This week, the group is together once again. We even manage to keep the cast small and succinct for once.

Also, this was another week without any viewer questions. If you would like to send us a question, comment, or something you’d like us to read on the air, please send it to us at thetexturepop@gmail.com.

0:03:10 Gaming News
Spider-man will be a part of the Marvel Cinematic Universe
To sum up this entire conversation, this move is great for fans of the Spider-man property, and arguably mutually beneficial to both Sony Pictures and Marvel Studios. After all, it means that Sony can stop wasting their time and money on a franchise they clearly can’t handle while giving Marvel the tools they need to succeed.

Peter Molyneux and Godus have been under fire this week.
Not only is the above-linked Eurogamer article a major part of this story, but so it the Rock Paper Shotgun interview.
I don’t see Peter Molyneux as a bad person, or even as a “pathological liar.” What I see is someone who has fantastic ideas on how to develop great video games, but without the talent or skill required to realize these visions. As a result, he gets himself into all sorts of trouble. Don’t get me wrong, he has to accept responsibility for his mistakes. However, I can understand the thought processes behind how those mistakes were made. In the future, people should be significantly more guarded about what he says and donating money to him.
With a publisher cracking the whip and helping him stay on schedule, this can work. However, since he’s now an independent publisher, he no longer has the luxury of having someone come and edit his vision down to something manageable.
In regards to the RPS interview, while I do understand the reason for his disdain towards Peter Molyneux, it does not justify the unrepentantly nasty tone. Quite frankly, it makes the site look bad. These questions do need to be asked, but there are significantly more appropriate and more professional ways to ask them.

Jon Steward is going to leave The Daily Show
This arguably marks the end of an era in history. Tons of people my age turn to The Daily Show to satisfy a lot of need with regards to both news and comedy. It is going to be hard to replace him.

0:25:57 Garrett discusses his week in rapid fire.
And there was a lot that he did.

0:43:10 I played and beat Contrast
If you liked Portal, you’ll probably like Contrast. It’s a short game that does not overstay it’s welcome. Furthermore, it used its light/shadow mechanics in the very interesting way. Not much more to say about it.

0:45:02 I played and beat Outlast.
It’s a decent horror games. You will get a few good scares at the start and the gameplay and premise are good enough to get you through the whole game. However, it will not stand out in your mind. It fails to leave a more lasting impression.

0:55:20 Chris got sick of Yaiba.
It was only a matter of time. Honestly, it’s better this way.

0:57:50 Chris played Brandish: The Dark Revenant
I don’t know what is more shocking: The fact that a game is going out for the PSP or the fact that I really want to play said game. After seeing gameplay videos, and looking at gameplay videos, it looks pretty good.
While I don’t generally enjoy bare-bones dungeon crawlers without much story, it looks fun enough (and portable enough).

1:17:25 Sam talks about his week without Twitter.
The article about it is here and worth a read. He had a nice little mini-discussion on the subject and there were some interesting points brought up.

1:24:30 Sam watch Fifty Shades of Gray.
Despite how awful the movie had to have been, we actually had a really interesting discussion about the use of BDSM in fiction. It’s used a lot, and often it does not reflect how people with that particular kink act in real life. Sam and I disagree a bit about how, or even if, the problem can/should be rectified, but it is an interesting conversation nonetheless.
I also mention sexplantions, which is a really good web series done by Dr. Lindsey Doe that helps teach people like you or I, who aren’t as well-read in this subject, a bit more about sex and romance than most educational sources will teach you. For anyone curious about these kinds of topics, but not brave enough to ask professionals about it, it is worth checking out.

1:36:30 Wrapping Up
My Diablo 3: Ultimate Evil Edition article is here.
Interactive Friction is here.
Sam’s Twitter article is, once again, here.

This episode is the beginning of the end of Far Cry 3. In a related note, it is also the WORST part of Far Cry 3.

Sam made a very interesting point in this episode. If all we needed to do was to just steal a uniform, it would be simple to just shiv the guy at the entrance, then dispose of the body. We would have absolutely no need to sneak into the heart of the base. Everything after we got passed that first guard was a complete waste of time.

I mean, technically we also obtained the information that some guards in the evil drug and human trafficking organization  are morally bankrupt and funneling money from under their boss’s nose. However, we would have no indication that we could get such information before we were pulled aside by the guard.

And another thing that I didn’t think about when recording the episode, why would the guard pull us over in particular? What about us would single us out as particular corrupt enough to join him? Did he have a relationship with the person we stole the uniform from? If so, how did he not know he weren’t that guy and what are the odds we would get that guy’s particular uniform? That in and of itself is an unlikely series of contrivances. On top of the fact that Hoyt is here and we just happen to say “Oh, I dunno. Let’s sneak in for no reason.” makes this section just the most painfully stupid piece of writing in this game.

Speaking of Hoyt, dear god this is dumb. We talked about it at length in the episode, but I cannot possibly emphasize enough exactly how stupid it is that Hoyt doesn’t get stabbed. Again, the plot should have been over well before this, but this really underscores how much this second section of the game is pointless filler. (For the record, our first chance to kill Hoyt occurred in episode 7.)

So, in summery, the sheer staggeringly-massive amount of contrivances is so high and the random chance that all of these factors would fall so nicely into place is so low that, even without the inclusion of Hoyt in that section, this mission does not make sense. It stretches plausibility so much that Jason would have to forge a contract with the Old Gods in order for me to believe it.

Missed Hoyt Assassination Opportunities: 2


Every once in a while, I find myself playing a multiplayer loot-fest, where the main point in the game is to grow stronger and acquire better equipment as the game goes on. I am not entirely sure why this is the case. Though I rarely ever get as much fun out of them as other people do, they keep ending up on my queue somehow. In this particular instance, a friend of mine requested that I play Diablo 3 with him, so I got the PS4 version and did just that. Somehow, we managed to make it through both the base game and the Reaper of Souls expansion that came with the Ultimate Evil Edition. While a great game, I feel that Diablo 3 had a couple of big problems that I am not entirely sure how to address.
Initially released in May of 2012, Diablo 3 released to great controversy. The original title included several criticized new features, like always-online DRM and the auction house, in real-money and in-game currency varieties. Others disliked the lower drop rates of items in the first release. Slowly, over time, most of these issues were addressed in updates to the game, to the point where most of the old fans were at least satisfied by the end result. Many new features, like Paragon leveling and PvP, were even added in. The PS4 version I played came out in August of 2014. My version of the game is, as of the time of writing, complete with the only expansion to ever have been released for the game.
As a port, the game is very solid. Though I have no experience with the PC version, the game looks quite good. While it will never be a spectacle in graphic prowess, each area in the game is memorable in its own right. The characters are also quite distinct from one another. At a glance, it was extremely easy to tell my character apart from both my partner’s character and the enemies on screen. Furthermore, I enjoyed the use of color in the game. Looking at screen-shots of the first 2 Diablo games, I noticed a very gray and brown palette. Though Diablo 3 is just as dark in its world design, the extra color and style they injected helps it stand out from other games. With loads times rarely, if ever, exceeding a single second, Blizzard definitely gave the PS4 the royal treatment when it came to porting Diablo 3 to the machine.
At the same time, I did find that I had some issues with controlling the game. For those unaware, Diablo presents the player and up to three of their friends with many enemies to fight, and most fights consist of repeatedly clicking on enemies (on the PC) until they die. The PS4 lacks a mouse, so movement and direction have to be handled using analog sticks. For this reason, precisely aiming some special attacks is an impossible task. For example, as I was playing a Wizard, Wizards are given a move where they can summon a black hole that pulls enemies towards itself. There were a number of occasions where it went in the direction I was aiming, but was either too close or too far to my intended target because it was auto-aimed at the wrong enemy. I do not have an easy solution to this problem, because it is inherent to the controller-interface. They may have been able to alleviate it by using the touch pad as a mouse, but I imagine that would have similar issues to using a mouse pad on a laptop computer. It is not an easy fix, but still an issue that needs to be pointed out.
The other control-based issue I had was a general-discomfort from prolonged play. Typically, my co-op partner and I would play for roughly 3 hours in a single game session. At the end of our sessions, we would often experiences soreness in our fingers and thumbs. This mostly came from repeatedly holding down the X button on the PS4 controller for minutes at a time to use our characters’ basic attacks. I would even have a switch fingers mid-battle a lot just to make myself feel a bit more comfortable. Like the issue with precise aiming, I feel that this might just be an inherent problem to putting a fundamentally PC, keyboard-and-mouse-oriented game onto a console, because a mouse button is more comfortable to use for extended periods of time. However, unlike the issue of precise aiming, it is less of a minor annoyance and more of a genuine complication. It is difficult to enjoy a game that literally hurts to play at length.
The other interesting thing I made note of when playing is the unique way in which the loot system creates a form of competitive-cooperation. For the unaware, the main method by which Diablo 3 engages players, enticing them to press on, is through a positive feedback. In the version of the game I played, as players defeat monsters, complete quests, and open treasure chests, they will obtain equipment and experience which can be used to further strengthen their characters. After acquiring new more powerful gear, they can tackle more challenging content and obtain even better items. Though there is a story and campaign, this feedback loop is at the core of why Diablo is effective.
When playing with friends, the best thing that Diablo does is give each player their own separate loot drops. In the event that an enemy or treasure chest leaves a piece of equipment behind, each player will have their own items that only they can see. No other player will be able to take them, nor can they take the drops of other players. This neatly skirts a common trap that is often seen in games like Borderlands, where every player sees all the loot. As a result, teams will not have to compete with one another to strengthen their characters. I refer to this as “negative competition,” where the desire to outmatch others results in a dissolution of the team dynamic when the rewards start flowing.
Instead, I found that my co-op partner and I experienced what I would call “positive competition.” We still constantly tried to one up each other in a form of an arms race to see which of us was the stronger character. However, since we both obtained new equipment at the same rate, and could not worsen each others chances of obtaining good loot, we could more easily cooperate towards a common goal. By working with each other, we could maximize our rewards. Afterwards, we would attempt to one-up each other by showing off the items we earned. We would even engage in trade and item exchanges if it meant that our team was more effective overall. Though we were essentially competing with each other, the systems utilized that and channeled it into a cooperative force.
On the other hand, there is an interesting problem that I discovered as I was playing. That is, it became hard to pick a difficulty that was exactly challenging enough to keep me interested in the game, but not enough to make the enemies extremely time-consuming to kill. Since enemies scale to the party’s level, the only way to truly control both how tough they are, and how good their loot drops are, is by adjusting the difficulty. Rarely does increasing difficulty ever make the game “challenging,” in that it requires more tactics and use of evasive/defensive skills, unless the player is fighting an elite or boss character. Rather, what usually happens is that the enemies take significantly more time to kill. Not only does it exacerbate the sore-thumb problem from earlier, but it can also really start to bore the player if they go too far. Finding this equilibrium is the real difficulty, not the actual fighting.

Diablo 3 is a great game for those with the correct disposition. Those who adore loot-fests like Borderlands or Torchlight probably already have Diablo 3 at this point, enjoying their experience. Though it entertained me enough to stick with it to the end, I would not have done so without the encouragement of my co-op partner. It is very much a game that works better with friends. The single-player will not find as much value here. Though there is a story, it only does its job by justifying the dungeon-crawling and loot gathering. I think that may be why I find myself quitting these games often. It is difficult to routinely gather a group of friends to play one game. Those who can gather a reliable group will have great times here. Solo gamers need not bother.

First off, I want to point out that this is 200th post on this blog. Honestly, when I started out in 2012, I didn’t think I’d stick with it this long. Nor did I believe I’d really have a chance to get good at it. Thank you to everyone who has supported me along the way, and I hope you continue to do so in the future.

Now, in this episode, we begin our trek into the second half of the game. More importantly, I teach someone who writes articles as a hobby how to correctly use the word “titular.”

I love the stupidity of the scene at the start of this episode because of how stupid it is. Jason is basically telling his girlfriend Liza, “I’m comfortable being a completely selfish monster, and I can only do that by staying here.” Then, Liza basically allows him to do it without even questioning it for a minute. This only makes sense if she’s secretly trying to kill Jason (and I would have to respect her for that), or if Jason already showed signs of being this much of an unrepentant bastard before they landed on the island. Otherwise, it comes off as just plain silly.

And Sam brings up a good point. If Jason and company left, what would Hoyt do? Citra might try to stop him, but Jason’s apparently (somehow) become a good enough warrior to fend them off by himself. Hoyt, at this point in the story, does not even know what Jason looks like. Sure, we can look him up, and send his men after him in the states, but that’s far too many resources to spend on someone who is not even a problem anymore. It further strengthens our argument that the story should have ended there.

Despite being the worst part of the game, we do end up getting the best mode of transportation here, which is the wingsuit. Even though I am a harsh critic of this game, I have to admit that the wingsuit is extremely fun to use. Jumping off a cliff and gliding through the air just feels good to do.

The other good thing this section does is introduce us to Sam. Aside from Vaas and Liza, Sam is one of the best characters in the game. He’s a tough looking German dude and knows it. Basically, he utilizes commonly-assumed stereotypes of tattooed German’s to infiltrate Hoyt’s operation and make people assume he’s tough shit. In actuality, he’s working for the CIA in an attempt to take down the whole operation. The setup alone gives him a lot more depth than most of the other character’s in the game. On top of that, he’s given some good lines and his voice actor sounds like he’s enjoying the role. You’ll see as we go on what I mean by that.

Aside from that, most of the major story beats on the second island will be disappointment after disappointment. It’s pretty much all downhill from here.

In this episode of Interactive Friction, we hit the best part of game… after we go through Citra’s bullshit.

It truly is a shame that we had to go through this really shitty dream sequence before we have to experience some of the best this game offers in terms of storytelling. It is a boss battle that lasts about twice as long as it needs to. On top of that, it is easy to figure out and not particular fun to fight.

Then, it’s followed by one of the most uncomfortable “sex” scenes I can remember. Citra really creeps me out in this scene, and I’m not sure if that’s intentional or just me being prudish or something else.

But after that, we finally get to the best part. Vaas, the best part of this game, goes out in a blaze of glory. The little hallucinations they give you right before Vaas’s final scene are a really, really nice touch of subtly in story telling. Even before that, the whole scene has Vaas just pointing out the absurdity of one lone, rich, white boy taking on a literal army of pirates and their commander. In this one mission, we have a lot of small things coming together.

Not only does it represent the end of the best character in the game, but also the true transition of Jason Dilweed from a rich, white, douchebag to a rich, white, monstrous douchebag. His friends no longer matter, only the bloodlust. Again, there is potential. Must could have been done with these ideas, but that’s the story of Far Cry 3. Far Cry 3 is a host of things that “had potential” and “could have done”s. In the end, what is an Ubisoft game, but a miserable little pile of unused potentials.

Sam could not make it to this week’s recording because his job had left him physically exhausted that weekend. As a result, this is a bit of a shorter cast than usual.

Also, we had no viewer questions this week. If you have a question, comment, or anything else you want to be read on the air, please e-mail us at thetexturepop@gmail.com. We’ll be happy to read what you send, within reason.

0:01:20 Gaming News
Persona 5 Teaser Trailer
I really wish Sam was here for the Persona 5 conversation. Chris and Garrett are great conversationalist, but they don’t care as much about Persona 5 as Sam and I do, so it would’ve easier to have a conversation with him around.
One thing I want to note is that there was a Final Fantasy XV trailer that also came out this same week. In comparison, the Persona 5 trailer looks so much better. It’s not surprising, but it is indicative of the obvious transition to from Square-Enix to ATLUS as King of JRPGS.

Naughty Dog says getting Uncharted 4 to 60 FPS is “really hard”
We’ve already discussed the whole Frames Per Second thing before, so this conversation felt a bit more-of-the-same, doubly so without Sam here. However, it is still worth reiterating.

Nintendo’s new revenue-sharing program
I do want to make a correction of a mistake I made in this video. Nintendo takes 30%. The video maker takes the remaining 70% of YouTube revenue. That’s still really pointlessly mean, but less so than I made it out to be in this segment.
Still, the fact that they want any piece of that pie is a really bad precedent to establish. It speaks to the bad part of Nintendo’s decidedly older paradigm when it comes to video games. They make good consoles and good games, but there’s no excuse for this ignorance of the online space.
There’s still one thing we didn’t mention is that Nintendo will only allow content from a pre-approved list of games. If you want to do a video on Smash Bros, Nintendo does not care about you. It’s shocking how backwards this line of thinking is, and I hope it bites them in the ass.

0:22:30 Garrett lists everything he did in rapid-fire (and I can’t keep up)
Yeah.

0:26:30 Garrett discusses game ideas he has from his Game Design class.
“Iron Aurora” copyright 2015 to Garrett Glazewski.

0:34:30 I have been playing Final Fantasy VI
You’re probably getting sick of hearing me say this, but I have an article on the game in the works, so I want to keep my discussion of it hear to an absolute minimum. I have a large queue, I know, but please bear with me.
Still, we had a great discussion of the game here. I had a blast playing and I easily see why so many people love it.
I do love how Chris gets to be the “modern Final Fantasy sucks” guy, since he’s the oldest.

0:57:25 Chris plays Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel (because of DLC).
It’s Borderbutts. If you like Borderbutts, you probably already own it.

1:07:10 Chris played more Hyrule Warriors (because of DLC)
And I’ve got nothing to add, unfortunately.

1:11:00 Chris played Yaiba: Ninja Gaiden Z
Y’know, I’ve never been a fan of the Ninja Gaiden franchise. Having said that, I’m impressed at how bad Chris’s descriptions and examples make this game sound. I really can’t envision myself having much fun with it.

1:28:00 Wrapping Up
Interactive Friction is here.
My inFamous: First Light article is here.

Addendum:
After the podcast was released, Sam had a chance to write his own opinions out, since he missed the recording. You can find that article here.

Now that all the filler is out of the way, Sam and I are free to finish the best part of the game, before moving on to the worst part of the game.

We have a pretty lengthy discussion on PMCs in video games. Without delving too much into politics, I think it would be difficult, but not impossible to tell a story involving a PMC without that organization being secretly evil. There is a very good reason why PMCs are generally frowned upon in polite company. I’d be interested in seeing developers try that, but one cannot deny that there’s a huge risk in doing so.

Another topic we talk about is game endings. One of the things that I have noticed, particularly in the last generation of gaming, is that a lot of games tended to end a lot later than probably should have. I truly think that ending the game at the point before Jason even gets the chance to confront Hoyt would have been a lot better. Not only is that last half (or third) of the game a massive drag, but Jason dying as a result of his falling into madness is an extremely appropriate end to his character arc. As we mentioned in the episode, Bioshock suffered a similar problem after the grand reveal.

We said that this part is the high-point of the story. We’re actually a little wrong. It’s not this episode that serves as the strongest part of the plot, but the next episode. It actually makes use of some more subtle writing and use of metaphor to convey the overall point of the story. But we’ll get to that next time.

One of the things I was told pretty regularly before I finished inFamous: Second Son was that getting the First Light expansion was worth it. Since it was a standalone DLC akin to that of Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon, this was something that people told me to play without even touching the main game. Because it was free on PlayStation Plus, I took the opportunity to play it after finishing Second Son. First Light, especially when compared to Second Son, is quite interesting to look at. This is because it is in a very unique position with regards to the franchise, which I will detail this week. Hopefully, First Light shows Sucker Punch a new direction they can take the franchise, to help alleviate some of the more common criticisms from both myself and other critics.
Released in August of 2014, First Light tells the story of Abigail “Fetch” Walker, the conduit Delsin takes his Neon powers from in Second Son. It shows how, after coming to Seattle, she finds herself embroiled in gang politics, narcotics dealing, and the DUP. Not only is her capture and transfer to DUP custody explained, but also her descent into anger and rage, resulting in the Fetch seen in Second Son.
The very first thing I noticed while playing First Light is that it is the very first game in the inFamous franchise that did not make use of the Good/Evil karma system seen in every other inFamous title to date. In fact, no morality system exists in this game. This does wonders for the story. Since Fetch has to become the character from Second Son, she cannot take a different path. Secure in the knowledge that the plot only has one possible outcome, the writers are free to delve deeper into the character and why she is making the choices she makes. Fetch is totally free to express her inner thoughts, take stances of her own, and define herself as a character.
Previous inFamous protagonists did not get that same freedom. Because the player could choose between being completely Good or completely Evil, the writers had to take both possibilities into account when writing dialog. The protagonist’s dialog had to make sense for both a saint and a devil, with the exception of scenes that take place immediately after a karmic choice. In a sense, they served more as ciphers for the player than actual characters. Because of this, they could not take strong moral stances on anything, because the possibility existed that they would not take the path which they were advocating. Since Fetch can take moral stands, and form opinions of others, it makes her that much more strongly characterized as a result.
The other positive about removing the karma system is that is eliminates this need to allow players to choose between two overly extreme story choices. As I have talkedaboutin the past, inFamous’s karma system often makes the player make decisions between normal person or cartoon villain. Second Son had the opposite problem where choices felt far too similar on both sides in some instances. When these get removed, the writing becomes stronger just by virtue of not taking the player out of the experience with these inherently meaningless choices.
Another way in which First Light differentiates itself from Second Son is in the way powers develop. In Second Son, there were four different power sets that all played the same, but had different properties, because Delsin could use multiple powers. Fetch only has Neon powers, much like Cole in the original games only had electricity. Instead of having one template in which multiple powers are used, Fetch has one skillset which gets augmented gradually, over the course of the expansion. As a result, the sense of progression is a bit more pronounced.
What is more important to our conversation is how these powers can be upgraded over the course of the game. In both games, players need to gather some form of collectible. Delsin had to collect Blast Shards in Second Son and Fetch was required to gather Neon “Lumens” in First Light. For certain upgrades, Delsin also had to acquire a specific karma-level, either Good or Evil, to earn the right to purchase them. For example, only an Evil Delsin can upgrade his grenades to have a larger explosive range, while only good characters can heal themselves by subduing enemies without killing them. On the other hand, Fetch only needs to unlock the base power to purchase upgrades for it. Some can only be gained after beating the game, but without karma blocking off development, Fetch develops much more organically.

Overall, the removal of the karma system afforded First Light a number of opportunities not granted to other inFamous games. I know, deep down, that this is because it is only a $15 DLC, much like the Festival of Blood on the PS3. However, it still reveals that the franchise has been held back for a long time by what initially seemed like a necessity. At the time of the first inFamous, moral-choice systems were all the rage. Now, in an era full of choice-based games like those from Telltale, they seem very weak. Perhaps it is time to consider a change of pace for the series, now that we know it can work without such mechanics.

In this episode, we finally complete the pointless filler missions, and get back to Jason being a complete tool.

It sure is convenient that good ol’ Bambi decided to betray us in this section. Otherwise, we would not have been able to give it to Citra to actually progress the story in some way. Actually, that might have been an interesting opportunity. After getting Bambi’s dagger for him, another mission or two to either take it from him or convince him to hand it over to us.

Alternatively, we could left the island and not given a shit because we essentially completely our main objective of getting all of our friends back and get off the island. Riley (to our knowledge) is dead, so we have every living party member with us. By all rights, we should be gone.

However, Jason does not want to leave. He suddenly decided that he wants revenge. There’s nothing inherently wrong with that. Unfortunately, there’s no real lead in to his decision. A scene or two of him talking with Liza, or hell even Citra, about taking revenge and/or killing Vaas/Hoyt, As it stands, it takes less than 5 minutes for him to go from “My brother is dead.” to “Let’s kill some folks.” If that was just what put him over the edge, and he was already contemplating it, that would be one fine. It’s just, they could have done some form of foreshadowing.

Back to the topic of Buck, it really doesn’t make sense for him, to betray us. What exactly does he hope to gain? It’s not like he was particularly happy to keep Keith, and he knew we were pretty good at wasting pirates. It just seems like an unnecessary risk, and any future business transactions he undertakes of this nature will be compromised, because the other party has no reason to trust him.

There’s only so much stupid that a plot can hold before I start to wonder whether or not the editors are as high as our friend Oliver seems to be. I’m just not sure how it came to this.

And the whole group is back together again. Further, Garrett’s friend Tyler stopped by to join us for most of the cast.

We tried to do something new by having all of us record our audio on Audacity. However, it fell through. We’re going to try it again next week in an effort to improve the listener experience, so don’t lose hope.

0:01:30 Viewer Questions
Adonisus’s podcast is here, for those who are curious.

“Do you think that an AO game has any commercial viability?”
Honestly, there is a small, but potential market for an AO game. As much as I dislike Hatred, as an example, I believe that it can do well.
Retailers will not waste their time with AO games, for two reasons. First, there is not a big enough market. Secondly, they tend to present a family-friendly environment, which those games tend to detract from.
That said, I imagine with all the publicity, sales from the designers website will, while no where near as good as a dedicated retail store, will likely be enough to make a profit. In that sense, it could be commercially viable in those terms.
So, while it is not a big market, it does exist.

“What do you guys think of the news that Marvel intends to reboot their universe after the Secret Wars event?”
I am glad Chris is here to answer this question, because he knows so much more about comics than I do.
In general though, I am of the attitude that I am okay with whatever changes a developer wants to do, so long as the character can still be recognized as the character. We can only determine how good and bad changes are after they’ve been implemented.

If you wish to send us Viewer Questions, please e-mail us at thetexturepop@gmail.com.

0:17:13 Gaming News
The Elder Scrolls Online goes Buy-To-Play
I think this will attract more people to the game, since the barrier of entry is lessened. However, I feel that the next logical step is truly Free-To-Play, and this won’t produce enough revenue to not go in this direction.
The game is still fundamentally flawed, and the initial bad taste it left in the mouth of many players is still there. They could do well, but it needs to reclaim a lot of its lost good will.

In a broader sense, I am not convinced that subscription is the way to go for specific games anymore. For $15 a month, I could get either a Netflix or a GameFly account. Those are just significantly more robust forms of entertainment.

Sega’s reduction in staff, and renewed focus on mobile
It’s actually how much I won’t notice a change in my gaming at all. Aside from ATLUS, Sega does not interest me with the games it releases.

AOL is shutting down Joystiq
The way it was handled is pretty fucked up, if you ask me. I hope the staff bounces back from that.
Gaming journalism has accelerated in these past years. It used to take years for a publication to shut down, but now shut downs happen all the time.

0:34:00 Tyler played Dragon Age: Inquisition (because his save file was lost)
I feel bad, because I would be pissed off if all of my saves and data just vanished like that. Defeated by a power surge.
We then go into a somewhat random conversation about save features in remakes.
Then we discuss Dragon Age 2 and Origins, because of course we do.

0:46:55 Tyler played a bit of Call Of Duty: Black Ops 2.
He beat his old record in zombies. I can’t really say if that’s good or bad, because I’m terrible at those kinds of games.

0:48:10 Garrett installed a 2TB HDD in his computer.
It’s a lot of memory. Even better, he has Windows 7 now, instead of Windows 8.

0:50:04 We talk about the Nationwide Super Bowl commercial.
In hindsight (since I watched it after the podcast), I can see why people reacted as strongly as they did. However, that’s the entire point of the commercial. I actually thought it was really good.

0:51:50 Garrett played League of Legends
With a new season, the rankings reset, so Garrett needs to get good again.

0:52:55 Garrett talks about his game design class with Tyler.
The more I hear about GameMaker, the less I would ever want to use. I mostly just want to do the coding myself, so that I have more control over the final product.
Coding isn’t as hard a people make it out to be. It mostly just takes practice, like any other discipline.

0:59:50 Garrett tried out to be a voice-actor in an animated video for the Zoophobia web-comic.
’nuff said.

1:02:30 Sam tried the new and improved Warframe
Apparently it is a lot different than it was before.

1:05:00 Sam tricked convinced a co-worker to get Saya No Uta
It’s again hard to comment on this without spoiling it, so we can’t get into a big conversation.

1:07:00 Sam bought and played a bit of Dying Light
I initially was not terribly interested in getting Dying Light at first. Having seen a lot of it, I kinda want to get a copy of it now. It looks really interesting, and I’m a completely sucker for parkour-esque exploration in video games.

1:13:45 Sam played Forza Horizon 2.
Yeah. Racing games…. It is really hard to talk about them.
Also, talking about the show in the middle of recording.

1:19:25 Sam played Life is Strange: Episode 1
I do want to play this game, I really do. However, after playing all of those Telltale games, I am burnt out on the episodic model. I just want to wait for all the episodes to come out before I invest.
If Dontnod releases episodes 2 through 5 in a timely manner, I might change my mind. Until then, I am keeping my wallet guarded. It’s also hard to talk about it because, like any episodic game, we cannot determine its quality until after every episode has been released.

That said, what I have heard about Life is Strange is promising. It is also really interesting to note how rare it is for games to take place in the modern world, without any sort of catastrophe or twist. It’s just our world.

Sam’s article on the game is here.

1:29:55 I finished Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls
I don’t have much more to add here in the shownotes. In the coming weeks, I will release an article on my experiences with the game.

But it’s worth talking about the challenges of moving an inherently PC game to a console. It’s easier said than done.

1:38:25 I played and beat the first Bayonetta
I suck at this genre, but I loved playing the game. It’s nice to play something that doesn’t take itself too seriously. On top of that, it’s very visually appealing.

1:42:45 I just finished Dead Space 2.
Like with Diablo 3, my article for it is coming. But the conversation we had on it was a good one.

In general though, it is a significantly, noticeably better game than Dead Space 3, to the point where I actively wonder what the hell happened between the two games.

1:52:40 I went with some friends to see The Imitation Game.
As a Computer Science major, this was a very interesting movie because it was basically a biopic of the guy who invented my entire discipline.
On top of that, it’s a very good dramatic movie. This is one of the most unknown, yet interesting people in recent human history. I had a great time and would easily recommend a lot of fun watching it.

1:56:26 Chris did not play Assassin’s Creed 3, and instead played Assassin’s Creed: Liberation HD.
Aveline is such a good character, and the game is so much better paced. It really should have been the one Ubisoft focused more on. Definitely get it over Assassin’s Creed 3, as it’s much better in almost every way, especially with the stuff they added to the original Vita version.

There are ideas in Liberation, like Aveline’s multiple disguises, that deserve to be revisited in other games in the franchise. There’s a lot that mechanic could be used for. I’m also not kidding when I say that Aveline is the most interesting protagonist in  the Assassin’s Creed franchise. Her background is interesting and I wish she was used more frequently.

I also find it amusing that Chris is having a bit of a “Season of Assassin’s Creed” in a way that I had my “Season of ATLUS” a few months back. It’s good that he’s taking a hiatus for now.

2:15:45 Wrapping Up
My inFamous: Second Son article is here.
Sam’s Life is Strange article is here.
Sam’s videos are here and here.
Interactive Friction is still a thing. A new episode went up.
Adonisus’s podcast is, once again, here.

There’s also The Texture Pop e-mail and twitter.
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