I thought the discussions were pretty good this year with the exception of the moments where people just keep repeating the same points multiple times in a row or mischaracterise another person's position. Understandable especially when one is doing marathon podcasting but those are always the moments when my wife turns to me and goes "What in the world?" and I just got nothing lol.
RDR2 is the cilantro of video games. I'm amazed at how polarizing it is and I really just can't say why it hits with some people and not others. For me it was the video game equivalent of Seven Samurai in that tt has a very intentional pace and atmosphere that it's going for and for the most part it succeeds on its own terms IMO (with the notable exception of moments where the immersion gets horribly broken by something stupid like your horse tripping over a rock). That's a measured praise because chances are if you show Seven Samurai to your average contemporary moviegoer they're going to find it ponderous and clunky. That's okay as tastes and conventions change over time but there's still something to resonate with a certain audience.
I think the most disappointing vote was fair given that I think the category suffers from having pretty open terms and rules (but that's true across a lot categories). Personally I think they should considering dropping the category because I feel it's inherently prone to devolving into a case of "yucking someone else's yum" and quite frankly I feel like the rancor and feelings it evoked spilled into the best game category in a way that wasn't useful. You can say insightful criticism in celebratory categories already so I just don't think it's worth the negatives to give it a whole separate category.
In regards to the new format...I'm pretty ambivalent to it. I can see how it serves certain functions better like highlighting more games (which is great) but I feel like the limited categories might end up driving conflict.
Special shoutouts to Abby. Real star this year for me. Thought she had a lot of interesting things to say and stuck to her guns when it was sorely needed.
I remember killing the lizards when I'd randomly come across them without really knowing why until my 2nd playthrough. Would never chase them down. Not sure how much of a difference it ended up making for me.
I'm really looking forward to playing through this again. Everything I've seen just looks gorgeous and I'm so happy more people will get to play through this game who may not have seen it back on PS2 or who were turned off by the graphics qualities of the time.
I love this podcast every year. I'm glad Dan and Paul get to hang out and share something.
With that said, we live in an age of wonders where you can look up information on just about everything so why not do so? It doesn't stop you from having great conversations with people. Heck you
Then again, like others have said, maybe it was just the late night and the booze. ;)
Felt really bad for Jeff on this one. Total mess of a category. He's asking for clarity and he gets multiple lines of argument that don't really jive with each other. Any one of those offered definitions are legitimate but they need to collectively settle on one and then live with it.
The loot treadmill in this game kinda sucks. There are so few differences between guns that it barely feels like you are getting anything new. Especially when I hate hands cannons, sidearms, and fusion rifles. That really narrows down the guns I like using too scouts, autos, and SMGs.
Also, shotguns being a power weapon really sucks. They aren't powerful enough to justify the ammo rarity, so you're always better off taking something else. As a dude that constantly rocked a shotty in D1, that change sucks.
Overall I like be D2 a lot more, but this isn't an MMO, and it is a poor loot game. They are still struggling to find what this game is supposed to be, and it really shows.
I'm wondering if the move of shotguns to power weapon slot is crucible related. While I personally learned how to deal with them there was a certain lethality to them in PvP that was disproportionate to the skill necessary to wield them in Destiny 1 IMO (but, yes, they were fun as hell to use). By moving them to the power slot they're not as much of a factor until the purple ammo stash counter ticks down.
They probably need to balance them more. Wonder if they'll wait to see how things look in PC PVP before doing so.
No Abby, don't feel bad about selling back games. If anyone is at fault in these transactions, it's Gamestop for not sharing a piece of their profits with publisher/developers.
Yeah I can agree with that. I will say that personally I'd feel weird meeting a developer in person and thinking in my head, "Hey it's awesome to meet this person whose game I really enjoyed playing but, yeah, I also know they didn't directly receive money from me in the process."
At the end of the day you gotta work with the personal budget you have and there have to be at least some original sales that wouldn't otherwise happen without the first purchaser knowing they could get part of their money back once they were done with a game. Has to be better than outright piracy.
At the end of it Dan sounded like he knew he took the joke too far but didn't really want to admit it so I'm hoping he got it out of his system. I think the fear from a lot of people is that this series is fun and having it ended prematurely because of a gimmick is lame. It reminds me of the D&D adventure (that was probably going to end regardless) but got derailed by Dan playing a wrestler and trolling Brad which everyone one else was clearly not enjoying. Playing the intra-party heel in cooperative stuff is typically only fun for that person and I've seen it ruin games every time it happens as everyone else loses interest.
Yep, I had the exact same thought down to remembering the D&D episode.
It also reminded me of certain parts of Metal Gear Scanlon 5 where Dan was more interested in his own conversational tangents than what was actually going on in the game to the point that I think it was a distraction to the game. Think some of it stems from Dan trying to find something interesting and fun (for him) to do in games that he's already beaten and that he otherwise doesn't have an interest in currently. I like a good Heel Dan now and then especially in competitive situations but in a situation like this this it comes across that "Heel Dan" is perhaps "Bored Dan"?
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