Unprofessional Fridays: 02/01/2019

Jeff really hates Anthem so far, complete opposite for me. The gameplay was fantastic and I'm intrigued by the story snippets I've seen. Barely shoot my guns, end up mainly using abilities and flying around like a madman.

@doncabesa: Anthem is what happens when someone takes the division, diablo, and destiny thinking they're incredible games and mashes them together to try and make something fun without realizing what makes each of those games magic.


Save for the division, that certainly helps to bring down the average a bit

Brad be free baggin' it.

AWWWW YEA

The Division is incredible, Diablo 3 is incredible, and Destiny 1 and 2 became incredible. Anthem has its own vibe, a different playstyle, and I like the world quite a bit so far. So you and I have a fundamental agreement. Anthem's gameplay has been absolutely phenomenal for me so far.

@doncabesa: I play on PC and flying feels just beyond words bad and I'm hoping they get to work on that because as it stands now it reminds me of fighting with the controls in Lair.

I will agree the abilities are fun but I don't know for how long I'll enjoy them. In these games the gunplay is king and that's by far the weakest element of the game. I know you'll get new abilities to swap in and out from time to time but I'd imagine the bulk of the progression you'll be making is with guns are so far they all feel really loose in a budget-game kind of way.

I'll still give it a shot when it's out (with the Access demo) but I can absolutely see why people would play this for a few hours and just walk away from the concept of playing the final game at all.

First impressions for me is that the combat is fun, but without very impactful ability upgrades and weapons, it will get repetitive pretty quickly. If it's just ability combo, fire a few bullets, ability, fly, ability, super, fly, etc, I don't see it being long-term fun (for me).

I know it had it's share of criticisms, but I really miss the tank/heal/dps trinity of MMOs. It gave each person a role, and each role had a purpose. Healing seems to have been discarded from co-op gaming, generally. I miss it.

Anthem definitely is hoping you bring your friends (RL or online) to really have fun, ala Destiny.

I really don't get why they play games they're obviously going to hate like Leisure Suit Larry... It's never funny when they're just sighing and rolling their eyes at something.

10,000% agree. Fuck Gotenks.

Gonna have to disagree hard with Ben at the beginning. Infinity War Groot almost legitimately ruined Infinity War for me he's so fucking bad. Guardians 1 Groot is the only good Groot. It's all been down hill from there.

That genesis game was pretty disappointing

Brad is significantly more handsome than Ted Bundy so there shouldn't be any debate when his movie comes out

Have to fill out that 2 hours somehow

Uhh... I must be old. I acutally was nodding my head and sympathizing with Leisure Suit Larry dialog... at least the parts about "Instacrap", "Farcebook". I feel like Ben was still trying to crack jokes and admonish this satire in a way that wasn't really fair(totally Unprofessional). How many games even come close to being critical of social media? Compared with the games that wholly embrace it and incorporate it into the game itself? How many games have a fake twitter or facebook? Yet, these same games never make any commentary about social media one way or another. I refuse to believe that this shit is just an accepted part of the human condition now, without any critical critique. Good on Larry for spoutin his old man bullshit, and for encouraging me to do the same!

The leisure segment was rough

Edit: The tank game was worse

Anyone else get a internal server error Every time you post, then get a 404 when you refresh, and then get an invalid token when you resubmit the comment (retyping it)?

I tried to get into leisure suit Larry but it is just a terrible tease where you never see the goods. Back in the 90s we would sneak into my friends dads computer to play it and LIE about our age in the age verification and we would be sitting there with lusty young eyes waiting for the boobs to pop and the booties to drop. They never did...they never did. The only good hentai games these days are done by illusion software in Japan because only western hentai getting made is visual novels or people who just steal daz assets to make choose your own adventure visual comics. It a sad state of affairs and the West needs more horny games.

aretheygonnashowit

jason rocking out to the anime tune

Leisure Suit Larry is pretty much Coach Steve from Big Mouth, huh?

@doncabesa said:

And not without reason. I think this game is going to have a much smaller audience than BioWare is hoping for. I think the term I would use for it is "aggressively mediocre."

As I mentioned in another thread, almost everything about it feels strangely dead. The Codex is just a mishmash of unintelligible proper nouns that apparently discuss Very Important Things, but it isn't interesting enough to make me care.

The best BioWare games, the Mass Effects and the Dragon Ages, pulled you into the world via interesting characters you care about. That's not the case here. Everyone in Fort Tarsis is a soulless automaton. The models themselves are strangely featureless, the voice acting is subpar, and the actual dialogue seems to be falling into the Andromeda trap of "quip-y but not actually funny."

As far as the actual gameplay goes, flying is fun but it's disappointing they apparently didn't do more with it than being a means of getting from point A to point B. The combat is just OK for me. The weapons feel very, very same-y and there is a severe lack of feedback - both when you are hitting enemies and getting hit. I just don't see enough variety here to keep me entertained long-term, especially if the rumors about how little content there's actually going to be at launch are true.

No part of it is especially badly made, but I also don't see a ton of skill or passion on display either.

I will never get tired of Brad freaking out thinking Elusive Targets are timed missions.

They are, but not in the way he's thinking

I always thought the best joke in leisure sut larry was that the whole game is basically a trap for horny morons like larry :D

Hitman is such a fun freaking game to watch people play. I kinda wanted Brad to login to his own account to retry the elusive target.

I was hoping Brad would play some more RE2!

Yo, that Metal Max Xeno game looks ALRIGHT. Shame it's not on PC at all.

@craftxiii: It's one thing to not want to engage with social media, but "Instacrap" and "Farcebook" aren't exactly cutting edge satire. Especially when the dev making this game has a Facebook account they use to advertise the game.

Leisure Suit Larry seems like it was written by a bitter boomer who hates social media and blames all society's ills on hipster millenials

Aw, sad to hear he hates Gotenks; wonder how Dan feels, they don't really share their notes much any more.

RE: Hitman; progression or challenges from 1 does not carry over to 2, you can spend as much time as you want with Elusive Targets as long as you activate it before it expires, and lethal shots will always show up with a red hitmarker.

Guh, I need to skip this Leisure Suit Larry shit...

The Division and Destiny are incredible? YIKES

Exactly, it feels like a game put together by commision.

Brad dont you want the unlocks from the Elusive Targets on your main account?

Playing Anthem on normal PS4, no issues, solid framerate, looks amazing, handles great. Too bad others are having such issues.

Love for Sail is the best Larry game

Sex Comedy is the hardest to 'nail'

nice one jeff

Damn those SoNs!

This tank game embodies everything wrong with Japanese games.

Brad has a history with Tea...

Brad doing the Elusive target was so brutal !

I'm drinking a Rockstar while watching the archived version of this at 7 in the morning, so I can't say anything about people that wanna enjoy a Coca-Cola in the am.

@bladeofcreation: My point wasn't that I thought it was cutting edge satire, or even that good. I just appreciated the "man out of his time" dialog. It seemed to fit with what the game was setting-up/going for pretty well. It's not something often expressed in this day in age when everyone is trying to appeal to what's "hot" or "trending". I imagine that marketing a game via social media at this point is probably a necessary evil regardless of the creators views of contemporary culture. I just felt the guys were maybe a little too eager to crack jokes about the game, rather than allow the game to fail and be unfunny(and in-turn entertaining to us) on it's own merits. It's Leisure Suit Larry, it's a point and click adventure game, so a good amount of cheese and ham-fisted humor should be expected. If it's balanced with a decent amount of cleverness and self-awareness then it could be interesting for "fans of the genre" aka old people like myself who grew up playing these types of games.

Has anyone else played Metal Max Xeno yet? I really liked a previous game in the series, Metal Saga, and the goofy monster designs got me to pick it up. So far I'm frustrated with it. The world is too barren, it feels very linear while the previous game felt pretty open, the graphics are awful, and the dungeon designs are terrible. It does deliver on the monsters, which is what mostly keeps us playing.

OHHYEEEH YOUCANDROPADUCK!

The jason segments are the same and miserable each week. He either plays a fighting game or anime game (or anime fighting game)... and these are always lowest denomination trash and he tries to seem excited for it. Upf sucks because of this. It's not so bad it's funny game (that was larry). This anime crap is just boring. You touch the controller and STOP - a drawing appears and a sentence... and it happens every 10 seconds

@synthesis_landale: this is what upf is about right? Sometimes a miserable gem happens which is funny

Completely agree with these two comments. It's not just a problem with Jason, it's with the show overall. UPF has become too formulaic, there's always either a fighting game or an anime game and the rest is something that came out recently on PS4/Steam or Jeff playing either an 8-bit or 16-bit retro game or pinball (not always, thankfully). I miss the days when there was more variety and they would play something from other consoles like PSX/PS2 or Xbox/360 and talk about those times kinda like Demo Derby or at least having some fun when it's newer stuff.

Remember when Vinny was calling Zobek while Jeff read the Space Jam novelization? Or even more recently when Dan played Dance Dance Revolution or when Jeff experimented with VR games? Those were segments that were fun to watch because the people on the stream were also having fun.

It seems that the only reason Leisure Suit Larry was brought up was to hate on it for no reason, they barely gave it a chance even though it pretty much plays like any other old point-and-click adventure game. Sure, the gameplay was average and the humor on it wasn't that great, but it also wasn't that terrible. Most of the jokes shown were pretty much on the same level of the jokes Ben usually makes but suddenly he was too highbrow for that type of humor, even though all of them were making penis and toilet jokes two days ago on the Dreams stream or are constantly shitting on the current state of social media and influencers.

I also think it would be nice if they could trade between Jason and Jan like they used to do with Jason and Drew. Jan, kinda like Drew, seems to have some different tastes and brings random games to the streams, I think that would help to break the monotony.

Anyway, because I don't want to seem like a downer who only rants and complains, I just want to add that watching Brad play Hitman and freaking out on Elusive Targets is still a lot of fun.

No Teabagging please

Looking at these comments I think I'm the only one who'd want a Metal Max Xeno endurance run

the reactions to the names are just golden, we gotta take down more Man Zappers.

@hiczok: totally agree. These sections Dragggggg so much.

BRING JAN ON UPF.

I agree, this is exactly what I was attempting to express in my earlier two comments. I wish sometimes they'd stop trying to be entertaining, so they can be entertaining. It seems to be mostly Ben and Abby(not to pick on the new recruits, I think they are fine additions to the team in most regards), they like to try and be funny/put on a show. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But it never ends up being as entertaining as when they aren't cracking wise, and are just being genuine. Jeff sometimes ends up feeding off of Ben, then it just cycles again and again. It's fine. This is not a critical issue, I will not be filing a formal complaint, I will not threaten to revoke my subscriber status, I will not loose sleep over this and neither should anyone else. It's just a very minor grievance from a single person.

Ted Bundy was handsome. He was charismatic. The whole point of that movie is to explore the horror of the idea that even someone who seems harmless and likeable can be a monster. I don't see why this has been an issue.