The Giant Beastcast: Episode 226

Awesome.

Mike and Jeff B

finally part of GB tags

Disclaimer: I didn't play the game yet and I was one of the people that thought Borderlands 2 was mostly funny.

All the coverage of GB on Borderlands 3 feels like people that actually enjoy playing the game but are scared of really admitting that they do. There is always some sort of "but" when they talk about the game.

Kinda disappointed that Athena, Gaige, Springs, Fiona, Loader Bot and Gortys are not in Borderlands 3

Mike's Lovitz made me laugh.

It's like John Mulaney doing Jon Lovitz.

@2headedninja: the humour isn't great but I'd say it lands more for me in this then BL2. I personally hated Handsome Jack and prefer the twins by a large mile. The humour is safe it's juvenile but it's not offensive and actually pretty inclusive which is probably a hard line to walk considering how childish it can be at times.

I agree that it feels like a lot of reviewers are saying they are having fun and enjoying their time with the game, then caveating that with things. It's a bit odd. All that said the game does need an optimization patch pretty bad.

Jesus Christ, you guys seriously still haven't figured out how the Nintendo Switch accounts work? Dan, you can change the primary Switch status by disabling it on one system and then enabling on another system at any point. The once-every-12-months rule only applies if you disable it remotely via Nintendo's site. Other than that, it works like the primary system stuff works with the PS4, which I assume you guys are familiar with.

You guys work in this industry, honestly, figure your shit out before you open your mouths, this is no longer entertaining or useful.

I think I've heard Dan say "more like Cel-da" more times than I've heard my own name.

OMG @ybbaaabby's Gohan hahahahaha

Weird that Abby has a problem with how Control's movement works, but is fine with RDR 2.
Why is Dan still confused about Switch accounts? Do we need the same rambling nonsense every other episode?

Funny that "Borderlands is bad for not trying something new" when COD is just the same every year with minor changes.

Huh. I don’t think I’ve ever disagreed with so many criticisms of a game by the GB crew. I think Control is awesome and haven’t had any of the issues with those boss fights, I loved the gameplay found it super snappy and fun. The only boss fight I thought sucked was the second Tommasi fight. Had to cheese that one a bit, but I found that Anchor fight weirdly easy, the only deaths I had were my own fault doing the slow descent into a pit.

Seriously Abby does not know Jon Lovitz? Seriously? What do they teach in film schools in the US?

Tales from The Borderlands is funny where mainline Borderlands isn't not because the writing is all that different, but because of the change in genres. Borderlands can't really do that much besides an occasional cutscene, a buncha voiceovers and some gag names and item descriptions. Tales is like 5 two-hour, QTE-laden movies with minor explorative adventure game segments in them. It's a lot easier to be comedic when you've got all the tricks of a movie to work with instead of trying to add comedy on top of an FPS with loot. I always hated Borderlands writing, but because of that change in format I really dig tales.

I think you should totally try it out if the Borderlands 3 comedy isn't doing it for you, Mike. If you can get it, anyway, I feel like there was a news story about every Telltale game getting pulled from the online services a while back.

I think Control gets more enjoyable after you get the dash.

But, also, I mainly playing Control because of the aesthetic and the cool weirdness it's going for. That's will get me going.

Also, to the whole Koijma point: The parts I like about his games are the stupid and dumb parts. When he gets overly serious, that's when he loses me.

I'm 30 hours into borderlands 3 (split with two characters, one solo one co-op) and it's freaking fantastic. The QoL changes and vastly improved gameplay are so damned good.

I hit the 1:42:00 in the podcast and the volume just dropped to almost nothing for me. Anyone else run into this?

@doncabesa said:

100% Agree!

@mehrdadkazem87: She knew who he was after looking him up. Easy now!

Abby up your look sensitivity in control and aim down sights a little less maybe. You can totally beef your health if you want.

Still really enjoying exploring this world and side stuff of Control, glad to hear the crew dug into it a little more.

Also totally called the Annihilation influences on Control in last weeks comments booya, yes, play this game its rad.

No.... Jeff n- DAMN YOU JEFF!

@2headedninja: Completed the game, and can tell you that it was pretty pretty dull

I will miss you Jeff. Have a great life!

@bigevil1987:

Multiple times they have complained that it's hard to get behind cover. It sounds like they are trying to play it like a gears of war or one of those kinds of games the way they are describing it and it just was not built to be played that way.

As long as you are running at full speed in any direction other than directly at the enemy, their bullets will miss you. You need to be constantly running all over the room you are fighting in, but it sounds like they are trying to duck behind cover and pop in and out to shoot.

Holy shit, i got so worried when that 'pre-news' bit was happening. glad it just a bit! lol

Of COURSE Kojima made a game where a dude punches the camera/player for constantly looking at his crotch.

I hate the map in Borderlands 3, hate it, my least favorite part of the game. However they have made a lot of quality of life improvements throughout. The skill trees being more flushed out and having more options is nice. The movement doesn't feel so Frankenstein, and the gunplay is still fun and a bit faster, The humor is loud and boring but easy to ignore.

I think a lot of fans are defensive because a lot of the criticism is inconsistent with other series. For instance, comparing it to series that has 6 plus biyearly entries for 13 years seems a little unfair, but at the end of the day, too each their own.

Just wanted to chime in about some of the crew dismissing Quantum Break that fast. I finished Control a few weeks ago now, and it left me wanting more of Remedy's style. So instead of going back and replaying Alan Wake, i bought Quantum Break and i honestly have to admit that i enjoyed it quite a bit.

When it launched i was put off by what people in the review industry had to say about it, so i simply just put it out of my mind, but I'm very happy i ended up giving it a chance.

To Vinny's cheesing point, the exact same thing happened to me on that boss, The fight started, it pounded me against a wall almost right away and nearly killed me, so I spammed dash to get behind something to get my bearings, which is what broke the boss. I then just chucked stuff at it until it died.

I guess I didn't necessarily consider it cheesing since I stumbled into the strategy. To me, cheesing requires some level of intent. You are usually deliberately looking for an easy way to beat a boss, rather than just kind of wandering into it.

Until Jeff mentioned Austin's name I hadn't even thought that Mike's voice also sounds similar to Austin and Jeff's voices, but now I think if all three were together it would be really hard for me to tell who's speaking. I don't think Mike and Jeff sound that similar, but throwing Austin in seems to connect it all.

The $40 Link's Awakening Remaster argument comes from both Spyro and Crash remasters being $40 at release. That's 3 games each for $40. Having a single remaster for $60 is a lot to swallow when there have been other remasters giving you way more for much less.

A lot of the "trial and error" in Link's Awakening can be skipped by; and hear me out because this is gonna sound crazy; reading!

For example: The raccoon/tanuki in the forest literally tells you that he's weak to powders and such.

Can Dan's wife not just also have her account on both Switches? Seems like that would be too easy I guess?

@tevor_the_third: I’m pretty sure he’s trying to just buy all the games once under a “Dan” profile, but since a lot of games tie the saves to your profile or whatever, he’s trying to find some way to have his wife’s “Bianca” profile have access to all those Dan-owned games by doing the right weird combination of primary/secondary, parent/child, internet/no-internet on each Switch. That way Bianca will always be playing on her dedicated Switch on her profile with her own saves, but piggybacking off of Dan’s game ownership.

Dan about to "Cancel" Kojima lmfao

"You like beer- I like getting drunk." DAN IS IN MY HEAD

Jeff, don't you dare do that again. You're much too beloved to be pulling that shit you sick, sick bastard

Abby is so the Ross of the beastcast lmfao

@adamalc: Counterpoint, I just think a lot of fans are mad because people they like or look up to or whatever don't validate the things that they like.

Nothing has been all that inconsistent In the BL3 coverage, especially on this site.

@bladeofcreation: meanwhile...Quiet is doing a striptease for me...also very on brand.

The relics for Dan Prime are kind of hard to farm but the increased shields, energy, and armor are worth it.

@sethmode said:

I don't think that it's inconsistent, it's that they seem to constantly feel the need to somehow apologize for having fun with the game. I might be off here, thats just the vibe I get from all the discussion about the game.

How strange for Abby to sincerely ask “why do people like Kojima” it’s probably the same reason people like anything. The guy makes interesting games, I don’t think it’s that far fetched and weird that in an age of sequels and retread ideas some people are excited to see something completely new and off the wall.

God I love control so much. I'll be so irrationally happy if it's GB GOTY this year, I haven't backed the right horse since Hitman in 2016. Breath of the Wild and Red Dead 2 were my picks the last two years.

Finished Control a couple of days ago and seriously considered replaying it straight away, haven't done that in so long.

@humanity: you make a good point but I think maybe the more accurate question is why people like Kojima SO MUCH?

The guy's got such a fanboyish following that I for one just find completely at odds with the high school philosophy that Kojima writes. I actually think the undue praise that he gets is a sign of the games industry's lack of competent story telling as a whole. The story of Metal Gear is just objectively awful. Like, remarkably bad. Don't get me wrong, there are some incredible moments in there. MGSV is an incredible stealth game, one of the very best, if you ignore the Metal Gear stuff, the weight of this huge retconned maze of nonsense.

Kojima for me is what would happen if there was a social experiment in which the whole world agreed to convince Michael Bay that he was a genius.

"No really, Michael, that is so deep. Why don't you make a ten hour movie describing your insight into love, war, and nanomachines? Those who have an issue with your obvious sexism will be ashamed of their words and deeds".

@vinnyYou gain an untapped potential from that anchor fight, which is very rare and allows you to upgrade your weapons. I used it to max out my Grip. Also, as was mentioned, you get three ability points, which are always awesome. It got me the levitate slam. Apart from a power, it doesn't get better than that in terms of rewards. And honestly, you could have known you were never going to get a power, because the anchor is an Altered Item, not an Object of Power. Come oooooon, invest in the lore. ;-P As for the walk to the boss, it really isn't that far starting from the Sealed Threshold Entrance and you can easily avoid the spawns before you enter the shelter. It wasn't more annoying than some runs to a Dark Souls boss, in my opinion. That said, it certainly stands out if the boss takes several tries.

Also, when the anchor attacks start becoming more erratic and you also have the hiss charged coming at you, you can certainly die in some stupid ways. The radius of that anchor blast was also tough to gauge. So I can certainly understand how that fight can be a bummer.

Still, Control is so cool. It makes me happy. And my comment now looks like one of the files in the game! :-D

I will say that the anchor is definitely not invincible during that first attack, its just that the for some odd reason you have to be at an absolute perfect angle to get an attack in. I was able to get the first hit in multiple times.

@adamkerr: I think people seriously over analyze the entire issue. There is an entire contingent of fans out there that get Gears of War tattoos - would you say that is an even bigger level of fandom? Especially for the quality of writing and characters that Gears of War represents. The way I've seen Kojima described recently by those who need to explain exactly why they don't like him is bizarre. IS MGS "objectively" bad? About as objectively bad as most game stories are I suppose. Do a whole lot of people enjoy it? Yah definitely. There are fandoms everywhere for everything, he's just having another moment in the spotlight right not for understandable reasons. And you know after the way he exited Konami, after all the hard work his team and he put into the MGS series and they just cut him lose, I think he kind of deserves it.

@humanity: Aye, you make fair points. I think the main difference is that Gears of War has never tried to portray itself as anything other than a schlocky sci-fi popcorn blockbuster. Kojima wants me to think he's got something profound to say, when in actual fact he's making a schlocky sci-fi popcorn blockbuster.

Also, I should make clear that I don't think the Metal Gears are bad games: they're sometimes excellent. This isn't about me disliking them, or him. It's the hero worship around him, which I think he encourages, that I find so weird.