The Besties - The Besties Podcast 57 - The talking helicopter

Episode Date: May 17, 2013

The gang is back in action. On this week's episode of The Besties, there's some derisive Snoopy talk, as well as an anthropomorphic helicopter. Griffin has his doubts and Justin changes his pick at the last minute, much to the chagrin of the other Besties. 03:50 - Best reason to hate Snoopy (Sid Meier's Ace Patrol) 10:25 - Best way to waste $20 (Injustice on iOS) 19:00 - Half time: Daft Punk and a new car 24:00 - Best gaming news story of the decade that is getting worse and worse with every passing day (Shadow of the Eternals) 38:40 - Best way to remake a retro franchise (Thunder Wolves) 41:00 - The winner is... Theme song by Ian Dorsch Get the show: Download MP3" Subscribe to the podcast (RSS) Subscribe on iTunes Get the full list of games (and other stuff) discussed at www.besties.fan. Want more episodes? Join us at patreon.com/thebesties for three bonus episodes each month!

So I was just in the office in Vox Media's New York City headquarters, and some lovely journalism students came in dressed in their finery. These are the best-dressed journalists or journalism students I've ever seen. Were they wearing, like, lapels and stuff? No, they were wearing clothes, which is really a step up. So they're from TCU, which I'm pretty sure was the school that uh coach taylor wanted to go to but then turned it down and um what was that show friday night lights uh football football touchdown uh high school high school touchdowns of love yeah so a bunch of journalists and and seersuckers

walk in yeah well uh so they were actually from Texas Christian University, and here's the thing. Did they all talk like this? We all like this. Love Jesus. Jesus. Let me tell you

about my Lord and Savior. Well, that was the thing, is that, so I walked in and, you know, you know me i'm straight talk express numero uno um and i started off by saying hey guys don't be assholes at your job because people will remember and never hire you again good start and then i was like oh but they're like nice christian kids from texas i don't want to offend them regardless of their denomination maybe don't start out any conversation with hey assholes guess what they're about to enter the world of journalism where a brusque talk is the norm so i was just prepping them for

reality yeah fresh dick still thinks that he works for Newsroom on HBO I guess it was a straight talk express conversation and I think I got I reached them until one of the gentlemen kind of fell asleep but everyone else I was reached everyone else it's just it's just like

it's just like not Mr. Holland's opus what was that one where robin williams did the good teaching uh work and mindy the no awakenings awakenings that was it thanks everybody for listening to our movie podcast scenes it's called scenes for the z my name is justin mcroy and i know the best thing of the week. My name is Griffin McElroy, and I know the best thing of the week. My name is Chris, and I'm a hip-hop all-star. Okay. My name is Russ Frustick, and I know the best game of the week. Return to form.

He's getting back there. He's not quite. The bombast is gone, but the meter has reverted. You know, I'm mixing it up sometimes. It's like deaf poetry jam. It is. This is our deafest episode yet, I would say. This is the besties where we talk about the latest and greatest

in technology, gaming, and movies to bring you a show that you're not quite sure you listen to but you just keep going back. I'll start it. I watched the Tomb Raider movie on my Galaxy S1. Is that a phone? Maybe. I'm just saying I just hit all of our key demos.

Games, movies, and back. Did you eat a pizza and drink Mountain Dew? I didn't. Oh, then you haven't really reached anyone, have you? I'm allergic. Who's got the best thing of the week that they want to talk about first? I do. Who wants to open this up?

Rush, rush, dig. I do. What is the best thing of the week? My best thing of the week is the best reason to hate that motherfucker Snoopy. Okay. How? Again, with the language, it's pretty harsh. Cut him some slack.

You know, straight talk express. So I played a little game called sid meyer's ace patrol today or not today um i think that was ken levine made that the maker of bioshock it was a joke because you said his name in the title so the joke oh i did oh look at that so it was probably what if it was sid meyer's ace ventura now i know what you're thinking this isn't a very deep goof well, but keep digging. Well, I mean, this is our flagship episode of changing our direction to talk more about movies.

That's true. Ace Ventura 1 or AV2, guys? What do you prefer? I'm more of an AV2 man myself. Yeah, I like WNC. AV2 is much brighter and, you know, I think lighter. More poop jokes. He comes out of the rhino's asshole.

Yeah, he also is afraid of bats. Oh, yeah. Which is ironic because he's like, Alrighty then, guys, I think we can move on. Do not go in there. Woo! So I played a little game called Ace Patrol. And it's essentially, if you've played a civilization game before you

might recall the moment in civilization when you're like damn i really wish i had nuclear missiles but instead i've got these shitty biplanes it's pretty much the whole game is about those biplanes but as it turns out they're not so shitty they're actually pretty cool it gets deep into them their lives their dreams super deep into them essentially their lives, their loves, their dreams. Super deep into them. Essentially, it's a turn-based tactical strategy game where you are in command of a squadron of high-powered, for the time, biplanes. And essentially, you're using biplane tactics, which involve swoops and whirls and loop-de-loops and barrel rolls to blow Germans out of the sky.

But all this is turn-based, so essentially you're making, you know, you're moving them around. That's good because I got too excited for a second. How do you weaponize these flights of fancy? Machine guns. They use machine guns in world war 1 but you made it sound like you just do like a fun loop de loop and a german sees you and explodes

that happens if you're really good that's what happens it's it is so sick this sounds the stance yeah um no you shoot them in the face with a machine gun and they generally explode sometimes not the vibe that i got from it was um fire emblemy it was a little bit fire emblemy because

you have those moments or even x-com where you have those moments where it's like oh i'm gonna do 33 percent damage to this guy if i bank to the left but a lot of it is because you're flying this old school biplane a lot of it is sort of setting up your rate of as you're swooping in on them like you can't take a left a 90 degree turn so essentially you have to like set up these swoops to be very tactical and a lot of planning is involved and yet that's a lot of fun. It seems kind of dull when I describe it, but I'm pretty sure whenever I describe any game, it seems kind of dull.

That's not really my strong suit. Maybe you should think about changing professions. What does it look like graphically? It looks really cool. It's 3D, but it uses the isometric view of a civilization. I would say it looks like Civilization 5, but the graphics

obviously aren't as good. Was that the last one, or was it 6? It was the latest one. 5. 5 was the latest. Okay, so it looks like Civilization 5. Obviously, the graphics are not that detailed, but you can spin the camera 360 degrees and zoom in and zoom out and all that junk.

So, uh, and, and the planes look cool. They're like arts, you know, kind of, I wouldn't say comic booky,

but, um, you know, artistically designed, very colorful, which seems to be the antithesis of like what you would want from a combat plane to make it very visible. Do they,

do they have wifi? Do the planes have very visible. Do they have Wi-Fi? Do the planes have Wi-Fi? Yeah. They have Wi-Fly. I don't even know how to proceed after that just happened. We stop. What type of meals do they offer? Now, Russ, I'm, of course, downloading this now.

You should. It's free to play. That means you're not going to page into the rest of the podcast. That's definitely true. We knew that was going to happen anyway. Fresh, I noticed the game's free. How are they going to monetize this from me? So here's the deal.

Obviously, we all have issues with free-to-play games because they generally kind of suck. Here, I think it follows sort of the demo model of free to play which is to say you get a chunk of the game for free and um then if you want more missions and stuff like that then that's when you're gonna have to start paying and i'm fine with that it's not you know you're mostly from what i understood i could be wrong about this but i didn't see any pvp options um so essentially you're unlocking single-player missions and those single-player missions are um you know you know if you want more you just pay for more it's not like a matter of like pay to win uh which we all hate uh it's just like hey you're paying to have more levels if you like

the game i'm gonna look online and make sure there's no multiplayer i don't want to uh make i don't want to tell tales out of school yeah um it sounds good i just i like newer planes is really the honest to god only reason why so i would say i'm not a big biplane fan myself yeah but uh like uniplanes what i've always wondered about them though i mean i i'm yeah this is i'm bi-curious. Holy cow. It was good. I didn't even know the setup was leading to that. Which is why it was so good. That's why

it's one of the fundamental elements of comedy. Oh, there are multiplayer. Sorry, I should say there are multiplayer missions. Are those pretty fun? They are super fun and I played so many of them every single one of them i played uh no it's free to play which means your risk like if you hate it it costs you zero dollars to realize you hated it but i i effing love it i think they did a great job let's talk about

something else okay i want to talk about something i want to talk about the uh i i know what i told you guys i was going to talk about but i'm going to talk about the... I know what I told you guys I was going to talk about, but I don't want to completely twist it on you. I'm going to change the game on you right now. And I'm going to talk about the best way to waste, absolutely waste, not, like, fruitfully used, to waste $20. And that is with Injustice on iOS. Wait, that wasn't what you said you were going to bring.

Bitch, did you not hear me just say that I was going to talk about something different than what you said you were going to bring. Bitch, did you not hear me just say that I was going to talk about something different than what I said I was going to talk about? I know, and I don't approve of such a last minute change. Clearly. So Injustice on iOS, I got into it a little late. I beat the console game. Was it good?

Yeah, I liked it. What score would you give it? I didn't. We didn't do a review of it. What score would you give it? I didn't. We didn't do a review of it. I'm not good at multiplayer fighting games, so Injustice appealed to me because it was a satisfactory, story-based, single-player experience,

and it was really easy to do the sick moves. How was the Joker's voice? You know what? It didn't bother me. I wasn't mad at it. But it wasn't Mark Hamill, obviously. No, obviously not. Hey guys, you ready for some joke bombs?

Is that what it's like? Well, sorry, it's like he's here. I'm going to kill you. Sorry, go ahead. It removes the problem of movement. There's no moving back and forth your character. You're always at a, you you know moving to engage your opponent and you tap the screen for a light attack you swipe the screen for a heavy attack and there's

combinations of those uh and then as you build up your super meter you can perform different moves that you unlock as you go um and that's pretty much... There's blocking if you hold the screen with two fingers. Or two thumbs, more realistically. And that's about it for the controls. So it's simple in that way. And as somebody who's not super deep into fighting games, it is... You can sort of puzzle it out and see the strategies

without having to learn a lot of the technical stuff. It sounds vaguely Infinity Blade-y. Yeah, that's not actually terribly... But the controls are nothing like Infinity Blade. No, no, the controls are very different. But the direction of your swipes is not really... It doesn't affect anything. It's just basically another input mechanism.

So the interesting thing about the game is you can... You have a collection of characters, and you start out with, like, bad ones, ones that you wouldn't want to play. I think it's actually Nightwing. Not even as appealing as Robin. First off, I got a ton of unlocks for beating the console game and achieving some goals there.

It almost made me want to go back and play more to get the Batman Beyond unlock in the mobile game. I know, it's very tempting. But as you play through these matches, you earn the currency of the game, which is like these little gold coin deals. the currency of the game, which is like these little gold coin deals.

And the thing that, the part about wasting that I wanted to talk about is you can buy, you get these at a pretty slow rate for beating certain fights and getting through battles. But you can also buy them, right? So they sell them in different quantities

and for the, and you get bonuses for you know spending more money so if you buy a bigger package whatever so for twenty dollars you can get 192 000 uh gold coins which is uh worth noting because that is still not enough to buy superman and barely enough to buy Batman or Wonder Woman. Shut up. This is not a joke. A single character costs more than that. Yes, a single character costs more than $20.

Is there any other way to unlock them? Yes, I mean, you can grind. Yeah, you can grind through and get money, but you're using the same currency that you use to buy characters as you use to upgrade your abilities. So if you want to buy a character like that, you're basically choosing to not upgrade the abilities of your heroes. It also has for the equivalent of, let's see, it sells booster packs for different denominations. And for the equivalent, let's see, for $100,000, which is a little over $10, you can buy a gold booster pack. Oh, it's one of those like random?

Yeah, and that includes three cards, and they may or may not be worthwhile. They may or may not be the cards that you want. Now, the reason this is so sort of diabolical is that playing through the game, your characters gain levels, and any card that you obtain starts out at level one. So as you're playing through and raising the levels of a couple characters that you like if somewhere in the back of your mind you're thinking oh man I'd really like to pick up this character I wish I had them you're aware that as you proceed

in the game you're actually getting to a point where they would be of no use so right now I'm fighting level 20 opponents and I'm going to unlock this level 1 character and that's not gonna i'm not gonna be able to to uh you know they're gonna be severely handicapped well so the thought i should mention also that you choose a three-person team um and and and so you can uh have two super high level

characters and one you know dead weight character character that just gets the benefit of the experience. Um, but it's still like you're, you're aware that you're losing time, that you could be spending leveling a character you want by not having them. So it sounds to me like, and correct me if I'm wrong, um,

you could just delete the game and spend no money. You could. That seems like a pretty good option. You could, except it's fun. Is it that fun? Yeah, I mean, it's fun. If you like, the basic mechanics are a lot of fun. And it does a lot of things right.

One of the things that's kind of neat is if you log in on consecutive days, you get rewards. So if you log in four days in a row, you get more coin bonuses. I actually like it. And I realize now saying that, that doesn't sound super appealing. It also, each character has energy. And for putting them in a fight, you lose energy. Now, I actually like that because it's sort of a forced... No, it's good for me because it's sort of a forced stop.

You get... That's what the gree people say when they're like, no, people like energy meters. You are causing this. I kind of like the energy meters. It's your fault. It's kind of like, it's a nice indication that, hey, you have brought this upon us.

How do you think this feels as a game designer, right? Like, it's really hard to make a good video game. I mean, just that part, right? And then you get that right. You make a good video game, kind of a core game for iOS, and then you have to just mantle it and find

a way to, like, monetize it in this ugly way that makes people not want to play a good game forget that you even were going to bring a much better game to this show today and instead of that you picked this heaping pile of i i i in-app purchasing garbage i've read a rumor online that justin only changed his mind because warner brothers promised to give him an in-game superman is that true i read it online on twitter i read it on twitter and tumblr actually in in what is the perhaps the most like the best the the biggest slap in the face for beating uh for beating the console game i did unlock superman but it's a it's a superman who is has been imprisoned so he's

wearing like a jumpsuit and has been hindered from using his superpowers so he's just very strong he's just a guy he's just a guy who hits people really super hard on the box does it say unlock Superman asterisk for use in the iOS game a super man that's basically accurate unlock a better than average man so yeah it just seems like some of the the pay structure is just really

really messed up I mean have you spent money and then no I just want to know if you spent any money anybody else have any just there yeah have you spent any money a little bit money how much uh you are the cause of this problem you won't even admit how much like i don't know some money oh my god big deal i just really i like i like superhero Did I mention You're the reason Whitney got two seasons on TV. Did I mention

that when you use a superpower, there are little touch minigames, like you tap the screen to hit harder? You are the worst. Okay, let's go to halftime. You guys heard that Daft Punk album? The only way I heard it was through someone's MacBook Air speakers and it sounded not amazing, but maybe that's because it was through someone's macbook air speakers and it sounded

not amazing but maybe that's because it was well that's typically not the best way to listen it was in a conference room too i like i have to bump it on my bows do you like it on my bose yeah yeah it's good if you like that kind of thing it's a it's a good it's a good album to watch robots have sex too yeah i i like that of music, but I don't care for robots, so I feel a bit torn. I mean, if you can't open up your mind, then you don't really deserve the music. You're probably right. Guys, did you hear about Survivor finale? No.

Oh, God. This was one of the top three seasons of all time. It was legit. And it's an important moment in Survivor timeline. Can we just recap the events of Awakenings for people that don't remember it? Okay, so first Robert De Niro is just a dude, but then he falls asleep. No, it's a coma. And he falls into a...

Yeah, it's... What do you think a coma is? But then he gets his brain back. But then his brain starts to go away. And then Robin Williams puts on the clown nose and hops in a giant pie. And then turns into a robot and goes into the future. And he goes, coo-doo-doo. Anything else?

Seriously, that Survivor finale was really cool. Does nobody have anything going on that's important? Justin, you bought a new car. What? Yeah, I did. I bought... Oh, yeah, you just sat it on your car. I did.

I settled on a Beet a uh beetle convertible wait so i noticed this did you get a diesel yeah i did get a diesel it's i don't even know how to comprehend that isn't that what trucks take uh they do but a lot more more more cars are using especially volkswagen volkswagen makes most of the diesel cars out there um i i first i was hesitant now are we using diesel as an adjective to describe how awesome the car is or what? You can if you like. I won't fault you, your 90s vernacular. But I was not going to even fool with diesel until I found that the diesel version of the car gets 40 miles to the gallon highway.

So what is the downside to diesel? It costs more. It is a little bit more expensive, yeah. I mean, obviously for this, the mileage balances that out pretty well. Do you guys think that when Vin Diesel is in New Jersey, where you have to have your gas pumped by an attendant, that when he's asked what type of gasoline he wants in his car, he just gets livid.

Like he lowers his sunglasses and he's like, what do you think? I'm more impressed that you knew that it's the law to have a gas attendant pump your gas in Jersey. Well, sure, because if I hadn't specified the state, then one of you smartasses would have been like, why is somebody helping him pump his gas how did you know that though because I've done

fucking 53 episodes this podcast with you I think he means but the law but yeah that's what I meant an accurate question and answer no but it's been great thing you put the car down you can zip

around reflex silver i'll get out of town i know right can you just say gray my my 2003 toyota matrix started out reflex silver and now it's like bug grime gray is it uh so is it sparkly like those stickers from elementary school or is it just like silver i mean it's just silver i i really get an oily one like right like i think what he wants to know is like a lisa frank right that's what it's like ice cream silver yeah did you get that did you get that ice cream paint job it's basically the question i'm asking what's the what's the fade like on your job the other car they had was blue but they called it denim that is the worst color name ever

is it denim because that seems like a fabric to me i think this is blue could you buy it and then sue them for false advertising excuse me this is made of jeans excuse me i'm john cougar mellencamp and i this is false advertising i bought this car for a very specific reason. Oh, God. Okay. Let's talk vids. Vid games. Vid games. Oh, man.

Who's next? I'm nervous to talk about mine again. I always bring the shit that pushes that envelope. I don't know what you guys did with... I didn't listen to last week's podcast, but I'm just imagining that you guys just left the envelope sitting there on the table. Well, the envelope is left there on the table, but still open. And we glanced at it once and then closed it.

So my thing this week is the best gaming news story of the decade that is getting worse and worse with every passing day. And that is Shadow of the eternals give us the timeline fuck that's the thing i don't even know where to start with this story because there's so many facets um so about god i can't two weeks ago i think now uh ign started teasing started teasing this announcement of shadow of the eternals which would be a follow-up to Eternal Darkness Sanity's Requiem. A spiritual sequel. A spiritual sequel, which Eternal Darkness is, by a country mile,

my favorite horror game of all time, and arguably the best GameCube game that was released. I adore that game. So I was psyched to hear about this um then their uh kickstarter or sorry not their kickstarter their crowdfunding campaign uh leaked ahead of the announcement so they kind of had to drop hack and punt and reveal that yes it was going to be crowdfunded on their website not on kickstarter, and it was going to be an episodic game. We did a quick interview with the developer, who is a studio called Precursor Games, about its episodic nature.

It's going to be about five bucks a pop. First, the pilot episodes, they're targeting third quarter of 2014. Okay, so far, so good. Then shit started to go bad from there um it was discovered what we we found out through some reporting and through going over like court documents and stuff like that that precursor games is composed uh largely of former silicon knights people silicon knights being the uh beleaguered developer of eternal darkness uh including dennis dyack who was uh you know the the studio head of of silicon knights i'm not actually sure what his position was but it was up there uh he was sort of the figurehead he was

the person in front of the media he was the person person whom the blame of Too Human was almost entirely placed upon, which may or may not be fair. Silicon Knights is in, I would say, a little bit of legal hot water to the tune of $4.45 million. Wait, okay. $4.45 million. $4.45 million. Wait, okay. $4.45 million. $4.45 million. Okay.

Yes. In a suit that, actually a countersuit from Epic Games, which is so fucking complicated I'm not even going to get into it. They're fighting against it, and the studio hasn't declared bankruptcy and hasn't shut down. We did an interview with one of the few remaining people still at silicon knights saying who said that there was no connection between precursor and silicon knights except for the

fact that in these court documents we found silicon knights sold precursor games art assets computers fucking chairs like so much shit that it sounds like there had to be some connection i don't know can you just could they have didn't they need some sort of rights so like shit that it sounds like there had to be some connection i don't know can you just could they have didn't they need some sort of rights so like i guess it's not it's a nintendo reserves nintendo reserves all the rights okay they said in an interview that came out today on game informer okay they said nintendo reserves all the rights that's why it's not an official sequel gotcha and denied that the studio purchased all of the assets for eternal darkness that were still on the computers that they bought because they had to wipe those computers as part of the assets for Eternal Darkness that were still on the computers that they bought because they had to wipe those computers

as part of the Epic Games suit. When the court decided in favor of Epic Games, they had to wipe their computers and destroy every copy of Two Human and X-Men Legends. Doesn't even matter, whatever X-Men game that was. X-Men, yeah, Legends. Which is the question, why did they want those computers? Destiny, X-Men Destiny, yes.

So, that's shady, that they're saying there's no connection between these two studios, except that Dennis Dyack is leading up that one, and we sold them all of our shit. Right? Yep. Not good. Not great. In order for Epic Games to file a suit against Precursor, they would have to basically start a new lawsuit from scratch. So, basically, Silicon Knights has been whittled down to just a few people whom I imagine and whom they're there.

Who is it? Mike Mays, the chief financial officer of Silicon Knights. He said that they are basically still around and that they are basically full time fighting the epic suit. OK, so that's that's all pretty shady. Let's get into the the actual crowdfunding campaign. They said that they couldn't do a Kickstarter because they're based in Canada. So let's remember that, which is true. It's mainly a UK and US thing, Kickstarter is.

So they had their own crowdfunder on their site for $1.5 million, which would go towards making the pilot episode and based on the first draft of their their crowdfunding page that was up on their site only the pilot episode which i say only because they had a hint of what the first stretch goal was and it was sort of like this image where the second stretch goal was a little bit obscured but you could read that it very clearly said episode two. So you're talking about doing an episodic game. You're raising $1.5 million for the pilot episode,

which is like, that still doesn't seem like a whole heck of a lot. Like they would obviously have to get a lot more funding in order to make a video game, even a short few hour long pilot episode for the series. But then to say like, but if you give us us enough money then we'll do a second episode does that imply that if you don't meet that stretch goal that it's just going to be the first episode like that you mix it yeah it's the first 12 episodes enjoy it because it's it's four hours and it's all you get they have since removed that image oh good for them so that has been revised they also said and i have to be very

careful about the language here that their crowdfunding campaign collected donations up front so instead of being like kickstarter where you donate and then the donation goes through once they meet their goal yep once you donate it is theirs. Your money is gone. Right. It belongs to them. They said that a donation cannot be canceled or returned once it has been completed, whether or not Precursor Games completes the game or fulfills a specified reward. So essentially, if they collect $500,000 and decide, no, that's not really enough to make a game, they're going to Tahiti. That page also contradicts itself because it says that the goal is a flexible one

and that if it becomes apparent that they cannot raise enough to develop the project, then they'll refund all pledges. Oh. But that's not, like, legally binding or anything? It's not legally binding. They say if it looks like we're not going to hit our goal, yeah, sure, we'll give your money back, but that goal is flexible.

Like, what the fuck does that even mean? Yikes. That's banana cakes. The website also said that the donations are considered strictly donations and not consideration for any services or product aka like yeah we're on the hook for 4.45 million dollars and yeah we need to pay our lawyer is what this sounds a lot like maybe here's the thing they put out a nine minute long video like a demo of one of the beginning stages and it looked fucking good like it looked

it looked like two human looked good when i saw it well i mean then it came out like it looked like they had done some work on it um at silicon so actually last last week i believe it was last week i remember my topic was um the best reason be wary of, or maybe that was two weeks ago, best reason to be wary of Kickstarter. Well, let me get to this then. Yeah. Because last week they also launched a Kickstarter campaign. Lovely.

Alongside their crowdfunding page, which I should mention, they modeled to look exactly like Kickstarter. Oh, God. The goal for this one is $1.35 million, which seems like a kind of arbitrary number until you realize that they had raised 150 000 on their own crowdsourcing campaign so add that up the rest of it that's the rest of it even though kickstarter takes a

percentage so kickstarter does take a percentage kickstarter also i'm unless there's some special exception i don't know about not going to take the money unless they meet that $1.35 million goal. So that's crazy. And a lot of the language on the Kickstarter page is different from what was on their crowdsource page. Namely that they don't list the second episode being a stretch goal and so on and so forth so it's like if this is something that they eternal darkness came out when 2002 or around there maybe that region yeah you've had 11 fucking years to think about how you want to do this and you could not have dropped the ball any bigger like i went from saying i will i will drop a couple fucking hundos to see this sequel that I have wanted my entire adult life come to fruition.

I have no reason to believe that you're not just going to take this money and run. So what I was saying the other week when I was talking about Star Command, which is you should be very wary about how you spend your money on Kickstarter. Because obviously, you know, you're not paying for a product. You're paying for a promise of a product, and you have no idea whether the company will actually deliver on what they're promising. In the case of this game, if the connections to Silicon Knights are accurate,

which it certainly sounds like they are, this is a company that has put together some of the worst games of the last decade. Like of the worst games of the last decade. Like, the worst games of the last decade. I wouldn't say the worst. I would say among the most disappointing. Have you played X-Men or Two Human? They are both awful games.

Yeah, can I just say something? I just want to interject real quick. Did anyone on this call play all of X-Men Destiny? Is that what it was called? I think that was just you. Okay, just me? I would not trust these motherfuckers with a ice cream cone in the winter time i would not trust these motherfuckers with my dog's leash if i had a second leash attached to that dog and i was holding it at the same time here's i not trust it. They made a game that not only did they squander the license unbelievably badly, they made

a game that was hostile to play. It was an antagonizing experience. It was a nightmare. And these people are coming to you saying, just give us 1.5 Milo and we will definitely set you up with a really good game. Let's make something straight. Because trust of quality aside, we should make sure we don't libel. I'm not saying that they are inherently untrustworthy as a studio. What I am saying is that they have done nothing to ease their potential supporters' minds that they know what they're doing. to have one crowdfunding campaign that you edit after people aren't so crazy

about some of the terms and conditions and then launch a second one alongside it. And then like keep changing your story on whether or not you are this company that is like being drowned in legal problems at the same time. Like you haven't done a single thing to, except for releasing nine minute long video showing off the game, which we don't know when you made that. You've done nothing to make me trust you,

and trust is the most valuable commodity you can have, A, before a game is released, and B, when you're fucking asking for money for it. Another thing I should mention is that the Kickstarter has been going, I think, for two days now and has raised $58,000 of $1.3 million. So their crowdfunding campaign now has been reverted to a PayPal option. So it no longer has the goal that they have. They've raised $155,000.

So it seems like the Kickstarterstarter is like now their their main campaign and this is just for people who want to pledge directly through the site for people who for whom kickstarter is not an option so that explains the 1.5 million so right now they have 200 000 that they've raised a little over like two yeah a little over but the kickstarter money will presumably go back to kickstarter well be refunded automatically, because there's pretty much no way in hell they're actually going to hit their number of 1.5 million. I mean, yeah, they're right now trending towards,

according to KickTrack, they're trending towards 730,000. Right. Or 54%. Yeah, but that's assuming that they maintain the same level of income over the next month, which they definitely want. I'm not saying it's impossible. Honestly, I haven't donated yet because I don't fucking, I don't trust them.

The thing that puts me off more than anything else is you're saying you're making an episodic game that we are funding the very first episode for. Like, that's like saying, hey, we've got this new hit NBC series that we are definitely doing one episode. So get involved. You're going to love it.

See, that's weird for me because if you back at $25, you get episodes one through five. So what happens if they don't actually come out? Right. Where's the rest of the money coming from? Like, I don't understand. Very sketchy. If they can come out and, like, give us a fucking straight answer.

Like, are you guys actually Silicon Knights? Like, why did you have to start a new studio? silicon knights like why did you have to start a new studio if you don't have the 4.45 million that you need to like settle shit with epic games and it's if the if it's looking like the wind is starting to turn in their direction like that is something that i as a potential funder of a game development project you have would like to know like and i'm saying if they can come out and be forthwith about that shit, I don't know. Maybe they'll make it. But it's looking pretty unlikely.

Yikes. Anyway, that's. Lovely. That's an upper. Chris Bryant, bring it home. I got, I got. Oh, wait. I have to word it right.

I have the best way to remake a retro franchise. And that is Thunderwolves on PC and maybe other stuff. You've heard of it, right? Thunderwolves? You've been counting down the days. I don't know of any retro games that weren't just like Metroid Prime and those games. That's the oldest game that restores.

Wait, are you talking about Retro the Studio or literally retro like old games oh I can see how you're confused because that is the twist Thunderwolves is a very poorly concealed remake of the Desert Storm

and Thunderstorm games oh yeah SNES no Sega Genesis is what you would have played them on if you had any taste um but yeah you you play as a helicopter and you blow up uh tons of crap yeah and then you pick up people by by landing and waiting for them to get on your ship or you lower this uh little rope down and pick up boxes um i like the picture you as anthropomorphic like there's not a man flying you you're just like this helicopter that's

bopping around badass talking helicopter and it even takes place in 1991 in an offensive version of the middle east in which you blow up oil fields this is the original or are we talking about this is this well it's both but now it's in 3d and it's called thunder wolves and it's not made by ea um but otherwise it i mean it feels exactly like a modern version of that game and why i think it is the best way to uh remake a retro game is there's no burden to the license right like no Like, no one expects this to be, and I'm sorry, it's Desert Strike, I believe is the actual name, but no one expects it to be that game.

They have no, you know, they can still love that it's like a classic game, but not be, like, crushed that it doesn't have, you know, every little story beat that they liked about the original. Because there are tons of story beats that people remember from the original. You know know what i'm talking broadly about remakes but it i am constantly amazed by what expectations people have whenever you know an old game is brought back where they have a very specific thing they loved and they expect it to be you know perfectly

portrayed as far as i'm concerned all i remember from the original game is that as described you were a helicopter you blew shit up you picked people up that's all i remember about that game they nailed that they expanded it though now there's also submissions where you're in a gunner seat uh okay it flies around for you and you can shoot from first person and there are uh there's a sniper type of mission where you know you go in and you snipe people from your helicopter that's not very sneaky i don't think it's legal either no oh nothing about it is legal i mean you you are breaking the law because you're a mercenary and you don't play by the rules and they're like hey try not to blow stuff up so much this time or else we're gonna have to dock your pay again

and you're like pay i'm not in it for the pay i'm in it for the murder and then you and then you shoot everything so retro studios actually made this game original no it was made by a studio i don't know was this before or after donkey kong returns oh my god you're killing me um okay so this is being kick-started what's the story? It's on PC. Oh, it's out already? It's the most wanted entertainment. You can download it on Steam. I think today.

I think it came out today. So it's out already. Have you played it? Yeah, that's what out today means. What's wrong, Griffin? What do you need? What can I do for you? I just don't care.

Yeah, I don't care care Yeah I don't care either I don't care about Your lame ass superhero IOS games I don't care about I don't care about Biplanes Whatever Oh god and your Snoopy thing you bored me to death

My game had a helicopter A fast talking Merc Does the helicopter talk? Does the helicopter have witty catchphrases that it says? It basically does. Does he sound like Mr. Feeny? No. Why would he sound like Mr. Feeny?

Mr. Matthews, please stop shooting those children. Stop raising that child village, Mr. Matthews. I will sign the Declaration of Independence. Sit down. Helicopter. Sit down, helicopter. Somebody open up a... Oh, man.

I thought this wasn't going to be good. I've been really saved it. You righted that plane. Who won? Oh, man. I think Griffin won. Yeah, Griffin definitely locked this one up. I did the research.

So that's going to do it for us this week on the besties. Thanks for listening. As always, you can subscribe to us on iTunes on the besties, leave a review, share with your friends. You can go to polygon.com to read our works,

to read our opuses. I have to plug something. Oh, please. So some of you might know that on May 21st, which is next Tuesday, Microsoft will be

unveiling their new Xbox console. We will have live coverage, as we always do with these things, but that includes a pre- and a post-show from the press conference, which is super exciting, hosted by our very own Justin McElroy.

He'd be here to talk about it, if he could be. I'm here. Oh, well, you could talk about it. Anyway, Justin's going to be on camera talking about the new Revelations, and we'll be cutting live to our people on the ground in Seattle or Redmond, wherever. And it'll be a really cool show, so you should definitely tune into that on May 21st during the day. I am intoxicated by the stuff I know that nobody else does about this event.

Yeah. How about this? Whoa. How about this? Whoa. How about this? Shadow of the Eternals. Xbox 720. It's launch title, always online. It's launching on a new,

it's launching on Xbox 720's proprietary new media format, which is to say ghost discs. Spectral discs. Very exciting. So make sure you join us for that. It's going to be a lot of fun And that's going to do it for this week on the besties Make sure to join us again next week for the besties Because shouldn't the world's best friends

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