The "Perfect Dark" trailer is set in Cairo but the people are speaking Modern Standard Arabic instead of an Egyptian Dialect. It's like having New Yorkers speak in received pronunciation. No native Arabic speaker talks in MSA unless it's a formal setting or they are bridging a dialect divide. If you're going to set your game in Cairo you should at least get the dialect of the natives right I would think.
Edit: What makes it even weirder is that I think the actors they had speak speak MSA with an Egyptian accent so I assume they had Egyptians do the voice work but gave them a script in MSA.
Some context for Metal Gear Solid Delta: delta, specifically "capital" delta like we have in the title of the game, is also the symbol for "change" in physics. It was a symbol chosen both to reflect it being MGS3 but also that it's a remake. Knowing the series, change itself may also be a central theme of this game, with differences between this anx the original being narratively important (like how Twin Snakes being different than MGS1 was because TS was actually the simulator being used to train Raiden)
Yeah, I don't want to entirely dismiss it as 'merely' a fan theory. But MGS can be very convoluted and I often see people online referring to things that happened in novelizations as canon... so I guess I'm just saying I struggle to keep things straight. You might say I'm 'drowning in a flood of information' ;)
*slams fists on table* WHEN will you learn what a masterpiece Horizon is!!! The first time I found out the boys didn’t like it I stopped listening for like 2 years I was so mad. (That’s not even a bit, though maybe it was a little dramatic).
I mean it’s great though: Pretty! Fun! 10/10 story! Hot strong woman protagonist! What is THE PROBLEM!
Anyway maybe I’m the only adult in the target audience for a Horizon LEGO game but I /am/ excited.
I liked the original Horizon (though not the DLC). The story's fantastic. But something about the sequel didn't gel. Hoping to try again on PC eventually!
I love it too. It's one of those games I'm glad I played before knowing their opinions about. I will say though for both HZD and HFW, I did not enjoy the first hour or so. I presumed I would just be overwhelmed like most games that attempt to be open world and narratively-driven and still mash in a bunch of crafting/weaponry/skill tree mechanics.
This was not the case though and I say all the time: there are few things in video games more satisfying than taking down a thunderjaw.
The open world gameplay (side quests) is repetitive and the map is disgustingly bloated with markers, the dialogue animation is on par with Bethesda for how unnatural it looks and feels, it’s not uniquely bad at anything but it is very much an 8/10 for me.
I’ve played dozens of hours before I woke up and realized I was grinding, and not even for anything of value to me. Reminds me of their complaints about FFVII Rebirth, bloated with unnecessary stuff to fill your time.
It’s more good than bad but it’s got flaws and there were enough to turn me off before rolling credits
Still flummoxed by people complaining about 7 rebirth and its optional “bloat.” It’s far less checklisty than horizon and unlike Ubisoft (a common comparison) the player is rewarded with good writing and more time with the characters and gameplay. I get that people have different tastes but I am already dreading the end of the year episode where they say “when it’s good it’s really good “ and then have it lose to mini shoot’ adventures or something
If you read the text and listen to the audio, you’ll find that all of it builds into the anticipation of the story reveal and adds layers of complexity to the lore. As far as collectibles go, Horizons are carefully crafted and thoughtful. The side quests are (imo) also very engaging. I don’t see repetitive at all, unless you mean the challenges and stuff like that, which I also found dull.
This whole thing drives me nuts as an argument though. If you don’t like the “bonus content” then don’t do it. If the collectibles bore you, skip them. Challenges too easy or too hard? Skip. Side quests repetitive (which I just disagree with), then just move along. They’re there for people that love and want more of the game. If you don’t love the game and want to slow down, then don’t. Obviously you want the game to be good enough to enjoy those portions, but if your ONLY complaint is the side content then I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t skip it and play the main game.
Seriously though, if you didn’t finish the story and get to the reveal/twist then I would say you should plow through and get there. That game is a masterpiece in storytelling. Its genuinely my favorite game of that console generation (I could take or leave the sequel). I was openly weeping at the end. Just. Amazing.
I'm 100% with you. I focused on getting the vistas in Zero Dawn whenever I knew they were near and the story unraveling in those and as I continued the main story really clicked with me. But I'm also a big Sci-Fi nerd so I love the premise anyway. I skipped a lot of other side stuff and decided I wanted to 100% the game when I was at the end so I went back and swept up the ones I skipped, it got a bit tedious but I wanted that platinum :)
For lots of people H:ZD came out around Breath of the Wild, which blew them away and made them realize they didn't like traditional "open-world" games. Personally I have yet to get into BOTW. I think it's just not my style, but I also prefer narrative-driven games so it makes sense I'd prefer Horizon!
It’s been years since I played but I mean the “go here and hunt this many of this machine type” and also I remember really losing interest around when I was doing some kind of archery course?
In any case, I think we’re all pretending the experience of enjoying games is more logical than it really is. I had the same problem with Spider-Man having too much repetitive side stuff, but finished that story and liked MM much more because of the restrained scale.
As for the whole “just ignore what you don’t like” argument… no? It’s literally in the ui, there’s quest markers and shit, the game is telling me to go here and do this and if I do manage to ignore that, it still just makes for clutter. It’s like if you’ve got notifications on your phone for stuff you don’t care about - yes, they don’t affect the function of the thing, but they are at a minimum annoying.
With that being said, I get that some people want to spend as much time as possible in games they enjoy and that my impression of a game is going to be affected by not having that goal - I don’t like the AC open world model and avoid games like it. If the playing of the game is fun to you moment to moment and any excuse to engage in more of that is a bonus for you, great, but for me the appeal was indeed the story and I felt like the ratio of content that I found good in the game to stuff I found dull was too high in the latter category for me to want to keep playing it.
Power to ya, but sometimes a game grabs you and it doesn’t for other people, and it might have more to do with them than the game (besties have to keep playing games if they want to discuss new topics every week, so a big open world game with tons of content is going to start off on the wrong foot with them a lot of the time, and that’s okay).
I Am Your Beast isn’t exactly a normal besties choice, but the voice acting, music and shooting is fantastic. It reminds me of Neon White without the anime and cards but similar quick, movement based shooting. Please go it!
Any chance yall changed your minds after the Dragon Age gameplay reveal? It seems you watched the teaser trailer and thought that was the game we’re getting. The actual gameplay trailer had that dark, epic feel that Justin was describing via Darksiders.
Came here to ask this too! I'm one of the ppl that were on the edge, but I liked the gameplay, and knowing they've been heavily involved with a community council helps a lot
yeah the gameplay was a million times better! And also it’s funny that this is apparently a trend for the series - the first trailer for Origins was set to a marilyn manson song of all things hahaha. Definitely putting this one on EA marketing
P3Reload made me bawl and was the first persona I finished, Im now a Dragons Dogma sicko after 2 blew me away and 1000xResist is still by far my goty check it out only like 8-12 hours ish
Let us all take a moment of silence for Christopher Thomas Plante for he will have to listen to 3 goobers talk about Destiny 2: The Final Shape for far too long next week. We pray for his sanity.
I am knee deep into animal well. I’ve unlocked about half the eggs and other things, but I’m quickly running out of easy things to find/do. It’s my first search-action, so I don’t know how to get myself out of jams and figure out where to go next. I’m trying to live by y’all’s advice of not looking stuff up. How do I figure out things without going online? I even started a new game to get a bit further, but I’m still just as stuck as before.
I recommend finding a discord or another place where you can ask people who have played it to give you a point in the right direction without giving too much away. There were definitely multiple times I got stuck in Animal Well and those kind of hints help me a lot!
Just to let you know! Animal Well is FAR from a typical search-action game. So, while I absolutely recommend playing another at some point, expect a much different experience!
as a big fan of dragon age i'm SHOCKED about how soon the release for veilguard is. i miss dragon age so much and its just so nice getting all this information about the game and enthusiasm from the people working on it. i saw the gameplay reveal and while it might end up looking different on release, i am here for games not trying to have a hyperrealistic art style. i'm so happy to be talking about dragon age with my friends again :)
You've gotta try Nine Sols! While it came out a week ago, it's been pretty under the radar for what is an incredible parrying-based action playformer by the creators of Devotion and Detention. I've never had another game hit the same highs as Sekiro even though Nine Sols is in a totally different genre! Which is good, probably, since Sekiro 2 is never coming out.
I played a demo for a game called The Big Catch, which is a game i completely forgot about until the demo showed up. Extremely good movement. A very PS1 inspired platformer with some fun locomotion options and a unique visual style. You run around, grinding on rails and jumping around ruins to catch fish. It's got elements of Spyro, Sonic and Banjo Kazooie in there. Excited for the full release
I have a question for the Besties: I'm from the UK and listen to all sorts of American podcasts, and have been a loyal Besties listener for a couple of years now - it's one of the pod highlights of my week. My issue is, I just can't tell anybody's voices apart. Except for Plante. Sometimes with a new podcast it takes me a few weeks to properly distinguish people's voices, but I always get there in the end. With The Besties, I never have. So when it's Justin or Griffin or Russ talking, I just know it's one of those three guys. And when it's Plante, I know it's him. Sometimes I can tell it's Russ, but not often. Justin and Griffin I can never tell apart. It doesn't hugely detract from the podcast, but it does stop me from getting to know the hosts. What can I do? Does anybody else have issues with this? The only solution I've come up with is you guys saying your names every time before you start talking. Wanna do that for me? Keep up the great podcast anyway!
You could always start listening to The Adventure Zone. Especially for the first long run of episodes, Griffin is the DM so you can always tell from context that it's him talking, and Justin sounds (at least to my Yank ears) pretty different from his dad and his other brother Travis, so eventually you would probably find it easier to tell who's who.
I feel this struggle haha, listening to some football pods as an American, it is so hard to distinguish the different voices because of the accent. The only thing I've found to be a little helpful is finding video of the different people talking and putting a voice with a face. I don't know why it helps, but doing that helped me with the different voices now listening to just the podcast.
I know that the video from these calls isn’t means for public consumption but wow i’d love a (Patreon exclusive?) clip of this week’s cold open. Even just a screenshot would go down so nice.
The "Perfect Dark" trailer is set in Cairo but the people are speaking Modern Standard Arabic instead of an Egyptian Dialect. It's like having New Yorkers speak in received pronunciation. No native Arabic speaker talks in MSA unless it's a formal setting or they are bridging a dialect divide. If you're going to set your game in Cairo you should at least get the dialect of the natives right I would think.
Edit: What makes it even weirder is that I think the actors they had speak speak MSA with an Egyptian accent so I assume they had Egyptians do the voice work but gave them a script in MSA.
Some context for Metal Gear Solid Delta: delta, specifically "capital" delta like we have in the title of the game, is also the symbol for "change" in physics. It was a symbol chosen both to reflect it being MGS3 but also that it's a remake. Knowing the series, change itself may also be a central theme of this game, with differences between this anx the original being narratively important (like how Twin Snakes being different than MGS1 was because TS was actually the simulator being used to train Raiden)
Isn't the Twin Snakes thing a fan theory?
Maybe? It's been a while so it could just be one of those things I heard and thought "Sure, this might as well be cannon"
Yeah, I don't want to entirely dismiss it as 'merely' a fan theory. But MGS can be very convoluted and I often see people online referring to things that happened in novelizations as canon... so I guess I'm just saying I struggle to keep things straight. You might say I'm 'drowning in a flood of information' ;)
Are we still expecting Kojima-ass shit like that in a post-Kojima game? (It's MGS, so, probably?)
yeah, can confirm as a Dragon Age fan who is replaying DA:I to get excited for Veilguard, the gameplay got me properly excited.
*slams fists on table* WHEN will you learn what a masterpiece Horizon is!!! The first time I found out the boys didn’t like it I stopped listening for like 2 years I was so mad. (That’s not even a bit, though maybe it was a little dramatic).
I mean it’s great though: Pretty! Fun! 10/10 story! Hot strong woman protagonist! What is THE PROBLEM!
Anyway maybe I’m the only adult in the target audience for a Horizon LEGO game but I /am/ excited.
From Plante:
I liked the original Horizon (though not the DLC). The story's fantastic. But something about the sequel didn't gel. Hoping to try again on PC eventually!
I love it too. It's one of those games I'm glad I played before knowing their opinions about. I will say though for both HZD and HFW, I did not enjoy the first hour or so. I presumed I would just be overwhelmed like most games that attempt to be open world and narratively-driven and still mash in a bunch of crafting/weaponry/skill tree mechanics.
This was not the case though and I say all the time: there are few things in video games more satisfying than taking down a thunderjaw.
The open world gameplay (side quests) is repetitive and the map is disgustingly bloated with markers, the dialogue animation is on par with Bethesda for how unnatural it looks and feels, it’s not uniquely bad at anything but it is very much an 8/10 for me.
I’ve played dozens of hours before I woke up and realized I was grinding, and not even for anything of value to me. Reminds me of their complaints about FFVII Rebirth, bloated with unnecessary stuff to fill your time.
It’s more good than bad but it’s got flaws and there were enough to turn me off before rolling credits
Still flummoxed by people complaining about 7 rebirth and its optional “bloat.” It’s far less checklisty than horizon and unlike Ubisoft (a common comparison) the player is rewarded with good writing and more time with the characters and gameplay. I get that people have different tastes but I am already dreading the end of the year episode where they say “when it’s good it’s really good “ and then have it lose to mini shoot’ adventures or something
I can see that perspective but I just disagree.
If you read the text and listen to the audio, you’ll find that all of it builds into the anticipation of the story reveal and adds layers of complexity to the lore. As far as collectibles go, Horizons are carefully crafted and thoughtful. The side quests are (imo) also very engaging. I don’t see repetitive at all, unless you mean the challenges and stuff like that, which I also found dull.
This whole thing drives me nuts as an argument though. If you don’t like the “bonus content” then don’t do it. If the collectibles bore you, skip them. Challenges too easy or too hard? Skip. Side quests repetitive (which I just disagree with), then just move along. They’re there for people that love and want more of the game. If you don’t love the game and want to slow down, then don’t. Obviously you want the game to be good enough to enjoy those portions, but if your ONLY complaint is the side content then I just don’t understand why you wouldn’t skip it and play the main game.
Seriously though, if you didn’t finish the story and get to the reveal/twist then I would say you should plow through and get there. That game is a masterpiece in storytelling. Its genuinely my favorite game of that console generation (I could take or leave the sequel). I was openly weeping at the end. Just. Amazing.
I'm 100% with you. I focused on getting the vistas in Zero Dawn whenever I knew they were near and the story unraveling in those and as I continued the main story really clicked with me. But I'm also a big Sci-Fi nerd so I love the premise anyway. I skipped a lot of other side stuff and decided I wanted to 100% the game when I was at the end so I went back and swept up the ones I skipped, it got a bit tedious but I wanted that platinum :)
For lots of people H:ZD came out around Breath of the Wild, which blew them away and made them realize they didn't like traditional "open-world" games. Personally I have yet to get into BOTW. I think it's just not my style, but I also prefer narrative-driven games so it makes sense I'd prefer Horizon!
It’s been years since I played but I mean the “go here and hunt this many of this machine type” and also I remember really losing interest around when I was doing some kind of archery course?
In any case, I think we’re all pretending the experience of enjoying games is more logical than it really is. I had the same problem with Spider-Man having too much repetitive side stuff, but finished that story and liked MM much more because of the restrained scale.
As for the whole “just ignore what you don’t like” argument… no? It’s literally in the ui, there’s quest markers and shit, the game is telling me to go here and do this and if I do manage to ignore that, it still just makes for clutter. It’s like if you’ve got notifications on your phone for stuff you don’t care about - yes, they don’t affect the function of the thing, but they are at a minimum annoying.
With that being said, I get that some people want to spend as much time as possible in games they enjoy and that my impression of a game is going to be affected by not having that goal - I don’t like the AC open world model and avoid games like it. If the playing of the game is fun to you moment to moment and any excuse to engage in more of that is a bonus for you, great, but for me the appeal was indeed the story and I felt like the ratio of content that I found good in the game to stuff I found dull was too high in the latter category for me to want to keep playing it.
Power to ya, but sometimes a game grabs you and it doesn’t for other people, and it might have more to do with them than the game (besties have to keep playing games if they want to discuss new topics every week, so a big open world game with tons of content is going to start off on the wrong foot with them a lot of the time, and that’s okay).
I Am Your Beast isn’t exactly a normal besties choice, but the voice acting, music and shooting is fantastic. It reminds me of Neon White without the anime and cards but similar quick, movement based shooting. Please go it!
Any chance yall changed your minds after the Dragon Age gameplay reveal? It seems you watched the teaser trailer and thought that was the game we’re getting. The actual gameplay trailer had that dark, epic feel that Justin was describing via Darksiders.
Came here to ask this too! I'm one of the ppl that were on the edge, but I liked the gameplay, and knowing they've been heavily involved with a community council helps a lot
yeah the gameplay was a million times better! And also it’s funny that this is apparently a trend for the series - the first trailer for Origins was set to a marilyn manson song of all things hahaha. Definitely putting this one on EA marketing
Ooo I totally forgot that came out, gotta go watch!
Plante I got you for next week! 1000xResist
P3Reload made me bawl and was the first persona I finished, Im now a Dragons Dogma sicko after 2 blew me away and 1000xResist is still by far my goty check it out only like 8-12 hours ish
From Plante:
YES!!!! Excellent rec!!
Plante has definitely already played 1000xresist
Ah did they talk about it on Resties or something? I desperately need more discussions on this game lmao
Both on the resties and last week I think
Ah ty, thats my calling to finally grab patreon
Just for the record, "Delta" is the fourth letter in the Greek alphabet, not the third. Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta
Let us all take a moment of silence for Christopher Thomas Plante for he will have to listen to 3 goobers talk about Destiny 2: The Final Shape for far too long next week. We pray for his sanity.
I am knee deep into animal well. I’ve unlocked about half the eggs and other things, but I’m quickly running out of easy things to find/do. It’s my first search-action, so I don’t know how to get myself out of jams and figure out where to go next. I’m trying to live by y’all’s advice of not looking stuff up. How do I figure out things without going online? I even started a new game to get a bit further, but I’m still just as stuck as before.
I recommend finding a discord or another place where you can ask people who have played it to give you a point in the right direction without giving too much away. There were definitely multiple times I got stuck in Animal Well and those kind of hints help me a lot!
Just to let you know! Animal Well is FAR from a typical search-action game. So, while I absolutely recommend playing another at some point, expect a much different experience!
as a big fan of dragon age i'm SHOCKED about how soon the release for veilguard is. i miss dragon age so much and its just so nice getting all this information about the game and enthusiasm from the people working on it. i saw the gameplay reveal and while it might end up looking different on release, i am here for games not trying to have a hyperrealistic art style. i'm so happy to be talking about dragon age with my friends again :)
Y'all need to try nine sols! Amazing game
You've gotta try Nine Sols! While it came out a week ago, it's been pretty under the radar for what is an incredible parrying-based action playformer by the creators of Devotion and Detention. I've never had another game hit the same highs as Sekiro even though Nine Sols is in a totally different genre! Which is good, probably, since Sekiro 2 is never coming out.
I played a demo for a game called The Big Catch, which is a game i completely forgot about until the demo showed up. Extremely good movement. A very PS1 inspired platformer with some fun locomotion options and a unique visual style. You run around, grinding on rails and jumping around ruins to catch fish. It's got elements of Spyro, Sonic and Banjo Kazooie in there. Excited for the full release
I have a question for the Besties: I'm from the UK and listen to all sorts of American podcasts, and have been a loyal Besties listener for a couple of years now - it's one of the pod highlights of my week. My issue is, I just can't tell anybody's voices apart. Except for Plante. Sometimes with a new podcast it takes me a few weeks to properly distinguish people's voices, but I always get there in the end. With The Besties, I never have. So when it's Justin or Griffin or Russ talking, I just know it's one of those three guys. And when it's Plante, I know it's him. Sometimes I can tell it's Russ, but not often. Justin and Griffin I can never tell apart. It doesn't hugely detract from the podcast, but it does stop me from getting to know the hosts. What can I do? Does anybody else have issues with this? The only solution I've come up with is you guys saying your names every time before you start talking. Wanna do that for me? Keep up the great podcast anyway!
You could always start listening to The Adventure Zone. Especially for the first long run of episodes, Griffin is the DM so you can always tell from context that it's him talking, and Justin sounds (at least to my Yank ears) pretty different from his dad and his other brother Travis, so eventually you would probably find it easier to tell who's who.
I feel this struggle haha, listening to some football pods as an American, it is so hard to distinguish the different voices because of the accent. The only thing I've found to be a little helpful is finding video of the different people talking and putting a voice with a face. I don't know why it helps, but doing that helped me with the different voices now listening to just the podcast.
I know that the video from these calls isn’t means for public consumption but wow i’d love a (Patreon exclusive?) clip of this week’s cold open. Even just a screenshot would go down so nice.
It likely was not archived anywhere