The Giant Beastcast: Episode 174

Nice!

Here we go

Can someone please tell me how much they talk about the upcoming Red Dead game? I am in full black-out mode on that one, I don't want to know anything about characters, gameplay or anything else, so I'd like to know if it's "safe" for me to listen to this episode. Thanks!

Head 'em up, move 'em out!

WOO!

pretty funny to see Sony release this PS classic after extensively saying people don't want to play old games and that's why BC is worthless. What hypocrites.

Also the red dead hyperbole is really reaching a breaking point with me. The game looks good (I'm not interested in it personally) but my god the puff pieces released by several sites yesterday are just ridiculous. They act like Red Dead 2 is the next coming of Jesus in videogame form meanwhile a lot of the stuff I've read about it just further turns me off. Who in the blue hell wants to clean guns constantly? Feels like you'll spend a significant portion of your time just maintaining things instead of actually having fun with the game. But hey they have moving horse testicles so "OMG GOAT GOTY"

Ahh yeah. :)

I'm tempted to just skip this week. I don't want to hear about Red Dead not because I don't want to get spoiled, but rather because I just don't care. It was bad enough in previous weeks.

Hook RDR2 to my veins!

Also Abby gets no intro....

"...we still talk about everyone's favorite web-shooting hero..."

Is Bakalar not on this episode, then?

same. it's just getting obnoxious

It sounds like they added a lot of unnecessary bullshit to Red Dead.

@bigwinnerx: No, she was introduced during the initial ass-talk.

Every Rockstar game is iterative and boring. Unless I have seen incorrect preview footage I’m not understanding the hype. I think, if they released this a few years ago, it would have been good. At this point I’m so done with clunky Rockstar games and I dislike the way all their character models look.

@loktarogar: it was bad enough in previous weeks? Have I missed them discuss red dead properly? I can't recall them mentioning the games recently other than in passing.

Hell, they talk about lots of games I don't care about and I still listen. High tolerance threshold I guess?

Oh, so more masturbatory talk about a Rockstar game? People in the games industry will always froth at the mouth for anything that company does even when the gameplay has always been piss poor with weak writing. I cannot wait to see what Jeff (G) has to say about the game on release.

I should note I don't hate RS or anything they've made, they're just not this god everyone makes them out to be.... but then again "gamers" take everything to the extreme.

oh boy, they're talking about RDR2 like it's not a video game.

It's me, I like Rockstar games and have loved everything I've heard about RDR2.

There are several who feel this way out there turns out.

I never want to hear Dan talk about Spider-man again after this. Does he not understand what canonical means?

Skip to 30 min to skip rdr2 talk and stop whinin'

@loktarogar said:

RDR2 Discussion starts in 1:40, then ends around 32:35 if you want to skip it. I think Abby and Vinny's closing comments are probably going to make you feel better about the way it might be getting overhyped.

@honkalot: yup! Had no idea there were so many anti-R* folk out there.

Not gonna lie when the crew were struggling to think of a sports game for the PS Classic I was saying "Everybody's Golf! Somebody has to remember that right?" Sounds like they didn't. Enjoyed the podcast as always though.

RDR talk ends after 33 minutes

The way Abby is fangirling all over it makes me hope she won't be too involved in GB's coverage of the game.

Edit: Great, now Dan spoils the twist in The Messenger... Skip to 55th minute if you don't wanna hear that.

Same. I'm really liking the direction they're taking; sounds like another open-world game changer.

@avioto: Thank you, much appreciated!

@bigwinnerx:

Yes she does!

Dan's bloodlust is so tired.

down with people liking things

Man, all the features about people in RDR2 being wary if you walk into town with your gun drawn, or how you aggro the barkeep guy if you go behind the counter, just reminded me that Westerado had most of those same features. That game deserved more credit than it got.

The Mafia 3 woodoo doll freaking out the italian mobsters remains realistic.

As much as Dan wants to bash the Vita, I feel it has MUCH more value than the PlayStation Classic he rushed out to pre-order.

Unlike Nintendo, Sony already offers all of the currently announced games (except Tekken 3), and more through the PSN, and Vita (or PlayStation TV) is already capable of playing all of them, with the added benefit of playing all of the available PSP and Vita games on the PSN. What's worse to me is that they're trying to capitalize on Nintendo's ideas instead of making all of these classics playable on the PS4 that millions of people already have. Unless you really want a mini PS1 for collector's purposes, or dying to play Tekken 3, I see it as a very dumb product to consider as a consumer. I'm sure it will make them a lot of money regardless.

While I'm happy to see such excitement for RDR2, I have to agree that people seem to lose their critical eye when looking at R* games. It feels like people have already decided it's fantastic well in advance of the game being released. Stuff like "It's R* so we know it's gonna be awesome" is kind of depressing to hear - while I find their games incredibly impressive, they're also really iterative and I personally would like to see something more innovative from a gameplay perspective, rather than Horse Testicle Physics (tm).

Putting it another way, I'm not a Nintendo or Zelda fan at all, but Breath of the Wild blew me away in it's approach to open world - to me, Rockstar games almost feel like the antithesis to that.

In saying that, I'm stoked for a potential new great game for people to enjoy!! Yee Haw!!!

@subcan said:

Mostly it's just confusing. Batman is like the biggest weiner in pop culture history when it comes to not killing people, but Dan sure loves him. Even though he's just a much-worse-at-his-job-and-not-nearly-as-cool Punisher.

Every Beastcast has this magical moment when you realize what the thumbnail is about. The one for this week was particularly great.

Well looks like we all know Abby's GOTY.

My TV had HDR added via patch/update back in 2017. Worked out perfect because I got the tv on the cheap $325 for 50 inch 4K in 2016 because it didn't have hdr. A few months later wa~la!

Very gratifying to hear Vinny inadvertently drop my favorite game-related spoonerism "Bando Namcai" around the 59 minute mark (I say this all the time).

Jesus, the comments here suck. Every freaking week it's too much of something.

"very frustrated by this week's podcast. im sick of who these people are and what they like. wish they would be different people. more like me. will keep angrily listening to the podcast anyway."

In just one casual sentence without a care for the listeners, Dan spoils the twist of The Messenger. Be warned, once you hear Vinny ask Dan about what else he is playing, skip about a few minutes if you want to remain unspoiled for The Messenger.

For the rest of the Beastcast, please remember that not all your listeners are playing the latest games in the same quick pace as you. In fact, I had purchased the game specifically for the hype shared on the last beastcast but am now deflated.

Tl;dr Dan spoils The Messenger when Vinny asks what else Dan has been playing after the Transferrence talk.

best day of the week, cause its beastcast time!

Did I miss something or did they not talk about the recent Nintendo Direct at all?

@quipido: Skip to 37 minutes in.

Hah pretty much, right? You go back to a point and they don't talk about games enough, or they talk about movies too much, or that's their favorite part why don't they do it more, or why are they talking about this game? Sprinkle in some excessive adjectives like "worst" or "obnoxious" and it's like every week with this stuff.

Wow, early comments in here are toxic, lots of hot takes.

@honkalot: I honestly felt like I was in a dream and now I have woken up in a world where Rockstar games are these horribly controlled, clunky pieces of excrement nobody wants to know about.

Is it getting so much hate because it's in the news and all the "cool" people want to show how cool they are by bashing it? I think that is the case.

@mehrdadkazem87: Who even knows anymore. I don't even particularly care for Rockstar games and even I think the weird push back about certain things like their controls feels...weird. I've always been kind of not wild about their stories, never their controls (at least, not within recent memory).

@sethmode: I just don't get how you can hate something of media so passionately. I get not liking a game or a movie or a tv show. But how can you hate something that is not part of your life and has no relation to you whatsoever? And also, the game is on the news for one day. It's not like it was on everything for years. It was just one day.

I don't know. We live in strange times.

I don’t really get what everyone is complaining about. They’re clearly excited for Red Dead but none of it felt that over the top. I get that games media praise of every little thing Rockstar does gets a little ridiculous but this doesn’t seem like a case where anyone was saying anything too crazy.