Post by: StrikerObi on May 17, 2006, 01:31:38 PM
That's right, Planet GameCube is finally joining the Internet revolution known as podcasting. The idea sprang up at this years E3, when Evan and I simply could not shut up. Somebody came up with the bright idea that the two of us should get together weekly and discuss all sorts of topics. We've taken that suggestion and we're starting a podcast. The final details aren't nailed down quite yet, but I can tell you that we will be doing this feature at least every other week, though we are aiming to do them weekly. We're shooting for an episode length of twenty to thirty minutes, and trying to cover between three and five topics per show. With all of that out of the way, we're inviting you to listen to our first episode!
Episode 1: Snappy Title Coming Soon
AAC Format (13.37MB)
MP3 Format (13MB)
You can also stream it via Odeo
This episode covers a variety of topics. Among them are our general impressions of E3, opinions on Nintendo's press conference and booth, thoughts on the Wii's unique controller, and of course what we think of all the Wii games that were on display. If you're looking for DS impressions, those are coming in our second episode. There was simply too much to talk about to fit into one episode.
You'll have to excuse the slight audio issues with this first episode. An error on my end caused me to record with the wrong microphone, creating some background white noise in the audio. This won't happen next time. We're also looking into making the AAC version of this podcast enhanced, complete with chapter marks and images to serve as a companion to the audio portion, though we can't promise that will happen any time soon.
If you have any questions, complaints, complements, or criticisms please send them to our new podcast email address:
Post by: Nick DiMola on May 17, 2006, 06:12:52 PM
Post by: TheYoungerPlumber on May 17, 2006, 06:44:41 PM
Post by: ShyGuy on May 17, 2006, 10:33:28 PM
But was pretty entertaining. Much better than the IGN podcasts I think.
Post by: Svevan on May 17, 2006, 10:37:11 PM
-Tarantino
Post by: davidctaylor on May 18, 2006, 05:49:38 AM
Post by: StrikerObi on May 18, 2006, 07:25:23 AM
Post by: wandering on May 18, 2006, 08:32:49 PM
Quote
-Tarantino
Heh.
Again, I enjoed it. Amusing ancedotes and a general lack of stupidity. In other words, unlike, say IGN's podcast, this one didn't want to make me gouge my ears out.
Now all PGC needs is a comic and a premium paid subscription service, and everything will be complete.
Post by: UncleBob on May 19, 2006, 05:30:10 AM
Post by: KDR_11k on May 19, 2006, 08:51:32 AM
Post by: KnowsNothing on May 19, 2006, 10:05:05 AM
Post by: Hostile Creation on May 19, 2006, 11:43:01 AM
I enjoyed it, I'll definitely listen to whatever podcasts you do.
We're also considering a pietriot podcast. Beware!
Post by: IceCold on May 19, 2006, 02:12:53 PM
Post by: PaLaDiN on May 19, 2006, 03:49:37 PM
Way to ignore part of your demographic, guys. I for one will not stand for this blatant discrimination.
SUBTITLES FOREVER.
Post by: TheYoungerPlumber on May 19, 2006, 05:01:33 PM
Post by: PaLaDiN on May 19, 2006, 06:19:09 PM
I can follow along if you give me a text version. Get to work on it, people. Enough excuses. *cracks whip*
Post by: Svevan on May 20, 2006, 12:48:15 AM
The first person to sign up to type out transcripts (mind you this is a weekly cast), I will pay 5$ a month. I'm not even kidding. You'll get paid more than I do to work here.
Post by: wandering on May 20, 2006, 01:28:48 AM
Quote
Originally posted by: Hostile Creation
We're also considering a pietriot podcast. Beware!
If Bill and Ian are involved, I'll listen....
Quote
The first person to sign up to type out transcripts (mind you this is a weekly cast), I will pay 5$ a month. I'm not even kidding. You'll get paid more than I do to work here.
I couldn't commit until I saw how long it took to do. But I'll volunteer to transcibe this one for free.
edit: okay, it only takes six hours or so...
Post by: Svevan on May 22, 2006, 08:10:15 PM
Post by: nickmitch on May 22, 2006, 08:18:16 PM
Couldn't you pay in E3 swag or something?
Post by: Svevan on May 22, 2006, 08:28:01 PM
Post by: wandering on May 22, 2006, 09:16:45 PM
Quote
Ok, so wait, 5 dollars a month, for roughly (6hours per week x 4weeks per month =) 28 hours.
I know, I couldn't believe it either. These wages beat the crap out of what I make at the sweat shop. Of course, I have to walk 200 miles just to get to a computer with internet access, but it's totally worth it.
Quote
Six hours? How dare you do something so kind!
I wouldn't do it if I didn't enjoy it.
Post by: vudu on May 23, 2006, 08:57:09 AM
Post by: Caliban on May 23, 2006, 12:20:56 PM
Post by: StrikerObi on May 25, 2006, 05:50:51 PM
Post by: Caliban on May 25, 2006, 06:25:53 PM
Post by: Svevan on May 25, 2006, 10:19:50 PM
Post by: Caliban on May 26, 2006, 05:30:46 AM
Post by: wandering on May 31, 2006, 12:57:09 AM
[PGC NewsBot] 3...2...1 (head explodes)
(music kicks in)
[Mike] Alright, welcome to the first ever Planet GameCube podcast. I am Mike "StrikerObi."
[Quentin Tarantino] And I am Evan "Sveven."
[Mike] And, uh, we met each other for the first time at E3, and, everyone seemed to comment that I'm very loud, and Evan's very loud, so, somewhere along the line we decided we should do a podcast.
(music fades out.)
[Evan] So that all of you get to listen to us talking incredibly loud. But don't worry, it's safe for work, kind of.
[Mike] Hopefully.
[Evan] Just barely. (heh) So yeah...
[Mike] So what our...go ahead.
[Evan] We're going to start out by talking about E3. Because we got to go to E3. And Mike, did we have a good time at Nintendo's booth?
[Mike] Yeah, we had, uh, a really good time. I usually spend about, at least, 50% of my time at Nintendo, but this year I spent almost all my time there.
[Evan] (amused) You spent almost all your time there? Like, percentage wise, like, was it like, 95%?
[Mike] No, I spent the entirety of the first day and the third day at Nintendo's booth.
[Evan] (laughs) Wow.
[Mike] And on the second day I had some meetings, and interviews, and stuff. And, I went to south hall for a little bit, but I barely played anything.
[Evan] mm-hmm. Yeah, south hall was an interesting place, mainly because, like, it was kind of like the exact opposite of west hall. For those of you guys who've never been to E3, the LA convention center is divided into two pieces. And one piece is west hall, where it's a little bit more, shall we say, dignified. It's where Nintendo is, Sony's there, it's not loud, it's really nice. There's no one, like, running around naked, and there you can actually breathe by standing in the middle of the room, if you want to.
[Mike] Unless you're in Nintendo's booth.
[Evan] Unless you're in Nintendo's booth, where people were passing out from heat stroke, from just the fat guy standing next to them. (laughter.) If it weren't for that, you know. But it's, west hall is nice, clean place. South hall, on the other hand, is like the dregs. South hall is Skid Row of...well, Skid Row is Kentia, but...South Hall is where everybody thinks it's hip, it's cool, let's be here, at South Hall. And, uh, (Mike starts to speak), go ahead.
[Mike] I think...I liken South Hall, at the show, to basically a living embodiment of the internet. (Evan laughs.) Where, as soon as you walk in, you are instantly bombarded from every direction with sights and sound, and things are literally popping up in front of you, and, over there, there's a half naked woman...so, basically, it is the internet.
[Evan] It is the internet. It really is.
[Mike] Jonny likened it to walking into thirty rock concerts, all going on at the same time
[Evan] (laughs) And competing with each other. It wasn't, NC Soft was actually fine for being too loud, and?
[Mike]Yeah, sure about that?
[Evan] (laughs) I don't know. Did you go by NC Soft?
[Mike] Yeah, I played Tabular Rasa, it was the only...
[Evan] Oh, okay...
[Mike]...PC game I played. Because I was very interested in it.
[Evan] Yeah, I think I was in there for a while, and I didn't think it was that bad, but...
[Mike] Oh, well, when I was there, there was, like, a huge band - not, like, huge, but there was a lot of people in this band, I've never heard of them - playing on the stage. They had dancing girls who were singing and making out with each other (Evan laughs). And they had a fire twirler, on top of all that.
[Evan] (laughs.) Okay, that's not what you see at Nintendo's booth. That is not Nintendo.
[Mike] Probably the craziest thing I've ever heard.
[Evan] Yeah, yeah. Microsoft had a pretty interesting booth - I heard it's very similar to what they had last year, I wasn't there last year, so - but Microsoft's booth had these little sit-down stations where you could play the games, and that was really interesting to me. It was like these little circular booths, and then that TV screens kind-of bloomed out of them, like a flower. If you imagine what a bellossom pokemon looks like, it's kind of shaped like that. And you would sit inside of it, and look at the TV screen. And while you were in it, uh, you know, it's maybe four or five stations, and the people on the outside could look at the same video monitor and watch people play. And that was where we got to see what is possibly game of the show, for humor. Um, the game is Too Human, and, who doesn't know about Too Human.
[Mike] Please don't talk too badly, we're friends with Dennis.
[Evan] Yeah, I don't want to make fun of Too Human too much...but, let's just say it was a little disappointing, to go by. And that - we talked about it a lot - and that, of all people, Jonny was really upset. It was a sad thing. We walked by, and we were just kind of like, 2 frames a second? (fakes crying.) Why?
[Mike] Apparently, from what I've heard, the build for Too Human was a different build than what some other people have played about 2 weeks ago, that was apparently much better.
[Evan] Oh, well, that's good news.
[Mike] But Dennis, Dennis, says the game is going to be delayed indefinitely, until they get a constant, stable, thirty frames a second.
[Evan] mm. Wow.
[Mike] Very good news, for them...
[Evan] So another three years slapped onto the development time...
[Mike] Yeah.
[Evan] ...we've got, you know, it'll have been in development for thirteen years. And it'll finally come out right before Duke Nukem Forever. Right. (laughter.) So that's all I got to see of Microsoft. Did you see anything else cool in Microsoft's booth?
[Mike] Um, literally, the only thing I played inside that entire booth was the Xbox Live arcade version of Lumines...
[Evan] Heh.
[Mike] Which I didn't like it as much as the PlayStation Portable version.
[Evan] Oh, really? You know, we really missed out. Everyone's going off about Gears of War, and we didn't even touch it.
[Mike] Yeah, and, apparently, Mass Effect was huge, and I totally missed it.
[Evan] Ugh. Well, you know, that's what happens when you're a Nintendo fan. You walk into south hall, and you don't know what to look for. You've only been reading one thing.
[Mike] Last year I had plenty of time to check out south hall. And the year before that, cause, not much was going on in Nintendo?s booth. Like, there were like, oh, here - last year there was a lot of great DS games - but the year before that, was like, oh, here's the DS, and the failing GameCube and GBA line - well, GBA wasn't failing at the time - and so I spent a lot of time in south hall, playing all sorts of stuff. And last year I did the same thing. But this year, Wii dominated the show so much. By Wii I mean the console, not...
[Evan] We, aurgh! We rampaged! (laughs.)
[Mike] Wii, from Nintendo, dominated the show so much...I guess I forgot we're not supposed to use personal pronouns, or something like that.
[Evan] Yeah, it's not the Wii, it's just...or even Nintendo Wii. So your first sentence was entirely correct. Wii dominated the show.
[Mike] Yeah, it did. It did. (Evan laughs.) But, in order to avoid confusion, Nintendo says I'm supposed to avoid sentences that are structured like that one. (Evan laughs.) It's in a little style guide.
[Evan] Yeah, well that's actually part of the press. Nintendo's press kit was a style guide for how to pronounce and spell everything. They also had the correct spelling for Nintendo GameCube - with a capitalized 'C', but it's not three words, or two words, it's one word.
[Mike] I remember when the GameCube first came out, and they were saying, "no, it's one word, don't capitalize the C in the middle, but everyone did it.
[Evan] They just changed, now, the rules?
[Mike] Sure. (Reading from style guide:) "Wii, Nintendo's upcoming home video console. It is simply Wii, not Nitnendo Wii. It is pronounced 'we', indicating it's all-inclusive nature. The name works best at the beginning of a declarative statement. For clarity, it is best to avoid passive verbs and prepositions."
[Evan] (laughing) "The name works best at the beginning of a declarative sentence" (laughs.)
[Mike] Such as, "Wii will rock you."
[Evan] Wii will rock you. Or, so, all we can say is Wii will do this, and Wii will do that. Wii is, Wii is not. (laughs.) That to me, that strikes me as quite funny for the future of Wii. Because, if all that we can say when we say 'Wii' is, okay.... and that was funny when Reggie Fils-Aime was out there, pre...
[Mike] Oh man...
[Evan] Okay, that was funny, when, during the press conference, what did he say, that was, it's..? (chuckle.) It was something like, it was something like, "what we want to do", and it was like, people, every time he said "we"...
[Mike] It was, "everyone will realize what it's about when they get to play Wii," I think that?s what it was. (Evan laughs.) Something along those lines.
[Evan] Yeah, and sometimes he meant 'we' as in Nintendo, and sometimes he said 'Wii' as in the system.
[Mike] Yeah, he needs to read the style guide.
[Evan] He definitely needs to read the style guide that he probably wrote. (laughs.) So, yeah. So that was.. The press conference, though, was a good. It was a good show. It was less than an hour long, which was, like, 55 minutes, maybe, right on.
[Mike] It was perfect.
[Evan] Everything was great. I was a particular fan.... I know Jonny did not like what Satoru Iwata had to say, just because he finds Satoru Iwata to be...slow. I really enjoyed his talk.
[Mike] To be fair, the guy's voice is kind of creepy.
[Evan] (doing an impersonation of either Iwata or Fozzie Bear:) In Nintendo, we enjoy making good games. Nintendo is the company to play with. (laughs.) Nintendo.
[Mike] It was a much better show than the past couple of years. They rented the Kodak theatre...which, for those of you who don't know, that's where the academy awards, aka the Oscars, are held.
[Evan] Mm-hmm.
[Mike] I took a picture of my seat in the third row. Third row I'm pretty sure somebody famous sat there. Maybe...
[Evan] Oh, dude, it was probably, like, Tom Hanks's seat. You and Tom Hanks are bosom buddies now.
[Mike] Yeah, or buttock buddies I guess would be the better term.
[Evan] (laughs.) Yeah. So, and the theatre's nice. It's a nice big place. It didn't look as decked-out. The lights were on us all the time, so it kind of looked ugly as compared to what you see on TV, cause people like you look like a bunch of gamers. And, the, that was the downside. But, there this was this excellent usher, at the press conference, that I thought was just a great guy. He was on fire. Like, he would walk around, and he was always - he was, like, head usher of my balcony...and he was bossing everybody around. And, when people were walking by, he'd like be "Be sure to-to go through the doors, and-and if you don't go through the doors in exactly the right way, we will whip you with reeds!" And he was totally joking, and no one would even listen to him, cause they were too busy...like, he would tell people to put their cameras away, and they'd get really pissed off, and then he'd walk away with a big smile on his face. He was awesome.
[Mike] Down on the floor it was just...
[Evan] Yeah, down in the swank seats, down in the VIP section.
[Mike] In the Mushroom Kingdom. Everyone sprinted to get good seats, and the whole middle section was just blocked off for real good VIPs. Like, you know, people with sites like 1up or Game Informer. And,
[Evan] Mm-hmm.
[Mike] But, everyone else who had a Mushroom Kingdom seat sat on the two flanking sides.
[Evan] Yeah.
[Mike] And that was like, "okay, move in! Fill in the front rows first!"...like we weren't going to do that already. You know?
[Evan] (laughs.) Yeah.
[Mike] And we were right in the front, so ended up in the third row.
[Evan] So the Berghammer got to be, got to be right there in the middle, huh?
[Mike] Yeah, I'm sure...
[Evan] That the way it works? Uh...
[Mike] I'm sure it?s like him and Matt from IGN who were right up there. And so...
[Evan] Oh, I'm sure they were, like, hugging and kissing in the middle of the thing. (Mike laughs.) I'll bet. Oh, whatever.
[Mike] I really liked the production value of the show. I thought it was very high-quality, lots...
[Evan] Yeah.
[Mike] I liked that, I liked the way they had the people set up playing the Wii, on like, uh, an invisible stage. Like, halfway up from the stage.
[Evan] Uh-huh. Yeah. If you've ever seen a picture, there was a giant unit that, not that, held a Nintendo sign, it not only opened up for like...it was like George Harrison's time capsule out of which he stepped - and he was able to talk like he was from 1932. But also, if you walked out on top of it, and, there were people playing games on these flat screens. They would watch, and we would get to see what they were playing. And, it worked. It really worked.
[Mike] Except for Red Steel, which was, for half of the presentation just the logo on the screen.
[Evan] But you know what? It actually made it better because we didn't have to look at how bad Red Steel actually looks. You know. (Chuckles.)
[Mike] Yeah. I'm sure it'll be...hopefully it'll be fine when it comes out. But, at it's state at E3, Red Steel...while I didn't play it, it may have played very nicely. From what I've heard, it was a pretty decent game - but, it was not the bell of the ball graphically speaking.
[Evan] Well, I can go ahead - if we want to move on from the press conference...I'll go ahead and tell you exactly how Red Steel played.
[Mike] Alright.
[Evan] Red Steel, to me, is disappointment. The only reason I didn't post impressions on it on the site is because I've already posted enough negative impressions on Wii. I don't think I've posted a single positive impression for Wii. Because, the one you did on Super Mario Galaxy was sufficient, the one that Jonny did on Metroid Prime was...
[Mike] You mean the two. The two he did on Metroid Prime.
[Evan] Yeah, both that he did. Yeah. I don't need to add anything to that. However, I felt like I had something to add to the Zelda impressions, so I, you know, a contrary opinion. So that's why I said something there. And I would do something on Red Steel, but I've just posted so much negatively. That game...has a lot going for it, in terms of the idea. If they're making, really, a single player game, that is a first person shooter, that has a consistent world... where you don't just go to levels, but that you start out in an area, then you move to another area, and you continuously move... like Metroid Prime, but they keep that in, and still this fast action first person shooter style... I really am looking forward to that game. I think that's going to be something quite a lot of fun to play. But, at the moment, there are two control problems: One is, unlike metroid, where you point on the screen is not where...it does not have anything to do with where your icon will be. So, you can hold the remote up all you want, and point at the screen. But you're gonna still going to point wherever it is in relation to the tilt of the controller. It's essentially an analogue stick that you hold in your hand. It has nothing to do with like, uh, it's not a lightgun game in any way - where you're actually pointing. And, to be fair, metroid is a lot like that too. But metroid is a lot more flexible - where, if you hold your hand up, and point at an area on the screen, it will point there. But, actually...
[Mike] Yeah, Metroid...is fantastic.
[Evan] Metroid is a fantastic game, compared to Red Steel. Red Steel is not half of what Metroid is. The other control problem with Red Steel is that, the, when using the sword, you...it's essentially a mini-game. Jonny said it's like playing a mini-game. It wasn't that much fun. You can only go in three directions, and that's...
[Mike] Yeah, it doesn't...
[Evan] Actually, four.
[Mike] When you swing, it doesn't actually sense where you're swinging the sword. It just, it triggers that you have used the accelerometer, and then, does an appropriate slash on the screen.
[Evan] Exactly. Which amounts to the Wii remote functioning as four different buttons, for four different types of swings. And I never once felt like I had to guard against anything...however, I did not get to the end of the demo where you fought the guy who was super hard, and I know that...
[Mike] Right.
[Evan] ...Steven did. And Steven said - Steven "WindyMan" Rodriguez - said that he thought this was...he said that the more he played it, the better he got, and by the time he got to the (entrance?), he was very proficient. And I'm willing to trust his impressions. Mine were on the last day...
[Mike] mm-hmm.
[Evan] ...I played for five minutes, and, I was disappointed. So, here's hope that some polish goes into the graphics and control, and then we'll have an excellent first person shooter. Cause, level-wise, design-wise, it seems top-notch.
[Mike] Alright.
[Evan] But Metroid. Tell me something good about Metroid. Let me count the ways.
[Mike] Yeah.
[Evan] That game...
[Mike] I guess we don't mean to gush like we're, oh, Nintendo fanboys or anythin...but Metroid shows developers how to do a first person shooter on that system.
[Evan] Metroid shows developers how to make a game on Wii.
[Mike] Yeah.
[Evan] Because, that surpassed my expectations entirely. Because it's still Metroid Prime...
[Mike] Yeah.
[Evan]...In every way. It's not Metroid Prime...it's not anything different from Metroid Prime.
[Mike] It's not Metroid with some augmented, you know, motion sensing controller put on top of it...which is sort-of what Zelda was.
[Evan] Yeah.
[Mike] It's actually Metroid, done correctly with this new controller.
[Evan] Yeah. And I love that, when you're playing it, you're constantly, wherever you're pointing the remote, is where you are constantly, uh...you're always participating.
[Mike] mm-hmm.
[Evan] Unlike Zelda. You cannot let that remote go down, because it is your gameplay attachment device. And, actually, the same thing's true for Super Mario?even though Super Mario didn't use it as much as it should've, you're always having to point it somewhere, and do something. Zelda, it felt like, you know, I run over here, fight this guy, keep running, pull out the bow, now I get to use the wii remote.
[Mike] mm-hmm.
[Evan] Whereas Metroid constantly connects with the game.
[Mike] And Mario is more connected than Zelda, but not as much as Metroid. Like, you're constantly interacting, but, there are some times where you're not interacting.
[Evan] Mm-hmm.
[Mike] So you're not constantly, constantly interacting. It's not like the entire remote control mechanism disappears, as it does in Zelda. When Mario, even when you're not specifically using it, you can still move the controller, and move your little star curser around the screen.
[Evan] Mm-hmm. Yeah.
[Mike] And you can still shake the controller to make Mario do a spin attack. You're always doing something with it.
[Evan] Yeah. And, man, graphics on Mario. Those were hot. That grass, okay, I wanted to sniff the grass. (Mike laughs.) It looked good. It looked good. Yeah, I liked the way that game looked. That kind of shows where the next generation is going for Nintendo. Graphically, it's not amazing - it's not PS3 quality - but it's hot.
[Mike] But it doesn't need to be. Like, it's not trying to duplicate a realistic environment, like Metal Gear. Metal Gear benefits from looking more like reality. You know?
[Evan] Yeah. You're right. So anyways. Um, what were some of the things that you saw around the show...like, you got to play, uh, obstacle course.
[Mike] Yeah, that game was pretty - very, very sensitive little obstacle course tech demo, where you would sort-of, you could point your pointer at the screen to move a little character, he was like a little guy who looked like he was constantly making snow angels.
[Evan] Hmm.
[Mike] And you had to get him through this maze. Sort-of like Kuru Kuru Kururin on Game Boy Advance. But at the same time you could also twist the controller itself to twist him on the screen and get him through little cracks and stuff. It was really sensitive, but it was actually pretty hilarious due to the way it looked.
[Evan] mmhemhemhem. Yeah, I saw a video of it, and I kind of regretted having missed it.
[Mike] And there was no line for it either, because everyone was like, "oh, tech demo, who cares? I'm going to go play Zelda."
[Evan] Yeah. It definitely looks like they are going to release it. I'll bet it'll be like, I bet it'll be one of those things they include with the system. I really hope, that since it's got a minor hard drive, that they'll include some things.
[Mike]I'm thinking that, in all honesty, it'll probably - hopefully - come with some sort of demo disk, that includes those three little tech demos they had. The ping-pong, the obstacle course, and the shooting range...which IGN is erroneously calling Duck Hunt. (Evan chuckles.) Which it's not.
[Evan] Was that...what was that, I mean, did they actually have the light gun attachment used for that, or...
[Mike] No.
[Evan] ...or did it just use the remote?
[Mike] You were just pointing with the remote, and clicking. I imagine if they do a proper duck hunt, they'll use that shell. The zapper shell they had there.
[Evan] Yeah. So, when, where was that, even? In the booth.
[Mike] What?
[Evan] Was it right next to Obstacle Course? The Duck Hunt thing?
[Mike] Yeah, the light gun game? Yeah. It was those three, were as far away as you could get on the right side.
[Evan] Yeah. Okay. Yeah, I never went over there. I tried playing tennis once, and I actually had to take it away from a booth babe. Like, she was playing, about ready to start playing tennis, and I said, "hey, can I, can I... oh, you already started."
[Mike] That's great, though, you know. The booth babe can't put it down.
[Evan] Well, (sigh), I would say, yeah, that's great, but, um, I think that she hated me with the fire of a thousand suns.
[Mike] Ha-ha.
[Evan] As a result...cause I started playing it, and I was really bad at it. And she just kind of gave me this glare for the rest of it, for the rest of the time.
[Mike] Jonny and I were waiting in line to play the shooting game again against each other, and, this other man walked up, and, when...the shooting game is a two player thing, so when there's no one else to play with, the booth babe fills in...
[Evan] Oh.
[Mike] And she destroyed this guy. (Evan laughs.) Like, she had obviously been doing this, you know...this was day 3...so she had been doing this for three days...
[Evan] That's funny.
[Mike] She was extremely proficient at hitting the targets in the shooting game.
[Evan] That's so funny. That is so funny. Yeah, I mean, once you know the pattern for that thing. But that's something to be said for Nintendo's booth. Okay, booth babes galore. Very nice looking, booth babes.
[Mike] Sony's the same way. Like, Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and the bigger third parties - EA - they know what they're doing, they hire attractive people to demo the games. But then you get a company like NC Soft, which hires attractive girls, and then dresses them like sluts. (Evan laughs.) Like, there's a difference between, uh, like a girl who works for a PR, promotional company, like, which is obviously where Nintendo is pulling from some pool of PR girls? like, girls who went to college and got degrees in PR, or advertising, or something. And this what they do because they are hot.
[Evan] Yeah.
[Mike] And then there's a company like NC Soft, that'll basically just pick up a hooker off the street and put her in a gamer outfit.
[Evan] (laughs.) Okay, do you really think they're actually hookers? (laughs.)
[Mike] Well, I, well, I, wouldn't be surprised if a good number of them are professional escorts.
[Evan] (laughs.) You're so funny. Yeah, Nintendo?s got it, got, classy. And, like...
[Mike] Yeah.
[Evan] ...It is classy. They're not, like, undressed at all. They are wearing black pants, blue shirts, and white vests. They look nice, and they can kill you at the game. They are...
[Mike] Yeah. They train em, you know?
[Evan] They train em. They have like a day of training, two days of training before the show starts.
[Mike] I guess they do, yeah.
[Evan] And they, they know how to talk to you. They like, I'm sure that Nintendo?s got some sort of like plan for how to, like, okay, "if a geek comes up to you, and, like, smells really bad, just, just, keep it in. Just don't even, don't even worry about it. If he, like, puts his arm around you, just say, please don't touch me." (chuckling.) Or something. I'm sure they've got, like, a system, to make sure that those babes treat us like we are kings until we cross the line.
[Mike] Yeah.
[Evan] So. One of the interesting things about Nintendo's booth... I didn?t get to see much of it, did you see more of it? Where those giant life-sized video screens?
[Mike] No, I didn't really see much of those, cause, you had to wait in line to see those, and I didn't wait in that silly line.
[Evan] Heheheh. But there were these life sized video screens that showed the, that had people. And one of em was a booth babe who was apparently, like, the ultimate booth babe. Or, like, the most knowledgeable woman in the show or, I don't know. And the other one was Charles Martinet.
[Mike] The voice of Mario.
[Evan] Yeah. And, um, I don't know who else...like, I think there was a third one I never got to see. But they were these video screens that were actually life-sized, and, when, you would walk up to them, there was a video camera so that the booth babe could see you. And she looks right at the camera, and talked to you. It was weird... it was like talking to a person. So, anyways, these life-sized people, it was like you were talking to them, except they were probably five feet away from you, like, they were, like, inside the walls, really.
[Mike] No, they were probably in the back of Nintendo's booth.
[Evan] Okay, yeah. Where there was some of that stuff that looked like it was locked up. Yeah. The, uh...it was a really interesting feature. Plus, everybody loved to go talk to Charles Martinet. I think TYP kind-of congregated around Martinet's...
[Mike] Yeah. Well, did you hear this story about, apparently, two guys in line, um, were harassing the booth babe over the video feed. And they didn't know that she could see them. (Evan laughs.) So, she called security on them, and got them kicked out of Nintendo's booth for the entire show. And they have a video feed so they know what these guys look like and everything.
[Evan] Oh, that's awesome. They probably got back in, those stupid...
[Mike] Maybe. I mean, there was a lot of people at E3. They could probably...
[Evan] Yeah.
[Mike] ...slip right in. I also heard a story about, apparently, Nintendo security caught a guy trying to get into the booth with a pair of scissors. And he was...
[Evan] Oh really?
[Mike] ...to remove a Wii controller from the booth with....
[Evan] Wow. Wow. Well what do you...
[Mike] Well, it happened back in 2001 when the GameCube first showed up. One of those controllers was stolen, and the idiot tried to sell it on eBay and got caught.
[Evan] He got caught? (laughs.) That's so funny. Yeah, though, you really have to?if you did get one, it'd just be a souvenir for yourself. I feel.
[Mike] Yeah.
[Evan] Plus, the fact that we saw two different designs of the controller. We saw one during the press conference. That was very much what we've seen before, except it had the speaker, and it had the home button in the middle. And on the left of it was a minus sign, and on the right of it was a plus sign.
[Mike] mm-hmm.
[Evan] That's not the controller that we got to hold at the show. The one at the show had three buttons on it. The one on the left was kind-of a return button, it was an arrow twisted backwards.
[Mike] Back arrow.
[Evan] Back arrow, yeah. And the middle one was still home, and the right one was pause. And underneath it, it said start. So it was the pause/start variation that Nintendo has kept up since the GameCube, so that people who don't play games can understand that Start does not actually start your game when you're playing it.
[Mike] Yeah, pauses, it actually stops your game.
[Evan] Yeah, it actually stops it, how interesting. But it also starts it in other situations.
[Mike] Well, it restarts it once you stop it. So it is pretty much is a pause button.
[Evan] Yeah. So, Nintendo's wise in that, that it's actually a remote control with a pause button.
[Mike] And a power suppl-, and a power button, too.
[Evan] A power button as well. I wouldn't be surprised if they came up with a, uh, play button on it as well. (Jokingly:) or if they change the A button to a Play button. I don't know. But did anybody ever try turning the power off?
[Mike] I did not. I assumed it was (?)
[Evan] Yeah, I'll bet it was disabled.
[Mike] Cause, I mean, they had those little consoles on display - like, you know, the little plastic case that looked like a Wii - but...
[Evan] Uh-huh.
[Mike] You were not playing the game on that thing.
[Evan] You were so not. But they had cords coming out of it.
[Mike] There was a dev kit inside that podium.
[Evan] Oh, sure.
[Mike] Definitely.
[Evan] For sure. But, the fact that there were wires coming out of it, uh, I don't know. It looked to me like it was running. It was glowing, at least, and...
[Mike] Actually, I saw one of them, at the end of day 3, the system was not glowing anymore. I guess the little light bulb burned out inside of it.
[Evan] (heh.) Well, yeah, it was on for, like, nine hours every day?
[Mike] Yeah.
[Evan]..and the day before as well, so, that doesn't surprise me, either. So, all in all, E3 was Nintendo's, per what we saw. Of course, we're the most biased people on the entire internet.
[Mike] According to SomethingAwful.com, it is...
[Evan] According to SomethingAwful, if we play a Mario game, it gets a 10. So, uh, and let me tell you something. The Mario game that I saw at E3 is very close to a 10. However, the Zelda game, as you can read in the impressions that I wrote for PGC, not so much of a 10. 7....6 point 5, or something, I don't know...
[Mike] 6 point 8.
[Evan] 6 point 9...7 even, maybe. I don't know. But, overall, Nintendo had a great showing. Walking through Sony's booth, the lines were short, the games looked awesome...but no one really seemed to care. And it seemed like...
[Mike] I cared about Guitar Hero 2. (laughter.) How about that? They should make that for the Wii. It's already wireless, it's already got an accelerometer. You just snap the controller into a little guitar shell and rock the house. (Evan chuckles.)
[Evan] It still seems to me that that shell would cost just as much as the regular controller.
[Mike] It shouldn't.
[Evan] But, you know, yeah, I?m totally with you. If they got Guitar Hero...
[Mike] Even if it does, I don't care.
[Evan] Yeah. And, actually, Okami looked really nice. I watched videos...
[Mike] They did that last year.
[Evan] Yeah. I don't understand the gameplay...
[Mike] That, I did that, last year, I said this is a game that should be on the DS, because you could draw on the DS. And now, this year, I'm thinking of Okami. That game ought to be on the Wii.
[Evan] On the Wii. On the Wii for sure, because that thing looked hot. That was like, I actually commented to the Capcom rep, I got to talk with her, and - who's an incredibly nice lady - she said - I told her, "you know, this game, this game, looks as though, uh, it should be on the Wii. And, uh, this drawing style, this character style, it looks like Wind Waker." And, isn't it interesting how, when Wind Waker came out, no one, like, everyone was like "Ugh! Cartoony style!" And now, I, seriously, on the show floor, three or four super big games. And a lot of copy, lower-class, copier games. All of them had this cel-shading that looked very reminiscent, and very stylish in their own right. And, I'm not going to call them copy cats, but they saw what it could do.
[Mike] Inspired by.
[Evan] Yeah. Exactly.
[Mike] We are (cleaning our low?) now. (Evan laughs.) I just want to, uh, if you enjoyed this audio portion of Planet GameCube, you should check out the Nintendo Funhouse radio, where you can listen to all sorts of videogame music. And, uh, we are thinking about doing this podcast every week. Might be every other week, or we're thinking every week. If you have ideas, or questions, suggestions, comments, you should send those to podcast at planetgamecube dot com. (music kicks in.) That email address should be up by the time this podcast is up. And, next week, since we talked about Wii the entire show this week, next week is going to be all the DS episode.
[Evan] DS omegathon! It will be incredible.
[Mike] Heh. So that is the end of our first podcast. I'm Mike.
[Evan] And I'm Evan.
[Mike] And we will see you, hopefully, next week. But, perhaps, in two.
(end.)
This transcript is dedicated to KDR_11K and PaLaDiN.
