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Episode 6 - Shang Chi & the legend of poor Asian representation
7 Plays4 years ago
Recorded live @ twitch.tv/addtoparty on 4/20/21
The boy discuss Amazon's MMO woes, the hot new Kickstarter from Chris Metzen, Portal 2's anniversary, Jeff Kaplan leaving Blizzard, and how Marvel has a deep of stable of non martial arts based Asian superheroes (it doesn't)
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Transcript
Technical Issues and Andy's Haunted Computer
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to Add to Party, a friendship similar masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, joined by his friend. Oh, no. And his friend Charles. We're getting to get some day.
00:00:28
Speaker
Yeah. Way to jump the intro and someone else in the distance in the fog. Listen and their friend Andy Kay and I just had a realization. Uh huh. Question for you because I think my computer might be haunted. So earlier today my computer turned on by itself from a completely power off state.
00:00:51
Speaker
and I just checked the uptime on my computer and it's from the time the computer turned on. What turns on a computer when it's off? Windows. Being Windows. I can wake from LAN. What's on my LAN? What is talking to my computer?
00:01:08
Speaker
know people who because i was thinking maybe it's wake on man who can talk to my computer i'm literally freaking out this is going to be on my mind so i just want to let you know as we go through these topics rolling in the back of my mind is which of these companies have figured out how to hack into my computer
00:01:29
Speaker
What did they do, install updates? I mean, that's my that's what I'm thinking. No, there's pending updates. It's pending. There wasn't even a restart. Huh? Anyways, I want to let you know I got my tinfoil cap on right now. I'm a little bit freaked out. How do I run a virus? Well, I feel like Andy's paranoia is reasonable, because as we all know, today is for 20 air horns go here. But wait, wait, wait, wait.
00:01:57
Speaker
That's right. And as we all know, we celebrate 420 because that's right. Congress established the U.S. Mint on this date in 1862. Is that right? Yep. Yep. Mark Twain. Mark Twain also died at the age of 75 in 1910.
00:02:13
Speaker
And the French army revolted in Algeria in 1961. It's a sore topic. Don't bring it up. No. And for that, people smoke weed. That's fair. Yeah, that's that's that's those three things are why people smoke weed on the state. That's what I've always known. Hmm. Listen, no one. I don't know how to run by your skin. Oh, my God.
00:02:38
Speaker
I typed in virus skin and nothing pops up. How do you run one? It's called it's called Windows Defender, but don't do it while we're running a podcast. I'm freaking out. Well, Andy, you know who I think did it.
Amazon's Gaming Struggles
00:02:59
Speaker
I want to know, please. I think Amazon did it because they lost the ability to make the Lord of the Rings MMO that they were working on.
00:03:08
Speaker
Did anyone remember they were working on it? I did. No. So if you were. How do you feel about this news then? I mean, it's sad. And you know, it's another hit to the fact that tech companies coming in and realizing, oh, man, game development, not the easiest thing in the world. So Amazon reportedly has canceled its Lord of the Rings MMO. That's basically because
00:03:37
Speaker
It was developed. It was being developed by Amazon Game Studios in addition to this Chinese company, which is Laiu Technologies Holding Limited, which was then purchased by Tencent in December of last year. And then and then basically Amazon and Tencent couldn't come to like a contracting agreement how to do the development work, because what I'm assuming is the folks at Amazon Game Studios are all the big picture guys.
00:04:04
Speaker
Wouldn't it be cool? And then the actual development was probably happening at that Chinese based developer, but it was in development for two years. Yeah.
00:04:13
Speaker
All that money. I mean, this also comes on the heels of the announcement that Amazon has spent about half a billion dollars on the Lord of the Rings television series that they're working on. So Amazon was really Amazon was really kind of going all in on a Lord of the Rings style existence there.
00:04:34
Speaker
I mean, Lord of the Rings was popular when? Not the books. I mean, when it was cool to see that. Like, Lord of the Rings is what the like was what fantasy is to Marvel movies is now. It was cool to see Lord of the Rings. Yeah. But no one no one cares about Lord of the Rings anymore. That's patently untrue. No one cares. Not a single person. Two thousand. Yeah. They just re-released the whole thing in 4K.
00:05:04
Speaker
How much money was in that? Probably a good amount. I bought it. Oh, that's fair. How does it look? Beautiful. But no, it's just interesting. It's just another high profile failure in the world of Google and Amazon trying to break into gaming. When will they get their hit, is what I'm wondering. When will they release a game? Have they released anything since they started the studio?
00:05:32
Speaker
Ah, I don't think so. Well, all right. Here we go. This joins Breakaway and Crucible as yet another canceled project for Amazon Game Studios. That's right. They released Crucible and it was so bad they took it back into beta. Right. And then. So right. So yeah, this is not going well for them. Listen, you think Amazon would have enough money to solve every problem?
00:05:57
Speaker
Well, I think that's the problem, right? It's they're thinking of it as just a coding project when it's really a creative project. Oh, wait, I got a theory. Amazon Games unionized. And so they just shut it down. If it's a Chinese based studio, I almost guarantee they didn't unionize.
00:06:18
Speaker
listen that collective bargaining that's one thing amazon is uh black and white event listen they got to keep prices low by making sure that you can't have but you can't have a living wage or know what else anyone else makes it that's true that's true it's not and just remember they're not upset that their employees piss into bottles they're just upset that you know about it
00:06:43
Speaker
That's exactly it. Listen, they apologize, all right, for joking about it. That's that's exactly what they should have done. Charles, any thoughts on the Lord of the Rings MMO crashing and failing as our as our resident MMO expert? No, it's it was an MMO that was announced a long time ago and then they never nothing came of it. So nothing useful to say.
00:07:09
Speaker
That's pretty legit. It's just nothing. All right, then let's move on to our next topic. Who even wants an animal?
00:07:15
Speaker
There's already a Lord of the Rings MMO. There is, actually. Who wants an MMO? I mean, the people playing the current MMO who want a better MMO. That is fair. Again, I think this was much like we discussed last week about Sony wanting a Last of Us ready to go for when the Last of Us show on HBO lands. They're looking for a situation where they could have
00:07:42
Speaker
Lord of the Rings series and then tie in quests in the Lord of the Rings MMO. I cross media promotion. Yeah. So well.
Chris Metzen's New D&D Venture
00:07:57
Speaker
I mean, let's, let's move from failure to wild success. Ooh. As we talk about a Kickstarter that launched just today. And if I could ever friggin open the link, copy link, there it goes. You have to forgive me. It's four 20. I'm so excited by Mark Twain's death.
00:08:15
Speaker
I agree. Chris Messon of Blizzard fame has launched his Kickstarter for a five e Dungeons and Dragons fantasy campaign setting, which has in the what eight hours it's been up, blown its $50,000 goal away and is currently sitting at four hundred sixty seven thousand dollars. OK. Four hundred sixty seven thousand two hundred ninety one dollars. That's true. I'm sorry. I was being I was being reductive.
00:08:45
Speaker
It's very fun to see the number go up. We all know that for games. Yeah. We talked to go live today. Yeah. Went live like eight hours ago. Yeah. So I need explained.
00:08:55
Speaker
to me why this is so popular and so many people care. Because I Google this guy and I saw Blizzard and I was like, well, I'll need someone to explain this to me. Do you want to take the history of Chris Metzen Charles? Yeah. So Andy, Chris Metzen is responsible for everything Blizzard that you can recall in your life. Oh.
00:09:24
Speaker
If you remember even the illustrations of Warcraft and Starcraft in the little game profiles, he was also the artist in addition to being the game designer. Oh, okay. Didn't he create Thrall too? He did.
00:09:41
Speaker
Yeah. And, you know, we'll forgive him for it. So, Chris Metzen went on from all this success and being part of everything in the early life of Blizzard.
00:09:57
Speaker
to become one of the main story and world builders. So he was involved in almost every project for Blizzard, including at the his last one was Overwatch. And that worked for that. Yeah, holy cow. And, you know, in addition to doing that, he was also the voice of many of your favorite units in all those RTS games.
00:10:25
Speaker
He was the voice of Thrall, yes, but he was also the Terran Marine in Starcraft. He voiced the peons in Warcraft, I believe. Is he the one who told me that we need more lumber? Is that one of them? He was the zug-zug guy. Yeah, when they click on the peon enough times and he'll say like, zug-zug. Oh, I know there's no lumber, unfortunately. It's OK. I get you. No.
00:10:51
Speaker
But yeah, so Chris Metzen, and then he retired because of like, you know, work-life balance and wanting to do his thing. And he retired from a very high spot in Blizzard. I think he was like lead creative director of almost every product. Yeah. Um, uh, many years ago. And, um, it was only after what, three or four years now since his retirement that he was like, you know what, I'm going to do another new thing. Start my own tabletop, uh, company, uh, with, with some of my friends.
00:11:21
Speaker
And the fun part about this entire thing is that, you know, a lot of the Blizzard alumni people from the older days left Blizzard and eventually started their own company. Many high-profile people, Mike Morhame, the former CEO, lots of the lead designers of all those other favorite Blizzard games, StarCraft, Warcraft, Diablo, broke off and did their own studios. And so,
00:11:47
Speaker
Chris announcing his thing after a couple of years of retirement was very nice because you're like, well, Chris got out when the gun was good. When he retired, people had a reasonably good opinion of Blizzard. Things are kind of getting stale, but we still like Blizzard. We love Blizzard. Heroes of the Storm is taking the world by storm. Yeah. So he retired shortly.
00:12:17
Speaker
like around the time Overwatch launched, and people loved Overwatch. It became a successful new franchise, you know, with the help of many people, including a director that we'll talk about later today, later in this podcast, named Jeff Kaplan. But yeah, so he goes, you know what, guys? Here's my first thing. D&D 5E campaign setting. And I go, well, Chris, you've been the lead of all these
00:12:47
Speaker
All my favorite games and franchises world building. And now you're giving me a campaign setting in D&D. I'm quite interested.
00:12:57
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, if you look at it on the Kickstarter, it says it's based on a role playing campaign that Chris ran with his childhood friends in the 80s and 90s before he headed to Blizzard to work on such on worlds such as Warcraft, Starcraft and more. So that's really sweet. And you know what? This if anyone has pedigree. All right. It sounds like this guy. But will he fall into the Kickstarter trap? Will this be another mighty number nine?
00:13:26
Speaker
or D&D books or or will the stink of Blizzard failure just crawl along to him? No, he got out when the going was good. Andy, there's no getting out.
00:13:41
Speaker
That's fair. It's just he's tainted. He was there. He drank of the fell pool. Well, that's curious. I can understand why people would be hopeful. And it doesn't sound like he should let he he'll let people down. And you look at that Salamar class. Look at him. It's that looks like a mascot character. That's right. Actually, no, it just looks like a cute animal. Maybe not mascot. You know how many people are going to play the Geico Geico Gecko?
00:14:11
Speaker
But that guy? Thousands, Andy. Thousands. I can imagine. Wait, is one of the tears miniatures?
00:14:18
Speaker
They give you 3D printing files for miniatures. But I think that's just an add-on now. Let me scroll down here. Yeah, they've already blown through a ton of their add-ons. Yeah, here we go. This is wonderful. I really hope the best for it, honestly. What's the delivery date? March 22. Yeah, March 2022. Which that gives him a whole year, which is a reasonable amount of time. You have to figure a lot of this is probably done already.
00:14:48
Speaker
So that gives them a year to figure out how to like do distribution and all that, especially when there's not a pandemic hopefully raging the world anymore. Yeah, that's true. That's wonderful. I also so I want to see this because I noticed this earlier and I wanted to check it again now.
00:15:07
Speaker
but when I first time I checked it the the tops here is a $200 tier most people that was the most backers so let's see right now it is that 1100 backers for the $200 tier that's 700 for the 125 miles you're dying mute your mic yep no they need to know this is where it ended
00:15:29
Speaker
I listen, you can die, but it has to be good radio. Yeah, it's it's still in a place where that $200 tier is the highest tier and the second highest tier is the $125 tier, which I'm not sure what that says.
00:15:46
Speaker
But it is an interesting fact, because usually you see like, you know, the $50 tier, like the $30 tier is like far and away the highest one. And here you have like the most expensive tier being the highest one. So I think that speaks to like very dedicated, very interesting, very interesting people backing this. OK, yeah. Get those books, get those hard covers. That's great.
00:16:09
Speaker
I really hope it turns out well. I do. Yeah, you're not wish. You're not wishing for Chris Mittens. Chris Bettsons failure. No. Why would I wish anyone failure except for that Sony guy? Screw him. Well, I forgot his name. The Sony guy, the Republican. What's his name? Jim Bryan. You mean the not actually Republican? I don't know. He's a congressman. No, he's not a congressman. He's.
00:16:37
Speaker
He's the head of Sony SIE, Sony Interactive Entertainment. I don't like him. This guy hasn't done anything wrong. Andy, would it surprise you to know that Jim Ryan put out a statement the other day or earlier this week saying that they're not going to close the PS3 and Vita stores due to widespread feedback?
00:17:00
Speaker
Yeah, I'm surprised he's listening. Yeah, I had read that. And I felt a little bit better after reading that. And then I got mad that I ever had to feel that way in the first place. Come on, Jim Ryan. This is going to be real awkward when we're accepting the Lifetime Achievement Award from Jim Ryan.
00:17:19
Speaker
Oh, wait, maybe that doesn't make him a Republican. He listened to others. I don't know. Now I got it. Now I got to rethink this. Now you have to establish. Now you have to think about how you are, Andy. And you know what? Maybe I can help with that self-reflection.
Portal 2 Anniversary and Mod
00:17:34
Speaker
I want you to tell me. You know, you know what I want to reflect upon? The fact that Portal 2 was 10 years ago.
00:17:40
Speaker
That's wild. Yeah, that's wild. Not even the first portal. No second. That's right. What hired memes do we recite from portal to the the lemon the lemon speech is from portal to it's all JK Rowling stuff. I don't even remember. The lemon speech was like, you know what you do in life gives you lemons.
00:18:05
Speaker
You tell life. You don't want your lemons. You want lemon. You want life's manager. You take those lemons and make them into combustible ammo for a lemon shooting gun that you develop. I'm I'm I'm mangling it, but that's the boy. He is. Oh, I'm no JK rally. And see life, you know, see life's manager and make them take the lemons back. I was I was all there.
00:18:31
Speaker
No, yeah, there's more, though. He talks about turning into a gun to shoot them or something like that. Yeah. Also on that on that announcement, someone has released a basically kind of a remastered mod for it. Oh, just like up, up, up, rising the textures and stuff. Oh, but yeah, kind of correcting some foibles adding. I think they added ray tracing to it as well. Naturally.
00:18:58
Speaker
That was a good game. That was a good game. Oh, actually, no, this is what more to say about it. Actually, no, it's actually these are new maps. So forgive me. I didn't even look too much into it. But these are new maps for Portal 2. I even liked the song better at the end. I already forgot the first one, but I remember at the second one, I remember at the end of it, I was like, this is better.
00:19:20
Speaker
Oh, and it didn't have like a national song in it too for some reason. I don't know. But maybe it's a good thing we didn't get a third one because the second one improved in every way. And what's the third one going to do? Well, Andy, as we all know, Valve can't count to three. So that's right. Well, they can make episodes.
00:19:41
Speaker
Oh, but they still can't count to three. That's right. They only got to episode two. Oh, no. Hmm. It's tough. Oh, we only have a left for dead to. Yeah.
00:19:53
Speaker
Wait, we only have two counter strikes. Yep. The court board is being put on the wall. Just slowly. My God. I don't I don't know any other properties. Let's see here, half. Well, we are covered half life team fortress to. Oh, my God. This is wild.
00:20:18
Speaker
Uh, let's see. Trying to think of another one. Oh, hold on. Now I gotta, now I gotta look at this. Did steam ever reach version 3.0? Let's check the version of steam. What are you at, bud? Maybe steam's the one turning on my computer. That's entirely possible. Let's see here. Half-Life, Team Fortress, Ricochet, Counter Strike.
00:20:42
Speaker
Dave defeat. Yep. No, there's no two of David defeat. That was a great game. Half life to portal team fortress to. Left for dead. Left for dead to portal to Dota to Counter Strike online to. This is wild. The lab artifact.
00:21:05
Speaker
Dota Underlords, Half-Life Alex. Half-Life Alex, I would say, is potentially the closest you could ever get to a three, but they didn't call it three, did they? Also, I guess it's not a Gordon Freeman game. It's an Alex game. So it's not technically the same. Yeah, they've never released the third of a game series. Well, there we go. All right.
00:21:29
Speaker
Man, there was not a lot of news this week. But more late-breaking news that we can cover today.
Jeff Kaplan Leaves Blizzard - Overwatch 2 Concerns
00:21:36
Speaker
Speaking of the stench of Blizzard, Jeff Kaplan has left Blizzard. OK. I need you to also explain why this person is different from the other person. OK. Settle in. There's a creative director, and then there's the game director.
00:21:56
Speaker
Oh, okay. Okay. Is that it? Is that all? That's it. All right. Next story. Let's go. Nice and done. So, so there's a lot of significance for this game director to be leaving Blizzard.
00:22:12
Speaker
One, this is yet another in a big succession of high profile employees of Blizzard leaving the company. So Jeff Kaplan has been with the company, was this here about 12 years, 19 years? 19 years, yeah. 19 years. And with it, I believe he was mostly part of WoW when he originally joined.
00:22:41
Speaker
design raids, if I recall. And then eventually, you know, graduated to head up and become the director for Overwatch, which is a big deal. So the thing that's most important here to understand too is that Jeff was the last one in all the major games currently being developed right now in Blizzard.
00:23:07
Speaker
that people remembered and actually had a completely reasonable attitude towards. Like, people like Jeff Kaplan. There's Ion, which is the current lead director still for World of Warcraft, but people don't have a good opinion on him. They saw Ion was a game director long enough for people to really hate him right now.
00:23:33
Speaker
Jeff, no. Jeff is the last person of completely goodwill that people have in Blizzard as a community. And he's gone now. And reading his letter, his statement, it is one very Jeff Kaplan is very short and to the point. But the other, if you notice, somebody corrected his own capitalization.
00:23:58
Speaker
It was, he never used proper capitalization and everything, which made it even more believable that he, but the, uh, the interesting thing about this is overwatch two is supposed to come out. Jeff is leaving before overwatch two is coming out and it leads to lots of speculation. How was overwatch two doing Jeff says it's continuing at a good pace. Yeah, that's what he says at a good pace into a pit. Yeah.
00:24:28
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And you know, this is all speculation. We don't know much else. But, you know, Jeff had a lot of cred in the community because he was, one, he's calmed down a lot. But a long time ago, he was not calmed down.
00:24:45
Speaker
Let me read his very famous when he was like a raid leader in a guild in Everquest. It is the funniest letter I've ever seen as a complete feedback for a game. And this is him. Let me just read this real quick. This is old.
00:25:09
Speaker
Whoever came up with this sheer fisting of an encounter can go fuck themselves. Do me a favor so I don't waste my guilt time on this kind of jackass shit fest again. Send me an email at togoli at legacyofsteel.net when you decide to A, implement an encounter that wasn't designed by a retarded chimp changing when people go A, get a quality assurance department C, actually beta test the fucking thing and D, patch it live. And please for God's sake, do it in the order I laid out for you.
00:25:40
Speaker
Don't worry, I won't charge you for a consulting fee on that one, and for good luck, you might as well E. Pull your heads out of your asses. While you're at it, rename the game to Beta Quest, as you used up your allotted false advertising karma on the bazaar and use your interface scam of 01. Fix the Emperor encounter. Fix Saru. Rethink your time sink bullshit. Fix all the buggy motherfucking ring encounters.
00:26:02
Speaker
I suggest you let whoever made the burrow want to do this, since that dude apparently laid off the crack when the rest of you were smoking. Let me see here, I'm not done. Fix a VT key quest? Fix VT? Just guessing is fucked up considering your track record. Don't have the resources to fix this up? Move the entire Planes of Power team over to fixing Shadows of Luchlan and do it now. And if you don't fix Luchlan, you jackasses will be the only one playing the Planes of Power.
00:26:31
Speaker
Sincerely, Jeff Kaplan. Yep. And his username, Tagoli, is actually shorthand for Tiggle Biddies. It used to be Tiggle Biddies until it became a more... This is great. Yeah. And to be fair, I believe he helped design Molten Core, which is a lot of classic wall graders, one of their favorite grades. It's a great grade. Yeah. So a lot of people respected him a lot.
00:26:59
Speaker
Despite despite his use of problematic language in the current day. Whoops. Yeah. Yeah. But you know, gamers, what are you going to do? Yeah. But yeah, a lot of people like thought Jeff's one of us. He speaks off the cuff. You know, so a lot of people. Yeah. You know, insulting other people's hard work. Yeah. You know, to be fair, EverQuest is terrible. I said it. Come at me. Oh, come at me. All 10 people do still like EverQuest.
00:27:29
Speaker
Yeah, people still play that. They do. And EverQuest 2, both of them are going. Well, I guess 11 and 14 are still going, too. So I mean, it's just not a good look for Overwatch 2 when most people are already going. So why am I paying 60 dollars for this?
00:27:47
Speaker
Yeah, you'd think if you had invested years in something, you know, you'd want to see it delivered, right? You'd want to be there to, well, I can't assume people's motivations, but I think it's telling to leave something before it's finished.
00:28:02
Speaker
Yeah, I to wildly speculate, I would assume Jeff was probably pushing because if Jeff's has a fairly good pro gamer stance, right? I would expect Jeff was the one who made it. So all the new maps and I believe characters that would come in or watch to would also be in base overwatch.
00:28:29
Speaker
So the only reason to get Overwatch 2 is the single player campaign and I think some graphical updates. Oh, okay.
00:28:38
Speaker
And I have a feeling that Jeff's ideal would actually be that Overwatch 2 was just there was no Overwatch 2 and they just released a single player campaign and released the graphical updates for free if I had to guess. But and I'm sure there's a lot of tension on him from a corporate side of we need to monetize this game more, which frankly,
00:29:02
Speaker
Other than the real money auction house, wasn't Overwatch really like the first game that had a pretty distinct monetization? Because Overwatch was before Heroes came out, right? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think it's close to a very similar. But yeah, like Overwatch was the first game with like a blatant micro transaction to get what you, you know, cosmetics type of deal for Blizzard.
00:29:29
Speaker
like the real money option house was like it was this thing where this is your this is for game functionality with overwatch they landed like a sweet spot where it didn't feel like they were completely like screwing you over because they did they did say you know
00:29:46
Speaker
It's loot boxes, but it's only ever going to be for cosmetics. And that's it. Except for one Reinhardt skin. There was one Reinhardt skin where his voice line for his heroic was shorter than normal. And it gave enemy teams less time to react to his heroic because of it. Really? Yeah, they fixed that, though. But it was funny for a while. That's very great.
00:30:11
Speaker
It also speaks to how over-engineered or the skill cap level of pro Overwatch is. Sure, yeah. So, yeah, it's interesting. I wasn't going to buy Overwatch 2. This does not inspire confidence into me to change that opinion anytime soon.
00:30:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's a, you know, Blizzard as a company, I've lost faith in years ago. So so I, I haven't been really doing much with them for a long time. So it's all just par. It's all the same. I see seeing more things go.
00:30:50
Speaker
Yeah, I will say early reviews of Diablo two. What is it? Resurrected came out previews. They were pretty overwhelmingly positive of it not just being a cash grab, which is interesting. And I actually it's so tough.
00:31:07
Speaker
Diablo is the one thing they got their hold on me with still. I and the support of Diablo three has been very well. They just launched season 23 of Diablo three, I want to be. And I popped in to play, I don't know, like a week's worth. And it's still so fun. And they've optimized that game to just be so perfectly fun of just you're getting loot, you're switching stuff out. The builds are fun.
00:31:30
Speaker
You know, the legendaries augment the trees so much. They've done such a good job of making Diablo three a good game. You might be well for four. I'm hoping.
00:31:43
Speaker
How long did it take for Diablo 3 to get good? I want to say, well, you definitely you needed the the X-pack. So that was at least a year and a half too. And then they had to get through like the first couple seasons to like season like six or eight. So I want to say it took Diablo 3 like three to four years to really get to that sweet spot that it's been in right now.
00:32:12
Speaker
But let me tell you, it's great there. I played Path of Exile. I have played Torchlight. It's just not as good. It is not as good as Diablo three. And I know I will get shit from Path of Exile people for saying that, but it just doesn't scratch the same itch that Diablo does. Sure.
00:32:32
Speaker
Well, I hope the best. Is it hard to screw up Diablo 2? Yes, yes, it is. It's called Diablo Immortals. Wait, which one was Diablo? That was the the famous. Do you have? Yeah, everyone was like, we have big Diablo news at our Blizzcon and then they announced a mobile Diablo. Oh, that's right. That's right. Oh, we'll see. Or, you know, four years after Diablo four. Who knows? Yeah.
Sony's Free Horizon Zero Dawn Offer
00:33:00
Speaker
Well, yes, I have. So speaking of old games, be old. There's some free stuff for people who are listening right now. Horizon. Is it a giveaway? No, although that is a great way to build support for your channel. We are. We are doing a giveaway right now. We worked with Sony.
00:33:20
Speaker
All right, it's a broker a deal Jim Ryan, I called him up. He was so apologetic and understanding It was very sweet. He said he would give what was the game horizon? Horizon zero dawn the completed horizon zero dawn complete edition. That means you get that expansion I forget the name frozen wastelands there was a wild frozen wild you get both of those and
00:33:46
Speaker
both of those for free to keep this isn't some ps plus you know have it till you lose it
00:33:53
Speaker
Thanks, Jim. Oh, God, I can't even fake that. No, no, Jim. You and I are not on good terms yet. But it's a great game. It is a great game. I have tried to pick it back up. There's a new game plus mode on it, which almost it does a great thing of it skips the tutorial area for you when you do it. But if you haven't played the game in four years, you kind of need that tutorial.
00:34:21
Speaker
So it did leave me a little bit like I have all these weapons and I don't know what to do with them. But it is something I do want to go back and play. You have from now until May 14th to claim that I can maybe give you a little insider baseball. That's a that's a reference that you get in a second as to why they announced that today, which is just to kind of maybe push something out of the news cycle, which is MLB the show storied PlayStation exclusive baseball game.
00:34:50
Speaker
is live now on Xbox and available on Game Pass right now. Why? Yeah. They jump ship. No, they didn't jump ship. So some PlayStation, but it's on Xbox and on Game Pass. So you it is basically the best place to play MLB the show right now.
00:35:09
Speaker
I know I know people would buy the PlayStation to get the show. Yeah, no more literally bond to that ecosystem because of that game. I believe. I believe that place. There was kind of a weird story about this early or late last year, basically kind of being like the studio that makes a movie. The show was kind of going, you're going to buy us because otherwise we're going to become a third party studio. And so anyway, hey.
00:35:37
Speaker
So now they now they're releasing it on Xbox and PlayStation. Jim Ryan turns down Kojima. He turns down the show. What is this man thinking? I wish we had more fans. So especially like art, art, like artistic ones so that we could get fan art of Andy and Jim Ryan boxing.
00:35:59
Speaker
Well, here's one thing. When did Jim Ryan head up Sony? And how did their stock price change when he? It was very well because Jim Ryan turned Sony Europe around during the PS3 area. Oh, really?
00:36:14
Speaker
Yeah, he he he was also champion games as a service and things like that. So, you know, constant revenue streams and stuff like that. So he's good for shareholders. Oh, you know, I heard a really interesting quote the other day. Please share it. And I'm going to tell you, it's from the guy who ran Disney before the guy running it right now. Not Bob Iger, the guy before him. Oh.
00:36:39
Speaker
Essentially, the quote was that we have no obligation to make art. We have no obligation to make history. We have no obligation to make something important. We have to make money. And by the virtue of making money, we might make history. We might make something important. We might make art. But above it all, it's money.
00:37:05
Speaker
Yeah, that's Eisner who said Michael Eisner who said that. Yeah. Also, Iger is not currently the CEO. Bob Chapin. Oh, really? Yeah. I don't know who that is. Did he just take over? Yeah, he did. It was last year. Last year. Oh, never mind. But regardless, I'm assuming Jim Ryan has that posted on every wall of his office.
00:37:27
Speaker
Okay in the entry of every building because for some reason I'm propping up, you know, Sony as some you know Our artistic studio even though really their goal is always to make money, but it just sucks when you say it out loud Right. It's just don't say it out loud. Just trick me, please I think I finally understand Andy Andy is treating Jim Ryan as
00:37:54
Speaker
like how i feel about blizzard this deep personal betrayal why did you do this tell me now i demand answers actually i'm glad you you use the right word i think betrayal i'm feeling betrayed which is a silly thing to feel by a company but
00:38:15
Speaker
I don't know, Sony's been such a part of like my childhood and growing up with the properties they published but also featured on their platforms and so to see them, you know, say out loud that money is the priority and toss it all aside, it's hurtful and it's all Jim Ryan. He has no obligation to make art, it's an obligation to make money.
00:38:36
Speaker
Speaking of art, Rockstar is also free stuff.
Rockstar's Free DLC for Classic Games
00:38:41
Speaker
Rockstar has put a surprise update out on L.A. Noir and Max Payne three on PC for giving everyone the three all the DLC for free. So if you have those games on PC and you feel like playing them, hey, guess what? You got all the DLC to L.A. Noir specifically, I remember, had some fun DLC missions.
00:38:59
Speaker
I never thought Max being three, I really enjoyed. That was a really good game. It was a good game. It was a good game. And I remember as as I was playing it, I was thinking, why did Rockstar make this like I'm happy. But why? Why did they make this? Because I don't know if it's sold. I think it didn't sell that well. It stars an old drunk fat washed up person. I was great.
00:39:29
Speaker
It was fantastic. Like it's you know, those are the risks that you can take when you have money risks. I think Rockstar took a risk, you know, calculated risk by making that game. It wasn't high art, but it deviated from the norm. Sony certainly won't be doing that anymore. I don't know about Rockstar. Well, speaking of deviating from the norm.
Marvel's Shang-Chi Trailer Analysis
00:39:56
Speaker
Hmm.
00:39:56
Speaker
Marvel released the trailer for its first Asian-American hero. I'm saying Song Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings. You know, the funniest thing about that whole thing is we could have shown some early Iron Fist as well. Iron Fist was always a white guy. I was in like beforehand.
00:40:23
Speaker
In what sense, I don't follow, what do you mean? Like, there's older Iron Fist besides Danny Rand. Oh, oh, oh, yes, yes. So yeah, that was a funny part there. I was just like, oh, silly. I do wonder if we might get some Danny Rand in here. Shang-Chi and Iron Fist have always been kind of with each other.
00:40:48
Speaker
right right with no no they fight a lot and not right right with each other
00:40:56
Speaker
No, I know. I know. They're very aggressive. No. Yeah. Well, the thing is, so the thing is in character, too. So the thing with Shang-Chi is that he actually has no like superpowers, I guess, other than being really, really good at martial arts, which I guess you could say is kind of racist as an Asian hero, but neither here nor there. Oh, we have to take them when we can, guys, just so I know. We can.
00:41:25
Speaker
that's fair um but but um no but Danny Rand who also uh superhero good at martial arts but also has power of dragon um uh Shang-chi has often fought him to a standstill basically they're kind of listed as equal in ability even though Shang-chi doesn't have any superpowers and Danny Rand does so
00:41:49
Speaker
He is he's also trained like Marvel nerd James coming out, right? He's also trained Captain America. He's trained Wolverine. He's trained. Oh, he's trained anybody who's needed hand to hand combat training in the Marvel universe. Generally speaking, they send them to him. Oh, interesting. Yep.
00:42:09
Speaker
There's also kind of this idea of them setting up the West Coast Avengers with Shang-Chi two. You already have you already have Ant-Man over there in San Francisco. Now you have another San Francisco based hero. So.
00:42:21
Speaker
I literally never heard of this, this hero. I mean, he's a C tier, I would say, which is not to take anything away from it, but he's not, you know, generally speaking, not one of what you think of was the top billing names, but neither was Iron Man. When Iron Man came out, Iron Man was probably consistently a B tier hero. Everyone was very confused why they were making an Iron Man movie first.
00:42:46
Speaker
Yeah, interesting. I didn't know that. Mm hmm. Um, yeah, this movie looks super cool. If I don't have sound on for the trailer, but if you haven't seen it yet, I highly recommend watching it with sound on because they do a lot of good cuts to the beat, including a part where he punches out two guys, then kicks them in the midair at the same time. Yeah, they're right there. Oh, so good. Also, Aquafine is in it and she's great. Yeah, she's really funny. Yeah.
00:43:15
Speaker
Yeah, the only sad part for me, and I, you know, here's my thing. You know, a couple years ago when they announced they were going to do this, and the headline was, you know, lead Asian male protagonist. And I was like, sweet. I hope it's not a martial arts hero. Whoops. I was like, oh. Steps at a time. We'll take it steps at a time. That's right.
00:43:45
Speaker
And, you know, the only issue is just that you go, all right, how do we make, you know, what we have to do in non-stickers typical.
00:43:55
Speaker
asian league so what would he do well we'll do martial arts now that's stereotypical but it's pretty cool okay how about what if he's like really smart now hell yeah what about like martial arts in general is cool he just so happens to know martial art but but again it's in this this uh the story for song chi is
00:44:21
Speaker
uh rooted in this whole family affair so it's very I guess it's more part of it I just hope one day we'll just have an Asian lead and he like I don't know is good with guns you can have with something you can have Amadeus Cho he was the Hulk for a while oh yeah exactly oh yeah that's it that's it um
00:44:44
Speaker
Asian Hulk. That is a possibility. Yeah. But yeah, I think it's interesting. The MCU as a whole is heading
00:44:59
Speaker
Uh, a very, I guess, I guess you could say it's a unmapped territory in terms of his properties. Like, um, with the Eternals coming out, uh, you know, I think it's the next movie after the song chief. Yeah, I think it'll be their Christmas movie or their March movie, one or the other.
00:45:18
Speaker
Yeah. And the Eternals being like an ensemble cast with a bunch of different characters. They have nothing to do with like the current storyline and they're just going to show up. That'll be interesting. We'll see where that goes. Kumama. Kumoyo. I forget his, I can't, I can never pronounce his name. Kumail Nanjiani. Nanjiani. There it is. Yeah. Um.
00:45:39
Speaker
Is a great actor and he's in the and he is one of the eternals and he is ripped Yeah, yeah Hold on bring up that picture. We need to see I'll get the Camille ripped picture. Hold on. Yeah, so Andy even you'll recognize them, but remember
00:45:58
Speaker
The person, the type of characters Kumail normally plays are just like the funny side character, right? He also had a gaming podcast or still does. I don't know if he's I don't know if he's still doing it, but yet with his wife called the indoor kids. That's pretty sweet. That is a good name. Right. And also, God damn it. Look at that man.
00:46:20
Speaker
So, uh, yeah, uh, it turns out if you ever want to be fit, get casted in a Marvel movie. Well, yeah. And I think this is, this was, this was the thing that everyone said, okay, this does explain it that when you get cast in a Marvel movie, they take over your life. Cause he explained the whole process where he had a nutritionist. He had someone making his dinner. He had a personal trainer. Marvel paid him to get in shape for a year.
00:46:46
Speaker
Wow. Yeah. Not CGI. No. No, he got that ripped. Listen, Disney believes in practical effects. OK. God bless him. Oh, that's how you get in shape. I need someone to pay me. Yeah. You need to be cast in a Marvel movie. Andy, he went from comedian podcaster to in a Marvel movie. There's hope for you yet. Yeah. I know if I could work that.
00:47:13
Speaker
You also need to understand, you know what I'm also excited about, about the Eternals movie. Angelina Jolie is in that movie. Yeah, she's part of the Eternals, I believe. Like the group, the Eternals.
00:47:27
Speaker
Charles, you posed that question about Asian-American heroes or just Asian heroes. I shouldn't even be so nationalistic to say Asian-American, but Asian heroes who aren't good at fighting. It's a short list on the Marvel Wiki I'm reading through here. So Jubilee, right? We bring in the X-Men.
00:47:51
Speaker
right right jimmy woo as we're all acquainted from from wanda vision and a man in the wasps yeah yeah i agree yep and then uh hmm yeah i mean you got you know the likes of lady death strike silver samurai
00:48:12
Speaker
This character called Tiger Tiger, the first tiger spelled with a Y. Wow. Yeah. Hmm. Hmm. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. Who could forget Yukio? Wolverine's Japanese love. Yeah. Charles, we'll get there. I promise. I make the promise to you as a white man. We'll get there.
00:48:43
Speaker
Listen, it just takes time. Who is this character whose only name is Tiger's beautiful daughter? Oh no, they didn't even give her a name? We're just gonna bring that up.
00:48:58
Speaker
Mortal weapon of one of the seven cities of heaven. Okay, so she's part of the iron fist world Many a man has found doom at her hand or in her bed She does I mean a lot of iron fist people are kind of like that That's a lot of backstory Well, it's gonna be interesting to when the when the song team movie comes out because
00:49:26
Speaker
It feels as if it's going to be yet another ancient evil organization. And there's so many. Well, I hear so based on some of the things they've said about the movie is so it looks like they're setting up that the Mandarin is going to be his dad. Right. And traditionally, that's not true. His dad is in the comics, a character named Fu Manchu, which right. Right. Oops.
00:49:57
Speaker
um and the mandarin was actually just kind of like basically also fu manchu so they're like yeah why don't we just combine this let me just combine these to be one racist character instead of two um but it seems like kind of the way they're saying this is that the mandarin is
00:50:15
Speaker
maybe not necessarily leading a crime organization, although it could possibly be that, but more of kind of like a league of shadows Batman kind of situation where they're tasked with keeping the peace at whatever means necessary kind of thing. So there's a little bit of that moral gray area.
00:50:32
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, that can work. I also like the move. The, the Mandarin Andy, if you don't know, typically wears 10 rings, one on each finger and it looks dumb. The rings are powerful. Yeah. If you remember the Mandarin was portrayed in, um, the Iron Man cartoon in our, when our, in our youth.
00:50:56
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Mandarin is typically an Iron Man villain because it's always science versus magic is how they use always set it up. So he's going to be fighting the Mandarin Iron Man.
00:51:07
Speaker
No, the probably because they're setting it up to be his dad. So, yeah. Oh, OK. Yeah, the Mandarin had trained to be basically the the best fighter in the in the world. And then it backfired on him. Oh, no, he's using his martial arts against me. But they're taking the 10 rings instead of them being finger rings, they're actually going to be like 10 arm bracelet kind of deals, which looks actually really cool.
00:51:37
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. You could find that scene. Yeah. Where is he? It's like him in a training ground. Oh, yeah, there they are. There's the rings. You can see there's there's also one where they're in like a restaurant where you can. There it is. You can really see it. There you go. And you see the rings on his arm. Oh, OK. But then and then he turns the power on. Like, where is that? That's further down here. Oh, there you just turn purple. Yeah.
00:52:07
Speaker
But yeah, so it's it's kind of maybe they're going to heat. I have a stinking suspicion. She's going to end up with those rings. Also, if you look at there's a poster for the movie where they have him in his hero costume and it kind of looks like it has the 10 rings on it. Where is it? A poster.
00:52:29
Speaker
I'm curious. It's been a while since I've seen a martial arts film because there was like some Crouching Tiger vibes in that trailer, too. Yeah, there you go. There's there's the the official teaser trailer poster. And then if you look on his cuffs there, it kind of looks like the 10 rings. And also, I think one, two, three, four.
00:52:48
Speaker
Yeah, could be ten five each arm. Mm hmm. Also, I'm not a fan of this weird short sleeve shirt. That's this hero outfit. It looks weird. And I can't punch in long sleeves. Well, I guess that's true. His traditional outfit in the comics is either kind of like a bodysuit. It's I guess this is technically racist, too. God damn it. But it's usually something like Bruce Lee ish.
00:53:17
Speaker
Do it. Do it. Pussy. Like a yellow like motorcycle. Yeah. Yeah. Mm hmm. No. Body suit bodies. Oh, it was a body suit. Mm hmm. Does he ride a motorcycle? Why am I thinking? Oh, yeah. Nope. Nope. Hmm. Well, I think you're thinking of a different time. I think you're thinking of the the vehicle, the Crow starring Bruce Lee's son, Brandon Lee, who also died tragically. Oh.
00:53:47
Speaker
Yeah, and here you go. This is a picture of Ruth Lee's son Yeah, that's a that's a picture of Shang-Chi from the comics and you see kind of wears like a bodysuit Okay. All right. Yeah monkey friend fighting ninjas I Don't see anything Exploitative about this picture Only empowering of the rising sun
00:54:25
Speaker
You know, I will say
00:54:32
Speaker
representation properly, but I guess, uh, look, I'm willing to accept that, you know, we've done some crazy things in the past. We're getting better. We're getting better. We're going to move forward. I get it. Certain verdicts have come down that have been positive for the overall benefit of society. Yeah. You know, just all overall, we'll take some steps and hopefully we start running towards progress. You know, we'll get there.
00:55:01
Speaker
Well, I look forward to taking those steps each day and every day forward. And maybe we'll do that next time on add to party, a friendship simulator, masquerading as a new show. I'm your host, James Hartwell, and I've been joined by Charles, not his friend any longer with that bad timing from before.
00:55:24
Speaker
Oh, listen, and Andy K. And I found out how to run a full virus in my computer, which I started. Oh, right. And you're 58, right? That's that's why you need to figure this out. Yeah. Andy, Andy actually was born. And he was and he was born long enough ago that his casual racism is acceptable.
00:55:51
Speaker
Wait, when was I? What? Have a good night, everyone. It is not easy to run a scam.