The HotSpot - Episode 390

I could get into calling a sudden urge to be at a diner "the Alex problem".

I love French tots

Good Mass Effect discussion in here.

Vinny and Alex should play KOTOR 1 & 2, I think it'd be a good sequel to Mass Alex. Much better than Andromeda anyway.

holy crap am I enjoying this breakdown of the super confusing and imo overly complicated Destiny lore in this slapdash cliffnotes version tailored for vinny. I don't understand ANYTHING after the D2 campaign, and it's all really funny, especially when I hear Vinny's comprehension mirrors mine haha.. I love this website thank you all, Back To Cyberpunk, I needed my spot-fix, GB always delivers the goods!

Waffle House is definitely a diner. In the same way that Domino's or Papa John's is still pizza - yes, it's pizza, but it's not going to be better than a local pizzeria. Waffle House is a diner, but it's not going to be better than a local diner. (Although, I do love Waffle House.)

I mostly disagree with Jeff - I thought Mass Effect 3 was more or less perfectly fine, up until the final act. That whole London section is a drab drag, and then the ending is, of course, the ending, and all that entails. But up until that point, it's a fairly good game, I think. The DLC situation is indeed a huge bummer. I still have never played any of the ME2 or 3 content DLCs - only ever had the extra companions.

I had a sort of revelation hot take during the discussion: ME2 shouldn't exist as it does. Yes, ME2 is a great game - but in retrospect, that story does not belong in the middle of a trilogy about the Reapers. Just think about it: ME2 would be perfect as this fourth game. Shepard dies, is resurrected, and then goes on a wild journey on the fringes of space against this strange enemy that has nothing to do with the Reapers. But they've already shot that load.

The idea of literally any named characters from the original Mass Effect trilogy, let alone making Mass Effect Tentatively Calling It 4 tie back to the Mass Effect 3 story, makes a sort of bile well up from my stomach into my throat. I want abso-goddamn-lutely nothing from the plot, cast, or conflict of that trilogy to carry forward.

I think they were conceptually right with Andromeda, despite garbage execution: throw the entire Mass Effect trilogy into a box, put a big-ass lock on that box, and create a completely separate game based on the setting and themes of Mass Effect that only relates to the original games by way of the faint ripples emanating from the events of those games.

The idea that the game hypothetically follows both 3 and Andromeda gives me a bit of hope for that, as the only way that could be true is if that game took place hundreds of years in the future, which is enough time for almost every character to be in the ground and for the events of 3 to be history, not central plot elements. Start from scratch, while I want a game that comes after Mass Effect 3, absolutely 0% of me wants a sequel to Mass Effect 3.

I'm with Vinny on diners!

Literally the worst part of the west coast is the lack of diners.

Hey vinny; If you get real good with those compressors you don't necessarily need a limiter, but a brickwall limiter either on the main mix or on the louder folks is a good idea regardless.

Also, some compressors are hella hard to use cause they don't have any visual representation of the compression, you just have to guess your way to the threshold and stuff, nightmare. Compressors are the effect plugins that have the worst UI of all audio apps. Seems like they were all made for audio engineers who already know exactly how to use them and say stuff like "the TRC204 is superior to the xm 545XR7S because it has active spatial equalization on the pre compressor..." leaving people going "I don't know if these are even things....." They are not..

Also, show sounds really good today :)

Sweet Potato fries anyone?

I hope it's not Liara because man what a huge bummer to have this incredible universe and then go back to that same well. I liked those characters a lot and Liara probably more than most (never liked Tali) but they aren't some iconic characters that the entire Mass Effect series hinges upon. It would be cool to have a game with a group from outside of N7, outside of the entire government structure. Some rogue outfit that, inexplicably, gets caught up in a fighter for the greater good but they are able to take care of things their way through backdoor deals so on and so forth. Or have it completely from the perspective of one of the other races. Just anything other than more of the same old story.

Ok, here we go. Mass Effect 4? All endings exist. That’s right, multiple universes baby! Jumping between all alternate endings, just throw everything into the game all at once. Leave nothing behind!

I am not a very technical person but I have cracked open and replaced components in my 60 gig PS3 THREE TIMES.

I have good emulation solutions for ps1 and ps2 now and you can literally just put ps2 games into your pc's disc drive and play them. So I'm really just keeping that thing alive cause it's the only thing I own that can play demon's souls.

Destiny 2 Hot tip for everyone - if you run the New Light questline from the Tower quest terminal, you'll get a current level version of Riskrunner, in my opinion the best SMG in the game.

I'm completely on board with a direct sequel to Mass Effect 3 for the same reasons Vinny noted, assuming they continue with the story as it was laid out. Putting that system/galaxy in a completely different place and telling a focused story around the characters and factions trapped in the Sol system would be Mass Effect storytelling at its best - ignore ancient aliens and space macguffins and tell political stories about alien races colliding in interesting ways.

I even think there are smart ways to work the rest of the galaxy into the game. My fantasy script for the game has been 100-200 years on from ME:3 and starting to re-build the mass relays, resulting in a your team being a discovery squad that jumps into systems that have been isolated for centuries. What happened to the Geth/Quarian situation after you left? How did the Krogan get on after ending the genophage? Did the Asari or Turians stop being giant assholes once cut off?

The larger problem is that they would have to pick canon endings to a lot of storylines that could have ended very differently once you invoke the larger galaxy. There are entire races that could be effectively dead depending on the choices you made in the first trilogy.

Alex reppin the White Pony anniversary. Awesome.

If you want to see how deep the rabbit hole goes @brad@vinny: THIS is the definitive 'wtf is going on in destiny' guide.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9mbDXvDNqTU

And it starts 800 billion years ago or something with a planet where sentient worms learned 'the sword logic' and became the hive. Thats a bad pharaphrase, but you should give this behemoth of a vid a watch. Destiny lore is NUTS and im here for it.

Andromeda was a fun game and this site was super hyperbolic calling it the worst game of the year. Brad's continued insistence that there's literally nothing of value within it is pretty irritating.

They should finally tell the story line where Liara is smuggling filter less cigarettes in her gastank.

"The Traveler is just a tool that ZOG uses to control you!"

I randomly wanted another early backwards compatible PS3 and was amazing how much more they were doing with hardware mods. I sold my old one cause the fan ran so loud. Would still love a decked out one someday for a nice convenient way to play PS1-PS3 games. I think I read to remove old thermal paste they use blow dryers, definitely some work I'd want paid for rather than a DIY thing.

@hannibal127 said:

I second this

@brad The Exo Stranger is certainly a sort of running joke for a lot of the Destiny stalwarts. If you want a little more insight into the Traveler and the Darkness, you should check out the Unveiling lore book that came with Shadowkeep: https://www.ishtar-collective.net/categories/book-unveiling

Having beaten Trails of Cold Steel 4, this Mass Effect talk is hitting a little too close to home now...

Mass Effect 3's multiplayer tho

I've never understood the appeal of diners. I've never eaten a single thing at a diner that I couldn't make better myself. I realize that not everyone can cook, but the food is objectively bad. Like unless you live in the middle of nowhere or it's after 3 am, you can find better takeout.

Here's how I record and share my game video and audio with my friends:

Consoles go out into a 4k60 HDMI switcher->4k60 HDMI Splitter (One to my monitor, capture card, NDI encoder and HDMI audio extractor)->22 IN/12 OUT digital mixer

Hooters curly fries are not seasoned. You instead get cheese to dip them in.

Destiny 2 has such a bad intro to the game's setting that if you're playing on PC and thus are unlikely to have played the previous game you end up just not caring about the story at all.

Also in this episode it sounds like Vinny is much louder than everyone else.

Who the fuck called it optical audio. Do they have Audible Definition too?

I wouldn't mind if they brought Shepard back for the new game. They always felt like an anchor to the universe and I just liked the character in general.

I'm only now watching this and I don't understand why Brad is so obtuse about that being Liara or not. There is no other Asari in any mass effect game that looks like her. Either it's Liara or it's Liara's daughter and Bioware is just very bad at showing familial connections so they just cloned Liara's look and called it a day.