'll say about this is that the presentation itself was innocuous enough.

Phil: I mean, their excuse for it and not showing the games was that, well, we wanted to get all of this stuff out of the way before E

Phil: So at Ebecause, you know, it is impossible to have a good conference these days with the Internet and Twitter and everything else, right?

Phil: No matter what you do.

Phil: Sony last year had a perfect conference, but then they spent seemingly hours on The Wonder Book, and that's all anyone ever talked about, right?

Tom: So it is a question of degrees of poor reception, you would have to say.

Phil: Right, and I did say you can't have a good conference anymore, but by comparison, the PlayStation reveal at this point is, like, genius.

Tom: Legendary.

Phil: Well, previous console announcements were more...

Phil: We're in an entire new territory here, because usually these things are devolved to Eright?

Phil: Where they'll come out and they'll announce the system the year before, right?

Phil: And then you'll have a whole year of basically nothing going on.

Phil: And then at the next Ethat's when they announce, and we're going to be bringing it out November th for $right?

Phil: And now, with the speed of the Internet, you can't...

Phil: I mean, can you imagine how disastrous it would be?

Tom: Well, Nintendo actually somewhat suffered from that problem, because they announced the Wii U and they gave a reasonable amount of details, then ages later, they finally had the Nintendo Direct proper unveiling.

Phil: And then they went a whole year of people coming up with how spectacular this was going to be, right?

Phil: And then when the reality hit, it was like, oh...

Phil: And then when the product hit and they were like, all these features are going to be rolled out later after you've already bought it, I mean, it got worse and worse and worse.

Phil: So these companies, Microsoft and Sony, are smart to preempt Eand then at Egive more detail and then launch four months later.

Phil: That's a much more sustainable PR advertising cycle.

Tom: But I think, especially in the case of Microsoft, Sony did it all right, but they've really not been able to adapt whatsoever to the change in marketing.

Tom: And when you look at all the post-marketing stuff as well, the wording of it, stuff like, our cloud servers are going to be more powerful than the internet in sounds like stuff you would be hearing around the time of the Xbox announcement, ridiculously hyperbolic, even if true, but over-the-top, rather irrelevant sort of statements.

Phil: Or a similar kind of statement where they've said that just by itself, the Microsoft, what's it, I hate this name.

Tom: The Xbox One.

Phil: The Xbox One is ten times more powerful than the but with the cloud, it's times more powerful than the

Phil: Yeah, these meaningless statements.

Phil: But to this point, I mean, the thing that Nintendo did right, I mean, everyone was complaining about at the time, but basically a week before the game system was going to launch, there was still all these questions about what its functionality was going to be.

Phil: And Microsoft, you know, as they say in sales, you only get one chance for a first impression, right?

Phil: You only get one shot at making a good first impression.

Phil: This was Microsoft's first impression.

Phil: The least said, the better.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: Right?

Phil: If they had just come and done, okay, we don't want to blow everyone's mind at E

Phil: This is what the hardware looks like.

Phil: This is our awesome controller.

Phil: Here are some of our awesome first party games.

Phil: We're only going to show you the CGI stuff, but that's fine.

Tom: Or just even tell you what they are.

Tom: You don't even need to show anything.

Phil: Or show a quick video that shows like three seconds for each one.

Phil: Bam, bam, bam.

Phil: And let the internet dissect it, right?

Phil: And then, thanks everyone, good night.

Phil: As opposed to a -minute presentation about TV, sports and Call of Duty.

Phil: And then afterwards, being so stupid as to answer every fucking question thrown your way, right?

Phil: Could the Xbox One cause cancer?

Phil: And then the answer is not, of course not.

Phil: The answer is not, well, conceivably.

Phil: The answer is, oh, well, you know, a lot of these things do cause cancer with the EMFs and whatnot, so it's entirely possible.

Phil: Yeah, I mean, sure.

Phil: It could cause cancer.

Phil: And then the headline is, you know, Xbox One causes cancer.

Phil: Before we get too far off the shelf, I mean, everyone knows all of this stuff already, so we're just going to throw some stuff off of each other.

Phil: But let's go over the name, Xbox One.

Tom: So, you know, you seem to think this is the worst ever name in console history.

Phil: It is the worst ever name in console history.

Tom: Because I would...

Tom: I'm not sure I'd go that far because in your list, you posted a list on a forum, on the VJ Press, listing some of the worst titled consoles of all time, and amongst them was game.com.

Tom: Now, how on earth is game.com a better title than Xbox One?

Phil: Well, number one, this was, like, basically as the internet was launching.

Phil: So the guys that own game.com now are hundreds of millions of dollars richer.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: But also, it was pronounced as game.com.

Tom: With the pronunciation in mind, that's not too bad.

Phil: Yeah, game.com is fine.

Phil: It's a gaming computer, and that's how it's supposed to be pronounced.

Phil: It was from Tiger, and it is actually game.com.

Phil: It did have a modem in it.

Phil: It's a handheld computer that had touch controls with a stylus.

Phil: And you could connect it to the internet.

Phil: It had a little phone jack in the back.

Phil: It had a K modem built in.

Phil: Absolutely unplayable.

Phil: You cannot operate.

Phil: I have both the original version and the slim version.

Phil: And almost, I think I've got three games in its entire library that I don't own.

Phil: And every single game is completely and entirely unplayable.

Phil: It's black and white dot matrix.

Tom: I've just got one question for you about it.

Tom: Does time fly when it's Tiger time?

Phil: Does not.

Phil: It drags.

Tom: That's a pity.

Tom: This is how much we love it that we just spent a long time talking about Tiger and game.com.

Phil: The Xbox One is the dumbest name ever.

Phil: It would be like if Sony had announced that the PlayStation was going to be called Xbox One, PlayStation One.

Phil: And needless to say, as my Twitter followers already know, PlayStation did this.

Phil: Remember the PlayStation One?

Tom: Yes, I do.

Phil: The O&E?

Tom: Yes, I do.

Phil: The $?

Phil: Yeah, I have one.

Phil: I have never opened the box.

Tom: See, I quite like both of those.

Phil: I do too.

Phil: They're cute and they have the little white controllers.

Tom: Well, with that in mind, with the fact that it's game.com, not game.com, I would say it wouldn't be too much of a ridiculous statement to say that it is the worst title ever.

Tom: The reason, of course, that Sony got away from it is that that is a version of the first PlayStation, the PSis.

Phil: The first PlayStation is just the PlayStation and then the slim was the PSI guess.

Tom: It just makes no sense.

Tom: I mean, it's as if they realized how shit the name was and that there was really nothing they could do to continue from it and yet instead of coming up with a completely unrelated naming system that didn't rely on numbers, they came up with one.

Tom: The other thing that makes no sense about it is perhaps if they were going to be marketing this as a complete % return to the roots of the original Xbox.

Tom: Don't get me wrong, it's still a terrible name, but there's some logic behind it, right?

Tom: But calling this the Xbox One, I just cannot come up with any argument no matter how stupid to justify.

Phil: The only comfort I can get from this is that there are people inside of Microsoft who not only...

Phil: we cringe.

Phil: There are people inside of Microsoft who are having aneurysms because they lost this battle, right?

Phil: I mean, people who are going to work for six months in a row going, we cannot call it the Xbox One.

Phil: Trust us, that's what gamers call the first Xbox.

Phil: Oh no, that was just called the Xbox, that wasn't called the Xbox One.

Phil: No, trust me, gamers call it the Xbox One.

Tom: Yeah, there might be a few corporate-related suicides on the way.

Phil: Something that I haven't heard anywhere else about this is that this has a custom processor, right?

Tom: Yep, I believe so.

Phil: Compared to what Sony is using, Sony is using an off-the-shelf processor and Microsoft is using a custom processor.

Tom: Which by the way is architecturally a generation ahead of current computer processors.

Phil: Yeah, of course it is.

Phil: That's why everyone is not using it in high-end gaming.

Tom: Mark Rain even confirmed this, but he also confirmed that despite being architecturally a generation ahead of modern computer hardware, performance-wise it is behind.

Phil: Okay, the other thing is that it has GB of DDRand is it like GB of that is being carved off for the operating system?

Phil: Yeah, it's being carved off for the operating system.

Tom: One of which is Windows

Phil: Right.

Phil: Let's not talk about that yet.

Phil: So that leaves GB for games.

Phil: So, my point is Sony is using better RAM with GB available for developers.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: Basically, if there is GB there, use it as you want.

Tom: No, they have got GB reserved for the OS, so GB.

Phil: Right, I'm sorry.

Phil: Still pretty good considering that it is a closed system and once you start a game, that's all that's really going on.

Phil: So, and it's better RAM as well, right?

Phil: I don't want to turn this into a Sony Microsoft thing.

Phil: I really don't, but I've got to wonder if the off-the-shelf processor and the higher level of RAM will flip the tables in terms of the lead development skew.

Phil: So this generation, it was much easier to develop on the Xbox and then port to the PlayStation and I'm wondering if because they're using a standard processor with more RAM, this means that the PlayStation will be the lead development skew.

Tom: I honestly don't think the RAM will have much effect on that because even the GB will be bytes of RAM allocated to Microsoft, even though it's at a lower speed, seems perfectly adequate enough pending how bloated the operating systems, given that they're using Windows and other Microsoft developed operating systems end up being.

Tom: But the fact that they're using a unique processor that is very worrying considering what happened with the cell and that Sony has deliberately gone away from that due to how much of an utter disaster that was.

Phil: Right, exactly.

Phil: And that's what I'm really wondering about is more the processor because it is a generic type thing will be easy to approach for.

Phil: Now in defense of Mark Raine, right?

Phil: Believe it or not, this blew my mind.

Phil: The PlayStation has megabytes of RAM.

Tom: Yeah, you didn't know this?

Phil: Well, I knew it, but it's just, you know, and then half of that is for graphics.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: Right?

Phil: So megabytes are for graphics, and then the other are dedicated to, you know, the operating system and just keeping the thing running, which is the big problem that people have had with it besides the cell processor.

Phil: And I look at a game like Resistance and I'm like, okay, they're doing this with megabytes of RAM.

Phil: And that's where I think Mark Raine is a little bit, you know, he is actually a career wreck.

Phil: That when you do have a closed system, you are able to, even though it's lower specs than the PC, you are able to deliver a pretty high level of performance because it is a closed dedicated console.

Tom: Yeah, but what he was saying about Microsoft was the opposite of that.

Tom: That the processor might be architecturally ahead of current PC CPUs, but the performance is actually worse.

Tom: So that would be the opposite effect.

Phil: The thing is this right, before this conference, no one had even suspected that they were going to call it the Xbox One, so they were able to keep that under wraps, but then once the things launched, it's like, hey, everyone, just say whatever the fuck you want.

Phil: They said, there's no always online, right?

Phil: So Adam Orth said, deal with it.

Phil: And then they come out and they say, no always online, except there is, but you do have to be online because we're going to be checking in with you once a day, according to Phil Harrison.

Tom: Which is just ridiculous.

Tom: That is, for people that live in an area where always online is going to be an issue, that is going to be an issue because you don't know when your internet is going to go out.

Tom: So you've effectively got to be logging in quite regularly, which is going to be a pain for people that don't want to log in regularly and also you don't know when internet is going to die.

Tom: Okay, so you might be going along, okay, I've got five hours left, right, so I don't need to log in and I'll be playing a game and you know, a few hours time, a few hours comes along, internet out for six hours and then you can't play for a few hours, so.

Phil: Remember the PSapocalypse?

Tom: Exactly.

Phil: There's two things about this.

Phil: Number one is this underscores the group think mentality and you hear this on the gaming podcast all the time where the guys are usually broadcasting from the Bay Area and San Francisco and you're like, oh, just deal with it, people will get the internet.

Phil: And it's like, okay, not everyone lives in one of the largest urban areas in the most, you know, the richest countries in the world.

Phil: So that goes beyond saying.

Phil: The second thing is this means that Microsoft servers can never go down.

Tom: Pretty much.

Tom: Can you think of any occasions where they did go down similar to the PlayStation apocalypse?

Phil: Of course.

Phil: It's happened several times.

Tom: There we go.

Tom: Well, as we mentioned previously there, cloud servers are going to be more powerful than the entire computing power of

Tom: So clearly that's not going to be a problem.

Phil: Don't even get me started on that.

Phil: You do have to be online all the time.

Phil: Now the third problem with this is, I'm a collector.

Phil: What do you think my problem with this is?

Tom: Well, what's going to happen when they shut it down?

Phil: And they will.

Tom: So you don't think they're going to release a patch allowing the console to be played offline?

Phil: Gandy would.

Phil: Mother Teresa would.

Phil: Martin Luther King would.

Tom: The other issue with that is though, not just that people don't really have one, but if in or years' time you want to buy an Xbox, how are you going to download the firmware update even if they released one?

Phil: Yeah, exactly, exactly.

Phil: And everyone is like, oh, Microsoft didn't ever go away.

Phil: Plenty of companies have gone away.

Phil: People said that about Sears Roebuck.

Phil: There are plenty of huge massive companies that go away.

Phil: And this stuff is too important.

Phil: God bless the pirates and the hackers.

Phil: They'll keep it alive somehow, I hope, but they'll probably only keep the good games alive.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: And there's not a consensus as to what the good games are.

Tom: There is a consensus, but it's wrong.

Phil: I mean, four years ago, if I told you that THQ was going to go bankrupt and that all of their assets would be sold off.

Tom: And that the Vandy would be desperately trying to sell Activision.

Phil: Another problem is the no sharing of games.

Phil: So basically, just the shorthand is they're introducing PC DRM to the console space.

Tom: Well, it's worse than PC DRM because depending on the game, you generally at least got a few installs, which is bad enough in itself, but you're then still somewhat able to share the game with friends.

Tom: And that said, there are a lot of games that limit you to one install, but yeah.

Tom: So it's basically the most extreme and worst DRM on PC on every single game on the console.

Phil: So, Polygon says that the Xbox One will require a periodic internet check to authenticate games.

Phil: Sources within Microsoft has told Polygon, it's also said the console will not require a fee to play used games as previously reported, or as Phil Harrison, like the king of Microsoft Europe has said, that it would require a fee.

Phil: According to the site, Microsoft is still debating the issue internally.

Tom: So, if they're still debating the issue internally, why have they commented on it?

Phil: Exactly.

Tom: This is the thing that blows my mind about this is half of this stuff that has been announced so comes across as all these random, just completely stupid ideas that get thrown about when you're initially R&D-ing a product, right?

Tom: So, all the crazy ideas, you're going to shop everything around that's possible and you're slowly going to whittle away at it until you come up with a product that's got a good amount of solid ideas.

Tom: The solid ideas that they've come up with that have been announced at least come across as these stupidest stuff that anyone could have suggested that would have been got rid of eventually.

Tom: And my question is did they not actually do due process to get rid of these ideas or did they have even worse ideas to begin with?

Phil: You are correct on the latter part.

Phil: They had worse ideas than what we're currently speculating and they were asked this question and then they were like, oh, this is the reaction we're getting?

Tom: Who could have seen that coming?

Phil: Yeah, and now they're like, oh, we're still talking about this guys.

Phil: It's cool.

Phil: It's cool.

Phil: You know, we don't really have a lady in our trunk, you know.

Phil: And now they're like trying to figure out how to get this lady out of the trunk, right?

Phil: Without anyone noticing.

Tom: The other thing this comes across as to me is Microsoft in general, as we all know, is somewhat on a downward trend.

Tom: And their reaction to this has...

Phil: Well, in what way?

Phil: You mean with PC sales and stuff like that?

Tom: Their reaction to this has generally been one that has been pretty stupid.

Tom: I mean, Windows for example, what does it do?

Tom: They're clearly attempting to get into the hand-held market, right?

Tom: But they've applied this to their home software as well.

Tom: Their general reaction to new technologies has, in my interpretation, any of it, been one that is completely out of touch with what people want.

Tom: And this comes across as the same issues with their ability to adapt to the modern market applied to gaming as well.

Phil: Okay.

Phil: Well, I'm going to go outside the box here, because everyone's heard me rail against Microsoft up to this point.

Phil: Let me say this in defense of Microsoft, because actually, outside of this conference, I am pretty much in the Microsoft camp.

Phil: Microsoft with Windows was able to basically perfect the desktop operating system environment, and no one cared, right?

Phil: The bottom line is that with PC sales declining, they're not declining because of Windows

Phil: They're declining because people don't want to be sitting down at a desk to engage with the Internet, and that's what people use computers for.

Phil: That's why you've seen the rise of smartphones and tablets.

Tom: What I'm saying is, I don't think...

Tom: Well, I didn't certainly say this, but as far as I'm aware, if you've got a choice between getting a Windows tablet and an Android or an Apple tablet, most people are going to go for them, are they not?

Phil: Most people are going to go for Apple because they're told that that's the simplest operating system and the easiest way to do things.

Tom: So I don't really see that Microsoft is wise to...

Tom: But of course, they really got to because they have to.

Phil: That's what they do.

Tom: They have to and this is of course their first teething, first OS of this nature.

Tom: So the issues with it can be excused, but at this stage, it doesn't appear to me that they've quite got how to market it.

Tom: I mean, most of the Windows ads that you see on television or that I've seen anyway come across more as ads for a laptop as opposed to an ad for an iPad, which are advertised basically as Apple's advertised phones and the same applies to Android devices as well.

Phil: Well, what Microsoft is doing is saying you don't have to compromise your computing experience by using a tablet.

Tom: But the thing is...

Phil: It can be a tablet when you want it to be.

Phil: It can be a laptop when you want it to be.

Tom: Yes, but how many people are going to actually attach themselves to that idea?

Tom: I don't think...

Phil: No one.

Tom: Yes, that's my point.

Tom: No one when they're using an iPad or whatever are going to be thinking, I wish I could be doing the things that Windows offers me.

Phil: No, you're right.

Phil: It's a compromise.

Phil: Basically, what they're offering is the middle.

Phil: On the mobile market, they're offering the middle.

Phil: You can have a computing experience, you can have a tabling experience.

Phil: No one's interested in that.

Phil: What they've done on the desktop is because they're so desperate to push this paradigm to people, is they've basically said, when you buy a new Ford Falcon, we're going to include this POGO stick.

Phil: Except you have to use the POGO stick to get into the Ford Falcon.

Phil: Right?

Phil: Now, the Windows is...

Tom: The cloud's power choice.

Phil: The desktop experience of Windows is superior to Windows in many, many ways.

Phil: But they've put this POGO stick in between you and getting to that Windows experience, which I'm happy to say you can get around quite easily.

Phil: But I just want to give Kudos to Microsoft.

Phil: At least they've spotted that things are changing and they're trying to react to them.

Phil: So I'm coming off as a Microsoft hater as it relates to this conference, but in terms of the overall picture, they understand that things are changing and that they need to change with them.

Phil: Whether or not they're making the right changes is questionable.

Phil: So back to the gaming side of things, no backward compatibility.

Tom: Well, that's to be expected, sadly.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: I didn't know if you were ready to accept that.

Phil: I've been saying this for years that they'll never do backward compatibility.

Tom: Well, I'm not going to accept it, but I know what's going to happen.

Tom: I mean, the chances of me, as you know, my PlayStation broke recently and with that in mind, if there was backwards compatibility on the PlayStation they probably would have had a new PlayStation owner sooner than they might necessarily have had one.

Tom: But given that it doesn't have backwards compatibility, what is the point?

Tom: At least getting it anywhere near launch because the PlayStation library is already extremely good and I don't have much invested in downloadable titles.

Tom: I've got probably about or so review copies that I accumulated over the years, but the fact that I can't play them on the PSand the only way for me to play them is off my PlayStation 's hard drive puts me off it even more than if it was just physical games.

Phil: I told you guys, I told you, I told you right from the beginning of this, I was like, I'm not going to invest in these digital downloads on a console that is going to be bricked.

Phil: Guaranteed, this console will break and not be transferable to the next generation.

Phil: And I've always said, I'm not going to buy these games until someone gives me a roadmap of how these things are going to transition.

Phil: And sure enough, Microsoft and Sony have both said, well, hey, hope you enjoyed them while you had them because now they're stuck on that console forever.

Tom: And I couldn't agree more, which is exactly why I did not buy any.

Phil: No, and I didn't either.

Tom: So we're both ahead of the times.

Phil: Backward compatibility though, here's my concern, again, speaking as a collector, speaking as someone, I beat like games last year, probably more than more than of them, I'll say, were from prior generations.

Phil: Like I like to go back and play new games that I haven't played before.

Phil: And when someone says no backward compatibility, that basically means I have to go out and buy another copy of the existing console to put in a cupboard like I did with the PSONE because I didn't know whether or not they were going to be supporting backward compatibility moving forward.

Phil: And I don't want to leave hundreds of games in the past that you'll have no access to or having to buy resale units on eBay and just basically playing Russian roulette with knowing how reliable they are and all the rest of it.

Phil: So let's give praise to Nintendo here because for the last few generations, they have at least supported backwards compatibility by one generation.

Tom: Which is certainly better than nothing.

Tom: And as I said on the PSfocused podcast we did a while ago, my only hope is that given the move towards PC architecture that there's going to be some way for continuity between consoles so that there will be more openness to backwards compatibility in the future.

Phil: Microsoft with the original Xbox to the Xbox had to do software emulation because they dropped the NVIDIA graphics card, right?

Phil: This time around they have no excuse and they didn't do backwards compatibility.

Tom: Well, the excuse would be the CPU, would it not?

Phil: Yeah, perhaps.

Phil: Other hardware details, it has a GB hard drive.

Tom: Which is tiny.

Phil: It is tiny, so it's not just me.

Tom: Can you use external hard drives with it?

Phil: Yeah, it has a USB out, so that's good, but it is not consumer replaceable.

Phil: So you can't open it up.

Phil: It has a proprietary...

Phil: something is proprietary about it.

Phil: You can't just go to the shop and buy a TB drive and throw it in.

Tom: For a console that has mandatory installation, that is just absolutely unacceptable that they only give you GB.

Tom: Because even if it's USB there are going to be people that will be complaining about latency playing from an external hard drive, no doubt.

Phil: Well, look, I don't want to have to go over to Harvey Norman or Best Buy or whatever and buy another hard drive and shove it into this thing on my entertainment system.

Phil: And the thing is, this thing will be a DVR.

Phil: They haven't announced it yet, but it will be a DVR.

Phil: GB is tiny.

Tom: If you're recording HD content, and the thing is with most of these things, they're of course recording it with no compression whatsoever.

Tom: So the files are absolutely huge.

Tom: There is no way you can seriously use this to be playing your GB games, while also using up GB to record your football match.

Phil: Two points.

Phil: I recorded a baseball game the other day, GB.

Tom: Exactly.

Phil: GB.

Phil: Because I was like, oh, I'll put this on a USB stick and I'll watch it on the computer.

Phil: I don't have a GB USB stick.

Phil: I looked at my Steam library on my computer.

Phil: Now, I have a new computer.

Phil: It's like less than months old, right?

Phil: Less than months.

Phil: In less than months, my Steam library is currently at GB.

Phil: GB.

Phil: That's for games.

Phil: And this includes some pretty small games like Geometry Wars and Ys and and stacking and stuff like that.

Phil: I'm at GB in months.

Phil: GB is fucking pathetic.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: And game installs are mandatory?

Tom: I don't even...

Tom: How is that even possible?

Tom: Yeah, of course.

Phil: DRI.

Tom: But I mean, it adds absolutely nothing.

Tom: I mean, people are going to say that, of course, you're going to get faster load times.

Tom: Well, we're not actually going to be able to prove that that is the case.

Tom: Although it's logically going to be the case.

Tom: We can't actually prove that that is the case.

Tom: For all we know, the disk drive might be fast enough to get faster speeds than playing it directly off the hard drive.

Phil: And again, I just played Resistance on a system I bought in that has megabytes of RAM, megabytes of RAM playable with a gigabyte hard drive, and there were no load times.

Phil: And it looked fucking fantastic.

Tom: And that's the other thing.

Tom: Unless you've got something as badly optimized as Gran Turismo the amount of time you spend installing something, and this may not apply to Xbox games, but this is perfectly applicable to the PlayStation the ridiculous amount of times that the games take to install, you're not necessarily going to be saving, even in the long term, a great amount of time just by cutting off a few seconds off the loading screen.

Tom: So even if we do get faster loading, it's not necessarily time saved overall.

Phil: Absolutely not.

Phil: I mean, install like Metal Gear Solid on the PlayStation you know, lose three hours, you know.

Phil: So, okay, we've been really negative, so let's just stay for a second.

Phil: I don't want to put you on the spot, but I mean, I love video games.

Phil: I was playing one earlier today, having a hell of a time with it.

Phil: I mean, what do you love about video games?

Phil: What is it that brings you back to this hobby, time and time again?

Tom: Well, look, even with something as just...

Tom: This is literally the worst...

Tom: I would say it's not just the worst console name.

Tom: It is the worst console ever created, and we'll go into my reasons for that in a minute.

Tom: But even with how bad this console is, this has been possibly the most enjoyable console announcement in a very long time.

Tom: I mean, the amount...

Tom: the way that the gaming community reacts to negative things is so enjoyable.

Tom: Of course, you get just pain in the arse things like the Mass Effect controversy, where everyone was just being a complete and utter dickhead.

Phil: Dickhead.

Phil: Did we just say dickhead at the start?

Phil: Yes, we did.

Tom: But then you get something like this, which is just...

Tom: If you're a game fan, this is the worst thing in the world.

Tom: This is someone announcing, we're doing what you should be looking forward to the most in the world, and we're making it the worst possible thing you could come up with.

Tom: And instead of just complaining about this, people's reaction is to make a million hilarious gifs and just have a great fun time making what is the worst thing in the world the most hilarious and enjoyable thing in the world.

Phil: Do you love kittens?

Phil: Because we've come up with a machine to kill kittens.

Tom: And then they've got a million amusing kitten gifs devoted to it.

Phil: Well, this is supposed to be a positivity minute, but that didn't work.

Tom: Well, that was my positive minute.

Tom: I'm saying one of the reasons I love gaming is even when faced with something like this, everyone reacts with good humor and fun.

Tom: Most of the time, but not always.

Phil: I think there's a lot of wrist slashing as well.

Tom: Well, that's enjoyable from the outside of looking in as well, because at the end of the day, we are devoting a huge amount of time to something which is rather pointless, as well as being effortlessly enjoyable and important.

Tom: So when people react in a completely preposterous and over-the-top manner and melodramatic, it is also enjoyable.

Tom: But go on.

Phil: Yeah, but at the same time, if this goes on, it's going to kill our industry.

Phil: But you know what?

Phil: There's always the PCs.

Phil: If everything else fails, there are enough people who are only able to make games, to make money, that will fall back to the easiest distribution method possible, which will be video games.

Phil: On your PC, rather.

Tom: And the PC also has, which is rarely mentioned, because one, it's blatantly obvious, and two, what everyone likes to talk about the PC is how technically superior it is to everything, but PC is unquestionably the greatest way to experience backwards compatibility.

Phil: Well, I mean, the thing is about the PC also is that it's open.

Phil: I mean, and all these systems are closed, and that's why they're, you know, kind of, they're really hurting themselves by being closed, and I really think we need an open and, you know, console system.

Phil: And basically, the consoles compete on their hardware, and people say, okay, this game is for the console, this game is for the PC, and you bring out, you know, Uncharted and you can play it on an Xbox, but basically, you pick the hardware that you want to play it on.

Phil: Now, I know that probably the economics don't work on that, but as long as we're in this Betamax, VHS, Blu-ray, HD, DVD fight, you know, gaming is going to be a niche hobby.

Phil: So let's continue with the negative stuff, and then we'll end on the positive stuff.

Phil: Connect is mandatory.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: Well, I mean, that's not in any way surprising.

Tom: And the other thing about this is, this is not necessarily a bad thing, just in theory.

Tom: In practice, this isn't going to be the case, but in theory, this is not a bad thing, because it's going to result in people focusing on using Connect, right?

Tom: I mean, the most, without a doubt, the most disappointing thing to me about the Wii U so far is how many games are using Wii Remotes, because I know this is not going to be popular with anyone, but I was one of the few people who absolutely loved the motion controls in the Wii.

Tom: And you can develop your game for the Wii U, and you can have it as a first-person shooter using the Wii Remote, right?

Tom: The only game doing that is Call of Duty that I can think of.

Tom: And this is going to be...

Tom: The vast majority of games are not going to do that.

Tom: So if you include Kinect as standard, there's in theory going to be more games that are going to include Kinect.

Phil: Right off the bat, I can think of five games.

Phil: Okay, back to the Wii, right?

Phil: There were five games that used the Wii Mode perfectly.

Phil: Little King's Story, Dead Space Extraction, Super Mario Galaxy.

Phil: There was a Call of Duty game, Condu.

Phil: I mean, when the Wii U controller was used properly, and one, two, three, four of those five games were from third parties, okay, when used properly, it totally immersed you into the game and made you forget that you were holding a controller.

Phil: And so by including the Kinect as a default, it opens up the possib...

Phil: and making a Kinect that actually works.

Phil: So I guess this Kinect for the Xbox One, by making a Kinect that actually works, then developers can use it.

Phil: And I would be excited for that if I were buying an Xbox One.

Tom: Yeah, but the only issue is that can anyone think of a single Kinect game that would use Kinect well?

Tom: Because even with The Move being released on PSas a standalone thing, so there's few games that use Move.

Tom: Some of the games that do use Move do use it well, but I cannot think of a single example of a game that uses Kinect particularly well.

Tom: Well, apart from just Dance, maybe.

Phil: Dance Central, Dance Central, right.

Phil: I mean, but Kinect didn't work.

Phil: I mean, it simply did not work.

Phil: So with it coming out now with a version of it that presumably does work extremely well and from all demonstrations, it appears to work remarkably, there does seem to be a chance there that regular games would be able to incorporate it.

Phil: Now, if I'm playing a game and I'm enjoying it and I'm playing a shooter like Halo and it tells me I've got to get up off the couch and wave at the screen, that would be disappointing.

Phil: But if done well, then it can completely add to the game.

Phil: Like throwing a grenade.

Phil: I mean, who wouldn't love that?

Tom: That would be awesome.

Phil: Yeah, I mean, it's something you do about, you know, once every five to seven minutes in a game.

Phil: Generally in a shooter, you're not throwing grenades a whole bunch.

Tom: Except online.

Tom: Grenade spam art.

Tom: That would be an interesting experience.

Phil: It would actually probably improve it because people would be less inclined to do it.

Tom: And that would actually be hilariously enjoyable.

Tom: Every now and then you just decide to spam sticky grenades in Halo Online and you've got to actually throw every single one of them.

Phil: People were saying that if you're using your Kinect, it will see you walk into the room, it will recognize your face and say, hey Tom, you want to play Call of Duty?

Phil: Right?

Phil: And people were wondering if this was the way perhaps, I heard someone speculate that if I had a cut out of your face and I put it over mine, like if I had a picture of your, yeah, could I get around the DRM?

Tom: That's a good question.

Phil: Right?

Phil: Yeah, because I'd be like, no, of course I'm Tom Towers.

Tom: You have to put on the voice as well.

Phil: But the connect is, I can't do a Tom Towers voice, regrettably.

Phil: I'm too manly and my voice is too deep.

Tom: That's a shame.

Phil: That is a shame.

Phil: So, but you know, what they were showing, if true, is great.

Phil: I mean, they're saying like, oh, we'll be able to pick up, pick up detections and changes in your face color that the human eye can't pick up.

Phil: It reads your heart rate and all the rest of it.

Phil: I mean, this really does sound like the current Kinect on steroids.

Phil: It sounds like a really amazing piece of hardware that I would be really interested in.

Phil: But it's completely pointless for video games.

Phil: Well, it may or may not be.

Phil: We don't know what the implementation is and the very fact that they're packing it in means that this will be relevant because every developer now is going to want to utilize it as a value-add bullet point on the back of the game.

Phil: So I'm sick of talking, so what other negative stuff did they come up with?

Tom: Well, the thing that worries me, although I just like the most about this, is not the DRM and it is in fact related to the Kinect.

Tom: Now, obviously, this is not actually going to be utilized beyond stuff such as DRM, but there are rumors around that it's going to be counting the number of people in the room.

Tom: So if you buy a film that is licensed to be viewed by four people, if you've got five people in there, Kinect is going to say, no, you can't, what's this?

Tom: You have to buy license for five people, right?

Phil: There's no way that's going to happen.

Tom: No, but here's the thing.

Tom: It's not going to happen.

Tom: The DRM stuff is just going to be related to installing a game and having it to have it check in and all that sort of rubbish.

Tom: Now, the thing is this technology is eventually going to come around and stuff like Kinect is the forebearer of it and things like Google Classes, right, if you're familiar with those.

Tom: And this is not a world that I like and this is not some sort of conspiracy theorist thing.

Tom: At the end of the day, it's...

Tom: No, if you let me finish.

Tom: At the end of the day, it's basically going to be...

Tom: It's not going to change society in any meaningful way, okay?

Tom: But it is just an annoyance.

Tom: I've not got on to any social media things because I don't need to be talking to or have people be aware of me in some way -hours a day, right?

Phil: No, I agree with where you're coming from entirely.

Phil: I mean, I am against Google Glass.

Phil: I'm against Kinect.

Phil: I'm against social media.

Phil: It's just intrusive and it's unnecessary.

Tom: So at the end of the day, that is the thing that I dislike the most, more than GameGRM and stuff like that.

Tom: If you make a product that, even if it doesn't necessarily utilize it to do all that much, I'm not going to buy it because I have no interest in contributing to the rise of this technology, even though it is inevitable.

Tom: Me not buying it makes absolutely no difference.

Tom: Me not taking part in it makes no difference, but I have my principles, so I'm not going to be involved in that world.

Tom: And here's the other thing about this thing, this thing is, so eventually we're going to have Kinect, which not only due to its ability to monitor your heartbeat applies this to games.

Tom: It's going to be attempting to diagnose if you're having a heart attack, right?

Phil: Right.

Tom: This is going to make the game effectively unplayable for me, because as long as well as my various heart attack symptoms that I will be displaying on and off while playing, I'll also be currently experiencing a stroke along a myriad of other things.

Tom: And if you're going to have this sort of cross-platform devices, which you are, just because it's a Kinect doesn't mean it's going to be also using this, as well as the heart pace monitor you're using, which due to being a medical device can be programmed so that it doesn't recognise that you're having a heart attack or a stroke despite showing off the symptoms, every time it's going to automatically call the ambulance and I'm going to have to manually stop that.

Phil: Cancel it.

Phil: Well, my concern is, because I'm so healthy and hale, is that it might detect that I'm healthy and then call Pizza Hut or Domino's.

Tom: And just to lower your level to the average standard.

Phil: To the average standard, right.

Phil: Well, of course, none of this stuff is actually going to happen.

Phil: I mean, this is all crazy talk.

Phil: Well, it's just not going to happen, but I just don't like having the Kinect voice to dummy.

Phil: I don't like having a camera in my living room be mandatory.

Phil: And if I did buy this, and we'll get to this at the end of this, I mean, I just get a piece of black electrical tape and put it over it.

Phil: Or actually, I just drop the Kinect behind the TV, because I'm never going to use it.

Phil: And if a game comes up like Little King's Story or Extraction or Super Mario Galaxy that actually uses it to its benefit, then I'll drag it out and I'll put it up on top of the TV.

Phil: But this is just a gimmick.

Phil: It is a gimmick.

Phil: I'm sorry, it's a gimmick.

Phil: And old headsets are not compatible.

Phil: This isn't surprising at all.

Phil: I wish it would support headsets, and I'm hoping that Mad Cats comes out with something, because I hate the idea of a speaker phone in my living room.

Tom: That's another ridiculous thing, that it does not support old generational headsets.

Tom: It's not as if people are just buying a crappy $headset.

Tom: People will have expensive Turtle Beach headsets and the like, so that they can still experience a full level of sound quality while playing their game.

Tom: And so now they're effectively going to put out a reasonable amount of money, just because it's a new generation.

Phil: And then we experimented with this, with their Hopeless Conference phone thing for Animal Crossing.

Phil: It just doesn't work.

Phil: It just doesn't work.

Phil: The living room is a shared space, and you don't want to be having a conversation with your friends over speakerphone while playing a game, if your wife's in there playing on a handheld or knitting or cooking or whatever they do.

Tom: And while this is an issue just with headsets, as anyone who has played online knows, when someone has a baby crying in the background or some conversation in the background or whatever else that is not solved by having a headset.

Phil: So let's move on to the positives, okay?

Phil: Old...

Phil: I like the design of the hardware.

Phil: I like the boxiness of it.

Phil: I think it underscores the name of the system.

Phil: And I like it.

Phil: It's simple.

Phil: It's boxy.

Phil: You put it in there.

Phil: It's just a generic thing.

Phil: It doesn't have to look like a toy.

Phil: It doesn't have to look like the Nor the PlayStation or the Xbox

Phil: It's just an electronic component that you slot in with everything else.

Phil: I don't like the two-tone spat design.

Phil: That is...

Phil: I mean, horrible.

Phil: Absolutely horrible.

Phil: The gray and black...

Tom: Yeah, it looks hideous.

Tom: The thing I don't like about it is it looks far too much plastic.

Tom: If you have a device that is that huge, you have got to make it out of very obvious metal.

Phil: Brushed aluminum.

Tom: It looks like a stereo receiver or a stereo component.

Tom: You cannot have those things look good in plastic.

Tom: That has got to be a very metal-based design.

Tom: You're right.

Tom: I like the design of it in terms of space, but it just destroys its whole look by looking very plastic to me.

Phil: If you're going to spend $or $on a stereo component, you don't want it to be looking like it's plastic.

Tom: Exactly.

Phil: Yeah, I get that, but also I get the reality of them having to sell these things at a loss, and most stereo components are sold at a tremendous profit, because they don't have RAM and all the rest of this stuff.

Tom: And also because they're a niche thing, so they need to make a huge amount of money on these small amount of things they're selling.

Phil: But at the same time, for a gaming console, I like the fact that it's an Xbox and it looks like a fucking box.

Phil: The two-tone thing is ridiculous.

Phil: It just looks fucking stupid.

Phil: Stupid, stupid.

Phil: It looks stupid.

Tom: And the bezel is incredibly ugly as well.

Phil: Oh, terrible.

Phil: Okay, so finally...

Tom: Just one last thing on the look is, you have to give Microsoft huge respect for going for this look because PSthey leaked just before this was announced, some hints as to what it's going to look like, the console, and they're going down.

Tom: This looks like a router that was started by the Wii and continued by the Wii U and is going to be continued by the PSso they get huge props from me for going in a different direction.

Phil: No, I disagree.

Phil: From the PlayStation reveal, they had basically a blurry black box and they had some high-def shots as well.

Phil: And if you look at that, they're making it look like the Hal

Phil: It's got very sharp angles, it's got gills, it's got a little red light on it.

Phil: I think it has the potential to look like something very scary.

Tom: I don't know about that.

Tom: I think you need to look at more modems because a lot of modems have interesting designs.

Phil: Well, we'll see.

Phil: Beyond that, the one other thing I noticed about the hardware is they didn't screw with the console the controller that much.

Phil: But it has a...

Phil: for the first time ever in a non-Nintendo system, it has a cross pad.

Phil: It has a directional cross pad that is in the sign of a plus sign.

Phil: And no other system has ever had this because Nintendo has the patent on the cross or the plus sign as a directional pad.

Phil: And I know I'm blowing your mind right now, but if you go back and you look at the...

Phil: if you look at the Mega Drive, if you look at the Sega Master System, if you look at the if you look at the PlayStation, they've all been variations of a plus sign.

Tom: Yeah, the PlayStation has the middle cut out.

Phil: It has four distinct...

Phil: Like chevrons.

Phil: Yeah, four chevrons that are pointing toward each other.

Phil: So this is a very major question.

Phil: I mean, this is a copyright infringement.

Phil: Microsoft was overwhelmingly ridiculed for how bad their Direction from Crosspad was on the

Phil: They released one in the European markets that protruded basically for FIFA, which also was a bit of a failure.

Tom: Why would you be using a Z-Cad with FIFA, by the way?

Phil: I don't know, man.

Phil: That's bizarre.

Phil: That's what we were told.

Phil: That cannot be the reason.

Tom: That cannot be the reason.

Tom: No one plays FIFA with a D-Pad.

Tom: That's what these people ignorant of FIFA in America were told as an excuse for not releasing it over there.

Phil: It's what we were told.

Tom: That is so not true.

Phil: We were told we're not getting this better control load because it's for the Europeans who like FIFA.

Tom: That is so not true.

Tom: But continue.

Phil: I'm sorry.

Tom: What you were told, I believe you were told that.

Tom: I'm saying that is such an excuse.

Phil: Well, what about Pez?

Phil: Because we'd buy that too.

Tom: Well, Pez you could use with a D-pad because it is more, at the moment, arcade-y.

Tom: But with FIFA, with the modern FIFAs, you need the -degree control, which...

Phil: Right.

Phil: And in football games now, FIFA is still the reigning king, right?

Phil: Pez has gotten better, but it's still not...

Tom: It's still behind FIFA at the moment.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: So basically, this is the biggest news that I haven't heard anywhere else.

Phil: This is exclusive Game Under Podcast stuff.

Phil: They're using and infringing Nintendo's copyright.

Phil: And this isn't the last you're going to see of it.

Phil: I think by the final design, I think maybe even by Eyou're going to see a change.

Phil: Because right now, they're using the NES crosspad.

Tom: Yeah, and it looks literally like it.

Phil: Yeah, and that's for both...

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: Yeah, just one thing on this is, the thing that worries me about this is, it is really easy to stuff up a D-pad if you have all four buttons connected.

Tom: So while this looks like an NES controller, so in theory, it's going to work a lot better than previous Xbox, D-pads, this has the potential to be equally as bad as the 's D-pad.

Phil: Well, the problem with Nintendo, too, is that ever since the Nthey keep, like on the GameCube and on the Wii, they keep shrinking the goddamn directional pad.

Phil: So, I mean, it's completely, my thumb can completely cover the directional pad twice over.

Tom: Yeah, so you're playing it as Braille, basically.

Phil: I could.

Phil: Big picture for me, and then we'll get the big picture from you.

Tom: Yeah, go on.

Phil: The conference was irrelevant.

Phil: Everything that came after was completely negative for Microsoft.

Phil: They could have, they should have kept their gap shut.

Phil: And at this point, there's nothing positive to differentiate them from their competition.

Phil: Only negative.

Tom: Big picture for me is, and you can correct me on this, given that you have in fact played more than just Android consoles.

Tom: This is literally, as they have described it currently, the worst console yet created.

Phil: You might have a point there, because I can still play all of the other consoles thus created.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: This one I wouldn't be able to, I would not be able to play it in years as it stands now.

Tom: And that's the point.

Tom: I mean, no matter how crap your console is, unless it has an issue where you turn it on, or sorry, you don't, you are unable to turn it on, it is a better console than this.

Phil: Yeah, absolutely.

Tom: And that is the big picture to me.

Phil: And the big, big, big, big, big picture is that all this other stuff I can swallow and probably buy, I would probably buy an Xbox One.

Phil: Okay, who cares?

Phil: It has a stupid name.

Phil: I don't care.

Phil: If it has the games I want to play, I'm going to buy it.

Phil: This internet check-in stuff, I'm not going to buy it.

Phil: I mean, that is the ultimate deal-killer.

Tom: Same here.

Tom: And I've got a question for you though about it, just to end on.

Tom: As a extreme collector, would you be buying this some years down the track just to have it in your collection, not necessarily to use?

Phil: As a paperweight?

Tom: Will you eventually own this console regardless of whether you're going to use it?

Phil: At this point, I have not bought a Wii U.

Phil: And it's the first console I have not bought that has been released in the United States.

Phil: Okay.

Phil: There are two consoles that have been released in the United States that I have not bought.

Phil: And so not buying the Wii U was a major decision for me.

Tom: So if you're not getting a Wii U, then it's highly unlikely that you'll be getting this.

Phil: Right.

Phil: I'm almost tempted to buy a Wii U now, even though I think it's not going to give me anything on a gaming front.

Tom: I think it's too early to tell with that as well.

Phil: Yeah, because it's really only been released for a very short period of time.

Phil: So I can see myself getting a Wii U.

Phil: I can obviously see myself getting a PlayStation because I love the Sony franchises.

Phil: But it's quite possible that I might never own a Microsoft Xbox One if they keep this internet check-in policy.

Phil: I don't think they're actually serious about the Australian market anyway because I just don't see them seeing us as a major thing.

Phil: No one does.

Tom: What company does see us as a major market?

Phil: No one, really.

Phil: I was going to say PC, but that's a lie.

Phil: Okay, so let's move on.

Phil: That's enough about the Xbox.

Phil: Game impressions, do you want to go first?

Phil: We've got some final thoughts on a few games and some first impressions.

Tom: And so one of the games this week that I've been playing is Malicious.

Tom: And it's only about two hours long in terms of how long it might take you to finish.

Tom: The actual game time involved is, according to my clear time, only minutes, and I'm not sure how that worked out because there's no way I spent an hour's time dying and continuing, but I did easily spend an hour's time in total.

Tom: So I have no idea how that works out.

Tom: But this is a Japanese beat-about that was released on PSN and recently released on PSN Plus for free.

Tom: Now, the most notable thing about it is that it doesn't have a damage meter.

Tom: How it shows your damage is by lopping off your character's limbs.

Tom: So if you're about to die, you've got no arms and no legs, which is a pretty cool effect.

Tom: The problem with it is, at first, because it is visually a pretty chaotic game.

Tom: There's many, many enemies all around the place that you've got to be dealing with while you're taking on humongous bosses or bosses with very visually impressive and sensory overloady sort of moves.

Tom: So at first, you basically have no idea how much health you have.

Tom: And it gives you very little instruction.

Tom: So when I first started out playing the game, I had no idea that I could heal myself.

Tom: So on the first boss, I died and had to waste one of the three continues.

Tom: You're given by default.

Tom: And foolishly, with this in mind, followed Arnie of podcast fame's advice, which was to play on easy.

Tom: And this resulted in, except for the first boss, which is hard because to begin with, and this is a really big flaw in the game, you're without many combos and any weapons.

Tom: So you've just got like a basic attack, which makes killing a boss incredibly boring.

Phil: Well, this game, I mean, it also came out on Vita, and that's when I was like considering getting it.

Phil: But basically, you said like this game is two hours long.

Tom: It's based around, of course, running through it in an arcade style multiple times and trying to get better ratings.

Phil: Yeah, but it drops you, you said you were fighting a boss, but doesn't it drop you, from what I've read, doesn't it drop you just basically into a boss battle?

Tom: No, it drops you into an area where you can pick between which boss battle to fight.

Tom: So you're in like this white tranquil area.

Tom: You move over to a bit of a landscape, and this is a pretty cool visual effect.

Tom: You select that bit of the landscape, and the white fades away, and in place of the white appears the landscape growing from the small bit of the landscape that you've selected, which is a really excellent visual effect.

Phil: So it's kind of a, I mean, like what I'm envisioning is like an arena type game.

Phil: Like in the Star Ocean or Yakuza, you're basically in an arena type thing, and you get to pick which guys are going to die.

Tom: That's right, and you could do it in any order, and the thing about it is the enemies are meant to get progressively worse, progressively harder.

Tom: And on Easy, I saw no evidence of this.

Tom: They seemed about the same level, and each boss battle was infinitely easier than the last because I had been given tools to make me more powerful, basically.

Tom: So they got progressively easier and easier until I came to the final boss, which made what was previously a rather lackluster experience.

Tom: And once again, we have to bear in mind that I was stupid enough to follow Arnie's advice to play it on Easy.

Phil: And play it on Easy, right.

Tom: Which was just sheer stupidity, because like I say, I didn't know how to heal.

Tom: So going into this, I thought, okay, I've used a continue on the first boss, on Normal.

Tom: I'm pretty much screwed.

Tom: But that happened without me realizing that I could heal myself.

Tom: So if I had known that I could heal myself, I would have started again.

Tom: But without knowing that, I'd already played a few levels.

Tom: And the battle system, it's just not that engaging, because yes, you can sort of pull together a few combos by switching different weapons, which results in different combos.

Tom: And there are different attacks from the enemy, from the bosses to counterattack, but the enemies themselves are just boring.

Tom: They all feel the same.

Tom: Their bosses, their attacks look different, but you don't really have to do anything different.

Tom: You've just got to dodge out of the way and whatnot.

Tom: So even on normal, it would have, as far as I can tell, and you can't take this as gospel, it would have been a reasonably lackluster experience.

Tom: But the final boss made the whole thing completely worth it.

Tom: Even on easy, it was nothing short of epic.

Tom: It took me like minutes, and there's a -minute time limit.

Tom: So I was really pushing it.

Tom: And the reason it was so great was it had different stages.

Tom: The first stage, you've got to go around not even fighting the boss, but enabling these certain things which damage the boss so that it's then vulnerable.

Tom: And meanwhile, the boss's attacks change depending on what stage it's at.

Tom: So that was what, as far as I can see, the whole game should have been like.

Tom: And instead of making the challenge based on what weapons and stuff you've unlocked, it should have been giving you all of that to begin with and made the focus on making the boss as an interesting challenge to kill.

Tom: The only other interesting thing about this is the music is really excellent.

Tom: As you will tell from my reading of the short story, which is really, on the one hand, cool that they put in not just like a flash fiction, a fully fledged illustrated short story, which tells completely unnecessary backstory.

Tom: And it is absolutely atrocious, but it gets huge respect from me simply for the fact that it's there.

Phil: That they included it.

Phil: And that's the story here.

Phil: I mean, that's been the story with Sony and Indies for about the last three or four years, is that this is a game that is not going to make Sony any money.

Phil: I mean, they're basically being a patron of the arts with a lot of this kind of stuff.

Phil: So, overall, are you going to review this game, or just basically...?

Tom: That was just for my own leisure.

Tom: So that I could make just six games beaten in one month.

Phil: And would you say recommend it?

Phil: I mean, it's only two hours.

Tom: If you got it on PSN+, give it a play, because the other thing is it looks extremely good.

Tom: It's got its own sort of art style.

Tom: It looks a little like Valkyr Chronicles, but it mixes a more Western look into it, so it looks a lot more unique than just being a really well done anime look.

Tom: So if you got it for free on PSN+, go out and give it a try now, because you may really get into the combat and going through it on high difficulties to get a higher score and whatnot.

Tom: Buying it, if you're into this sort of game, because it does the presentation uniquely in an interesting way, I think maybe look into it.

Tom: But if you want a game that is really well designed, beat them up, combat, I would say look elsewhere.

Phil: Okay, so that was Malacious for the PlayStation and Vita.

Phil: As for what I was playing this week, just to give another final impression, Resistance I finished it up just toward the end of last week, actually.

Phil: This is actually, I am still debating it over in my mind, is possibly the best first-person shooter of this generation.

Phil: It went from, it is an arcade first-person shooter in the style of GoldenEye or Halo.

Phil: It borrows a lot from the Half-Life series, but toward the two-thirds mark, it really ramps up the Halo style.

Phil: There are levels which are directly ripped from Halo, but obviously presented in HD graphics and with modern pacing and sensibilities.

Phil: The game just gets better and better as you fill out the weapons wheel.

Phil: It's obviously an arcade game, and you have a full weapons wheel.

Phil: You do lean on your favorites and all the rest of it, but ultimately this is a game that never slows down, it has tremendous pacing.

Phil: The weapons more than anything are insanely satisfying as you would expect from an arcade game.

Tom: You do lean on your weapons.

Tom: That seems like a pretty good starting point to me, because it means that there's actually some difference between them.

Phil: Oh, very much so.

Phil: Like in terms of my way of shooting, in a game if I have a choice, it's basically Shotgun Sniper, as we'll get to when I talk about Tomb Raider, but they actually gave you reasons to mix up some of the weapons to purpose, so when you were facing certain implementations, you're like, okay, yeah, I can use that weapon.

Phil: So in the full weapons wheel, there are about probably four weapons that I never really touched.

Phil: These were usually elemental, the ones that I hate using, like electrical or ice or fire or stuff like that.

Phil: But overall, as I said, I can't really give it more higher praise than the fact that I am not a fan of the franchise whatsoever.

Phil: I didn't even play the second one.

Phil: But this was a game that I couldn't stop enjoying.

Phil: They just...

Phil: It's a relentless game in terms of the level of entertainment that it delivers.

Tom: So only you told me this before I bought Uncharted instead of it.

Phil: I'd probably still go with Uncharted

Phil: Actually, for you, I'd probably say play Resistance

Tom: Yeah, for me Resistance I would say.

Phil: Actually, I still don't know, because you might compare it negatively to Killzones.

Tom: That is true.

Tom: My fanboyism will come to the fore.

Phil: Yeah, but the thing that Insomniac knows, obviously from its Ratchet and Clank experience, is weapons, right?

Phil: It's not necessarily the level design, but they did get out of right, and that is the pacing and the weapons.

Tom: I mean, they pulled off making the action, Ratchet and Clank game that they made, the third-person shooter enjoyable.

Tom: So if they can take Ratchet and Clank and make an action game out of it, they're clearly very good at action games.

Phil: So again, I was expecting absolutely nothing going into this.

Phil: I had higher expectations for THQ's home front when I started it, and I came away possibly considering it to be the best first-person shooter of this generation.

Phil: So I absolutely loved it, and really I can't give higher praise than that.

Phil: So just a great game and I loved it.

Phil: So another game I've been playing, which is kind of strange for me, it came out this year, is Tomb Raider

Tom: Also known as Tomb Raider.

Phil: Also known as Tomb Raider, but we have to call it Tomb Raider otherwise how are you going to differentiate it from the Saturn or PlayStation One classic?

Tom: Yeah, exactly.

Phil: I mean, this was a game that really helped along the PlayStation.

Phil: I mean, the PlayStation was basically, you know, different console manufacturers have, you know, done various things for the gaming industry, right?

Phil: And I think one of the things that the PlayStation did was bring gaming to the adult platform.

Phil: It basically said, okay, just because you're now at the legal age to drink doesn't mean you have to stop playing video games, which was a big thing when you think about it.

Phil: Because as gamers grew up, it was probably a pretty natural thing to go, okay, you know, it's now time to put the controller away.

Phil: Instead, spend your time going to movies and whatnot.

Phil: And PlayStation...

Tom: Wasting your lives, in other words.

Phil: Yeah, in other ways.

Phil: And PlayStation, when it launched, particularly in Europe and the Australian market, was more about, you know, going after that nightclub crowd.

Phil: And Tomb Raider was a big part of that.

Phil: And so, I've never been a fan of Tomb Raider.

Tom: Really?

Phil: Not really.

Phil: I mean, my first time...

Phil: I have Tomb Raider for the Saturn.

Phil: The first time I actually really played it was Tomb Raider Underworld for the Xbox.

Tom: That's not a great introduction.

Phil: Well, it's by Crystal Dynamics.

Phil: And this is when they were taking it over from Core.

Phil: From Tony Gard's original studio that invented the whole genre.

Phil: And I actually thought Underworld was a pretty decent game.

Phil: It was without heart, but it was a fairly decent game that had a lot going for it.

Phil: And I do appreciate Crystal Dynamics as a developer.

Phil: I mean, they're always producing solid work.

Tom: Except on the one, which was it, that everyone absolutely despised, Angel of Darkness.

Phil: Did they do that?

Phil: I don't know that they did Angel of Darkness.

Phil: I think that was the one that basically was where Eidos said, okay, Core, you're gone.

Phil: You're off this project.

Phil: There we go.

Tom: Yeah, that was...

Tom: Angel of Darkness was in fact developed by Core Design.

Phil: Yeah, and that was the final nail in the hop.

Tom: Yeah, that was the final straw.

Phil: That's actually the game that Hollywood blames the poor returns for the Angel of Jolie movie, that the game was so bad that it killed off interest for the movie.

Tom: How did they come to that conclusion?

Phil: Because they have to blame someone that's not themselves.

Tom: Yeah, except themselves.

Phil: So Crystal Dynamics at that point took it over, and they did a remake.

Phil: They did Tomb Raider Anniversary, which was a HD remake of the first game.

Phil: Completely new engine, the whole thing.

Phil: And then they did Underworld.

Phil: And when I played Underworld after having played Uncharted, it was just like, wow, I can totally see now why people thought Uncharted was ripping off Tomb Raider.

Phil: I mean, all the stuff that Tomb Raider does is a direct...

Phil: I mean, is being ripped off.

Phil: So when I came into this game, I was initially pumped for it.

Phil: Then I got the horribly misinterpreted, misogynistic marketing thing.

Phil: And I was like, okay, this game sounds really odd.

Phil: But I had heard enough about the gameplay that I was still interested in it.

Phil: And so when it came out, just as I was buying a gaming PC, so I was like, you know what?

Phil: I would be an idiot to buy this on the consoles as much as I'm interested in it, because I want to see this game at its optimal settings.

Tom: Also, thanks for my recommendation.

Phil: In large part, yeah.

Phil: But mostly not, because basically it was like, are you going to buy a game on a console and have it compromised, or are you going to buy it on a PC?

Tom: And also it's a new shiny PC as well.

Phil: Exactly, and I wanted to see what it was capable of.

Phil: So I got it last Wednesday, and I beat it essentially in a week.

Phil: This game is a...

Phil: I am a huge Uncharted proponent.

Phil: I think the Uncharted series through is a masterpiece.

Phil: I've beaten Uncharted twice, I've beaten Uncharted twice, and I've beaten Uncharted just once so far.

Phil: And I never go back and play games over and over.

Phil: I'm about notches on the gun barrel.

Phil: Of course.

Phil: I just want to beat games, move on.

Phil: And I've actually gone back to those games and replayed them.

Tom: Did you replay Uncharted as well, or just the first two?

Phil: I intend to play Uncharted again very soon.

Phil: I really want to go back and play it again.

Phil: This game, Tomb Raider, is a better game than Uncharted

Phil: I mean, it is a better game.

Phil: It's a better game than Uncharted and it's a better game than Uncharted

Tom: Okay, so it's better than Uncharted in general.

Phil: I would give Uncharted a

Phil: If I were someone who had my memory wiped and only had played Uncharted I'd probably give it a as well.

Phil: But, you know, there's a cumulative effect.

Tom: Yeah, of course.

Phil: I think this game is better than Uncharted or in terms of its game.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: Right?

Tom: They ran this whole time for the butt that I feel coming on.

Phil: Well, there's no...

Phil: The graphics are far superior on the PC.

Phil: This is an amazing looking game.

Phil: The audio is amazing.

Phil: The orchestral soundtrack plus the sound effects are incredible.

Phil: The traversal and controls are amazing.

Tom: They're even smooth with a keyboard.

Phil: You wouldn't know it.

Phil: I used the controller on PC.

Phil: The weapons are great.

Phil: I was just as satisfied with the shotgun in this game as I was in any game.

Phil: They had tremendous weight and presence.

Phil: And then on top of all of these things, they add gameplay elements.

Phil: The pacing was great.

Phil: You know how I'm a pacing whore?

Phil: The pacing was great.

Phil: So the graphics were great.

Phil: The video was great.

Phil: The sound was great.

Phil: The weapons were great.

Phil: The pacing was great.

Phil: The story was pretty good.

Phil: It basically evolves around you going to this Bermuda Triangle-like location where there's all these planes that have crashed and ships that have crashed.

Phil: And some of the people that have survived on this island are crazy and thinking that because they've survived there, they're the chosen ones and have brought into this crazy Japanese mythology.

Tom: Can I ask why you think they didn't just simply call it the Bermuda Triangle because they even went into the trouble of calling it some sort of square or something along those lines?

Phil: Right.

Phil: I think it was basically just because they wanted to set it in the Pacific region and play into the Japanese mythos, possibly because they're sucking up to their new owners, Square Enix, I mean, that is probably actually the real reason when you think about it, all joking aside, and maybe even to make it appeal to the Japanese audience.

Tom: Well, my other reasons for that might be, and I don't know if you've seen it, have you seen Lost?

Phil: I'm familiar with the mythos of Lost.

Tom: Okay, because the story is basically the whole time, let's put it kindly, it's a drawing on Lost, and one of the big things about Lost is, of course, the actual location while being similar to the Bermuda Triangle and whatnot is a completely original fictionalized location.

Tom: So one reason to continue along in the tradition of Lost, which they're basically copying throughout, could have simply been that they thought they had to come up with something of their own invention as well.

Phil: Right, slightly different, right.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: But I mean, the story is passable.

Phil: I mean, I don't play video games for story, God knows.

Tom: It's an enjoyable story.

Phil: Yeah, it is.

Phil: And they do have the thing where three quarters into the game, they introduce this trans...

Phil: I don't know quite the term for it.

Phil: I thought you were going to say transgender.

Phil: No, they introduce this otherworldly type character, which is what Resistance did.

Phil: It's what Uncharted does every time.

Phil: Basically, they introduce these samurai type characters.

Phil: And that's all fine.

Phil: So, I mean, it's a better made game than a game that I gave a tend to, right?

Phil: But you can sense some hesitation with this.

Tom: Yeah, as I said, there's clearly a but coming along.

Tom: Right.

Tom: And actually, hang on, I've got to ask, first of all, just one last thing on the story.

Tom: The payoff at the end, is that not just so hilarious?

Tom: After she's gone through all of this stuff, and yeah, it's not a spoiler.

Tom: It's not a spoiler.

Phil: Not a spoiler.

Tom: Vaguely a spoiler.

Phil: Somewhat of a spoiler.

Tom: So then at the end, after all of this, they're on the ship and they go up to her, oh my god, that was so hard, and she's writing in her thing where they're going on the next journey, and they say, so looking forward to going home, or something on these live shows, no, we're not going home!

Tom: That was hilarious.

Phil: You didn't think that was hilarious?

Phil: The problem that I have with this game is it has no soul.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: As opposed to the game you're about to talk about, right?

Phil: So the game you're about to talk about, Deadly Premonition, and we won't get into it right yet, is a less than perfect game.

Phil: It has horrible controls, horrible graphics, horrible sound, everything about it is horrible.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: But it has soul, and that is a ten game in my perspective.

Phil: I give that game a ten, and you're going to have to stick with it a little bit more before you get to it.

Phil: But this game has no soul.

Phil: And there was only a few human moments in this game.

Phil: So when her loser friends see her after a long period of time and they're in a cage elevated up above it, and you've been through hell and back, and you kill three enemies in front of them in a fairly routine manner, and they start hooping and hollering, and like, yeah, you kicked us, that's awesome.

Phil: And you're like, well, that was actually pretty routine.

Phil: I know for a normal person that would be pretty awesome, but for me that's pretty routine.

Phil: And that disconnect between your friends who have seen you as a normal person and as who you and as a player, you know who you have become, was really emotionally hard hitting because they're like cheering you for killing three enemies, and you're like, I killed like people at this point.

Phil: The other human moment that appear in the game is when you get a grenade launcher for the first time, and all these enemies up to this point have been like, oh, she's just a girl, take care of the young one.

Phil: There's only one of them, take care of the stranger.

Phil: And then at some point in the game, when you get the grenade launcher, they say, she's got a grenade launcher, let's run, get out of here, let's run.

Phil: And she says, that's right, run you bastards.

Phil: I'm going to kill every last one of you.

Phil: And it feels like it really hits you hard because at this point she's been bashed around and been through everything.

Phil: And when she takes ownership of that, after having first hesitated at killing a deer or her first human, she's like, yeah, that's right, you bastards, you run.

Tom: I don't know, I didn't buy that at all.

Tom: I thought that was so poorly done.

Phil: I bought it entirely.

Phil: And a lot of people say that this has been done poorly in terms of, oh, look at, you know, it takes an hour to kill a deer and then she's like, after two hours she's like mowing down hundreds of people.

Phil: But there's a radio call she makes back to the base where they say, how are you doing?

Phil: And she says, I had to kill someone.

Phil: And they say, oh, that couldn't have been easy.

Phil: And she says, the scary thing is how easy it was.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: Right?

Phil: And that's the point.

Phil: Whenever she's killing someone, it's always because she has to, because it's a kill or be killed situation.

Tom: Well, not entirely.

Tom: That depends on how you play.

Phil: Go on.

Tom: Well, presumably you didn't come across this.

Tom: You don't do the side quests, that sort of thing in games, right?

Phil: Mostly, if I can avoid it.

Tom: So you would have just played through the story.

Tom: But if you're backtracking, you're constantly killing people that you do not need to be killing.

Tom: If you're going back to areas that you visited to pick up items or not that you may have missed.

Phil: That every human you interact with in this game will kill you if you don't kill them.

Tom: Yeah, but you can easily go past them without killing them very easily.

Phil: Yeah, but how do you know they're not going to detect you?

Tom: Even if they do detect you, you can simply run off.

Phil: All I'm saying is that you have to assume that everyone in this game is a hostile.

Phil: And the fact that she didn't want to kill these people actually weighed through.

Phil: And the third human moment I found was when she was in the boat.

Phil: I mean, they have that Titanic moment.

Phil: She's at the front of the boat.

Phil: And they're like, well, I can't believe you got through that, Laro.

Phil: At least now we're getting home.

Phil: And she doesn't say, I'm not going home.

Phil: I mean, it's a very quiet moment.

Phil: She says, I'm not going home.

Tom: I don't know.

Tom: It wasn't to me.

Tom: To me, it was just as over the top as most of the story.

Tom: Or rather, most of the character depiction.

Phil: It is slightly over the top, as is all of the depictions of drama in this game, in any game, really.

Phil: In that she's basically saying, once you leave, you can't go home.

Phil: Once you've killed or people over the course of a -hour game, you can't really go home.

Phil: And this is a creation story.

Phil: This is explaining how she became who she is.

Phil: So, having said that, my biggest problem with the game is that this game has no soul.

Phil: She's somewhat strangely throughout the game alone, but always connected to her team.

Phil: So, she's always radioing back or having these cut scenes with the team and then going on by herself.

Phil: Whereas, in the Uncharted world, Nate says stuff to himself along the way, and it's funny.

Phil: There's humor there, so it has some soul.

Phil: This game is completely humorless.

Phil: There's no humor, and there's a dramatic discord between the times when she's alone and the time when she's communicating with the team.

Phil: If she were just dropped on this island and was in complete solitude the entire time, this may have been a completely different game because you're like, okay, she's struggling through this.

Phil: But it was just a completely impersonal game to me because like when Nate might say something to offset the mood or be funny, the only things Lara ever says is like, oh, look at this script.

Phil: This is from the Edo period of Japan.

Phil: I would never have thought it to be in this region.

Tom: That's better voice acting and writing, by the way.

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: And it's just like the only time she's talking to herself, it's like, okay, fine.

Phil: So while she was a sympathetic character, I found that I didn't connect with her at all.

Phil: And the other problem that I had with this game was that the graphics were so good on the PC, I thought the entire time I was playing it, I was like, am I only liking this game because the graphics were so good?

Phil: It was kind of a throwback to the Commodore era where I was impressed by graphics, or the Dreamcast era where I was playing Blue Stinger and like, oh, this game is the best game ever, just because it looked good graphically.

Phil: And so while I was playing Tomb Raider on the PC, I was like, am I only liking this because it looks so good?

Phil: So that's my pocket review of Tomb Raider

Phil: I would buy the sequel on demand.

Phil: I mean, I would buy it at full price, pre-order the whole thing.

Phil: But I couldn't help but feeling the entire time I was playing that I was playing something that was leaving me unfulfilled.

Tom: Well, see, I think an important thing here is that you didn't play a whole lot of the older Tomb Raiders, especially on the PlayStation, because to me, the soul in the game, and I agree mostly with what you say, but to me, the soul in the game was the fact that after Crystal Dynamics took over the series, while they did understand what made Tomb Raider good, they were still basically making the original PlayStation games, right?

Tom: This was finally a Tomb Raider attempting to do something new with Tomb Raider that completely got what was good about the original Tomb Raider in terms of the gameplay and the settings.

Tom: So that was to me, that was the soul.

Tom: But on the other hand, they really did completely miss a lot of the characters.

Tom: Tomb Raider, I don't know if this was apparent in Underworld, but on the PlayStation, that was always a very humorous game.

Tom: They were all very funny.

Tom: Lara Croft was basically a parody of Indiana Jones and that sort of thing.

Tom: She wasn't just copying them, she was parodying them.

Tom: And they didn't really capture the emotional spirit of Tomb Raider, but they absolutely nailed the feeling and what Tomb Raider was all about in terms of gameplay.

Tom: So that to me was the soul of it, basically.

Phil: We're certainly toward the end of this game, which has one of the first endings of a game I've played recently.

Phil: They did go into that Indiana Jones mode, right?

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: I mean, very much so.

Phil: And in that way, again, on a technical level, I can't fault this game.

Phil: It was just a feeling that I had in response to it.

Phil: And it was much like Crystal Damach's work with Underworld.

Phil: Underworld I thought was a great game, but it was a very lonely game where you didn't really feel a connection to Lara at all.

Phil: And even though in this game she's very sympathetic, I didn't feel a connection to her.

Phil: And I don't know what to pin that on really.

Tom: I think it is mainly because she's such a poorly written character.

Tom: The story, as I said, I found perfectly fine, but I thought the characters in it were just so poorly depicted.

Phil: I mean, because her character is entirely discordant.

Phil: The story is actually quite a romp, but her character is basically a learned college student with a lot of experience in archaeology, normal person, gets on an island, gets hungry, kills a deer.

Tom: Then kills about people.

Phil: Yeah, gets threatened, kills a man, then kills about people through the course of a game.

Phil: And is now some sort of superhuman character.

Phil: She becomes like Master Chief, right?

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: I mean, it's the same thing.

Phil: Halo very nearly was my game of the year last year, right?

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: Very nearly, wasn't.

Phil: And probably the reason why it got close was because they finally gave Master Chief some sort of character development with the Cortama story.

Phil: You know, it was very touching, but you can take a game like Halo and say, OK, this is, you know, technically impressive visually, whatever.

Phil: The pacing is great.

Phil: The level design is great, whatever.

Phil: But how can you relate to someone like Master Chief?

Phil: And I think that's what they've done here with Lara Croft.

Tom: Well, if you're as awesome as I am, you can easily.

Phil: Well, I know you can.

Phil: We're going to dedicate a whole show to Halo one of these days.

Phil: So that's basically it.

Phil: You can read Tom's review of Tomb Raider at laserlanding.com.

Tom: And I go further than my colleague Phil, and I do criticize it technically.

Tom: Quite extensively, in fact.

Phil: Yeah, I read that review last night, and actually I didn't disagree with it at all on any level, and it was a very good read, very well written.

Phil: So that's basically it for me in terms of my final impressions.

Phil: What games do you have, Tom?

Tom: And not just any game.

Tom: As you were alluding to, the game that I have been playing is Deadly Premonition The Directors Cut.

Tom: Now, I would just like to completely contradict your impressions of it, as this is not a problem that only I run into, but one many people have going by forums.

Tom: There are some serious audio issues going on here.

Tom: The one that's probably going to be the most annoying to most people is the fact that very often the audio stutters.

Tom: So when people are talking in a cut scene or in game play, what happens is it literally sounds like someone's using one of those ventrilo-harassment things or has a mixing board and is punching in the lines said by the characters.

Phil: You're playing this on PlayStation obviously, and you downloaded this, and you're playing it on a Slim or a Super Slim?

Tom: On a Slim.

Phil: Mrs.

Phil: Fogg, Velvet, at this point, right now, is playing this in the other room.

Phil: She's like hours into it.

Phil: I've been watching her all weekend.

Phil: Not a single problem with it.

Phil: We're playing it on the original PlayStation.

Tom: So what you're saying, if you've got a original PlayStation, use it on that.

Tom: But I did do some goozling on this.

Tom: I did do some goozling on this.

Tom: And other people are having my issue.

Tom: So I don't know why I'm having it and you're not, but it is incredibly annoying.

Tom: And also, as they're punching in these lines, all audio stops for a second.

Tom: So it's stuttery as well.

Tom: And there's also other issues with stuttering on the audio.

Tom: On the menu a couple of times, I've had the song...

Tom: Basically, the best way to describe it is audio slowdown.

Tom: So you're getting snippets of the song cutting in and out at a slower speed to what it's meant to be playing at.

Tom: And for me, though, the worst issue with the sound, and I will say, if I was not playing this to review it, I would have stopped playing this at the moment and possibly not gone back to it, because whenever I'm indoors, there is an incredibly annoying buzzing sound, which is probably not as bad as I'm making it out to be.

Tom: Most people would have rolled with this, but to me, it is game-destroying.

Tom: When I'm playing this, it makes me feel sick.

Tom: It's just so incredibly annoying.

Phil: How could this be happening?

Tom: I don't know.

Phil: Are the people experiencing it?

Tom: Yes, they are.

Tom: What's going on?

Phil: Have you downloaded patches for this?

Tom: I haven't seen any patches come up for it thus far, so I don't know what's going on.

Tom: You would expect these sorts of issues to be had by more people.

Tom: I mean, that's surely going to be a pretty major thing if...

Phil: Well, no one's playing the freaking game.

Tom: That's true.

Phil: The starters.

Phil: I mean, so how are they going to know?

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: Right?

Tom: Well, Velvet isn't having any problems with it, so...

Phil: None.

Phil: I've been watching it.

Phil: I've been sitting there loving the game, you know, and just remembering all my fun times with it.

Phil: And you're having these troubles.

Tom: And it is so annoying.

Tom: As I said, I would have stopped playing this if I did not have to for review, which is not a comment on anything about the game itself apart from the buzzing.

Tom: But as for the game itself, now you were saying in your podcast, this is a rough few hours, but I think it's more...

Phil: My podcast.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: That's right.

Tom: I admit it is your podcast.

Tom: I admit it.

Tom: But as you were saying, it gives off a terrible first impression, but I don't think it does after the game begins.

Tom: To me, the major problem is the opening cutscene, and it might be accurate to the rest of the game, but the opening cutscene, while you do get a fair bit of the humor coming through in it, it's like this really serious, melodramatic thing.

Tom: You come across a dead body, mutilated body in the woods, then it goes through family members and friends crying, and the acting in these scenes is so bad.

Tom: The animation is just abysmal.

Tom: They are holding up these things to look at them.

Tom: They're all clearly very long-sighted because they're holding up these small photos as far away from their faces as they possibly can, and the impression it gives off is a game that is attempting to be completely serious and is just completely missing the mark.

Phil: I think that the first hour and a half of this game gives the worst impression of the best game ever.

Phil: I've never seen a better game start worse.

Phil: And again, just so our listeners know, I give Deadly Premonition a out of

Phil: I played the original on the and I've played a little bit more of it on the PlayStation

Phil: I think this game is brilliant.

Phil: It's got a lot of technical problems.

Phil: It has bad graphics.

Phil: It has really bad graphics.

Phil: It has really bad sound.

Phil: The controls are mediocre at best.

Tom: They're powerful on PSI have to say.

Phil: Yes.

Phil: The driving controls are poor, not good, not mediocre.

Phil: But this game's story and heart...

Phil: Of course, this is coming from a Yakuza apologist.

Phil: The game's story and heart trumps all of that by far.

Phil: So I do wonder how far you are into this game.

Tom: Well, if you can remember, I assume by the number of clues I've fixed up, three quarters of the way through the Lumber Mill, which is...

Phil: The very start of the game.

Tom: It's about the third combat section, I believe.

Tom: The first one is the opening one, then you have the hospital.

Tom: Actually, I will say the first hour and a half is absolutely abysmal because they introduce the combat and gameplay to you in a scene with rain.

Tom: Now, the frame rate in this game is not good in the best of circumstances.

Tom: So if you're then adding rain to it, it becomes...

Tom: It's not unplayable, but it's getting close to being unplayable and it's certainly wonky enough to be giving people like me a little bit of eye strain.

Tom: So yeah, I would say overall the opening hour and a half is just abysmal.

Phil: Yeah, it's really poor.

Phil: It's the closest that the game comes to Resident Evil in terms of its level design.

Phil: And then after that, it's a complete departure from it.

Phil: So do know that if you're playing this game...

Phil: If you hang in with it though, I mean past the three hour point, you won't be able to stop playing because of the story and the characters.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: But here's the thing on the story and the characters.

Phil: As soon as...

Tom: And this is another reason why I should have skipped that opening cutscene before the menu loads, is as soon as York came on screen, I was enjoying the game.

Tom: That is a great way to introduce his character.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: He's basically driving along, and he is surely the worst driver in any game ever.

Tom: He's driving along, talking on his mobile phone to someone, looking at anything but the road, and attempting to light a cigarette, while talking about Tom and Jerry in, with the preamble making it sound like he's discussing something seriously crime related.

Phil: Is he talking to Zack at that point?

Tom: I can't remember if he was talking to Zack or to someone else, but he is visibly talking to someone on the phone.

Phil: Have you at least figured out that you were Zack?

Tom: Yes, I have.

Tom: Yes, I have.

Tom: Which by the way, I think that is a perfect way to get the player involved in the world.

Tom: That works so well.

Tom: And it allows him to do all these inner monologues so humorously rather than if he was just talking to himself, which of course is the feeling you get anyway, but the preamble is that you are Zack.

Tom: So it's completely quirky, yet not completely ridiculous at the same time.

Phil: And how about those dialogues with Zack about movies and popular culture from the s and s?

Phil: How are you finding that?

Tom: I've only had one about film so far, and that is the first one, which is about Attack of the Calatomatoes.

Tom: And there is one thing I'm going to have to say is just completely crap about these conversations.

Tom: And one of the things that I absolutely despise so far in the game is the incredibly long driving section.

Tom: So far of...

Tom: I've probably been playing for two to three hours.

Tom: At least an hour and a half or an hour of that has been me driving in what is an incredibly dull driving system with an incredibly annoying map.

Tom: You've got to...

Tom: You've got to be able to move around the map.

Tom: You've got to press start, which if you're mid-conversation, stops the conversation.

Tom: So you might get into a car...

Phil: There's a way to have the map overlay without doing that.

Tom: That's if you press select, but you can't navigate on it, can you?

Tom: I'm pretty sure you can't.

Phil: There's no navigation whatsoever.

Phil: It is, beyond being the worst introduction in any video game, it also has the worst map of any video game.

Tom: No, but if you press select, it enlarges the mini map, so you can only see what's close to you.

Tom: But if you press start, you go to the map and you can navigate around it, so you can plot a route to the place you're going.

Phil: Yeah, but you can't just, like, pick a point...

Tom: No, no, no, but if you get lost and you're mid-conversation, and there's a time limit to where you get to, you might want to listen to the conversation, but you're completely lost, so you're going to fail the thing and have to start it again.

Tom: But if you go to the map to figure out where the fuck you are and where you're going, then that's the end of the conversation and you can't start it again.

Tom: And the other ridiculous thing about this is if you want to get out of the car to pick something up, like there's a rare item that I was trying to get that only appears in the rain.

Tom: And it just so happens that along the road to where I was going, this rare item appears.

Tom: Now, I've gone through most of the conversation, so I don't care if they go on ahead without me.

Tom: But I can't get out of the car.

Phil: Why would you want to get out of the car?

Phil: There's scintillating conversation going on.

Tom: Because, no, the conversation was over.

Tom: So I'm just sitting here, driving through this monotonous rain, stuck at miles per hour or whatever the speed limit of the car is.

Tom: I want to get out and grab this fucking item, so I don't have to go back to it in the future and drive for more minutes to get back to it.

Tom: And I can't because they say, Oh, we've got...

Tom: What are you doing, Zach?

Tom: Don't you want to continue with the investigation?

Tom: No, I don't!

Tom: If you're asking what the fuck I want to do as Zach, Zach is telling you, Get out of the goddamn car!

Phil: I don't think you have to get out of the car.

Phil: I think you can just drive over items.

Tom: No, you can't.

Phil: Is that like Crazy...

Tom: No, you can't.

Phil: That game had killer controls in terms of driving.

Phil: Just let me say.

Phil: Okay, just please, please play another three hours of this game.

Phil: It will turn around.

Tom: And one thing I want to say on the gameplay, I know there's people that go and say the gameplay is in general just abysmal.

Tom: Now...

Tom: It's really not.

Tom: These...

Tom: From one of the better terms, the dungeons in the game.

Phil: Yeah.

Tom: I don't see that they're bad.

Tom: They're not exactly very good or anything, but it's not as if they're completely in the way of you moving from...

Tom: What are they called again?

Tom: The Profiling Clues.

Tom: They're a complete slog to get there.

Tom: One thing I think that they do very cleverly is they make the ranged weapons really useless.

Tom: This is not just because the aiming is absolutely abysmal.

Tom: It's also because they are deliberately designed to be weaker than the melee weapons unless you're getting headshots, which is a pain in the ass because of the controls.

Tom: But because they make the focus on melee, and so you're going to be doing melee, which gives you at worst a two-hit kill and quite often a one-hit kill, it makes the combat somewhat intense because you're always deliberately making yourself vulnerable to the attacks on the enemies.

Tom: And another clever thing they do is they make the movement of the enemies unpredictable.

Tom: So while you're lining up a shot to shoot them, they can suddenly basically teleport forwards and be right next to you.

Tom: And also if you're going along and you're running away from enemies behind you to go and bash someone over the head, you then spin around and suddenly they teleport behind you, which actually makes these sections, which could have been dull but certainly not bad, but really, really dull, actually enjoyable and somewhat vaguely intense.

Tom: So I think that you've got to call that good game design, it's not really good game design, but you've got to give that credit for what it's doing.

Phil: The strength of this game is that in as many technical weaknesses that it has, the gameplay elements of it are so strong and the character development elements are so strong to override it.

Phil: I mean, that's why it's such a powerful game.

Phil: You know me and Leo, people who are intelligent people who have played a lot of games for a lot of years.

Tom: It's not debatable on the intelligence part.

Phil: Well, at least we've been exposed to a lot of games for a lot of years.

Phil: Why do we both give this game a ?

Phil: I mean, there's got to be something to it, right?

Phil: What do you think of the voice acting of the opposing enemies?

Tom: See, well, I was just about to move on to the sound and before we get to that though, I want to say something else about the sound.

Tom: Now, so recently I've played a lot of horror games.

Tom: I've played, or at least games that have horror themes.

Tom: I've played The Walking Dead, Left Dead Curse Mountain, Metro Last Light.

Tom: I'm probably forgetting a few.

Tom: This is easily the most creepy, and it's not because it's doing anything particularly creepy, any more creepy than the other games, but it knows that to get a level of creepiness, you don't attempt to come up with something elaborate and complicated, like say The Walking Dead does with its story and the choices, or Left Dead does with its presentation, and so on and so forth.

Tom: If you want to create something creepy, you've got to go directly to the base of things.

Tom: So this creates a really creepy atmosphere within the dungeon simply due to the fact that as you're going along, there's babies crying, there's painful ambient music on as well.

Tom: It nails that.

Tom: And it is a cheap way to do this.

Tom: But at the end of the day, the best way to do this often is the cheapest way, which is why a lot of the most successful horror films are bad, basically.

Tom: Because to get this reaction out of people, you need a certain level of jarriness and abrasiveness.

Tom: And it gets that, which a lot of modern horror games completely miss.

Tom: They have vaguely creepy music, but it's not at all abrasive.

Tom: So it loses its creepiness, because it's actually kind of enjoyable to listen to.

Phil: The music in this game is incredible.

Phil: Where they go from the whistling tune, it sounds vaguely like, you know, Mario's theme.

Tom: And the theme song to the town that plays on the menu, I love that song, that is so good.

Tom: One thing I hate about it, though, is every single fucking time Emily has appeared so far, they start playing it just out of the blue, and it is so damn annoying.

Tom: I know by the time I finish this game, I'm going to absolutely despise it.

Phil: Well, did you see the similarities between that and Mario's theme from the Super Mario Brothers game?

Tom: I find that hilarious.

Tom: Because that's the thing.

Tom: This game is meant to be funny.

Tom: This is the other thing.

Tom: How can people think this is accidentally funny?

Tom: Maybe you have a different view on this, because I remember you saying it was earnest, which might...

Phil: Oh, it is.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: This is meant to be hilarious, and it is hilarious.

Tom: I mean, those voices are absolutely hilarious.

Tom: So you're going along, and your killing spiel is, I don't want to die, why kill me?

Tom: And that sort of thing.

Phil: For the listeners, over and over again, throughout the game, when you're killing zombies, they say, I don't want to die, please don't kill me.

Phil: You'll hear that about times during this game.

Phil: And it is done in earnest.

Phil: Sweryis a Japanese developer who is ESL.

Phil: He doesn't speak English.

Phil: So this was a part of the original Japanese game as well.

Phil: And he just must have thought that it sounded creepy and it sounded cool and that's fine.

Phil: But obviously, you're not going to play that times in a video game every time you kill a zombie, right?

Tom: See, I'm sure that has got to be deliberately funny.

Phil: I'm not.

Tom: Wait a minute, though, Stop.

Tom: Wait a minute, though.

Tom: But bear in mind, we are listening to the American dub.

Tom: So to comment on something that specific of that nature, you have to compare it to the Japanese dub.

Tom: But...

Phil: Yeah, that's true.

Phil: But I have listened to an interview with the people that did the audio for this game, as well as an interview with Swery.

Tom: If he has no knowledge of English, how can you necessarily go in by what he's saying, and also with his communication to the people that directed the audio, how can you necessarily think that, just because he's saying in the interview, that this is meant to be creepy, that what he's saying is being accurately represented?

Phil: No, you're absolutely right, because what I'm saying is he has heard this, and he has no problem with it.

Phil: But because he is ESL, he probably doesn't even know what he's listening to.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: Right?

Phil: I don't want to die, probably sounds like to us, right?

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: And so he's like, oh yeah, that's good, yeah, put that in the game times.

Tom: The thing about it is, as hilarious as it is, I think it actually adds to the melancholy atmosphere, because you're killing these people, and they don't want to die.

Tom: As funny as that is represented through this audio, it does add to the atmosphere.

Tom: It makes it a little bit more creepy, even though it's hilarious every time you hear it.

Tom: It's hilarious.

Tom: If you think about it, that's slightly melancholic, right?

Phil: It is hilarious, because you've got this shambling zombie coming to you.

Phil: What has he or she got to live for?

Tom: Yeah, exactly.

Tom: And they're ignorant of what they're doing.

Phil: And yet, when faced with their own mortality, they're pleading with you.

Phil: No, this is great.

Phil: This is exactly what I set out to do, walking through this hall, attacking random humans with no arms.

Phil: I don't want to die.

Tom: Let's just stick with this parody point.

Tom: Now, once again, you were saying, or at least implying, that this is generally not meant to be a parody.

Tom: Have you seen Twin Peaks?

Phil: Yes.

Tom: Well, so far, this is at least % of the time completely a parody of Twin Peaks.

Tom: It's not...

Phil: It's not a parody.

Phil: It's a tribute.

Phil: No.

Tom: No.

Phil: I'm telling you, I've read up on this.

Phil: I've read interviews with the guy, and I know that the stores and the scene for Greenvale, they're actually real stores in the same town in which Twin Peaks was shot.

Tom: Here's I think where we're going wrong, is because my definition of parody is not what Americans would immediately take a parody, which is, for example, the Single Ladies parody with Justin Timberlake, where you take something and you then just play it up to be as absurd as possible.

Tom: Parody can be a lot more nuanced than that, and it can be done as tribute.

Tom: Perhaps a better way to describe it would be as satire.

Tom: So you take, for example, the...

Tom: I can't remember the name of the guy, but it's a famous writer, and I am just destroying my credit if I not remember in the game.

Tom: But the famous satirical tract about Ireland eating babies in the......potato forest.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: So what that is doing is, and obviously this wasn't done as a tribute, but that is doing exactly what Deadly Premonition is doing.

Tom: It not only makes fun of the thing that it is parodying, it also copies it very accurately so that it is more than just an over-the-top parody, where the humour is just in the absurdity of it.

Tom: And there are other...

Tom: And of course, you can also do this if you are paying homage to something.

Tom: Just because you are paying homage to something that you love doesn't mean that when you are paying homage to it, you can't be making fun of it at the same time.

Phil: This is absolutely directly influenced by and trying to copy Twin Peaks, but we are talking about the matter of intent, and you can only go by someone's words as to whether they intended it to be a parody or a tribute.

Phil: And Swery says it.

Phil: Oh, he has no idea.

Phil: What are you talking about?

Phil: So he is playing Japanese ESL dumb on this.

Phil: He is like, oh, well, yeah.

Phil: Twin Peaks was great.

Phil: Just because we picked the same exact town to shoot this in doesn't mean it has to do with that.

Phil: So obviously it was an influence, whether it's a tribute or a satire, is probably in the eyes of the viewer.

Tom: Yeah, or both in my eyes.

Tom: But it's not just that.

Tom: I mean, for example, the exploding crates.

Tom: That has got to be a parody of the use of crates in many games, surely.

Phil: I don't know that that's a...

Phil: I think that's just him making a video game and he's like, okay, crates explode in video games.

Phil: Because if you play the other game like spy fiction, they're just the most generic games possible.

Phil: I think what you've got here is...

Phil: If you were to take a star athlete, everyone can say this guy is a really great football player, really great baseball player, really great basketball player, really great soccer player, right?

Phil: And he writes a book.

Phil: And literary people catch on to it and are like, wow, this guy is really talented.

Phil: This guy has something to say.

Phil: This book is profound.

Phil: And other people are like, oh, no, it's kind of like Nino Collado to bring this back to gameunder.net, where some people are like, oh, well, this is just a guy talking about his own work experiences.

Phil: And other people are like, no, this is a masterful insight into Australian culture and blue collar labor relations or whatever.

Phil: I think it's all in the eye of the viewer.

Phil: And because Swery is Japanese, I don't think we can honestly know.

Phil: You can only look at his other works.

Phil: And I think that an exploding barrel in Deadly Premonition...

Phil: Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

Phil: I think an exploding barrel in Deadly Premonition is just an exploding barrel.

Phil: He thinks that exploding barrels are cool, and that's what video games have.

Phil: And so we'll put some of those in Deadly Premonition too.

Tom: Well, maybe.

Tom: But I'll accept that it's in the eye of the holder, but there's just so many of this sort of thing throughout the entire thing.

Phil: Well, I mean, before you say that, though, I mean, the fact that we can have these kinds of discussion about this game, I mean, do you understand the depth of conversation that we're having about this game as opposed to many of the other games that we talk about has to indicate that something special is going on here?

Tom: Yes.

Tom: And on that point, once again, back to the parody, the thing is about this Losting translation, I think if you...

Tom: and certainly it would be better if either of us were more familiar with his previous games.

Tom: If he has any, are you in fact familiar with them?

Phil: Yes, Spy Fiction for the PlayStation

Phil: For example.

Tom: Okay.

Tom: Well, once again, you take something like Binary Domain and obviously Toshiro Nagoshi is far more literate in English, shall we say, than Swery, or at least that's how it comes across in the game.

Tom: You can very easily sort of get a feel for what is going to be lost in translation when someone like, when someone Japanese is imitating a Western game or vice versa, right?

Phil: Ah, gosh.

Phil: You know, I hate to disagree with you, but I don't think Nagoshi is any more cultured in Western literature or culture than anyone else.

Tom: No, no, that's what I'm saying.

Tom: What I'm saying is his articulation to an English audience is clearer.

Phil: But I think that's only because he's got Sega localization behind him.

Tom: Yeah, but that's what I'm, but wait a minute.

Tom: I'm actually referring to him in interviews.

Tom: So if we wanted to get what his intent was, we could more easily understand what he was going for going by his interviews, right?

Phil: Again, I hate to disagree with you because I don't want to drag this out, but I think that's also because there's a Sega PR person there in the interview, and I think it's also Sega PR signing off on interviews before they go to publication.

Tom: Yeah, well that doesn't contradict the point that I'm getting to because what I'm getting to is, even with that in mind, and bear in mind I have never read a Toshihiro Nagashi interview, so I was just making that up on the spot.

Phil: You jerk.

Phil: I have.

Phil: It is a great interview of him and Nintendo Power.

Tom: But you look at something like Binary Domain and various numerable Japanese interpretations of Western media, you can get a feel for the things that they're going to misinterpret and misunderstand and fail to appropriate again, right?

Phil: Absolutely, yeah.

Tom: Now, to a degree, this is the case.

Tom: What's really been missed from Twin Peaks is the sense of tragedy and sense of small town community.

Tom: So far, of course, I haven't played far into Deadly Premonition, so this might change.

Tom: But so far...

Phil: It will.

Tom: But so far, the thing that has been basically not transported over from Twin Peaks are those two elements.

Tom: So it's focused entirely on the humorous dialogue and quirky character.

Tom: And once again, this is simply, of course, my interpretation of it.

Phil: Your simple interpretation.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: If you were going to make a parody of something that you got and loved, you would probably, for many people, want to parody the more outlying stuff, such as what I just mentioned, and not poke fun at the heart of the show, the emotional core of the thing that you love.

Phil: Well, yeah.

Phil: I mean, if you love it, right.

Tom: So that's what I was trying to get at with the satirical take in an homage.

Tom: But by the same token, you look at something like Binary Domain, where what's being missed from action films is once again exactly the same thing.

Tom: It's the emotional core that does not come across in translation.

Tom: So what Binary Domain has from action games is the ridiculous action scenes and the action one-liners and all the sort of surface things that are immediately apparent.

Tom: And it doesn't present its themes in the same way that themes are illustrated in an action game or film.

Phil: Well, absolutely I agree, because if you play Binary Domain, it's like playing Gears of War, except it has heart.

Tom: So the point is basically that either interpretation, as far as either of us can tell, makes about as much sense and that, once again, this was where I was going with my preamble of assuming that Toshihiro Nogoshi was more understandable in interviews, regardless of the reason, I still wouldn't take what the person themselves are saying as gospel.

Tom: So I'd basically just be ignoring their comments on the artwork, slash game, or whatever you want to call it in question as well.

Phil: That they created.

Phil: Yeah, typical reviewer.

Tom: Yeah, exactly.

Tom: I mean, yeah.

Phil: Okay.

Phil: You're taking a guy who is tweeting about this game, you just have to look at this guy's Twitter.

Phil: He just is so, this is the game that he made, and he is so believing of it.

Phil: And he thinks that anyone who likes it, like Destructoid gave it to he's like, yeah, these people really like it.

Phil: And the people that say, oh, it's so bad, it's good, all he hears is, it's good, right?

Phil: I was watching a cut scene earlier today in Deadly Premonition and I was like, okay, I finally now get what people were saying when they say it's so bad, it's good.

Phil: Because if you just look at this cut scene, this is really bad.

Phil: I mean, on every level, graphically, shot selection, voice acting, this is terrible.

Phil: I mean, it's just terrible.

Tom: See now, I actually think so far the voice acting is good.

Tom: And the reason for this is...

Phil: From time to time, though, it is good, but from time to time, they've got some disconnected voice acting where they've got two pet characters interacting that obviously weren't recording at the same time.

Tom: That's gonna be, I guarantee that's gonna be every single person in this.

Tom: There's no way they have people recording at the same time in a localization of this budget.

Tom: No chance whatsoever.

Tom: Most big films cannot be bothered doing this.

Tom: The thing that I am extremely impressed by is how excellent the translation of the script is.

Tom: And here's a simple tip, and this doesn't apply just to writing.

Tom: If you look at anything, anything as far as the story and character is concerned, you can immediately tell how good it is gonna be within a very small margin of error by looking at the names of the characters involved.

Phil: Like Anna Graham?

Tom: Yep, or Francis York Morgan.

Tom: Those are great names.

Tom: They're humorous, or at least Francis York Morgan is.

Tom: It's quirky, it's humorous, but it's not completely over the top, and it's believable.

Tom: You can, from that you, it can immediately tell, okay, now they've got a sense.

Phil: Someone's paying attention.

Tom: For what they're doing.

Tom: They understand writing.

Tom: They don't just think, okay, I'm gonna come up with the most absurd name because this is an absurd thing.

Tom: And writing is just the idea.

Tom: They understand there's actually more to writing than that.

Tom: So immediately, you can tell.

Tom: And the same goes for films.

Tom: Basically anything that involves writing, you can immediately tell from the names.

Tom: And the script is really good.

Tom: There is lots of really bad lines in it.

Tom: Let's be honest.

Tom: There's clunkers at a reasonable rate.

Phil: Yeah, but it's a lot of dialogue, though.

Phil: You're gonna get some clunkers.

Tom: But it is original.

Tom: It's not like your average game script.

Tom: It's not like your average film script.

Tom: It's original, solid writing.

Tom: And the voice acting, there is nothing remarkable about the voice acting whatsoever.

Tom: But this just shows that voice acting really, really needs decent writing.

Tom: And it makes such a difference.

Tom: And the reason, once again, the voice acting, when they come across a clunker, they deliver it so badly.

Tom: These are not great voice actors.

Tom: And this is not greatly directed voice acting.

Tom: But because of the-

Phil: To let you know how deep into this bullshit I am, I actually also listened to an interview with the localization guy for this game.

Phil: And I know that it was a low budget, but again, earnest effort.

Tom: And that's the other thing that comes across.

Tom: Everything in this is made with love, and that includes the localization.

Phil: Yeah, they bled their hearts out for this game.

Tom: Final thing is just two very quick things, because we've been talking so long about it, we may as well go into basically everything we possibly can.

Tom: And the first thing is, this is the second ever game to not understand the resolution that I'm trying to play the game at, which is p.

Tom: So when I start this game, as soon as it's gone past the move warning screen, it switches immediately to an aspect ratio of four to three.

Tom: With black bars at the bottom of the top of the screen, the only other game, just to give you a sense of the budget involved, the only other game that I've come across that has done this is Papo and Yo.

Tom: And that at least has the courtesy of being playable in four to three, so they weren't black bars at the top and the bottom of the screen.

Tom: So this is below Papo and Yo.

Phil: This is the thing.

Phil: This game came out for the and as I said, the Directors Cut is now available for the PlayStation

Phil: And people are like, okay, Directors Cut, you know.

Phil: And a lot of the sales are going to be driven by people who are like, people who don't own a but have heard all the hype.

Phil: But still, if you're going to put Directors Cut on it, I want stuff.

Phil: I want interviews with the voice actor who played York.

Phil: I want interviews with Swery.

Phil: I want the best audio and visual fidelity.

Tom: Do you know what is in the special thing down the bottom?

Tom: That is blackout for me.

Phil: Not yet, and not until I, you know, Velvet Beats the Game.

Tom: So maybe that will contain what you're after.

Phil: I'll let you know next week.

Tom: And how shit is that, though, that you can't access that?

Tom: Because so many people, because this is such a cult game and everyone loves it, so many people are going to be re-buying this.

Phil: Yeah, I did.

Tom: Fucking play through the game again, which they're probably going to do anyway, but wouldn't the first thing you want to do see what the special features are?

Phil: That is the first thing I wanted to do.

Phil: Now, the reason why I bought this game is because fucking imported it, as we all know from previous episodes, is because I want an excuse to play it again, because I find it to be such a brilliant out of game, right?

Phil: So the first thing I do is I say, oh, special, okay, because you're buying the Directors Cut.

Phil: Let's see what's in here.

Phil: You know, blooper reel, whatever.

Phil: No, grayed out, sorry.

Phil: Gonna have to beat the game.

Phil: And you're like, well, yeah, I was gonna beat the game anyway.

Phil: But you know, what if you just replayed the game like three quarters of the way through and you're like, yeah, I got to a hard boss.

Phil: You know, I've already beaten this game.

Phil: I don't really need the trophies or whatever.

Phil: It's a crime.

Phil: If you're gonna have a HD remix or a Directors Cut, you need to have all of those options, unlockable upfront, including cheats.

Phil: You know, like in REyou should be able to play this with the best weapons from the start and all the rest of it.

Tom: Absolutely.

Phil: I would just say please, please stick with it.

Phil: And I think after a certain point, this game is gonna, you know, hook you in the mouth and you're not gonna be able to stop playing it.

Tom: Yeah, well, as I said, the only reason that I am, do not want to play it is because of the buzzing noise.

Tom: Otherwise, I would be even at this stage all over it.

Tom: Now, I've actually got a question for you about the future of the game.

Tom: Please tell me, for the love of God, the driving is less in the future.

Phil: Well, you know, you can move from first person to third person.

Phil: And you know, if you run out of gas, you can put up a flare.

Tom: Yeah.

Tom: So what you're saying is there's just as much driving.

Tom: So I'm gonna be spending hours driving along.

Phil: There is less driving.

Phil: There is less driving, but I think they front load it in the first part of the game, because they want you to do the side missions, like collecting flowers, fishing, perving on people through their windows, buying different kinds of pie and all sorts of things like that.

Tom: I don't know.

Tom: I think that is just so stupid, because this is the sort of thing where you wanna hook someone immediately because of how bad everything is on the surface, right?

Phil: The driving is horrible.

Tom: So the driving is horrible.

Tom: It's not fun navigating the world.

Tom: Why would you then want to front load all this bullshit?

Tom: If the story, if the cycle is interesting, there's gotta be a better time to stick them in the story.

Tom: Right?

Tom: Later on.

Tom: Once you're engaged in the gay world so you can forgive the stuff.

Phil: I've got a question for you.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: You know I'm a wham bam type gamer.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: I have no patience.

Phil: I just wanna bam through these games, finish them, analyze them, file them away.

Phil: Right?

Phil: Yeah.

Phil: You know I have no tolerance for bad mechanics.

Tom: Yeah.

Phil: No tolerance.

Phil: None at all.

Phil: Zero.

Phil: How do you reconcile that I gave this game a out of ?

Tom: Well, as I said, if it was not for the buzzing, I would wanna continue playing a lot, because as bad as the beginning is, once again, as soon as the opening cut scene begins and he's talking about Tom and Jerry, you know you're in for something original and made with love, you know?

Tom: So why would you wanna stop?

Tom: Because there's enough there to make you put up with the bullshit, even then.

Tom: Even when you're not completely hooked with the story, there's enough to make you wanna play.

Tom: And there's a great sense at that stage that this is going somewhere very special.

Phil: Yeah, I think it's York.

Phil: When he starts talking about the Superman movies and who directed them and all this other sort of thing, I think it does come down to the strength of the character, York, where you're just like, what is going on here?

Phil: If you think there are things that are disturbing in this game, and you said that earlier, right?

Tom: Yeah, not disturbing.

Tom: I say they managed to actually make the atmosphere somewhat creepy, which so many modern horror games completely failed to do.

Phil: You are...

Phil: This is the most disturbing game I've ever played.

Tom: One thing, once again, this is possibly the greatest feature I've come across in a game with side quests that have a time limit on them.

Tom: And this is a pet peeve of mine, because I love going and doing all side quests.

Tom: But if you make them limited, then you've got to go and do them at annoying times in the story.

Tom: So what is possibly Deadly Premonition is, you can at any stage reload any chapter in the game.

Tom: Go and do these side quests, then reload to where you're up to and continue on.

Tom: That is an amazing feature.

Tom: That deserves so much more credit.

Tom: That is genuinely great.

Phil: It's a stupid game.

Tom: That's just amazing though.

Tom: Just cannot comprehend why more guys don't do that.

Tom: That is just so brilliant.

Tom: But at the same time, it only lets you have one save.

Tom: Because the game is so low budget, every time I load it, I'm thinking something is fucked up and my save is going to be ruined.

Tom: So, as awesome as this feature is, I'm afraid to reload a previous section and go back and do something.

Tom: And apparently, there are issues with this that can result in your game being broken.

Tom: You have to start again.

Phil: With your PlayStation, I know you can shove a USB stick in there and back up your saves.

Phil: That's good.

Phil: Yeah, I was doing this for Skyrim, just to be on the save side, because the last thing you want to do is lose the save like that.

Phil: You can't throw in a USB stick and back them up that way.

Tom: So let's go with the earnest angle, just one more time, just quickly.

Tom: Now, this so far comes across to me as, after playing Drive Up, the original Drive Up.

Phil: Yes, which I have also played recently.

Tom: Now, when did that come out?

Phil: I'm gonna guess

Tom: Okay.

Tom: When I was around shall we say, around after playing that, I was inspired.

Tom: And basically, I had an idea for a game somewhat similar to Grand Theft Auto, but the main thing was, you could just drive around doing whatever you wanted, going to any building you pleased.

Tom: The world would function as a normal world would.

Tom: So shops would open and close, people would come and go from work and the whatnot.

Tom: This is literally the game that I would have made at years of age, in full earnest, except, oh, there's also the story.

Tom: But apart from that, this is my dream game from when I was that I would have been capable of making.

Phil: And isn't that worthy enough?

Tom: Exactly, that's by no means criticism.

Phil: Yeah, and I think, and that's the way I see Swery, is that he's so earnest about it, he's just like, yeah, this is great, you can go anywhere, you can do anything, you can go fishing if you want.

Phil: It doesn't matter that the fishing minigame is shit, you know, it doesn't matter that the mechanics of the driving is shit, you can do it.

Tom: Yeah, and one last thing on the earnestness.

Tom: Here's the thing, if it is a satire, I don't think that takes away from the earnestness whatsoever because parody and satire...

Phil: Satire is knowing, you can't have earnest and knowing.

Tom: No, you can, because let me finish here.

Tom: Because his earnestness is in his love for the thing he's created, right?

Tom: That is a big part of the earnestness.

Tom: And it is just as much a barrier to make something shit, right, that you put all your heart and soul into, and be earnest in championing this thing, as if you make a parody or a satire, because everyone's initial reaction to that is, well, okay, it's cool you did a parody or a satire, but that's all it is.

Tom: So if it is a satire and he's so earnest about it, that deserves just as much props from me.

Phil: Okay, so are we gonna stop the show here?

Tom: Yeah, are we just gonna end like that?

Tom: I think that's perfect.

Tom: Just then bring on the music.

Phil: Yeah, why not?