Bonjour! Welcome to Episode 41 of Rebel FM. This week we start by talking about Left 4 Dead 2, Assassin’s Creed II, Peggle Nights and more, then move on to a slightly spoilery conversation about Modern Warfare 2. However! We make clear mention of it before starting, and you can then skip to 1:18:20 to avoid any spoilers. Then we move on to the second segment and talk about your gaming bummers of 2009, and close out with letters. Misunderstood Penis!
This week’s music, in order of appearance:
Tegan and Sara – On Directing;
Hot Cross – Fatefully;
Interpol – C’mere
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Alright guys love the show
It sounds like some of the audio is really chopped up at 21:27 when Anthony is talking about Scavenger mode in L4D2
Yeah, what Myckel said, and to a lesser extent around 13:50-14:30.
I re-output it and uploaded it, so you might try redownloading it. Sorry guys.
I got it straight from the site after that message, there were still a couple glitches, just a dropout in one place or two. (Don’t remember exactly where, kind of distracted by CoD4 on Veteran. That shit is just impolite.)
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And yeah, with the plastic stuff I was referring to DJ Hero and Ride, specifically. Activision obviously isn’t going anywhere, though, they can sleep soundly on their piles and piles of Modern Warfare 2 loot.
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Anthony, don’t take my comment about Dead Space: Extraction as me knocking the game. I haven’t played it, but everyone who has seems to think it was really good. But “9000 copies”. Damn.
On that note, I’m curious to see how well (or not) Reflex sells. If CoD can’t sell on the Wii, then “hardcore” games on the Wii are officially dead.
Great review on Assassin’s Creed 2 Arthur.
Thanks for continuing to put this on Zune.
just wanted to say that in MW2, the reason why Zakhaev was a hero was because his ultranationalist forces took over the Russian gov’t. Which is also the reason why they were so quick to jump at the chance of invading the US even with the other guys bodies there,
Assassin’s Creed 2 review was appreciated and I am now looking forward to playing it. I was guessing Ubi would slap out a carbon copy of the the first game with little change to the formula. SO glad to see that is not the case.
Thanks to all 3 of you, and where the fuck is Crimson Skies GameClub 3?
Man, 3 weeks in a row on Captain Forever, someone’s getting paid! Arthur I love you “I’ll fit it in between sessions of Army of Two 2″
I actually just checked out that game, and I have to say, it’s a lot of fun. For those of you who have played it, what benefits do you get from becoming a supporter? I would just donate the 20 bucks, but unfortunately I left my wallet at a friends house last night, and thus cannot put my card number into the magic machine.
I can see myself playing this game endlessly, as I have already spent about 2 hours today playing it.
Sorry for the double post but I just finished the ‘cast and the Rebel FM theme music is fucking genius and I would cry if you ever changed it. It was even better than idlethumbs and easily better than everyone else’s shitty Garage Band tedium.
Is it me, or was Modern Warfare 2′s campaign on veteran was the easiest of any Call of Duty veteran campaign? Everyone is discussing how crazy it was on Hardened, yet me and a buddy did Veteran without much difficulty. And he had never done a veteran campaign prior. I wouldn’t call myself a good gamer by any stretch, but I feel that since Infinity Ward heard the cry for grenade spamming and spawn cabinets and worked on them, the difficulty was dialed a lot lower.
As always, amazing podcast so far (especially after hearing “Defibrillator” several times in a row)
I’m finding it to be that way, although I only played world at war on hardened and didn’t want to put myself through the grenade spam on veteran. I did play all others on veteran though. MW2 isn’t too bad on veteran if you’re very slow and deliberate and really use cover, but there were 4-5 parts that gave me a LOT of trouble.
You really aren’t missing much. I tried WaW on veteran got to (I think it’s called) “Their land, their blood”. The trenches, spawning enemies and wall of grenades just made me snap and almost become an abusive boyfriend. Gah, even thinking about it just makes me hate that dated system of “spawn till player reaches point X”
I agree, Veteran went pretty smoothly for me as well. I also found that far fewer of my deaths were from grenades when compared to the first MW. But yes, as Iceveiled said, there were still a few troublesome parts (the chase in the Favela, protecting the router), but nothing as mindblowingly difficult as the Ferris wheel or underground bunker in MW1.
The ferris wheel extraction was soul-crushingly hard. I never want to play that level again on any difficulty. Some parts on MW2 I struggled with on veteran were the favela (it’s a fucking bitch on normal or hardened), crossing the field in front of the white house, and running to the extraction helo after downloading the files from the mansion. I almost broke my controller on that part.
Yeah i found it easier than i expected too.
Most of my frustrastion came from when the game would checkpoint in a place where i was about to be shot/being shot.
It was mostly due to luck if i was able to get to cover in time. the worst one happened on the retaking of whiskey hotel, the game checkpointed me standing up in plain sight of multiple hostile foes… if i was lucky i had a couple of seconds to duck and find cover…i wasn’t very lucky…
it was insane the number of times that happened. it wouldn’t have been such a problem on a lower difficulty but on veteran with a two hit kill and the enemies knowing exactly where you are before you can even see them…Shiiiiiiit
it sucked the fun right out of those moments which is a shame because i was actually enjoying the intense battles more on vet then my first time through on normal, especially the “diner dash” one.
Fuck Yeah. Tegan and Sara ftw.
First, Anthony, thanks for actually pronouncing my name right!
About my DS disappointment talk.
After listening, I agree with your points: it is definitely more of a personal disappointment in the types of games coming out and my usage patterns. I haven’t found any recently released games that I can get into though, which has lead me away from the system. This is the same feeling I had before I sold my Wii. The system is selling like crazy, but I have not seen many games that I can get into. I think there is still hope, but I was hoping for more resolution with the DSXL or DSi.
You guys touched on Scribblenauts and that was the last game I got for the system. Loved the concept, hated the controls. But I know the studio understands what needs to get better, so when Scribblenauts 2 comes out, I’m sure I’ll give it a shot.
We’ll see how all of this pans out, maybe a new Mario game will come out, something like the NSMB for the Wii. Or something like the 2D Wario game for the Wii will show up on the DS. I love these type of titles.
If anyone has a suggestion to get me out of my DS funk, let me know. Maybe I’ll be swayed back and get over my HD gaming device needs.
Fat Penis.
Woah woah. Wait I go to the University of Cincinnati. And am in CCM. Who was this fella who wrote a letter!? Kole? A fellow RebelFM fan! This makes my day
The glowing review of AC2 has me considering picking it up instead of just letting it sit in my wishlist and hoping someone gets it for xmas or birthday.
Yeah I gotta agree. I’ve been on the fence about AC2, having not enjoyed the first one that much, but it sounds like they have taken out most of what I hated about the first one. I’m gonna wait until black friday and see if I can find it discounted somewhere.
Great podcast guys. Tyler you gotta hit up the God of War collection. I know you haven’t played them yet. You have no excuses now!
I think God of War II should be in forthcoming game club fellas….
I totally forgot that EGM/1UP closed this year. Obvious gaming bummer of the year.
Sadly, I stopped reading EGM. This is from someone who still owns EGM #1. 1UP is still alive and well!
I see peg parties comes up in this podcast.
hot
I forgot to ask in my previous post, is the RebelFM theme song available as an mp3 or something?
Also, on the topic of biggest disappointment I’ve gotta say I was super excited for Scribblenaut’s, I wouldn’t say it was terrible, its something I think I will still play around with here and there, but it wasn’t as addictive as I expected.
I just dislike attention starved people like yourself who have jumped on the bandwagon of thinking it’s meaningful or cool to point out the fact that you posted the first comment. If you need attention go ask your parents for a hug or something.
You still have yet to bring anything meaningful to the table…
Why exactly was Eurogamer’s 7 for AC a “throwaway” score, but the 7 that 1up gave it wasn’t?
Awesome name. The Silmarillion is one of my favorite books.
Heh, thanks.
I don’t think I specifically cited the 7 that Eurogamer gave AC as throwaway.
Hey guys, another great show.
I’m sure you know by now that Captain Successor is out, and it’s even better. The grid turned THREE DIMENSIONAL! Wacky. I like the new missile weapons, too.
Public Service Announcement: Captain Forever is now available to play for FREE at http://www.captainforever.com
The story in MW2 is buuuullllshit. But the multiplayer more then makes it up.
Another good and interesting show guys.
I’m still not convinced by the outcry over the “No Russian” level in MW2, I honestly (and personally) really can’t feel anything for a bunch of pixels.
I do appreciate that the story was perhaps a little weak – but it is a crux to the rest of the game premise. Despite how badly it was either emotionally put across or received, by removing it, as some quarters are apparently wanting (though real sources are actually thin on the ground which makes me believe this is a media much ado about nothing), it would make even less sense.
With regards to the memory card stuff – I think you really missed the point – MS have cock-knocked the unauthorised cards because of “game hacking” which totally makes no sense.
If MS had banned these day 1 that’d be less of an issue, but the Datel stuff has been selling along side MS products in store and when the cost of these cards are at sensible prices, it’s no wonder people will opt for them. To then suddenly just break them when people might have hours of game saves on them is just wrong.
The fact is gamer score hacking can be done on the MS products therefore the stated reason for breaking them is null and void and it’s this sort of bullshit that pisses me off – Microsoft must think that their consumers are idoits, and it’s definitely not the case outside of the Major Nelson blog arse licking fest.
Still, at least there are the podcasts, such as Rebel FM, out there that have the opportunity to be none party line.
Oh man, if someone hadn’t made this already, it totally should have been the next RFM T-shirt design:
http://www.regretsy.com/2009/10/15/stay-classy/
Totally agree with your opinions of MW2. But the singleplayer is designed to play in a other way than COD4.
In COD4 you were a unstoppable train and your squad was always in the background. In MW2 you need to let them take some agro and let them do some of the work on the harder difficulties.
The story doesn’t either help building the squad mentality because you never feel anything for your group and you never get to know them, thoughts?
Console games cost $10 more than PC games because each of the platform holders charge licensing fee a $10 per copy (well, Nintendo charges $5, hence Wii games being cheaper). I though this was common knowledge.
I was thinking the same thing. I played on Hardened and really didn’t have much trouble.
Some of the multiplayer criticisms were just dumb. Arthur thinking that every player 10kills 10 deaths and the end score should be 7500-7400 was kind of ridiculous. How the hell is the game supposed to take into account everything a player does? I haven’t played the game 14hrs yet and I am better than a majority of the players I play against who are much higher level. Afterwards, I think the game does a good job of trying to balance the high scoring players to seperate teams.
And what is with not wanting to chat with other players. I would say the majority of people in chat have been fine. I mean do you really wonder why people call you pretentious when you say you are basically “too cool to chat with anyone not on your elite friends list”?
I hate to use the cliché, but you guys must not be very good at MW2. I beat it on Veteran, and I thought it was quite a bit easier than CoD4 on Veteran. Takedown (and to some extent escaping the safe house with the mortar attack) was the only level I had a problem with, but I didn’t even have the complaints you guys had. How can you say it’s the worst CoD level ever? It was the only level with any semblance of a monster closet, and even then it was not even close to where CoD4 was. For example the level where you have to storm the six houses on the hill looking for Al-Asad was absolutely brutal, with constant spawning and rampant grenade spam. Go back and play that level again on Hardened or Veteran and tell me Takedown is the hardest/worst level in any CoD. Hell, I couldn’t even finish WaW on Veteran because of the ridiculous endless spawning; that game’s campaign has so many more flaws than MW2.
On Takedown, I just ignored my team members screaming at me to move forward and took my time. To play CoD on a high difficulty, you have to be very careful and very tactical, acknowledge that guys will jump out at you and you have to beat them to the first shot. At points it can be just trial and error, but that’s why there are lower difficulty levels for people who don’t like it or can’t hack it. Idiotic difficulty can be a legitimate gripe, as in WaW for me, but I don’t see it with regard to MW2.
Shooters based on trial and error are terrible by nature.
It isn’t “based on trial and error,” there are small instances in which you have to do something specific. I can count on one hand the times I really had to use trial and error in over 10.5 hours of gameplay. Almost every game ever made has points in which you have to do something specific, and if it isn’t intuitively obvious, you have to use trial and error. Puzzles, boss fights, scripted events, quick time events; trial and error is essential to video games.
The way I’ve heard it described makes it seem as if you’re moving along a track that has goons popping out and shooting you from the same spot over and over again. That sounds like trial and error to me (if youre dying atleast).
Joe, if you think trial and error is essential to video games, I think you’re living in game design’s evolutionary past. As the technology advances, I find it less excusable for games to force players to succeed through multiple failures.
Maybe I’m just getting old (26) and cranky with my games, but most encounters on normal and the harder-but-not-ultra-hard difficulties should be potentially beatable on the first or second try. I feel as if trial-and-error is best left to old-school shooters like Contra and vertical scrollers, where the point of the game was memorizing patterns and learning from failures. In today’s FPSes, relying on that tactic is bullshit.
If I’m not mistaken, this thought has been touched upon in previous Rebel podcasts.
Well then thats not really trial and error in the sense that most might think it (Sould crushing ball breaking repetition) but maybe just getting something wrong.
Although I do agree, WaW is just an absolute guantanamo on Veteran.
“I don’t think it is sir”. LMAO.
Does anyone honestly care about the story of this game to the point where they would squeal SPOILARS if you said a plot detail?
I get your frustration Tyler. Half my shooter buddies…like “winning” and though they like L4D immensely…they have MW2 and are playing that…because they find “losing” too frustrating in L4D2. Luckily the other half love what we get out of the ardor, repeated playthroughs, and near-frutrations of L4D2…but we’re kinda breaking into two camps with where we’re spending our time on-line this Thanksgiving Holiday.
There was actual gameplay footage of Duke Nukem Forever on the last episode of the season of the Jace Hall show:
http://jacehall.tv/?p=622
Honestly, it looked pretty generic, but it seemed they did have something tangible.
People keep saying match making sucks because they are thrown in with people of much higher “rank”, as Tyler did. Do you really something as ephemeral as your rank is taken into consideration? Soon enough everyone will be 70 anyway. They give you 5 preset classes with advanced perks right off the bat. And you can kill as well with a M4 or an AK47.
Match making is supposed to be skill based, so wouldn’t they look at such things as kill/death ratios, how many of those medals that you get at the ends of each match you have gotten, maybe the completion of certain challenges instead?
More and more I have the feeling that Infinity Ward is pulling an Houdini on us with their MP. More specifically, don’t you think that they try to cover up the lack of advancement in the basic gameplay by keeping you occupied unlocking new toys and abilities? The carrot has become so large we can’t see the road anymore.
As someone who played Return to Castle Wolfenstein’s class and objectives based MP for years, I really wonder how we can still playing basic deathmatch in 2009. to me Team Deathmatch is akin to playing basketball without a net, and the team that keep the ball the longest wins.
Even though I recognize how polish and fun they made shooting people in Modern Warfare games, it’s so much more fun to do all that killing within the context of objectives that the entire strive to accomplish together either in offense or defense.
“to me Team Deathmatch is akin to playing basketball without a net, and the team that keep the ball the longest wins.”
How is that an apt analogy? Team deathmatch is fun, yes even in 2009. There are a ton of people who have never really even experienced online gaming until this gen.
If it’s an objective aside from be the team with the most points via kills, you have several multiplayer modes with objectives to complete, as well as Special Ops.
Yeah, I meant playing basketball without baskets not “a net”.
If you remove the objective (putting the ball in the basket) then you remove the need for the team to really work together. You remove the whole concepts of offense and defense. Which is what makes the game interesting. Dribbling and passing are only the means to an end.
Anyway, that’s how “I” feel about Deathmatch vs. objective based MP.
I could disagree with that. I see what you’re saying, but I’ve also been on the receiving end of severe ass-kickings but opposing teams in Halo, who used good temwork to rack up kills as a unit in team deathmatch. So it’s tough for me to completely agree with your statement.
Edit: *by opposing teams in Halo…
It’s early and my brain is slow to warm up.
You’re slacking on the esoteric music selections; I’ve heard of and listen to all three bands this episode. I am flooded with happiness and loathing. Beyond that, keep up the great work fellas.
Tegan and Sara are my guilty pleasure. I firmly believe that all manly men are allowed one not so manly indulgence. Mine is Tegan and Sara.
Hi just wanted to mention that Tropico 3(360) is out in EU. That is probably why the demo is out.
great show, i almost sent you a letter about appreciating the weezer outro last week. too bad their latest album is some of the worst “music” i’ve ever heard.
Remedy made both Max Payne games. 3D Realms WERE involved as producers on the first one, but GoD published it (remember them? lol). 2nd one was published by Rockstar
command shift 3
this is your precious three button version of a print screen button.
Command + Shift + 3 is a Mac OS shortcut.
If you tried that under windows you’d just get the Windows key.
Yep, I literally said that out loud when Tyler mentioned that Macs don’t have a print screen button. I figured they would have already received a few hundred emails about it by the time I commented, though
Except that he’s not using a Mac.
He’s using an Apple keyboard.
Ah, my mistake. The remapping conversation was obviously warranted, then.
…
fat penis.
Great episode right up until the end when Anthony felt it necessary to provoke us relationship letter haters. I mean seriously, you flat out said people stopped writing in those types of letters, but decide to mine back a month and half for a relationship letter anyway, which as usual, sucked. I’m sure there are plenty of other game related letters that are sent in that don’t get read because Anthony would rather read a gibberish letter or a relationship letter.
We have fun with those, and not everyone is a hater.
Well I’m glad you have fun reading non-game related letters on your game related podcast. Seriously, there are probably dozens of games letters that aren’t read because you think going off topic is fun. The show isn’t GFW.
Damn, that’s pretty harsh. I would get bored of the podcast if these guys didn’t go off topic from time to time.
I was actually getting a little wistful the other day for some more actual laugh-out-loud moments like the fart tapes and Robert Ashley’s God of War rant ending with X = Chimp attack. I like that these guys take games seriously, but variety is the spice of life. For your health.
Totally agree. The guys can have funny conversations about games I’m not even interested in, which makes me want to listen in. I love just about every segment of this podcast.
I’m glad I have fun reading non-gaming related letters too. It’s a gaming podcast, sure, but we go off topic all the time. If you don’t like it, then please stop listening. We know it’s not GFW, we’re just doing it for fun and hoping some people like it.
Seriously, how dare you not consult Rick before reading a letter on your podcast.
It is your *duty* to read him letters about games, and only games.
I hope you learned your lesson Anthony. You are grounded. You better be on your best behavior this week!
Yeah, I wish I could be as manly and not be interested in talking about feelings and how my vagina itches as much as Rick. Someone buy that man a steak and a beer so he can wolf them down, beat his wife, then chop some wood.
Done, podcast unsubscribed.
It takes a big man to walk into a forum and act like a douche.
-legend-
substitue big man with giant pussy
Hi rick. that was my letter, and I hoped you detected my own sarcasm about writing such a letter in the opening paragraph. I’m sorry that you didn’t like it, and that it offended your sensibilities. Different strokes, I guess.
I’ve been playing Assasin’s Creed II since it came out and have not played my copy of MW2 since i stared ACII……is that bad??
So I’m about eight minutes in and my brain is already about to explode out of my ears. There’s no way to make good FPS controls on Wii? That is about the dumbest thing I’ve heard on the podcast in a long time.
Yeah, and I’ll stand by that until someone proves me otherwise. I don’t care which controls you’re talking about, they all make me considerably worse at those games than dual-analog ever does. Metroid-prime doesn’t count, either, because it’s a simple lock-on mechanic that gets around this.
Happy birthday, Anthony! Myspace just told me it was today, but I figured you’re more likely to get the message if I posted it here than on myspace.
it’s funny how borderlands got a completely free pass in terms of criticism, but MW2 got destroyed… both were ‘console’ shooters… Borderlands had a far worse story, way more bugs on PC, and was extremely repetitive. Mw2 is ‘meh’ apart from spec ops and mp, but borderlands came off as much worse.
I think a lot of people were disappointed with Borderlands. It was addictive but at the end of the day now that we’ve all stopped playing it it seems like it was a waste of time.
If you check out Giant Bomb’s play tracking statistics, you can see that (at least among the GB community) Borderlands is only *slightly* below Left 4 Dead 2 in terms of people playing it. Which is to say, about 1/6 of the number of people playing Modern Warfare 2.
Also, I’m not sure how “multiple highest possible scores, and multiple just under highest possible scores” somehow translates to “destroyed”. I think you’re confusing “gets talked about a lot, and thus the criticisms are said / heard more often” with “destroyed”.
Yeah, how was MW2 destroyed? Just because Arthur and Anthony didn’t like it, doesn’t = destroyed? It got great reviews and is an awesome game.
Borderlands didn’t get a free pass. I’m sure many of us aren’t going to get the DLC because of the inadequacies that presented themselves after playing that game for a significant amount of time. Add to that, all of the crippling bugs that probably won’t be patched, Gearbox doesn’t deserve for us to support it any further.
I don’t mean destroyed critically in reviews.. I mean that Borderlands was seen as just a fun game *despite* its flaws…. Every flaw in MW2 has been put under the microscope and picked at for as long as possible. I don’t even like the game that much but it’s certainly far better than Borderlands.
After having played AC2 for some time (just started doing the storyline quests in Venice), I must say I’m a bit surprised by all the gushing over this game during the podcast. I agree with most of what Arthur said about the immersion, story, world, etc., however I feel that there was a lot left unsaid.
The main issue I have, which is pretty major because it influence every aspect of the game, is the controls and the way your character goes in and out of its preset animations. Even the camera position seems to influence whether Ezio grabs the intended ledge or not. This has led to numerous falls to death, getting stuck on barrels, getting stuck on a pile of hay after being pushed during a fight, climbing or jumping off the wrong wall during a chase sequence, grabing the edge of a roof instead of the wall nearby thereby not being able to continue climbing unless you go down first and start climbing all over again, and all sort of “no that was not what I wanted you to do” moments.
It is so bad that I have to stop playing every couple of hours as I’m boiling inside with frustration and shouting at my TV. Now is one of those moments. It’s probably exacerbated by the fact that the rest of the game is really enjoyable so I’m really pissed off that something as basic and fundamental as movements and controls is preventing me from being completely immersed in the universe they have created.
Love ya Anthony – but I couldn’t believe my ears when you talked about modifying your score for L4D because of your views on L4D2. It just seems contrary to the nouveau conventional wisdom on review scores and an example of everything “wrong” with scoring games. Cripes I’m tired of the 1up/EGM cavalcade bitching and moaning about metacritic and review scores and yet referencing metacritic and scores themselves every time the topic arises. People need to either face the realities of their own position or the readers that put hot pockets on their tables.
I didn’t actually review L4d. I was speaking purely hypothetical, and just having a moment where I thought about what it’s like when you score two games in a franchise the same, even if you feel the second one is better in every way.
Arthur, that’s interesting that you agree with 1UP and EGM’s 7 for Assassin’s Creed when EGM gave it a 5.83. I mostly remember the unusually low score because it (possibly among other things as well) caused Ubisoft to snub them according to then Eic Hsu.
Crispin gave it a 4. That brings the average down quite a bit.
Love this episode. Tyler’s sound effects are essential to the show.
Is there some sort of prize for being the fist commenter on these sort of things? I can’t imagine why a sane person would care about it if there wasn’t.
Yeah there’s a prize. It’s called the “nobody gives a shit you lame fucktard” prize, or the “congrats, you can refresh the site over and over until a new post appears and you’re first to post a message without any contribution to the discussion” award.
I love the bombcast, but PLEASE don’t let the first page of Rebel FM comments devolve the way theirs have. “first!” “Can’t wait to listen!” “this is gonna make my day!”.
Maybe Aegies can lock commenting until the podcast has been out a couple of hours.
Why? Seems pointless to me. If people want to say first or can’t wait to here it let them. Does it bug you two that much?
Talking about modes of difficulty or achievement/trophies is not dissimilar to spastically smashing your face into your keyboard in an attempt to type the word “First!!!”
No. It’s just makes me sad to know that idiots listen to the same podcast I listen to