[Rydog]

Ray Barnholt and Justin Haywald sit in for this week's episode to talk about a lot of old stuff, since we don't like things that are different.

[LiQuid]

Cool. Was just thinking about how bored I was.

[LiQuid]

Guh, sausage fest! You guys couldn't get ONE lady on there?

[kenzo]

Ray Barnholt and Justin Haywald sit in for this week's episode to talk about a lot of old stuff, since we don't like things that are different.

omg omg omg omg

[TVs Mr Neil]

Hey Ryan,

I heard your discussion about Cowboys And Aliens after that awesome email I sent to you about your Mario and Zelda discussion. I thought about sending another submission to your mailbag, but I figured I might as well just post on the forum. So here we go.

Everything that was said on your show about Cowboys & Aliens is true. That book is such a piece of shit. Comic shops were paid to buy stock of the book, and it was practically given away for free so as to inflate the sales numbers.

I'm actually a community member over at Drunkduck.com, a webcomic website which was purchased back in 2006 by Scott Rosenberg, creator of the Cowboys And Aliens series, specifically to market the property. This is also the guy who made Men In Black, by the way.

There's a preview of the comic hosted on the site. You get five pages and a link to Wowio to buy a digital version of the book. Right now, the Drunk Duck main page is littered with ads for it. You get the full novel free with a subscription to Maxim, another book that nobody with any self respect reads. Nobody on the site gives a shit about it. It's practically a running gag. And of course, all of the ads have that same image of the cowboy on the horse, shooting at a UFO.

In fact, I don't know anyone who even has a copy, let alone knows that it was even a comic. It's an absolute joke. This property is such a con job. I can't believe they're actually making the movie with Harrison Ford involved. I've never seen so much buzz generated by so little.

[KindGalaxy]

Guh, sausage fest! You guys couldn't get ONE lady on there?

If you ever saw Justin Haywald in the men's room you'd know this is more a case of Three Sausages and One Salami. If ya know what' I'm sayin'

[TVs Mr Neil]

After a while, it was getting hard to tell who was talking. If you get a room full of guys, they all start sounding alike.

[KindGalaxy]

After a while, it was getting hard to tell who was talking. If you get a room full of guys, they all start sounding alike.

Heyyy new guy, introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself Thread, stick around.

[IRL_Troll]

After a while, it was getting hard to tell who was talking. If you get a room full of guys, they all start sounding alike.

Heyyy new guy, introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself Thread, stick around.

And don't forget to speak in nazi puns

[KindGalaxy]

After a while, it was getting hard to tell who was talking. If you get a room full of guys, they all start sounding alike.

Heyyy new guy, introduce yourself in the Introduce Yourself Thread, stick around.

And don't forget to speak in nazi puns

Don't scare him! We've moved on to Soviet puns, or ways to make countries names into words, Czech it out!

[IRL_Troll]

Fine, I have no Guams with that

[Guillermo_DudeL]

I watched the Transformers: Prime too and I was also a bit disappointed. However I have some more detailed criticism than Higgin's rant about how everything sucks.

First off the animation isn't horrible Reboot era CGI. It's actually quite good, on par with something like Jimmy Neutron, it just looks Reboot-y because of the bright color palette and the choice of art style for the character designs. The problem is that the decision to have a CGI show instead of traditional animation makes it look very life-less and devoid of any real individuality. Plus it often looks like the town they're in is deserted since you hardly see any other cars or people around.

Second, the human kids are really throwaway. I know that the human characters are always The Load but at least we used to usually got some time for us to know about them before robots happen. Here it's just three random kids who appear for a few seconds and just happen to stumble upon the Autobots. And even when we do learn their personalities they're still pretty blah; one is some sort of child genius, one is a stereotypical Japanese Genki Girl, and one is a loser teenager who wants to score chicks (yeah cause we sooooooo liked that character in the movies).

Third, the plot is handled very poorly. At the beginning we're just thrusted into a scene with the Autobots like we're supposed to already know what's happening. When we finally get some back story later on in the first episode it's only a few seconds long and it still leaves some questions unanswered like why are the Autobots and Decepticons on Earth of all places and where the hell has Megatron been?

Fourth, there seems to be an overall "generic epicness" to the show. The scale of the premise seems awfully small, as there are only a handful of Autobots to fight the Decepticons and the Decepticons seemed to be only interested in attacking around the area of this nowhere town in Navada. Plus the music is the same "generic epic music" you would find in every summer blockbuster so it certainly doesn't help.

There are still some positive points to the show. For one the voice acting is great, as it does have Peter Cullen and Frank Welker back as Optimus and Megatron again. Along them you also have Jeffry Combs (That's right, The Question!) as Ratchet, Ernie Hudson as the government bureaucrat, and Steve Blum as Starscream, who actually does a good job as a sinister yet still subserviant Starscream. I do have to note that the Soundwave voice Higgin's complained about is actually not his voice, as Soundwave in this series appears to sample other character's dialogue to communicate, which I think is a neat spin on the character's role as "Communications Officer". Although I do have to say I FUCKING HATE the stupid fart noises Bumblebee makes instead of actual voice (they should have brought back Johnny Young Bosch from War For Cybertron!) I also can excuse the lame story a bit since this is actually a 5-part miniseries meant to lead up to the actually first season so I guess they want it to focus on a simple plot with lots of action to keep people interested.

[Konanda]

The podcast table at Comics Conspiracy must be pretty duded up now. Anyway pumped to hear Ray Barnholt.

[IRL_Troll]

Hmm, this sucks. I want to make sweet love to Ko and I want KG to have my children....where does that leave Ray Barnholt though? Can I turn this love triangle into a love square?

[Raine]

Goddamn it Haywald, when you said "Peggle 3" it sent me on a mad dash to my computer desk to check this, and then turns out you meant "Bejewled 3". Fuck you Haywald, fuck you. It's like you gave me a winning lottery ticket for 100 million dollars only to say "Ha ha! Fooled you, it's a fake!"

[Mr_eX]

The street fighter fightpad works great for pac-man

The best Zelda game is Darksiders

Black Friday sales are awesome.

[jinpei05]

G.I. Joe Renegades is definitely the better of the new HUB shows.

[Lord-Audie]

I like zelda 2 because is so unzelda like.

Every Zelda since ALTTP has been the same.

Except some of the GB ones.. but i haven't played those.

[Raine]

Talk about Battle Damaged Batman made me remember what I got for Christmas one year:



I would have loved Battle Damaged Batman.

[Cris]

I want a new Super Smash Brothers game that's as good as Melée.

[Cris]

Majora's Mask is great Ryan is wrong

[Mr_eX]

Ratchet and Clank > Mario

[kenzo]

The best Zelda game is Darksiders

If we were playing Team Fortress right now, I would drug you and light you on fire.

Ratchet and Clank > Mario

If we were playing Team Fortress right now, I would turn off your gravity and blind you.

[jinpei05]

The best Zelda game is Darksiders

If we were playing Team Fortress right now, I would drug you and light you on fire.

Ratchet and Clank > Mario

If we were playing Team Fortress right now, I would turn off your gravity and blind you.

Ditto.

[Mr_eX]

The best Zelda game is Darksiders

If we were playing Team Fortress right now, I would drug you and light you on fire.

Ratchet and Clank > Mario

If we were playing Team Fortress right now, I would turn off your gravity and blind you.

If we were playing Team Fortress right now and you did those things to me I'd do them to everyone but you as revenge.

I really do like Darksiders more than any Zelda and Ratchet and Clank(at least the PS3 ones) more than any Mario.

Also, Super Mario World is the best 2D Mario.

[kenzo]

If we were playing Team Fortress right now and you did those things to me I'd do them to everyone but you as revenge.

That would be fair. I would think twice about doing those things to you again.

I really do like Darksiders more than any Zelda and Ratchet and Clank(at least the PS3 ones) more than any Mario.

Darksiders is butt. Wind Waker is a better 3D game; LttP and Link's Awakening are by far the two best Zelda titles ever. I can understand the Ratchet remark a little more since it takes 3D platforming and does something new with it (unlike Darksiders which couldn't be original to save it's mother from being repeatedly raped and murdered).

[Mr_eX]

Darksiders is Zelda without all the boring stuff, I don't care that it isn't original. People make such a big deal about innovation but they seem to forget that execution is more important.

I don't see you complaining about 3D Dot Game Heroes when it does the same thing Darksiders does but to the 2D Zeldas instead of the 3D ones.

Ratchet and Clank is my favorite platforming franchise ever right now but I haven't played the Sly Cooper games yet so maybe that will change.

[TVs Mr Neil]

Majora's Mask is great Ryan is wrong

I appreciate that they did something different in that game. Zelda gets slammed for being the same game over and over.

In fact, getting different abilities freshened it up. I really liked getting the Goron mask, because then I could just plow around the world map and get whatever replenishments I need simply by mowing down the grass.

But there were certain oddities in that game that seemed broken to me. For example, there's that trio of dodongos on the overworld map. Once you're on Epona, you can just trample them to death and get major rewards without any risk.

Also, the boss battles were infuriating. I hate those boss battles. Worst of the entire series.

[Mr_eX]

Hey Ryan,

I heard your discussion about Cowboys And Aliens after that awesome email I sent to you about your Mario and Zelda discussion. I thought about sending another submission to your mailbag, but I figured I might as well just post on the forum. So here we go.

Everything that was said on your show about Cowboys & Aliens is true. That book is such a piece of shit. Comic shops were paid to buy stock of the book, and it was practically given away for free so as to inflate the sales numbers.

I'm actually a community member over at Drunkduck.com, a webcomic website which was purchased back in 2006 by Scott Rosenberg, creator of the Cowboys And Aliens series, specifically to market the property. This is also the guy who made Men In Black, by the way.

There's a preview of the comic hosted on the site. You get five pages and a link to Wowio to buy a digital version of the book. Right now, the Drunk Duck main page is littered with ads for it. You get the full novel free with a subscription to Maxim, another book that nobody with any self respect reads. Nobody on the site gives a shit about it. It's practically a running gag. And of course, all of the ads have that same image of the cowboy on the horse, shooting at a UFO.

In fact, I don't know anyone who even has a copy, let alone knows that it was even a comic. It's an absolute joke. This property is such a con job. I can't believe they're actually making the movie with Harrison Ford involved. I've never seen so much buzz generated by so little.

I don't care how the movie got made, it looks entertaining.

[kenzo]

Darksiders is Zelda without all the boring stuff, I don't care that it isn't original. People make such a big deal about innovation but they seem to forget that execution is more important.

I don't see you complaining about 3D Dot Game Heroes when it does the same thing Darksiders does but to the 2D Zeldas instead of the 3D ones.

I haven't played 3D Dot Game Heroes, and haven't seen enough of the game to formulate a valid opinion yet. However, it did arrive in the mail today and I'm going to be unpacking it and playing it shortly. I don't necessarily mind it when games have zero story and rid the player of all motivation beyond continuing to play the game for the sake of the fun mechanics - that's all games like LBP are. But I do mind when the story in a game is retarded. And not the good kind of retarded where it knows that it's stupid and revels in it like Metal Gear. I'm talking psychic-visions-of-Cortana-Halo 3-retarded. Darksiders' story was that retarded.

Ratchet and Clank is my favorite platforming franchise ever right now but I haven't played the Sly Cooper games yet so maybe that will change.

I played through Tools of Destruction and Quest for Booty, but didn't get Crack in Time yet because I felt burned out on the formula when it first came out. Am I missing out?