Announcer: Celebrating ten years of audio and gaming excellence ... It's Major Nelson Radio.
Larry: Welcome back, everybody. It's, um, show number 562. My name is Larry Hyrb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson. We've got the gang all here. Sitting across from me is Jeffrey. Hello Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: I didn't know we were joining a gang!
Larry: We are. Were a posse. And then, sitting across diagonally, across from you is Laura Massey. Hello Lollipop.
Laura: Right. At the other end of the table. Hello.
Larry: Well, you have your own special under the table with your own microphone, and your own ...
Laura: Yeah. I've got my own cool, special microphone.
Larry: Luck, luck, luck, luck.
Jeffrey: Really far.
Laura: I know. This is where it was a place when I came in.
Larry: This is like a locker room. A guys locker room, down here. You don't want to be down here. You want to be ...
Laura: Are you saying it's smelly down there?
Larry: It could be. It's messy, it's smelly, its just everything you don't ... that you want. Okay?
Jeffrey: I always avoid the locker room. I just change at home.
Laura: (laughs) yeah.
Larry: Really?
Jeffrey: I don't ... I have a locker room aversion.
Larry: Did something happen? Because I got ... I got ...
Jeffrey: Oh, something happened, all right.
Larry: Did you ... did you ... do you want to talk about it?
Jeffrey: So, growing up and ... and going to summer camp ...
Larry: In Philadelphia.
Jeffrey: I went to summer camp, but in Philly. I went to summer camp at the YMCA.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey: And, um, you shared those locker rooms with people that, when you're 11 that are like seven or eight decades older than you.
Laura: Mmm.
Jeffrey: And man, they just like walking around, letting it all hang out.
Laura: Oh, no!
Larry: Wait a minute. So, did you have an inferiority complex?
Jeffrey: No. I was just afeared. Um, um, um, you know, the things that I had seen that no young boy should see.
Laura: I see.
Larry: See, now mine is really all about ... because I remember when I was young. I was a freshman in high school. And I got, um ... I ... I ... I got flushed.
Laura: You what?
Jeffrey: Really?
Larry: Yeah. Laura, you don't know what that means, do you?
Laura: I can imagine.
Larry: Okay.
Laura: I think I know what it means.
Jeffrey: Was this before or after the hot dog stand?
Larry: This was before. This was before.
Jeffrey: Okay. Because I feel like the pictures I've seen of you in the early 80s ...
Larry: Yeah.
Jeffrey: Was a confident young Han Solo.
Larry: I was ... Thank you.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: Thank you. I'll go with that. Laura's laughing. [crosstalk 00:01:51]
Jeffrey: This is after you've been bled through the flushings.
Larry: Hey, listen. It's just, um, I did shoot first. The, um, it was ... Anyway, so I don't want to talk about the high school ...
Laura: Wait. Are you saying you deserved [00:02:00] the flushing?
Larry: No, no, no, no. I just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.
Laura: Yeah.
Jeffrey: Nobody deserves a flushing.
Larry: Coach turned around and ...
Laura: Didn't save you?
Jeffrey: (laughs) were you turned upside down? Or was it more, um ...
Larry: I don't want to talk about it.
Jeffrey: Okay.
Larry: Just imagine the worst that could happen. It was terrible.
Jeffrey: You've gone dark, man.
Laura: Right at the beginning.
Larry: Terrible. High school was a ... high school was a very difficult time.
Laura: As it is for most people.
Jeffrey: I don't know anyone who really enjoyed high school.
Laura: Yeah.
Larry: I think you did, Laura.
Laura: It was okay. I don't think ... I don't have any horror stories like you just ...
Larry: I could fill you ... I could fill your day with them, for God sakes.
Laura: Oh, no.
Jeffrey: Yeah. I didn't go to my reunion. I'll just put it that way.
Larry: You know, I didn't either.
Jeffrey: No one I wanted to see.
Larry: I didn't either because I was living out here, and one of them ... for out here on the west coast. I didn't have time.
All right enough about high school. Lets talk about games. You're tuned in to hear about games. We've got a lot of games going on.
Laura: We do.
Larry: We have a Halo content update, we're going to talk about. New games with gold that we're going to talk about.
Laura: (coughs)
Larry: Oh you all right over there, Laura?
Laura: Oh, you heard that? Sorry. I tried to lean away.
Jeffrey: Yeah. We did.
Larry: Um, Halo championship is taking place in aspen this coming weekend.
Jeffrey: Of all the places they could go, it's ... yeah, why not?
Larry: Well, if you want ... I did the Halo stream, last weekend.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry: Or last Friday. And, um, they, um, were talking about that and I kind of looked at them and went, "Really? You guys are going to Aspen?" And I looked into the camera, and I said, "All right. You watching at home on Twitch, go look up boondoggle. Because that's what this is all about." I just called them out on it.
Laura: Oh.
Jeffrey: "Why don't we do our team meetings in Hawaii?"
Larry: Yeah. It's just crazy. Anyway, so a lot going on this week. Laura what are you playing?
Laura: Oh.
Larry: Yeah. We're going to just jump right in.
Laura: So we're getting right in to me?
Larry: See? I just ... Kaboom.
Laura: Just right in.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: No nonsense anymore.
Larry: No nonsense. We're just ... Everybody wants to hear what we're talking about. What we're playing and I want ... I want to know what you're playing, because I've got to tell you, I'm convinced ... Jeffrey? You're going to back me up on this. I'm convinced you block me on Xbox Live.
Laura: No! I've not blocked you!
Larry: Okay? Because you haven't been on in weeks!
Laura: Did you see me ...
Jeffrey: Are you playing under private?
Laura: No.
Larry: I keep seeing all these achievements pop up, and I'm like, "You're not on." So, you've blocked me. It's okay. I understand. I would, too.
Laura: Did you see that I was online last night? I saw that you were online playing Halo.
Larry: Yeah. We were playing ... Jeff [00:04:00] and I were playing Halo with the new gang. We were trying the new content update, and we'll talk about that in a minute.
Jeffrey: You could've joined us.
Laura: Well, I was playing Oxenfree.
Larry: Oh! Let's talk about it! Because I finished it.
Laura: Oh, that's right.
Larry: How far did you get? Without spoiling.
Laura: Um, I got inside of a cave.
Larry: So, about an hour?
Laura: Yeah.
Larry: So, do you see what I mean?
Laura: Yes. So, this was ... I had no expectations, going in.
Larry: Well, other than what I had told you about.
Laura: Other than what you had mentioned.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: And, I was really impressed.
Larry: Right?
Laura: Really, really impressed. It was really the first time I felt like I was actually raking part in a conversation.
Larry: Well, part of it is because the voice acting was stellar.
Laura: Yes.
Larry: Like, those ... talk about it ... Let's be clear. This is kind of a nice little segue. Well done, Laura. It's about a bunch of individuals in high school.
Laura: Yes.
Larry: Right?
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry: Well I think they're in high school, aren't they?
Laura: They seem high school age.
Jeffrey: I haven't played yet. Is there, "Press right bumper to flush?"
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: (laughs)
Laura: Find someone named Major Nelson?
Larry: Um, not that I saw, but there could be. But, yeah. So, it's ... the voice acting is good and the environments are good.
Laura: Yes. It's a completely different art style, though from what I've seen before.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: So, I'm a huge fan of more artsy things, which is right up my street. And, as far as I've gotten, so far, it seems like it's a ... an action adventure story.
Larry: Yup.
Laura: Where you talk to your friends a lot.
Larry: Yes.
Laura: And then, you know, go through a few adventures together.
Larry: So, how far sis ... you got into the cave. Did you do what you had to do in the cave?
Laura: Yes. I did what I did ...
Larry: Okay.
Laura: Yes. With the triangle ...
Larry: Okay. Yes.
Laura: Yes. Um, and then went to the next segment.
Larry: Okay.
Laura: And then called it a night. But, it really struck me that I felt like I was a part of a real conversation.
Larry: That's why I kept playing it.
Laura: Yes!
Larry: And I couldn't stop playing it!
Laura: Because ... so ... like normal RPGs where ...
Larry: Press A to baby, or something like that.
Laura: They wait for you to answer. Like especially, you know, Mass Effect, and all these sorts of things. They give you three or four options to reply.
Larry: And you can kind of think about it for a second.
Laura: And you have lots of time to think about it. It does not feel real. Because that's not how real life works. No one waits for you to think about your answer for 30 seconds before you reply.
Jeffrey: We do a little bit, here.
Laura: A little bit.
Jeffrey: We'll give you ten seconds.
Larry: We edit [00:06:00] most of those pauses out for time caps.
Laura: (laughs) But, with this one, I've never played a game like this before, where you are taking part in a conversation with multiple other people, and you have the option to contribute to it, or not.
Larry: Right.
Laura: Because you can stay silent.
Larry: Right.
Laura: And the conversation will continue. And in some cases, you have to interrupt.
Larry: Right.
Laura: To make your voice heard.
Larry: Right.
Laura: That ... I've never had to interrupt a conversation in a game before. It's almost ... it's like, as real life as I've felt [crosstalk 00:06:27].
Larry: It's interesting, because you're actually articulating something that I couldn't articulate. And that's why ... that's why I kept playing it.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry: Because it felt like a real life conversation and it was, like, you know the voice acting is spectacular, and the art style is fun, and the story is very interesting. I'll just say that. I know you haven't gotten that far, but it's fun.
Laura: Yeah, but I'll definitely keep playing. Definitely.
Larry: Yeah. It's a little stingy on the achievements upfront.
Laura: Okay.
Larry: But, then later on in the game, they'll start popping for you.
Laura: Sure. Throw them in. Throw them in.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: So again, yeah. I'm really impressed. Really impressed with the game.
Larry: Good. Oxenfree. Check it out. If you haven't checked it our yet, I highly recommend it. Um, I'm not a big fan of the ... How would you describe the game? You said it was Action-Adventure?
Laura: Yeah. I haven't gotten too far into the mechanics.
Larry: The problem is, Action-Adventure implies, like, FPS. You're going to be jumping around, and it's not that.
Laura: No. There is some, sort of, platforming element to it. Because you know, I traversed a little bit.
Larry: Yeah, I had a ...
Laura: I haven't gotten too far into the game, yet. There's a mechanic with a radio.
Larry: Yeah, which is really cool.
Laura: Which is cool.
Larry: Yeah. Listen to some of the stations on there. That's all I'm going to say.
Laura: Okay.
Larry: They're really nifty stuff.
Laura: Interesting. It's mostly you're traversing through a story ...
Larry: Yeah
Laura: With your friends.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: As far as I've found.
Larry: The only problem I had with the game, and I think I told the developers this, is ... So, you pull the left trigger and the map comes up, the world map.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry: The world map is not as fanciful.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry: So, when you're in an area and you're like, "Oh," you pull the world map up and you want to go to an area to the right, or the upper right, yure like, "Okay, I've got to go to the exit to the right." Well, you really don't have to. It's not ... it doesn't map like that. It's not technically accurate.
Laura: Oh. I see.
Larry: It's more of a ... it's more of a, um ... it's just ... [00:08:00] it's more fanciful and it's kind of like ... It's artsy.
Laura: I see.
Larry: Maybe that lines into the rest of the game, but I always had a problem where I was like, "Okay. I want to go up here," and I was looking at the map going, "Okay, I think I can go here, but it's not ..."
Laura: Are you saying it's not a real map where there's distances that it maps for you?
Larry: Precisely .. well yeah. Distances ... and frankly, direction, sometimes.
Laura: Oh, no!
Larry: All the things you want out of a map.
Laura: Yeah. (laughs)
Jeffrey: So, it's a Disney Parks map?
Larry: That's exactly what it was. Now, it's interesting. When you talk about the Disney Park mac. Um, park maps. If you go to like Disneyland or Disney World, they're exactly that. They're very ...
Jeffrey: It's, like a big picture. It's like a caricature ...
Larry: Yeah. It's a caricature.
Laura: Caricature?
Larry: But, now, I went to Disneyland in Tokyo ...
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry: And, in Japan, they're very precise, and the map was, like, precise down to the garbage can.
Laura: Whoa!
Larry: Yeah. It was very, very different. So ...
Laura: Everything was to scale?
Larry: Everything was to scale, everything was exactly where you want, and that's what I wanted out of ... and not that I needed that out of the world map, but something a little closer.
Laura: Okay.
Larry: Anyway, that's ... otherwise, it was great. Once I figured out that, "Okay, this is really just a, a, a, a representation, it's not really a map..."
Laura: Caricature.
Larry: Scale and direction, then, "Okay. Now I get it." It's not all of the things that I expect out of a map.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). No, but it's super fun and I'll definitely keep playing it. I'm really looking forward to it.
Larry: Good.
Laura: I think that's all I've been up to.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: Other than playing Diablo.
Jeffrey: Diablo. I knew that was coming.
Laura: (laughs) I started a new character, and got him to level 40 ... 45.
Larry: Good for you. What's the cap, these days?
Laura: 70.
Larry: Oh, okay.
Jeffrey: You've got a little way to go.
Laura: But there really isn't a cap, per se. Once you get to 70, you unlock paragon levels and you can keep leveling after that, but you don't get any skills. Like new types of skills. You get points that you can spend to increase your hit rate, or your life per second, like, kind of, almost like attribute points, but not really. So, you don't stop leveling, which I think is a problem, with my addiction to Diablo. (laughs) [inaudible 00:09:50].
Jeffrey: Fallout called. It wants you back.
Laura: It does.
Jeffrey: It does.
Laura: I haven't played in two weeks.
Larry: I wouldn't know. You're blocking me.
What about you, Jeffrey? What are you playing?
Jeffrey: What [00:10:00] aren't I playing?
Larry: What aren't you playing?
Jeffrey: Um, so ... a lot of stuff. Um, we've been playing a lot of Halo, at night, and enjoying the new ... what is it called? The, the armor's ...
Larry: Armory?
Jeffrey: Armory?
Larry: Armory. What's it called, Brady?
Brady: Um, Infinity's Armory.
Larry: Infinity's Armory.
Jeffrey: Infinity's Armory. So, we've been playing a lot of Assault, which is something which we haven't really played a lot. In the War-zone maps. We had just been doing traditional War-zone, and you know, you hold your spots and you rack up those points. We've been playing a lot of Assault, which if you haven't played ...
Larry: Have we played that?
Laura: Yeah. Yeah.
Larry: We played a lot of battlefield, back in the day, so it's like Rush.
Laura: Okay.
Larry: Where you're defending or attacking a specific point, and you have to maintain it to unlock it, and then you move on to the next thing.
Jeffrey: You're only pushing people back, and even, like, when you're taking the territory, they can't reclaim any of it.
Laura: I see.
Jeffrey: But, it's incredibly challenging. You're immediately in to the action. You're not, um, you're not having to run very far before you're right back into it. In fact, it's, um, it's super intense. So, we've been having a lot of fun with that.
Um, I'm playing a lot of Banner Saga.
Larry: You are. Yes.
Laura: I finally got that, and I downloaded it.
Jeffrey: Okay. Good.
Laura: I haven't started.
Jeffrey: Yes. It's, um, it's a bit of a grim tale. Um, things go from, sort of, bad to worse, um, it's um, I was reading an article in Xbox Wires. An interview with the developers and they wanted to pay homage to Viking history. Viking lore.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey: And, um, they didn't have a happy ... um, they didn't tell a lot of happy yarns. It was a lot of, um, you know, a lot of people die.
Laura: Oh, no!
Jeffrey: And, and, and, luckily, some people manage to survive after a struggle. And, so that's ... every battle, I'm like, barely finishing, and I don't have enough resources to around. I'm enjoying it. It's kind of like X-COM, in that way.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey: You're not going to ... It's not ... Some RPGs, they get ... they almost get easier and easier, as time goes by, because you become really OP. Not in this game. It's learning how to manage ... yes.
Larry: Just explaining OP to those that don't ...
Jeffrey: This audience knows OP.
Larry: Well, everybody assumes they know. Like, I'm the first one to say, if I don't know what something means, I'll say, "Stop. What does that mean?"
Jeffrey: I appreciate it.
Larry: So, I just ... I don't want to ... I want to make sure the audience knows. Some do, some don't.
Jeffrey: So, I'm doing [00:12:00] that, and then, um ... so, the division Beta.
Larry: Yeah.
Jeffrey: Which is going on this weekend. We're going to be playing a bunch of that.
Larry: Yeah.
Jeffrey: Um, but I was waiting for it to start at one in the morning, is when we knew the servers would be ...
Laura: Wow.
Larry: So, Wednesday and Thursday of the previous week.
Jeffrey: Yes. And so, um, I needed to fill some time, there, and So, I went to ... Well, I went to try my ... I bought a gaming laptop about a month ago, but I really hadn't ... there was nothing really I wanted to play. I was sort of getting ready for X-COM 2.
Larry: And if I remember correctly, you can only play ... run it at night, because that's when the power, um, costs are lowest.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: This thing is a beast.
Jeffrey: The lights ... the lights flicker a bit when I turn it on.
Larry: Seattle City Power is sending you an Email saying, "Oh, please. Only after midnight."
Jeffrey: Yeah. It was like, "Please don't bust down the door. It's not some sort of growing operation, here."
Larry: Which is legal, by the way.
Jeffrey: I suppose that's true. Although it's really not necessary.
Larry: Of course.
Jeffrey: Um, so, there were two games that I, um, tried out. So, one is, um, Rise of the Tomb Raider, which is now out for Windows 10.
Larry: Yup. I'm playing that, as well.
Jeffrey: And, very quickly, it's like, "Yeah. I'll play this again."
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey: I would play this again. And, also, a note that, um, the first DLC, um, sort of scenario, um, Baba Yaga, which was first teased at, um, the VGAs, or the Video Game Awards, is now out.
Laura: Cool.
Jeffrey: Yeah. For Xbox One, and so, I'm playing through that again on Windows 10. And then also, um, The Witness. Jonathan Blow's game.
Larry: Yeah. Jonathan Blow, who did Braid.
Jeffrey: Yup.
Larry: We're all fans of Braid, on this show.
Jeffrey: And, um, had been in the works for a long time. It's a puzzle game, and it ... I mean, it's beautiful. So, I've just been sitting there. There's a little bit dial on it. It really just sort of throws you in. And, um, it does not hold your hand at all. There's no tutorial. You're just like, "Oh. I guess I need to do this. Oh! That worked!" It really, um, I keep like switching back and forth between feeling really smart and really dumb.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: But, then that's the way puzzle games always work.
Laura: That's very true.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: How reminiscent of Braid is it?
Jeffrey: Not at all.
Laura: No?
Larry: Nope.
Jeffrey: So, Braid, you know it was [00:14:00] like a ... It was almost like a ... there was elements where it took from, like, Mario. Super Mario Brothers and then just messed with time and totally went in a whole other direction.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey: This ... um, most puzzle games, you'll have like a puzzle and then you solve that and then the next one's harder, and then the next one's harder, and there you have it. Um, this, you're thrown into a, um, a world. An open world, and you're seeing it from a first person perspective. It controls like any other first person game.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey: And then, there are like these screens, and they you can sort of solve the puzzle, and if sometimes you go up to one, and like, "I don't even know what to do with this." And, so, I will then, just go somewhere else. And I'll do that. And sometimes it ... something will lead back to where I'll make a revelation and then all of the sudden, I'm like, "Oh, wait. Now I know how to handle that." And then, I go back to another area. I don't know, exactly, what larger purpose I'm going for, but, the puzzles, themselves, which all sort of are based off of the most simple concept and then they build and build, have been really fun.
Some of the stuff, I'm like, "Surely that can't be! Oh, my God. That was it!"
Laura: Oh.
Larry: Fun?
Jeffrey: Yeah.
Larry: I'll have to check that out. Because, you know, usually, historically, January is a low period, but we've got ... we've got a lot of games to play. I'm playing um ... Is that all you're playing?
Jeffrey: That's all I'm playing. Is that not enough? Are you not entertained?
Larry: So, I'm working on ... we talked about Halo 5: Guardians. We're playing that. The new maps and the content update that's out. I haven't gotten my hands on that Halo 2 BR, though, that they released. Um, Rise of the Tomb Raider. I'm playing that on my PC. My new, um, gaming PC. I'm playing that in 4K. Beauty.
Laura: How is that? Tell us more about that.
Larry: I mean it's so good. It's so ...
Laura: So, this is your really awesome, fancy ...
Larry: Yeah. It's actually about to get more awesome.
Laura: What? How is that possible?
Larry: I'm adding another graphics card.
Laura: What?
Jeffrey: Like, how many do you have?
Larry: I have one in there, now, but I'm going to add another one. I just want to ... I want to ... you know, it's running ...
Jeffrey: You're gong to run some VRs.
Larry: Yeah. I'm going to ... Um... I'm working on some good stuff. So, I've got that going, Rise of the Tomb Raider. Elite Dangerous. We talked about that, Laura.
Laura: Yes.
Jeffrey: Oh, yes.
Larry: I just keep ... I don't know why, but I ... It's like it is my plan, and I keep getting sucked into it like gravity.
Laura: Really?
Larry: Yeah. It's like I-
Laura: You keep going back to it?
Larry: I don't know why. Well, I just ...
Laura: Have you ...
Jeffrey: You know, you're not the only one.
Larry: But, you know I [00:16:00] love my piloting.
Laura: It's true.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: Have you been able to figure out the economy?
Larry: No.
Laura: No?
Larry: No. Nothing. I mean I'm just excited ... I'm like silly stupid, because I'm excited that I'm able to, like ... I spend 15 minutes docking.
Laura: Yes!
Larry: Right? You know we talked about that last time. So, it's like [crosstalk 00:16:14]
Laura: That's a big challenge at the beginning.
Larry: It's fun. Did it.
Laura: Are you able to dock now?
Larry: I'm getting ... I'm getting much better. I actually ended up upside down once.
Laura: Yeah. That's hard.
Larry: I couldn't do that. I kept, like, needing a reset. I'm playing that, um ... (laughs) You didn't see this one, Jeffrey, did you? When I ... in the office. Brunswick Pro Bowling.
Laura: Bowling? Oh!
Larry: On Xbox One. Um, playing, um, a little bit of Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Siege. We played that last week.
Jeffrey: Yeah. That's right. I forgot we got into that.
Larry: Did you have a little fun with that?
Jeffrey: I did. It's um ... I think if you're rolling with, um, the right team, which I think we really had, and we were playing PVE, we had a lot of fun. When we went online ...
Larry: We played with Phil. That's right we played with Phil. Phil Spencer was joining us, yeah.
Laura: Awesome. He jumped in?
Jeffrey: Yeah. We rolled for a couple of hours.
Larry: Yeah. We were rolling hard and deep with that one for a long time.
Laura: Nice.
Jeffrey: We're talking about video games, right?
Larry: Yeah, we are.
Jeffrey: Okay cool. And, um, yeah. We had a good time. I would say PVE: a lot of fun. PVP: Um, people know what they're doing online and we got wrecked.
Larry: And we don't. Yeah. We're like, "I can grow. Okay, you got the stairs covered? Okay you got that door covered?" Boom! The ceiling blows out, the side of the wall blows out, and we're dead.
Jeffrey: We had the best of intentions.
Laura: Oh, no!
Larry: Yeah, and then just boom.
Jeffrey: Yeah.
Larry: Not so much. So, that's kind of what I'm playing this week. Looking forward to getting into The Division Beta. Um, you know, the other game we're playing this week, that Jeff and I just finished playing together ... Well, unfortunately you weren't participating in this one, is the Move the Office game.
Laura: Oh, that doesn't sound like a fun game at all.
Jeffrey: Oh, you have no idea.
Larry: Jeff and I ... Okay, if you follow me on Twitter or you follow me on Instagram, you've seen me post some photos ... Jeff and I, our teams, um, have moved offices. We're now actually ... (laughs) We're actually in a different zip code. We're in a different town.
Laura: You're in a different city.
Larry: Yeah. We're in a different city.
Jeffrey: We went from like a very suburban, rural almost feel, to the campus here, to ... we're out in the city.
Laura: The big city.
Larry: I knew it was different because Jeff was wearing his skinny jeans, and he was getting all [00:18:00] hipster.
Laura: (laughs)
Jeffrey: Look. Just because I don't want to drink the coffee out of the free machines, [crosstalk 00:18:06].
Larry: I'm not judging, I'm not judging. So, we moved our offices, and that doesn't really mean anything to you, the end-user, but if you follow us on, um, Twitter, you know it's a little amusing. Like, we have to actually ... our studio is located closer to Laura's office, over here on the main campus, so we come over here ... Jeff and I will come over here frequently to record the show, but we're just ... but that's the beautiful part about ... about, um, technology, now. Sure, Jeff. You and I are on the other side of campus, but, like Laura, you're just an I'm away.
Laura: That's true.
Larry: Whether you're five feet away, or whether you're five, six miles away, and that's the way the teams are working virtually.
Jeffrey: It's the global village life.
Larry: It is. I've heard of this. I've heard of this. Anyway, so ... but you need to come over and see our offices.
Laura: I do. I haven't yet.
Larry: Yes. You would like them. We're getting used to them. So, Jeffrey, lets talk about news. What do you got over there?
Jeffrey: All right. So ...
Larry: Over to the news desk with you, Jeffrey!
Jeffrey: Yeah, so thanks for, um ... Five PM, top of the hour ...
Larry: Top of the hour. Here we go.
Jeffrey: I wasn't really ready.
Larry: Headlines.
Jeffrey: Yeah. So, um, I talked about Tomb Raider. So, um, Rise of the Tomb Raider out on Windows 10 right now, and also, um, Baba Yaga: The Temple of the Witch, um, DLC, which again was teased earlier. So, I'll put a trailer ... I'll put a link to that into the show notes.
Larry: Thank you.
Jeffrey: Um, big announcement from Insomniac Games.
Larry: Yeah.
Jeffrey: Who you would know from Sunset Overdrive.
Laura: Yes.
Larry: Among many other things on ...
Jeffrey: Amongst many, many other things. The Ratchet and Clank franchise, and other things like that. Um, so they've announced a new game. Um, Song of the Deep, which is coming to Xbox One, and, um, that will be coming out later this year.
Laura: Cool.
Jeffrey: So, um, we got the first trailer. It's coming out this summer. Um, and so we have that over on Xbox Wire. I can link over to that. Um, The Division Beta. And, so a lot of people are going to be jumping in to that. Um, at this point it has passed, but, um, first on Xbox One, and I think we'll be enjoying that throughout the weekend and hopefully beyond. Um, and you also had some notes on how to install it. So, if you pre-ordered The Division ...
Larry: Yes. A couple of important notes, here.
Jeffrey: What you need to do.
Larry: Pre-ordered [00:20:00] it on Xbox One.
Jeffrey: Yes. Um, how to get it. So, I'll link to that in show notes, as well.
Larry: Good.
Jeffrey: Um, we announced our games with gold for February.
Laura: Exciting.
Jeffrey: So, we have on Xbox One, Hand of Fate. And then, also Styx: Master of Shadows. Um, so that will take us through ...
Larry: It's a famous river, I believe, in the middle-east. The river Styx.
Jeffrey: I don't think it's ... I think it's in Hell. That's where the river Styx is.
Laura: (laughs)
Jeffrey: Especially if you don't like Mr. Roboto. Then there's a whole other ... And then on, um, Xbox 360, it'll be Sacred Citadel and Gears of War 2.
Laura: Cool.
Jeffrey: And, um, of note, those games are backwards compatible. So, you'll be able to play even if you only have an Xbox One, not a 360. Go ahead. You'll be able to click through, download it, and then, um, play it on your Xbox One.
Larry: Always good stuff.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey: And some new releases. Um, Lego Marvel Avengers came out for Xbox One. I'm definitely going to be playing that. There's a demo for, um, WRC, World Rally Championship.
Larry: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey: People, they like the demos. Um, puzzle games, Sparkle 2, and then Road Blocks, which is free. And it's a game where people can create all kinds of stuff.
Larry: Yeah, and we showed that on the um ... You know I do this weekly show on your console called This Week on Xbox Video Show.
Jeffrey: Hm. When did that start?
Larry: Oh, boy. We started that in May.
Jeffrey: Oh.
Larry: We started like almost a year
Laura: Almost? Almost a year?
Larry: Almost a year, yeah.
Laura: It feels like just yesterday.
Larry: It does feel ...
Jeffrey: We need to give out the Majors. Like some sort of award at the end of the year.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: Yeah, you're probably right. But anyway, so yeah. We covered a little bit on This Week on Xbox. You want to see This Week on Xbox. You know, I tweet it out every Friday. Um, we put it on YouTube. But, if you really want the genuine experience, Laura, you have to watch it on your console.
Laura: Absolutely.
Larry: You know why?
Laura: The interactive features.
Larry: Exactly. Not only am I in High Def - and I'm sorry about that, America and the word - um, but more importantly, it's interactive. So, as we're talking about different things, you just hit A and it will take you in to download the demo to watch the video a little bit further. It's really kind of cool. If you haven't checked it out, please do and let me know what you, um, let me know what you think. Hit me up on, um, Twitter @Majornelson and let me know. Or you can tell Laura or Jeff. I don't care. But, either way it will get back to me.
Laura: Okay.
Jeffrey: Just [00:22:00] tell Laura.
Larry: Yeah. Tell Laura. Hit Laura up on Twitter.
Jeffrey: And, um, the last little bit of news, there. Um, Saints Row: Metro double pack.
Larry: Now, did you play any of the Saints Row games? I've played a lot of them.
Jeffrey: Of course. Yeah. Saints Row 3, I thought was, when it first came ... No. The original Saints Row on 360.
Larry: Right.
Jeffrey: When that came out, that was just, like, a huge breath of fresh air. Um, in terms of like, it really advanced everything that had been going on in the GTA series. I felt like maybe it has and maybe it hasn't, but in my mind, I think it helped push things forward in the GTA series and helped make it better. Like, things that we take for granted in all open world games, like, um, GPS. Like when a little arrow goes on the street. That was pioneered by, um, Saints Row.
Larry: Right.
Jeffrey: And I always felt it was really fun. I think it was Saints Row ... Maybe it was the original one. Your character didn't speak at all. And, I made my guy kind of like a gangsta Andy Reed. NFL coach Andy Reed.
Larry: Remember Saints Row the Third?
Jeffrey: I do remember that.
Larry: I need a hero?
Jeffrey: Oh yes.
Larry: (laughs)
Jeffrey: The music in three was amazing. But like, your character didn't speak the whole time and at one point, there's someone who won't shut up, and the only line in the entire game, your person goes, "Will you just shut the whatever up?"
Larry: Right.
Jeffrey: And then everyone just stops, turns and looks. And you're character is like, "Yeah. I can talk. I just chose not to."
Laura: (laugh)
Jeffrey: And that was it. Doesn't talk again for the rest of the game. Um, yeah. Some great music in Saints Row 3. Kanye West, Power. When you're like, coming in. Um, when you're parachuting into, like, the high-rise.
Larry: Yup.
Jeffrey: I'm a huge fan of that series.
Larry: That's right. Anyway, I am well a big fan of the series.
Jeffrey: You are well.
Larry: I am well. (laughs) Earlier in the show I wasn't, but I am now.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: Whew.
Laura: I'm glad you're okay now.
Larry: Yeah, I'm okay. Thank you for asking. Thank you. Go ahead, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: No, I think, um, that's it from the news side. The new releases side. Are you not entertained?
Larry: I am. I'm highly entertained. This show entertains me. Um, I've got a lot going on over the next few months. I'm working on some amazing projects that I'm not ready to talk about yet. Laura, you know most of them.
Laura: How you ... How dare you tease?
Larry: Well, you know most of them.
Laura: Do [00:24:00] I?
Larry: Well, I forwarded you emails about a couple of ...
Laura: Okay. Those projects?
Larry: Yeah. Those projects.
Laura: Oh, man!
Larry: So, we can't talk about them yet, can we?
Laura: No.
Larry: No. But, we will, once I can. There's some really cool stuff coming up. We are, um, working on some really nifty things and, um, (laughs). We may have a show next week, we may not. Um, you know, Jeff may be traveling.
Laura: Wait. We don't have Jeff?
Jeffrey: Oh, yeah. I'm just working on some stuff.
Larry: Working on some stuff in the bay area. Big football game or something. I don't know.
Laura: Something like that?
Jeffrey: Not reallyt a sports guy.
Larry: All right. We've got a little Name the Game action. Um, Laura, this is a weekly feature. Or, a show feature. It's not weekly. It's whenever we do a show where, um, we play a clip from an Xbox 360 or an Xbox One game, You send us an email with a guess, we take all those correct answers, put them into a hat, pull them out, and name a winner. Right?
Laura: That is correct.
Larry: I think I've pretty much captured it, right?
Laura: That is the essence of it, indeed.
Larry: All right. So, that ... Do we have a clip? You got your clip ready for this week?
Laura: I do. Let's roll last week's clip. (clip playing)
[00:25:25] So, that was Name the Game from last time. It was a pretty hard one. It was 6180 The Moon.
Larry: Now, you haven't played this yet?
Laura: Not yet.
Larry: I have. I don't want to say I finished it, but I kind of did.
Laura: Okay.
Larry: The reason I say, is because you have to solve a series of puzzles going one way, and then you basically come back the other way.
Laura: I see.
Larry: So, like I got halfway up.
Laura: It does look something that's up my street, though. It's a puzzle game based on gravity.
Larry: Yeah. I told you this. I covered this last month. You don't listen to me.
Laura: No. Clearly I don't.
Larry: That's what happens.
Laura: But, Larry, can you tell us who has won?
Larry: That's what happens when you block me on Xbox [00:26:00] One.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: Um, sure. I sure can do that, Laura! The name of the winner is ... His gamer tag is Djtoughpuppy. His name is Colin, and he is from Portland, Oregon.
Laura: All right!
Larry: So, he said it ... it says right there. He says, "Okay to say info."
Laura: Great. Congratulations, Colin.
Larry: Colin's street address is ... No, I won't give you that. I'll just say where you're from. Anyway, congratulations, Colin. We got a whole raft o'games headed your way. I believe I've got a code for, um, Tomb Raider, and a few other things. So, we'll make sure we email those out to you.
Um, so now that we've got that out of the way, it clears the deck for a brand new Name the Game.
Laura: It does.
Larry: We're going to ... Laura's going to step up to the machine, press the button, we're going to play a random clip from a random game, and then the rest is up to you, frankly. Right?
Laura: That's very true.
Larry: Are you ready?
Laura: Right. Let me press the button. (clip playing)
[00:27:24] So that was Name the Game for this week. Like Larry said, if you think you know what game those sounds are from, you can enter this simple competition by sending me an email. Lollipop@xbox.com and cc Major@xbox.com. Include what game you think it is.
Larry: It's not simple. It's not simple.
Laura: It is simple.
Larry: Well, it's simple once you know then answer.
Laura: Yes.
Larry: (laughs)
Laura: Listen. Guess.
Larry: You listen, yeah. So ...
Laura: One entry per person.
Larry: Yes.
Laura: And if you can hear our voice-
Larry: Yup.
Laura: - you can enter this competition.
Larry: And you can ... Don't ... don't ... you know, don't tell us on Twitter. You've got to send us an email.
Laura: That's true.
Larry: Sorry, we're going old-school. I know there's a lot of people that don't like to do email anymore. Email or phone calls, right?
Laura: What? [00:28:00] Email is going away?
Jeffrey: Oh. In a perfect world.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: Well, it seems like a lot of people ... No. Yes. It's not going away entirely, but, um, [crosstalk 00:28:09]
Laura: That's how I run my life, is through email.
Larry: Is it?
Laura: Yes. I just can't imagine a world without email.
Larry: I remember it.
Jeffrey: I remember it. It's called, like, 1994.
Larry: I remember it, Laura.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: Laura, there was a time, and I'm sure you remember this ...
Laura: I do remember.
Larry: ... where you were excited to hear "You've got mail."
Jeffrey: Ooh.
Laura: That's ...
Jeffrey: I didn't even think about it.
Larry: Right. And then all of the sudden it was terrible. You didn't want to get any more mail, right? Because it was like, that was a bad sound you heard.
Jeffrey: You're not going to defend "You've got mail."
Laura: How bad is Tom Hanks?
Jeffrey: It was like, "Sleepless in Seattle was a big hit? How do we follow that up? Lets add more internets!"
Laura: (laughs)
Jeffrey: Cha-ching!
Larry: I'm going to have to agree with you, Jeffrey.
Jeffrey: I really didn't like that movie.
Larry: No. I didn't like it. It wasn't Joe Versus the Volcano.
Jeffrey: I think what was so quaint about it, and so short-sighted, was that Tom hanks worked for some big, mega book company.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey: And he was putting the small book company out of business.
Laura: Right?
Jeffrey: Meanwhile, it was about the internet. And how has that worked out for ...
Laura: Not so good.
Jeffrey: Yeah.
Laura: Not so good. Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeffrey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura: There's irony, there.
Jeffrey: Yeah. You won the battle, Tom Hanks, but you lost the war.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: (sighs) All right. So, there you go. So, if you know the name of that clip, just, um, shoot us an email. Laura and I would love to hear from you, wherever you're from. Let us know where you're from. We love to know where the listeners are.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry: Whew, baby. What a week it's been in gaming, huh?
Jeffrey: I'm just thinking about all of solid ... awesome games we're playing.
Larry: January is usually a quiet time, but not so.
Jeffrey: Yeah. I think I've had more nights past midnight playing than in the past several months.
Larry: We've been burning the midnight oil.
Jeffrey: Yeah. It's good.
Larry: We got Phil into the party. You know, Laura, you can play with us sometime, when Phil joins us. Even our VP joins us, Laura. Which is kind of great.
Laura: Okay.
Larry: That's all
Laura: Yeah.
Larry: Oh. She's looking at us. Ice queen over there. Okay. So, you're on your own.
Jeffrey: I'll tell you what. You've never been so careful on a game that has friendly fire on ...
Larry: [00:30:00] Than with Phil.
Laura: Oh yeah.
Larry: In fact we had an over/under who was going to pop ... who was going to take him out the first time. Who was it? Was it Trey?
Jeffrey: No. I don't think any of us took him out. I ...
Larry: (laughs)
Jeffrey: He said he listens to the show, but he probably doesn't get this far into the show.
Laura: (laughs)
Jeffrey: I did. In the last round, he came around a corner, and I pegged him. I didn't take him down, but um, I hope he didn't notice.
Larry: Yeah, he didn't notice. Hey! If you're an Xbox ... If you're in the preview program, we've got some really cool stuff coming your way. I teased it on Twitter, earlier this week. Um, we announced what the features were last week, but we deployed a preview to the preview, um, program that wasn't feature-complete, yet. Right Laura? That's the engineering term?
Laura: That is the engineering term.
Larry: So, um, we're going to be pushing some new builds out. One of them is you're going to be able to rearrange your pins, which I demonstrated in a video.
Laura: I saw that on Twitter.
Larry: Did you see that? Do, do, do, do.
Laura: Yeah, and it was really cool.
Larry: Um, you can either do it in the menu, or you can press Y down and do it.
Laura: Sweet.
Larry: Obviously I can't show that, because I didn't have a camera on the controller. So I've got that and a bunch of other cool stuff coming along with the preview program. And, um, the Xbox app on Windows 10 has also been updated. So, go check that out. We've got a whole bunch of stuff going on.
Laura: It's a lot of stuff.
Larry: Those crazy software developers are back at work and they are just churning some ...
Laura: They are.
Larry: They are making code.
Laura: They are coding away.
Larry: They're coding like maniacs.
Jeffrey: Order up!
Larry: Order up.
Jeffrey: Do they do that?
Larry: I don't know, do they?
Jeffrey: You know coding. Laura, when you. Like, finish it do you ring a little bell?
Laura: That would be a good idea, but no. There's no bells. But that's a great idea.
Jeffrey: See? You just need a little bit of fresh thinking from someone who knows absolutely nothing about coding.
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). Check in. Ding!
Larry: Ding! Ding! Check in. Want to talk about gadgets? Any news? Got anything in the gadgets department? I got something interesting I want to talk about after you guys go ahead.
Laura: Oh.
Jeffrey: No, you go ahead.
Larry: Um, Raspberry Pi.
Laura: Yes. You told me about this.
Larry: Yeah, I bought a Raspberry Pi, so I'm playing around with that on my home network.
Jeffrey: It sounds delicious. Tell me more.
Larry: It's a ... So, for those of you that don't know, the Raspberry Pi is a small device, its about ... Laura, it's about this big, and I'm holding my hands up in a square.
Laura: That really helps the people who can't see you.
Jeffrey: Credit card size.
Larry: It's about the size of a Twinkie.
Jeffrey: Or ... Okay. Fair enough.
Laura: A Twinkie? Didn't they go out of business, but they're back, now?
Jeffrey: They're back.
Larry: Yeah.
Laura: Are they ... They're really back?
Jeffrey: They really are. You can go into a store and buy a Twinkie.
Larry: Its about the size of a small ... like that hard drive, over there.
Laura: [00:32:00] Again, not helpful for the audience at home.
Larry: I know, but they understand what a little portable hard drive looks like.
Jeffrey: A Twinkie is probably ...
Larry: Anyway, it's a ... So, it's a little device that you can ... that has a ... you can actually load a version of Windows 10 on it. I've got Linux on it, and I'm going to load Windows 10. So, I'm just learning a couple of little things that, um ... Just ... you know me. I like to some ... You never said anything about some of the stuff I sent you. I've got to talk to you about that off the air.
Jeffrey: Ideally, what would you do with it? What's the ...
Laura: What's the goal?
Jeffrey: Yeah.
Larry: Um, well I could do some home automation stuff. Um, I've got it, um, I just want to understand what's going on, here and frankly, what it can do. I'm coming up with some interesting scenarios. I know a lot of people have set it up where it'll tweet when you do certain things. I'm not going to do that to my, you know almost a million twitter followers.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: I won't do that. Um, but I'm just going to play around with it.
Jeffrey: All right.
Larry: I want to understand what it's all about.
Jeffrey: So, can you eat it?
Larry: No. You can not eat it. It is a piece of ...
Jeffrey: I've never had raspberry pie, but marionberry pie is so good.
Larry: Raspberry pie is delicious.
Laura: Marionberry?
Larry: Yeah.
Jeffrey: You've never had marionberry pie?
Laura: No. What is that?
Jeffrey: Oh, my God. We're going to Whole Foods.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: Wow. How do you not have ... Wow.
Laura: What is a marionberry?
Jeffrey: It's kind of like a raspberry.
Larry: It's kind of like a raspberry.
Jeffrey: I've only seen it ... I've only seen ...
Laura: Does it taste like one?
Jeffrey: It's maybe not quite as sour.
Laura: Okay.
Jeffrey: But, it's along that line.
Larry: It's from this area. It's from the Washington area. I've heard them ... I've seen them out here a lot. But, yeah. Marionberry.
Laura: I guess blackberries get all the love, because they're everywhere.
Jeffrey: Yeah. Um, blackberries, you know, are good. But, they're no marionberries.
Laura: Oh!
Larry: Anyway ...
Jeffrey: We need to fix this.
Larry: Um, so ... so Raspberry Pi is not something you eat.
Jeffrey: But, like, they're tempting me.
Larry: Um, what else? We talked about the fact that I'm dropping a second video card into my computer, but we can talk a little about that the next time do that.
Laura: Do you want to tell me a little bit about your car? Because you sent me ... saying you got, if this then that.
Larry: I have IFTT in my BMW, now. Because they have now, for the i3 where you can do certain things ...
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry: ... with, um, you know with IFTT. Like, if you ... you know it'll email you if it gets below a certain percent. There's a whole series of things. It's part of their, like, lab. You know, kind of a Beta program. I'm testing it out.
Laura: Have you set anything up?
Larry: I have. Every morning I get in the car [00:34:00] and it'll display the daily forecast, right there on the screen.
Laura: That's cool. So, how did you set that up? Was it door opening, or ...
Larry: No, it's ... I think it's just when I turn the car ... frankly, when I turn the car on.
Laura: Start the car, show weather?
Larry: You can see it when I start the car up. Um, so I think it's only that. I'm playing around with it. It's still in its infancy. I'll just say that. Um, I'll tell you, kind of in the gadgets, but not really, and you ... you and I haven't even talked about ... another thing we haven't talked about. The Revenant.
Laura: The movie?
Larry: Yes.
Laura: That's a gadget?
Larry: Well, it's just not ... not games.
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: So, did you watch it yet?
Laura: No. No I haven't watched it yet.
Larry: Okay. Because we were talking about this ...
Laura: You kind of, sort of warned me off it a little bit.
Larry: Yeah, I did. I said ... Have you seen it, Jeff? The Revenant?
Jeffrey: No. You told me all about it. It got my attention.
Larry: Yeah. It's ... I don't want to spoil it, because I ... Just ... just I don't want to spoil it.
Laura: Yeah.
Larry: It's ... it's ... it's a little violent. It's a lot violent, okay?
Laura: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry: I guess it's not ... you're right Laura. It's not a gadget. Thank you for keeping ...
Laura: (laughs)
Larry: Thank you ... thank you for keeping me on task.
Laura: Keeping you honest.
Larry: Thank you.
Laura: Keeping you honest.
Larry: Um, next week we're going to, um ... So, we've got a bunch of stuff going on. I've got, um, some really cool interviews I'm lining up. Some of the cooler projects that, Laura, I've talked to you about.
Laura: I can't wait to hear about it.
Larry: Off the air. I look forward to bringing those forward and getting ... getting some of those onto the show, here, because we've got some really cool stuff. Jeff, you worried over there? You got something going on?
Jeffrey: I'm just looking at stuff.
Larry: Yeah, we're going to wrap things up, here, because, um ... we're going to wrap this show up. It's, um ... We'll see you on The Division Beta, all weekend long, most likely.
Jeffrey: Absolutely.
Larry: Seeing what the weather is like. Laura, what are you going to be doing all this weekend. What are you going to do?
Laura: I'm going to play Oxenfree.
Larry: Oh, you've got to ... I think you can finish it. I'm confident you can finish it.
Laura: It's really fun.
Larry: So, we're looking forward to next week. Assuming we can get everything in order for next week, we'll have another show next week. Um, we'll get everybody back in here. We'll talk about what we're playing, um, and tease some of the cool stuff coming up. So, thank you for, um ... Jeffrey thanks for joining us.
Jeffrey: I'm always happy to do it.
Larry: It's always fun to come over here. Laura it's great to have us ... to be back in out old studio, even though this is where you are.
Laura: It is. Thank you for walking all the way ... or driving.
Larry: Driving. We drive in.
Laura: Driving all the way over here, when I had to walk.
Larry: Yeah, you had to walk. So ... [00:36:00] All right, gang, we'll talk to you all next week. Bye, bye, everybody!
Laura: Bye, bye!
Jeffrey: Bye!

Larry Herb: (Music) Welcome to 2016. My name's Larry Herb. Xbox live's Major Nelson shot over 561 and thank you for joining us. I'm sitting here, uh, joined in the studio by, sitting across from me is, uh, is, uh, Jeff Rubenstein. Hello Jeffrey.
Jeff Rubenstein: 2016 already. My fourth numerical year.
Larry Herb: It is.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's crazy.
Larry Herb: Is it?
Laura Massey: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: I started in 2013.
Larry Herb: Right.
Laura Massey: Really.
Larry Herb: Yeah, four, four five six. Oh, that's all the math.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: All right and then of course that's the lovely and talented Laura Massey. Hello, Laura.
Laura Massey: Hello, Larry.
Larry Herb: Nice to see you.
Laura Massey: Thanks for having me.
Larry Herb: Good morning.
Laura Massey: I'm excited to be here.
Larry Herb: We're recording this, uh, we're recording this, this week. It's kinda of, we-we were off-were we off? Yeah we were off last week weren't we?
Laura Massey: We were.
Larry Herb: Yeah we were off last week. We're back this week. You know this is a big week.
Laura Massey: It is.
Larry Herb: Do you know why?
Laura Massey: Well it's 2016.
Larry Herb: It's 2016. I posed this on Twitter, uh, earlier in the week, but this week, um, I need to get a little personal housekeeping out of the way as I celebrate my 15th year here at Microsoft.
Laura Massey: That's right.
Larry Herb: That is more than ...
Jeff Rubenstein: What kind of watch do you get?
Larry Herb: That is .... Uh, well that it's funny. I'll tell you that story in a minute. Uh, and that is actually more than, y-how long you've been here, Jeff, and Laura, combined. Right?
Laura Massey: Possibly so.
Jeff Rubenstein: I've been here for two.
Laura Massey: I'm nine.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: A-a-after I promise no more math.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: Anyway so but-but to your, to your point, Jeff, it's, it's every fi-you know, five, every five years you get something. Remember, Laura?
Laura Massey: Right.
Larry Herb: We got the crystal thing.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Herb: Un and then, so you're going to get your tenth year crystal.
Laura Massey: Very incisive crystal.
Larry Herb: Right and they, they go up in size.
Laura Massey: Now I get the medium one.
Larry Herb: Here's the interesting thing. So you get - I've seen five. I have the five. I have the ten. Um, I'm getting the fifteen. There's a twenty and a twenty-five. The twenty-five's the largest right?
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Herb: I've seen the twenty-five. Do you know that it comes with its own carrying case with wheels?
Laura Massey: With wheels?
Larry Herb: Yes.
Laura Massey: It's that heavy.
Larry Herb: It', it's massive this, this.
Laura Massey: Wow.
Jeff Rubenstein: Do we have like mine out back?
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah we got more quartz.
Larry Herb: I, I don't know. Anyway but, but they no longer, uh, they no longer just send you this crystal. You have to choose. I don't know if you saw the email.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative). I saw the email.
Larry Herb: And I was like really? It was kinda peculiar, so.
Laura Massey: What'd you choose?
Jeff Rubenstein: You choose your own crystal?
Larry Herb: No, you choose what you want. You can either have the crystal which is, w-you know, based on your year.
Jeff Rubenstein: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: Uh, you can either have the m-a certain amount of money based on how long you've been here.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: Or you can take that money and donate it to charity.
Laura Massey: Cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: Which I'm sure you did.
Larry Herb: Okay. (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: The Larry I know.
Larry Herb: We'll go with that, then.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: So, uh, anyway so, I'm just, I wanted to say that, uh, whoa fifteen years. I mean I look at you, Laura, and you've been here nine.
Laura Massey: Long time.
Larry Herb: Is this your tenth year?
Laura Massey: This will be my ninth.
Larry Herb: This will be your ninth year.
Laura Massey: Well the end of my ninth, beginning of my tenth.
Larry Herb: End of your ninth. So it's, uh, it's ad-men-like I, I, I like for my people, and I think I've, I've spoken with this before. When I joined the company, uh, Windows XP was still in beta.
Laura Massey: XP?
Larry Herb: Yeah SP was still in beta.
Jeff Rubenstein: I remember buying that.
Laura Massey: Wow.
Larry Herb: And I think we were still dial up. Like this is all also a story I love telling. When, you, a-at that point when I joined Microsoft, you actually had to send an email to your Manager with a business justification of why your computer can connect to the internet.
Laura Massey: Really?
Larry Herb: Yep. (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: One would think it - people were abusing it in the early days.
Larry Herb: Right. It seems like you more should do that today.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Herb: (laughs)
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: Anyway, so, uh, I guess yeah me. Uh, enough about that. (laughs) Enough about me.
Laura Massey: Congratulations.
Larry Herb: Thank you, thank you very much.
Laura Massey: On your incredible milestone.
Larry Herb: Thank you very much.
Jeff Rubenstein: Back, back then this was all orange groves.
Larry Herb: It was. It was. It was all orange groves
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: And I just thought the castle should go over here and the Pirates of the Car ... Wrong life. Uh, here we go. So, we're, we're taking about what we're playing. We got a lot of news going on. 2016 is shaping up to be an incredible ye-another incredible year for Xbox, right?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah, we'll go through the new release list but already we're into like double digits for the year with some very good Indie games, uh, kicking off 2016.
Larry Herb: Yeah, yeah. And I, I guess ... I, I shouldn't say this, but I kinda will.
Jeff Rubenstein: Mmm?
Larry Herb: You know Jeffrey and I did last week?
Laura Massey: What'd you do?
Larry Herb: We had one of our first meetings for E3.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh yeah.
Larry Herb: We're already doing it.
Laura Massey: It's E3 season already?
Larry Herb: It is E3 season already.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm looking forward to it.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's very easy and then as time goes by it gets more and more pressing and we realized all the things there is to do. It becomes ... It's the, it's the best and most intense time of the year.
Larry Herb: All right let's get right into it. Uh, you want to talk about the games we're playing? I mean, we've, I have been playing a little bit. Playing a lot of Halo. Laura, what have you been playing?
Laura Massey: I've been playing Fall Out, Diablo.
Larry Herb: How far are you in Fall Out?
Laura Massey: And Rock Band. I have ...
Larry Herb: Rock Band?
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Herb: Really, you went back to Rock Band?
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Larry Herb: Cool. Rock Band 4.
Laura Massey: Rock Band 4.
Larry Herb: Right. Right. Right. Right.
Laura Massey: Turning back to the old days.
Larry Herb: What's the best song? What's your go to?
Jeff Rubenstein: [crosstalk 00:04:35] I'm staring at it right there. It's like a box of it.
Laura Massey: A box of, oh right behind us. (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Herb: I've been meaning to take it home, yeah.
Laura Massey: Um, I think I'm partial to Uptown Funk at the moment.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura Massey: Bruno Mars.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura Massey: Um, but there's a long list of really good songs in there.
Jeff Rubenstein: They have a saxophone attachment.
Laura Massey: Right.
Larry Herb: I will say and I love ... You know, I've always wanted to have horns on this show. I want a horn section on this show.
Jeff Rubenstein: I want the Price of Right fail horn.
Laura Massey: What? We won't know what to do.
Larry Herb: Well besides that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Prrrrr. That would play out.
Larry Herb: Yeah I've always wanted. I don't know why I was listening to some record and it had this great, uh, la-this great brass breakdown. I was like man, I wish ... We should do a podcast with horns in the background. Maybe I'll do that for Pax East.
Jeff Rubenstein: Can you get a Mariachi band for Pax South?
Larry Herb: No, a Mariachi Band's so, you know it's, it's a little predictable.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: But you, but you ge-.
Laura Massey: Put a brass band.
Larry Herb: But your bring in a, bring in a good horn section. I good soulful horn section. Then you got something.
Jeff Rubenstein: Get me a Marceles.
Larry Herb: I need. I need.
Jeff Rubenstein: Marceles.
Larry Herb: Boston I need horns. We have a few months to figure this out. If you, if you have a horn section in the Boston area and are interested in performing, let me know.
Laura Massey: Awesome. We could, we could crowd source it.
Larry Herb: Right? We can cro-let's crowd source the horn section.
Laura Massey: And dance and play.
Larry Herb: Anyway, so you're playing, you're playing Bruno Mars.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah thing, one thing that, uh, Rock Band reminded me of is ... Well with, with David Bowie's unfortunate passing this week.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeff Rubenstein: I was realizing I would not have really, I think, appreciated him and there's a number of, a number of bands. But, I, I think it started with, um, Guitar Hero 2 that had Ziggy Stardust and then there was a huge Bowie pack. And then, uh, I think one of think of the, like sort of, big promotional songs they used in the original Rock Band was Suffer Jet City.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: And they - they which I kinda had never heard before that. And then, and then they released a big Z-Zug-Ziggy Stardust pack and that's one of my favorite albums of all time now. So I have like a huge debt of gratitude to Harmonics for like introducing me to, among other bands, uh, David Bowie.
Larry Herb: I've always had, t-you know, we, we know a, we have a lot of friends at our at Har-that were at Harmonics and are still there.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: And man, I've always respected them 'cause music licensing is a, is a tangled nightmare.
Laura Massey: I can imagine.
Larry Herb: Of legal issues and [crosstalk 00:06:33] issues and those guys have ... I don't want to say they've figured it out, but they have, they have gone farther than anybody I've ever known. Right?
Laura Massey: Yes I mean they have the Beatles.
Larry Herb: They got the Beatles.
Laura Massey: To, you know, to partner with.
Larry Herb: Do you know that story, Jeffrey when we brought the Beatles on stage at the ...
Jeff Rubenstein: I was there.
Larry Herb: Were you there?
Jeff Rubenstein: I was, uh,
Larry Herb: Did I invite you to that one?
Jeff Rubenstein: Sony spy, at, at, 'cause I ... They would always assign me and I would be the one to go.
Larry Herb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Which was usually like the, the roughest two hours. I'm like oh my God. Y-the Beatles really are coming? They're bringing The Beatles out here? We got the Beatles.
Larry Herb: Well it's funny is we were down there and L-I, an-I had Laura come to that show and I knew the Beatles were coming out and I knew you were a Beatles band.
Laura Massey: That was my first ...
Larry Herb: That's Right.
Laura Massey: E3 briefing.
Larry Herb: That's right and l-an-and it was a weird configuration because we were sideways at that time. Normally they were long ways in the, in the Galand's arm. And I remember you were sitting on the, on the top section kinda in the front row if I remember.
Laura Massey: You told me where to sit.
Larry Herb: I told you exactly where to sit because I wanted to make sure 'cause I, 'cause ... And then I knew that when the Beatles come out that you were going to lose your $%&*. Sorry. Anyway, but you did.
Laura Massey: I did. I was floored.
Larry Herb: 'Cause you're looking at ... You were ... I mean they were ... All the living Beatles or, or representatives of the Beatles.
Laura Massey: Were there.
Larry Herb: Were there.
Laura Massey: Were there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Memories are coming back now. Because when I was at Sony ... It wa-s-so this is the way it worked. We're all very friendly in real life.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And every year, uh, myself and, uh, a-at that year was my, my buddy who worked with me, Chris Morrell. We would come to the Xbox briefings.
Larry Herb: Briefings, yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And then, and then, you and Erin Greenburg, generally would come to the Sony briefing.
Larry Herb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: And we always made sure ... We'd say yeah we've really good seats. We were right up there in the top five.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And I remember that Beatles sh-show. Uh, I mean like we got our pass and I'm like tried to go into the lower bolt, no. No, sir, your aisle is up there.
Larry Herb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: I mean my head was touching the rafters.
Larry Herb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Like [crosstalk 00:08:05] said I was just like thanks, Larry. I was wonder what, I wonder why that was.
Larry Herb: You up there ... You were basically behind, Laura then, little did you know.
Laura Massey: I was the top, top shelf, but at the front of the top shelf.
Larry Herb: Anyway.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I was in, I was behind, anyway I'm not bitter or anything.
Larry Herb: Well we, we fixed that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Larry Herb: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: That's true. You know, it took a little while.
Larry Herb: But we, I, I made right. I made it right.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: Anyway, sorry about that. I don't how we got onto the Beatles but boy that was, that was a heck of a show wasn't it?
Laura Massey: It sure was. I was tons of [crosstalk 00:08:34].
Larry Herb: I remember b-I think I've told this story. I've been been backstage, um, with uh, with, with Yoko and, and Paul and the rest of the guys
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Herb: And it was, I was like, I was like, it was just ... I was out of my mind.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: I don't get star struck, but I did.
Laura Massey: Yeah it's crazy. And we also had Spielberg on that.
Larry Herb: Yeah we had Spielberg on that same show. And I tr-I remember tried to get you back to meet the Beatles but once they went off stage, I think they like walked off stage and walked right to their, like right to their limos and away they went, but whatever.
Laura Massey: Went back to, you know, their normal jobs.
Larry Herb: When was that like 2010, 2009 maybe?
Laura Massey: 2009 because the Beatles record then came out on 9-9-9.
Larry Herb: Ah.
Laura Massey: The one with the three master.
Larry Herb: Was it? Yeah you're right, you're right so anyway, there we go. All right. Th-that's ancient history, my Lord.
Laura Massey: It is. That's how long ago?
Larry Herb: My lord, that's so long.
Laura Massey: So many years ago.
Larry Herb: A few years ago, anyway. Rock Band, so you're playing Rock Band, Laura? (laughs)
Laura Massey: That's right.
Larry Herb: Bring it right back around to that.
Laura Massey: And I'm also playing Fall o-so you asked me how far I am in Fall Out.
Larry Herb: Yes.
Laura Massey: I am starting to race thought the main missions.
Larry Herb: Why are you racing?
Laura Massey: Because I want to pick up stuff and then go build my settlements. (laughs)
Larry Herb: Okay.
Laura Massey: I just rescued.
Larry Herb: Is it highly organized?
Laura Massey: Yes. I've got all my carrots in this section.
Larry Herb: Oh wow, so right down to the farm. I was just.
Jeff Rubenstein: Crop rotation, mud fruit over here, potato over there.
Laura Massey: Exactly.
Larry Herb: Wow, wow. Take some screen shots. I'd like to see this because obviously there's no coop I can't come into your game, but I'd love to see it.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Larry Herb: Mine's a little willy nilly.
Laura Massey: Really?
Larry Herb: Yeah, yeah, I just kinda throw it down.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: You started playing again didn't you?
Larry Herb: Maybe.
Jeff Rubenstein: Someone's got a problem.
Larry Herb: Maybe I's playing it on my new gaming PC, maybe.
Larry Herb: That's okay.
Larry Herb: Uh, (sighs) anyway.
Laura Massey: It's okay, I'm still nowhere near getting the local leader, though. That's my ultimate goal. 'Cause I screwed up my initial allocation.
Larry Herb: Yep.
Laura Massey: Of specials.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: And didn't get any charisma.
Larry Herb: And you can't reset it.
Laura Massey: You can't.
Larry Herb: You can re-you can reset what your phys-what you physically look like and that doesn't impact the game.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: But your, but your specials yeah. Your, once you, once you hit that button to go up, the, the life in the vault, that's done. You're done.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, I would, I, if I, if only I knew now what I.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Or knew then what I know now it would have been a lot different.
Laura Massey: Exactly.
Larry Herb: I had, I, I kinda peanut buttered mine but then I ended up ... You saw like I like.
Laura Massey: You have 11 on everything.
Larry Herb: I have e-11 on everything. So I turn it up to 11.
Laura Massey: You found all of the bobble heads.
Larry Herb: I found all - I found everything.
Laura Massey: And do you have all elevens. Well I'm nowhere ... I have zero, I have zero in charisma and I need like five to be local to be local leader so that's six levels away. It seems so far away.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh and then you have to double it up. Like there's local leader one and then two. That was actually the last thing I unlocked. When I beat the game, which I did this morning.
Larry Herb: Yeah
Laura Massey: Oh, yay.
Larry Herb: But we're talking about what Laura's playing not what you're playing. We'll get to you in a minute, mister. Sit down.
Jeff Rubenstein: I was just keeping it Fall Out theme.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: All right, what else?
Laura Massey: And Diablo 3.
Larry Herb: Yeah new patch came out this week.
Laura Massey: I know, surprise a new patch came out, patch 2.4 which has a new area and a couple new expanded areas. So a brand new place to explore and then a few others, um, that are in existing areas.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura Massey: And something called set dungeons which is special dungeons that you take your set gear into. So you have to put on all of this - the gear of the set. And then go into a dungeon and then it'll give you a special, a special drops. So I don't have any sets yet, but now this gives me complete motivation.
Larry Herb: Are you playing on a console or PC?
Laura Massey: Console.
Larry Herb: Oh, okay.
Laura Massey: Xbox One, Ultimate Eagle Edition.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's right. The best way to play.
Laura Massey: Which is the best way to play.
Larry Herb: Yeah that controller the way they do is great.
Laura Massey: And they have such great features.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura Massey: On the Xbox One edition that aren't on PC.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura Massey: They really thought through from a console and excite perspective.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura Massey: Pretty good. I still find gifts for Major Nelson.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Oh really?
Laura Massey: But I'm sure you don't log in and receive my gifts so once I get.
Larry Herb: Um, I, I, I was because I haven't log into receive an invite to join you in your rating.
Laura Massey: Because you too busy on [inaudible 00:12:14].
Jeff Rubenstein: It's really hot in here.
Larry Herb: I can, I can stop Fall Out anytime if, if you send me invite. I will, I will absolute.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Herb: I always prioritize your invites. I always prioritize your invites.
Laura Massey: Well that's kind.
Larry Herb: So.
Laura Massey: So maybe you'll get one then?
Larry Herb: Did it get awkward?
Jeff Rubenstein: Very much so.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Just put the cricket sound effect in there. Tumble week just blew right through the studio.
Jeff Rubenstein: (laughs) Shcewweww.
Laura Massey: (laughs) Um, and I think that's about it.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura Massey: That I can remember. It was been in ... It's been a long break.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura Massey: Lots of cool thing going on.
Larry Herb: Yes.
Laura Massey: Lots of Making a Murderer to watch.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Laura Massey: You watching that Jeff?
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm not.
Laura Massey: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: Everyone, everyone seems to think I would like that. Why is that? Do I?
Larry Herb: [crosstalk 00:12:49] We're not judging. No one's judging.
Laura Massey: Again bringing the awkward into it.
Jeff Rubenstein: All right I guess so.
Larry Herb: Yeah I, I need to watch what Laura and I were talking about it yesterday and, um, I just got to get to it.
Jeff Rubenstein: I hears the Wisconsin accents are, uh, charming.
Laura Massey: Legit. They are legit. I've actually been to Manitowoc where it's filmed.
Larry Herb: What have you been there for?
Laura Massey: Family that lives in the area.
Larry Herb: Oh I didn't know that.
Jeff Rubenstein: For cheese purposes.
Laura Massey: And for cheese purposes.
Larry Herb: Wow, okay. All right, so I, sorry go on. Your, so you're watching.
Laura Massey: We I, I'd finished it so that was it. It's like a ten hour investment, but it's really good.
Larry Herb: Okay.
Laura Massey: I encourage people if your, you don't need ... If you need something to watch.
Larry Herb: It's on Netflix.
Laura Massey: It's a, it's a one of those page turners like. Yeah you always have to do next episode. Something you can easily binge.
Larry Herb: Right.
Laura Massey: Because of the, they frame in such a way there's always cliffhangers at the end.
Larry Herb: Dun, dun, dun.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Like oh, what just happened? Next.
Larry Herb: Next.
Jeff Rubenstein: I've seen a lot a lot of just outraged tweets, next. What it ended like that? Next.
Laura Massey: (Laughs) Yeah.
Larry Herb: All right, well is, is that all you're up to?
Laura Massey: That's all I'm up to.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's a lot of things.
Larry Herb: That's quite a bit. That is a lot of things. Jeffrey what about yourself?
Jeff Rubenstein: I did, as I, uh, as I may have mentioned Fall Out 4.
Laura Massey: Congratulations.
Jeff Rubenstein: 75 hours, thank you.
Larry Herb: I believe you did mention that.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, uh, I was level 37.
Larry Herb: No a little bit of a spoiler here gang. A little bit of a.
Jeff Rubenstein: We need to have a spoiler cast.
Larry Herb: We can't because Laura hasn't finished it.
Jeff Rubenstein: We then, we should wait until she beats the game.
Larry Herb: Yeah. Cause I want to a-I want to ask you what you did at the end, but I can't because I don't want to give it up.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'll say this much, I followed my conscience. I didn't go with I thought ... I didn't ally with what appeared to be the most powerful faction or I didn't ... I, I just.
Laura Massey: Aaaaahhhh.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm just saying.
Larry Herb: Laura's plugging her ears.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well people will ask you to do things that maybe you feel comfortable doing and I didn't and I made a choice and I had to pay for that choice.
Laura Massey: Ahhhh.
Larry Herb: Laura's plugging her ears. Okay, all right. Okay, Laura you can unplug your ears now. Stop it Jeffrey. Stop it.
Jeff Rubenstein: And, and I, and I'm just saying one, once I went against the grain, the game ended very quickly.
Laura Massey: Interesting.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, so follow your heart, Laura.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: Don't, don't do what you think other people want. You.
Laura Massey: Be true to myself.
Jeff Rubenstein: Exactly.
Larry Herb: I think I know what she's going to do.
Jeff Rubenstein: I think she's going to do the same thing.
Larry Herb: And I know you fairly well. I think I know what you're going to do.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Herb: We'll see.
Jeff Rubenstein: All right well when you, when you're done.
Larry Herb: When you, when you're done rotating your crops. (laughs)
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: I'll say this, after you beat the game you can go back into the world. You can still collect bobble heads. You can still level up. You can still get your local leader and still farm.
Larry Herb: Still rotate your crops.
Jeff Rubenstein: So if you want to finish the game and do it, go for it. And it and you'll still be able to do plenty of things. There you go. Also playing the Banner Saga.
Larry Herb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Banner Saga is one of, I think, close to 10 or 15 ID's Xbox games that already hitting the first 15 days of the year.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, this one's a strategy RPG. It's very, like, uh, cartoony looking. Like, like it hearkens back to old Disney cartoons.
Larry Herb: I love that.
Jeff Rubenstein: With the animation.
Larry Herb: Yeah I opening's flash screen I was like feels like Beauty and the Beast.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, there's definitely.
Laura Massey: Really?
Larry Herb: Yeah, oh yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: That type of look and it's sort of a cross between like a strategy RPG, ala ExCom small groups.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeff Rubenstein: Um and Oregon Trail and you choose your own adventure.
Laura Massey: Whoa, that sounds awesome. Right up my street.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's, yeah. And it's not super long.
Larry Herb: You're hitting on her buttons over there. (laughs)
Laura Massey: Oregon Trail, check.
Jeff Rubenstein: And it's like very, it's very tough and, and challenging and, and uh, the one thing I had some issues with early was like you don't control the saving. And so most RPG's it's like you save and then you make a decision and like oh, I didn't like that.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: Roll back.
Jeff Rubenstein: And then you roll back. You can't do this in this game. An-and at first it was frustrating me and I, and I read in it an interview that, uh, one of our guys did on, on Xbox wire with the, with the debs and they're, they're Danish, uh, of origin. And they're like we want this to be like true Viking stories.
Laura Massey: Oh.
Jeff Rubenstein: You don't get to walk that back and no matter what you do there's probably going to be bad things. You-you're not going to make it through a war and nobody's going to die. So we don't let you save right before that. We encourage you just, just plow through and, uh, you know things may.
Larry Herb: So there's no remorse in, in the Viking climate.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Larry Herb: I see.
Jeff Rubenstein: You move forward, never looking back.
Laura Massey: Always forward. (laughs)
Larry Herb: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: So, uh, it's, it's very pretty game.
Laura Massey: Cool.
Jeff Rubenstein: And it's very challenging from a strategic element so that's what I'm fully dedicating myself to now.
Larry Herb: All right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, we also, over ... 'Cause it's been a couple weeks.
Larry Herb: Yeah it has.
Jeff Rubenstein: Right, all right we, we played a, a good amount of Halo 5.
Larry Herb: We have.
Jeff Rubenstein: Two player. We also played Ark again.
Larry Herb: We did. We did.
Jeff Rubenstein: Had a lot of fun that time.
Larry Herb: We did. Jeff and I play Ark. Laura, you haven't tried Ark yet.
Laura Massey: Not yet.
Larry Herb: It's in the game preview program and it's uh, we, we now suc ... Do I have pants?
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: You refused to pants on.
Larry Herb: That's right I did refuse.
Jeff Rubenstein: You could make pants.
Larry Herb: I could but I said I'm not going. I made the statement.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Larry Herb: I think I made a hat.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, hat,
Laura Massey: What?
Jeff Rubenstein: Shirt, gloves. You won't put on pants.
Larry Herb: No pants.
Laura Massey: That's disturbing.
Larry Herb: [crosstalk 00:17:26] I'm playing as a female too.
Laura Massey: Even more disturbing.
Jeff Rubenstein: So I mean yeah, I, we, I was savaged to death by raptors.
Larry Herb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: I, I.
Larry Herb: I was as well.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Herb: By compies.
Jeff Rubenstein: Compies, Compies chewed our feet off. Still the most disturbing thing is pantless Major Nelson.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: Yeah, it', it's a lot of fun. Th-that Ark it's got some-there's something going on there. There's, there's ... We built a fi-we just, what'd it take us? 45 minutes to build a fire.
Jeff Rubenstein: W-o-once you, w-as we learned the mechanics I will say it just gets smoother and smoother and, and I really like what the team has done. I just look further down the skill tree and eventually I'm going to be able to get like an assault rifle. And apparently there's a whole thing with training tricera-those. I, I try beating a triceratops to death with a club. It didn't go well.
Laura Massey: Wow.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, don't, don't recommend it, but then I was told later.
Larry Herb: I saw that it was bloody.
Jeff Rubenstein: We should be, oh yeah, you picked up the pieces.
Laura Massey: You steel his stuff.
Larry Herb: Oh, no, no, no I wouldn't do that. We were trying. We were working together.
Jeff Rubenstein: We were.
Laura Massey: But he's dead. He didn't need.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well.
Larry Herb: [crosstalk 00:18:24] But you can come back and all your stuff is in a container.
Jeff Rubenstein: Dark soul pass, you know.
Larry Herb: [crosstalk 00:18:28] You walk up to it and get it back.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: I see.
Jeff Rubenstein: But, uh, I would say that, uh. Yeah you're supposed to train them. And so apparently you feed them berries and I, whatever it is..
Larry Herb: What's funny is, is I was watching, I was telling somebody about Ark. I'm like here, come watch the trailer. So we find the trailer on YouTube and we're watching the trailer and he's like "wow, this looks really cool." And I'm like, "what is this?" There was like snow. I'm like, "I've never seen this." There was like, there was huge cities on the back of a dinosaur which they told me about.
Laura Massey: What?
Larry Herb: I was like "I've never," yeah it was all this stuff that we've never seen and then like in the last five minutes it was like the beach scenes that you and I. We, we're literally stuck on maybe a quarter mile stretch of beach. That's it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Trying to just stay alive. Trying to stay alive.
Laura Massey: Oh my gosh.
Jeff Rubenstein: Like feeding [crosstalk 00:19:07] to death, going back and hueing them.
Larry Herb: We're going back and forth and back and forth.
Jeff Rubenstein: We finally got to the point where hunger was no longer like our pr-number one pressing I-it's, uh, this is like Maslow's hierarchy of needs, the game.
Larry Herb: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: So versus like food and water, next we got to build a house.
Laura Massey: Shelter.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Happiness, and excitement.
Larry Herb: We got a fire.
Jeff Rubenstein: And mis-and assault rifles those will come later.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: Yeah we got fire, then we get too hot. Then we get in the water and they we're too cold. Then we get in ... It's just like, it's like we're going through menopause. I don't know what's going on there for God's sakes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Right, Larry, you got hot flashes. Put some pants on.
Larry Herb: (laughs)
Laura Massey: (laughs) That might help.
Larry Herb: You know that may help. That's a good point.
Laura Massey: It's a temperature thing.
Jeff Rubenstein: Regulate. They're wool pads. They breathe.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: No wool doesn't breathe.
Larry Herb: I don't know.
Jeff Rubenstein: I don't know about that.
Larry Herb: Uh anyway so Ark. We're playing some Ark.
Laura Massey: Sounds really fun.
Larry Herb: And Halo. What else you playing? That's enough. Uh, oh let's see. I'm I'm just kinda going through. We were talking about Halo, uh, p-Pinball FX2 got some Star Wars tables. They came out last week. Uh, Jeff's going to go through some of the stuff. The Banner Saga, uh the Witcher 3 Wild Hunt, I went back into that. I'm still playing some of the, uh, the Rainbow 6 Siege. It's a lot of fun. You guys haven't played that. That, that's a, that's a slow, it's a slow game that requires like Qbot, the complexity of simplicity. That one's up here on the, on the screen over here, Laura. Playing that.
Laura Massey: Yeah that looks interesting. [crosstalk 00:20:14]
Larry Herb: Yeah, y-you know, okay so here's a tip. Here's a tip. You maybe you saw me playing this, Monopoly Plus.
Laura Massey: What?
Larry Herb: Uh, I played it for 47 minutes and unlocked 330 gamer score.
Laura Massey: Nice.
Larry Herb: Right?
Laura Massey: Is that 33% of the gamer score that I see there?
Larry Herb: That's exactly what you see up here in the, in the, in the Xbox, I've got on my computer, so it's uh.
Jeff Rubenstein: Go to jail, 50 points.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: Yeah it was, uh, anyway and I was just ... I mean you're hitting A. You're just going around and you're by ... I, I finally got ... I got to go back to see if it saved the game. 'Cause I finally got Park Place and Boardwalk.
Laura Massey: You did?
Larry Herb: Right.
Laura Massey: The computer let you have.
Larry Herb: No I ended up so I had ... I think the computer ended up getting Park Place. I was like grrrrr. And I go around and I go around. And I got ... I land on Boardwalk so I bought it, and then eventually I was able to trade with the computer.
Laura Massey: I see.
Larry Herb: I think I had to give up whatever the red ones are, like Indiana and the rest of them. Anyway.
Jeff Rubenstein: [crosstalk 00:21:01] Oh, you're more likely. Uh, Illinois A-you're gonna land on those more than. I'm like, I'll, I'll let you have Boardwalk. I'm never going to land on it.
Larry Herb: No I also ... I have like Boardwalk. I have the first set of ... Is it brown ones or blue ones?
Jeff Rubenstein: Baltic and .
Larry Herb: Yeah, and then I, and then purple and the blue. I have, I have like one of everything. And I, anyway. So it's, it's, it's a 360 points.
Jeff Rubenstein: So when I as a kid and we would go down to the Jersey shore we would stay on Venture Avenue.
Larry Herb: Have you, Have you ever been to Atlantic City, Laura?
Laura Massey: I think I've been once.
Larry Herb: Oh you'd remember it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah, like every street.
Laura Massey: All the street names are from Monopoly.
Jeff Rubenstein: That's where, yeah. Well Monopoly is named for those streets. [crosstalk 00:21:31]
Larry Herb: Is named for those streets. Was this before uh, ... 'Cause I was there before mmm, Okay I'm gonna date myself. I was there before they legalized gambling.
Jeff Rubenstein: Wow.
Larry Herb: Yeah, so.
Laura Massey: I was there after.
Larry Herb: Yeah it was.
Jeff Rubenstein: Pre Trump.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Well I would go down there and y-he has his ... It was Trump Plaza. Trump Tower, Trump Taj Mahal. I'm sure they added four or five since.
Larry Herb: Apparently Boardwalk ... I haven't been in a long time and I, I know you guys haven't. There only Boardwalk and Park Place aren't so high end anymore, at least that's what I recall. Somebody could correct me on that one. I'll have to go check street out.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's been a while.
Larry Herb: and see what it looks like. (laughs) Uh, so yeah, so uh, so Monopoly Plus' is something. It's um, it's uh, it's yeah. It's uh easy, easy gamer score if you want that. So, playing a little bit of that. And of course we're talking about Ark. Elite Dangerous, so have, have you played this.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes.
Laura Massey: Yes, played on PC>
Larry Herb: You have played on PC. Okay.
Laura Massey: Yes, I bought a joystick for that game.
Larry Herb: You did?
Laura Massey: Yeah, played on PC.
Jeff Rubenstein: I put on Oculus once and, oh my God.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: It's really cool, but I can't really it's.
Larry Herb: The, the, yeah it is, it's, it's a hardcore. It's a sim.
Laura Massey: It's a sim.
Larry Herb: I was oh yeah I can dock my ship. I'm bouncing all over the inside of the.
Laura Massey: No it takes, it takes hours to figure out how to dock you ship.
Larry Herb: I was like my God what is ... What am I doing wrong here. So, playing a little bit of that. Back to the Star Wars BattleFront, uh, and there you so anyway.
Jeff Rubenstein: S-so, Elite Dangerous is cool in that i-it's a persistent world that everyone's in.
Larry Herb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, but it's, it, it's supposed to mirror our galaxy. And there are parts that people have never gone to because the galaxy is immensely huge.
Larry Herb: Massive yeah.
Laura Massey: Massive.
Jeff Rubenstein: And, uh, even if millions are playing which I believe you tweeted is the case.
Larry Herb: Yeah, the millions. I did yesterday when they released it.
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, that thi-so anyway, one person decided I'm going to go to the center of the galaxy and see what's there. [crosstalk 00:23:10] And to to do it, y-you can only warp jump, um, so far.
Larry Herb: Right.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeff Rubenstein: You can't just say, we-warp 9 to the middle and you know come back in an hour. You have to go. You have to jump. You have to retr-retriangulate, jump again, jump again.
Laura Massey: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: And um, so someone decided to do that ant they've been keeping track. So what - anytime they would stop, they could come out of jump, they would just take a picture of the system. And they were just seeing like really beautiful stuff that no one,
Larry Herb: Probably no one, I mean it's like space. No one's ever seen.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeff Rubenstein: And I think you get to like name stuff as you ... If you're the first person there you can.
Larry Herb: Oh that's cool. I didn't know that.
Jeff Rubenstein: So it was really cool. They have like an imager and it's just like their, their journey to the center of the galaxy. I'll see if I can dig that up.
Larry Herb: The center of the galaxy. Yeah find that and throw that, throw them in the, uh, in the show notes here 'cause that's a. Anyway so I'm playing that a little bit. It's a lot of fun. Uh, speaking of sp-space, um, sorry, Laura, you had something to add.
Laura Massey: Yeah and just so you know, once you get enough money you can buy an auto docker. You don't have to dock anymore
Larry Herb: Really?
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Larry Herb: Have you played that far?
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Herb: You have? How many hours have you put into this?
Laura Massey: Uh, I don't know probably about 10.
Larry Herb: Wow.
Laura Massey: And it's really just a learning how to fly the, fly the plane.
Larry Herb: Right, right.
Laura Massey: Between systems then figure out the economy.
Larry Herb: 'Cause I tried doing the combat like the, the tutorial where you have to shoot the.
Laura Massey: Stay away from the combat,
Larry Herb: I'm like, I'm like what? It's like what am I. I'm unloading in to these, each of these cans floating and it takes like, you know, 60 second to bring w-I need more guns. I need lasers.
Laura Massey: Oh combat's probably the hardest thing.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: W-If I ever get in a dog fight and, of course, it tells you, someone's after you. I run away.
Larry Herb: Now is this someone a ... Is this PVP or PVE? Is it, is it.
Laura Massey: It's PVP.
Larry Herb: Okay, so, so someone is actually coming after you.
Laura Massey: Yes and I they run away.
Larry Herb: Oh no, yeah.
Laura Massey: As fast as possible.
Larry Herb: Right.
Laura Massey: Because it's super hard to.
Larry Herb: Which is a strategy.
Laura Massey: Well I didn't upgrade my ship right?
Larry Herb: Right.
Laura Massey: [crosstalk 00:24:46] and everybody else has upgraded their ship and you can shoot me in one shot.
Larry Herb: You got crops in that ... You got crops on that ship? (laughs)
Laura Massey: Yes. I might that's how you ... The economy is you buy things in one system and sell it in the other.
Larry Herb: I know. It's, it's, it is, uh, it is definitely something you want look at, Elite Dangerous. It's uh.
Laura Massey: It is. I think the best part of that is they use classical music.
Larry Herb: Yes.
Laura Massey: When you're, when you're playing it and docking.
Larry Herb: Right.
Laura Massey: 'Cause the auto docker you hit the button and it starts playing classical music for you, but it's great.
Larry Herb: So how, how, how long, how long is it going to take me to get an auto docker if I want that on?
Laura Massey: Maybe just a couple hours.
Larry Herb: Did I - Do I have to sell something - oh we'll take about this latter.
Laura Massey: You buy and sell in other systems to ... You have to get money by doing quests.
Larry Herb: Well Jeff has already tagged me.
Jeff Rubenstein: The Curilian fl-freighters.
Larry Herb: Jeff has already tagged me as a space scoundrel, I believe, in a, in a separate private conversation we were having earlier.
Jeff Rubenstein: We were watching Star Wars like the original trilogy. I was showing, uh, show it to my, my family who hadn't really seen it.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeff Rubenstein: And, and I'm watching it and for the first time in several years. I'm like man, Han, young Han Solo and Larry are very similar. Yeah. Very similar.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: Laura's laughing. I think, I think we just [crosstalk 00:25:45].
Jeff Rubenstein: Young Larry probably was watching. An impressionable young Larry was probably watching the original trilogy and, and just that-th-it shaped who he is today.
Larry Herb: (sighs)
Laura Massey: That was your role model.
Larry Herb: Apparently, I don't know. That's what Jeff is tagging me as.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: The, the things that, that he would say, I was like "I've heard Larry say things like that."
Larry Herb: It's true, all of it.
Laura Massey: Maybe he stole all of (laughs) you stole all your lines.
Larry Herb: You wife says "I love you," and you're like, " I know."
Laura Massey: You stole all your lines.
Larry Herb: (sighs) Anyway, thank you for that. Uh, speaking of space.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Herb: This is spacey. Have you seen this thing with the drones that Intel did with the drones.
Laura Massey: I doubt it.
Larry Herb: Well this is interesting. Um and I, I, I don't ... I didn't put a link to it on Twitter because it was too much of an advertisement.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: But essentially what they did is they got 100 drones. They outfitted them in LEDs.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Herb: Okay you with me so far? Sounds cool. Have, have you found it?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yep.
Larry Herb: And they, uh, they controlled them all so they all go up into the sky at once at night and the LEDs are going. And essentially it's like fireworks. 'Cause they're flying around.
Jeff Rubenstein: Really.
Larry Herb: It is okay, put it in. Put in in, Laura will like it. If Laura likes. So, y-I mean it's.
Jeff Rubenstein: No way.
Larry Herb: Yeah so you're seeing this massive display of, of, of drones and LEDs. I can't even imagine what it sounds like. Vvvrr. It's got to sound kinda scary. But the, uh, but it was just ... I was looking at this going that's an interesting way to have kinda fireworks for the future 'cause they're doing stuff that you can't do fireworks of course. Flying around and this. Isn't it amazing?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Larry Herb: So.
Laura Massey: I imagine they weren't controlled by humans.
Larry Herb: I be-you know that's a good question. They had ... They showed in this making of video that, that Jeff will put in, in the show notes or we'll put in the show notes. You can see a control station, so I don't think it's a one to one, maybe they don't ... Maybe each one has a squadron.
Laura Massey: I see.
Larry Herb: But yeah, they, I'm sure it was choreographed at some predetermined level, but it's ... And they got a, they got a ... I, I'll send it to you. I'm, I should have sent this to you, I'm sorry. There's, there's actually a, um, a, you know, a classical, classical, um, arrangement playing.
Laura Massey: Yeah, did they coordinate with music?
Larry Herb: Yeah there's some of it's coordinated with music and it's really, it's really impressive so.
Laura Massey: Yeah I can't wait to see that.
Larry Herb: Anyway, so I don't now, we'll, we'll take about that. All right so that's, that's what I'm playing. We got a lot of news, uh, this week. Jeff you want to go over some of the headlines? Do you have the headlines in front of you?
Jeff Rubenstein: I do, I do. So, um, you had mentioned Star Wars, uh.
Larry Herb: The Pinball FX2.
Jeff Rubenstein: Pinball, yeah so there's two.
Larry Herb: Two of them.
Jeff Rubenstein: Tables that, uh, are Force awakens theme. One where you're, where you're sort of, uh, the good, the good guys.
Larry Herb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Ray and Finn, and then another side, uh, where you're Kylo Ren.
Laura Massey: Awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: So, that's out for, uh, both Xbox One and Windows 10, uh, versions of Pinball FX2.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, also next week, um, Xbox Live gold members can play all of the EA access games for free.
Laura Massey: Ohh.
Jeff Rubenstein: So if you've got gold.
Larry Herb: The vo-you have, we are ... They're going to throw open the doors in the vault and you have access to ... What kind of ... What are some of the games?
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, some of the games include, um, let's see NHL 15, Titan Fall, Battlefield Hardline, Yeah Sports UFC, Need for Speed Rivals, uh, Dragon Age Inquisition, um, so I, I'm a big fan of, uh, of EA access. Especially being able to get in there and play the games early. Uh, playing FIFA, you know, a week before everybody.
Larry Herb: Yeah we did that with Star Wars Battlefront.
Jeff Rubenstein: Star Wars Battlefront.
Larry Herb: Right.
Jeff Rubenstein: So um, yeah, b-big fan of the vault so, uh, you'll be able to do that. If you haven't tried it out, you'll be able to see everything you get for that. Uh, and that is from the January 19th to the 24th.
Larry Herb: So this show may be, uh, be airing c-after the 19th. Go check it out. Have fun.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes. Um, and other than that, really just like I mentioned a lot of ID'd Xbox games. I'm just gonna run through a few of them. There's uh, Rebel Galaxy. There is Unepic. There is Qbot as you have mentioned.
Larry Herb: Yep.
Jeff Rubenstein: There's Hyperdrive Massacre, a lot uh, sort of space shooters, Zheros Z H E R O S, uh. There is also.
Larry Herb: OxenFree.
Jeff Rubenstein: Oxen, well so then there's three big games I wanted to call out.
Larry Herb: Sure.
Jeff Rubenstein: One of them was Banner Saga which I talked about.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Jeff Rubenstein: It's cartoony sort old school animation, uh, s-strategy RPG. There's OxenFree, as you mentioned which is, um, it's like a super natural thriller. It's like very story oriented. Hearing really good things. There was an article in the LA Times about how this is their first candidate for game of the year.
Laura Massey: Really?
Jeff Rubenstein: For 2016. I'll link out to that.
Larry Herb: Second week of January. [crosstalk 00:29:53].
Jeff Rubenstein: I know they were like. It's not ... They were like it seems like it's too early to talk about game of the year candidate. Oxenfree is one of them per the LA Times.
Larry Herb: All right.
Jeff Rubenstein: Third was is a free game.
Larry Herb: Where you got for your gaming news. Game of the year.
Jeff Rubenstein: (laughs)
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Um, Gone Home, uh, has finally come to consoles.
Laura Massey: Awesome.
Jeff Rubenstein: This is a, this is a game that is, uh, takes place, uh, on my, on my birthday in 1995.
Laura Massey: It does?
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, um, and you basically as a student come home after a year abroad and, and nobody's home and you're figuring it.
Laura Massey: Yeah I've played that one on PC all the way through. It's really good.
Larry Herb: You did?
Laura Massey: Yes. It's one of ... It's similar to the ... Do you remember me talking about that, uh, story g-story-based game on P-PlayStation which was called Everybody's Gone to Rapture?
Larry Herb: Yes, yeah.
Laura Massey: I believe this is, it's ... Uh, was it made by the same studio? I think it was.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, no, actually, uh, so this the team Fulbright that is making Tacoma that is coming out next year.
Laura Massey: I see.
Larry Herb: Okay.
Laura Massey: This is very similar where it's a story-based game that you walk around and explore and have the story revealed to you.
Jeff Rubenstein: Right.
Larry Herb: Right.
Laura Massey: And try to figure out what's going on.
Larry Herb: Right, right, right, right. So, all right. Well I'll have to check that out. What else you got there?
Laura Massey: It's a short game.
Larry Herb: Sure.
Laura Massey: You can through it in a couple hours.
Larry Herb: But I hear it's, I hear it's, uh, it's, it's just littered with, you know, it's a snapshot of the '90's.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Herb: Right, you know all the, the note papers and things like that.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: [crosstalk 00:31:08] And VHS tapes. And trapper keepers.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Larry Herb: Who was on your trapper keeper?
Laura Massey: I think I had ... I don't know.
Larry Herb: I know Jeffrey had a, had a.
Jeff Rubenstein: [crosstalk 00:31:18] I had a, had a, I had a bunch of hockey stickers.
Larry Herb: You had a Phillies one I know, I know.
Jeff Rubenstein: And baseball stickers.
Laura Massey: I had pones, My Little Ponies.
Larry Herb: Really? I don't know. What did I have?
Jeff Rubenstein: Han Solo.
Larry Herb: There we go. Thank you very much. (laughs)
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: A couple of other things I want to point out. Uh, so we have announced a, uh, Division bundle. So Tom Clancy's The Division.
Larry Herb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, and if you pick up The Division, if you preorder the bundle, uh, you get into the closed beta which is coming at the end of this month, January 28th.
Larry Herb: Yep.
Jeff Rubenstein: Very much looking forward to that game. Uh, Plants vs Zombies Garden Warfare 2.
Larry Herb: Oh, I've been playing that. Laura you got to check it out.
Jeff Rubenstein: The multiplayer beta is live now.
Laura Massey: Awesome.
Larry Herb: Yeah we, we played that earlier in the week when it was released. It's a lot of fun. Uh, there's a video that I did, uh, last week. I went out to popcap and I did it. We released a video last week. Go watch that it will kind of show you what's going on. It's a little ... It can be confusing 'cause it's not your standard, hey, a menu system where you go, hey I want to play multiplayer , do this.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: It's actually the menu system is rendered in a, in a little mini world.
Laura Massey: Oh cool.
Larry Herb: So it's like a big lobby and like the plants are one side and the zombies are on the other and you can go to the center and kind of have this, this, uh, this, uh, this PVE experience. Or you can take all your people and get thrown into the portal. It's kinda funny. (laughs) We went into the portal. You have to, all your people c-like jump into this portal and it had a l-is-there was, you know, first day there's always a little launch hiccups. And the server had a problem and it likes throws, it like vomits you back out. (laughs)
Laura Massey: That's neat.
Larry Herb: It's kinda cool. But anyway check that out and make sure you go sh-get your stickers and all the rest of the stuff. Laura, do you want to play?
Laura Massey: I do. That sounds really fun.
Larry Herb: Go, you, yeah it's, it's Kernel Corn, Kernel Corn is good but the uh, the orange, uh, the citrus is OP. It's like, it's like, it's like real deal.
Laura Massey: Really?
Larry Herb: Yeah that's all I'll say.
Laura Massey: Th-those are words that no orange has ever said before now. So-so much vitamin C, you can't handle it.
Larry Herb: (laughs) Well somebody lit the the [crosstalk 00:32:58] lit the ... We were playing with Lithion who's been on the show before. And he was just, he's I, I'm the Citrus and he's rolling around and ssch, sche. Comes up he, he's kinda like the, um, the, g-the uh, the doirdicas in, uh, Star Wars.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: Where they're rolling and they just kinda come up and the shco, schahd, shchca, chchsz.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: You're missing all the effects that I can see 'cause it's only audio so I apologize. But you guys can see them.
Laura Massey: I can see them. They're great. Very good.
Jeff Rubenstein: It's so real.
Larry Herb: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Un, last thing I wanted to call out is, uh, the Naruto Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 demo. Now I don't know if you've ever played any of these Naruto games.
Laura Massey: No.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm not a Naruto fan. I've never watched any of the animes or anything, but I am a fan of these, these games. They're fighting games that usually take place in a, in a larger arena. They're all made by, uh, the same studio, Cyber Connect 2.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Jeff Rubenstein: And, they're just beautiful. And so even if you don't know the characters or whatever. I mean it looks like it is right out of the, right out of the cartoon. It looks ... It's just the way they're, they're animated. It's beautiful. So, um, they were popular last, last gen. And, uh, this is, I think, the first one on Xbox One.
Larry Herb: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: So I'll download the demo and just see what it looks like. Even if I have no idea story wise what the heck's going on, for it - the feast for the senses.
Larry Herb: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Mm-hmm (affirmative). You know I love a good visual game.
Laura Massey: Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Larry Herb: Love good game play too.
Jeff Rubenstein: I, I would, I would recommend. Give it a, give it a shot.
Larry Herb: Thank you for wrapping up that news there, Jeffrey. We're c-we're cooking along on the show. It's uh, It's uh, It's Laura, guess what?
Laura Massey: What's that?
Larry Herb: It's time for Name the Game.
Laura Massey: All right.
Larry Herb: Are you ready?
Laura Massey: I am ready.
Larry Herb: All right, Jeffrey are you ready?
Jeff Rubenstein: Oh I'm so ready.
Larry Herb: Dear listeners, are you ready 'cause here we go. (Excerpt from game)
Laura Massey: So that was the last Name the Game for 2015 and I gave you guys an easy one. It was Fall Out 4.
Larry Herb: Yes.
Laura Massey: Got lots of right answers on that one.
Larry Herb: Yes.
Laura Massey: Good job everybody for identifying.
Larry Herb: We took all the right answers. We put them into a virtual hat.
Laura Massey: Yep, but we only can have one winner.
Larry Herb: Random winner.
Laura Massey: So we picked a random winner and it so happens to be.
Larry Herb: What's his name, Laura?
Laura Massey: David from Texas.
Larry Herb: David from Texas, now we're not going to give out your gamer tag or your last name or even the city you're in because, uh, we, we respect your privacy and you d-you weren't clear whether you wanted us to include it. But you randomly won, so David from Texas, uh, congratulations. You grabbed yourself some hot, some cool stuff. We're going to throw in some of those ID Xbox games that Jeff mentioned earlier.
Laura Massey: Very good.
Larry Herb: So you can check all those out. Uh, so look for an email from me very, very soon. So congratulations on that.
Laura Massey: Great job.
Larry Herb: Clear the deck for one, Laura. There's one ... E-y-you know, the-they're just endless.
Laura Massey: They just keep coming.
Larry Herb: It's like, they're like birthdays. (laughs)
Laura Massey: One after the other.
Larry Herb: Just one after the other.
Laura Massey: They're inevitable.
Larry Herb: So there you go. You ready?
Laura Massey: All right this is Name the Game for 2016. (Excerpt from game) So again, this game is called Name the Game. All you have to do is listen to sound effects I just played and guess what game it is. All you have to do is send me an email. Send me, uh, your name if you want to, what game that way.
Larry Herb: Yeah.
Laura Massey: And of course we always want to know where you're from.
Larry Herb: Where you from?
Laura Massey: Yeah send us, send us some info about you.
Larry Herb: Yep.
Laura Massey: And, we'll pick a random winner.
Larry Herb: So that's all you got to do. Send the email to, uh, to ... It's very simple. All you need to do is say lollipop@Xbox.com, that's one word. L O L L I P O P @Xbox.com. Or you can also, uh, CC or send to me Major@Xbox.com. It'll go into our, uh, inbox.
Laura Massey: And our virtual hats.
Larry Herb: Virtual hat and if you win you go into one folder. If you don't win if you c-, if you correctly identify you go into one folder. If you don't, fff, better luck next time.
Laura Massey: Exactly.
Larry Herb: One entry per person please. If you can hear our voice, you are eligible.
Laura Massey: That is correct. So good luck to everybody out there.
Larry Herb: So we have anything else? I think we took care of everything there.
Laura Massey: That's right.
Larry Herb: I think we did, yeah. Oh, by the way. Quick, quick, uh, programming note. Um, we are going to, uh, we are not going to be at Pax South this year. Uh, we will be at Pax East. The show will be at Pax East, but Pax South, unfortunately, uh, is not something we're able to do this year. So if you're going to Pax South, have fun. It's gonna be awesome. I, I'm gonna try to get there, but it's just, uh, my schedule is not behaving.
Laura Massey: Oh, yeah.
Larry Herb: Bad schedule. Bad schedule.
Laura Massey: Yeah it's hard to get the schedules to align.
Larry Herb: Is Jeffery all right over there? You seem to be.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'm j-I'm just pushing out my meetings.
Larry Herb: You push - oh good.
Jeff Rubenstein: To stay longer.
Larry Herb: Oh well that's while we've got, uh, ... I appreciate you - both of you guys for , I-it's tough to get everybody together in one room, so I want to thank you guys. We need to do a, um, did we do a Name the Game? Yeah we did. (laughs)
Laura Massey: We did. We just finished the Name the Game.
Larry Herb: RRRRR.
Laura Massey: This morning.
Larry Herb: 15 years working here will do that to your head, I'll tell you that right now. (laughs)
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: Uh, we're, we're kinda coming into the, uh, the home stretch of the show here. Last, uh, last uh, third of the show and we-this is where we usually talk about some other cool stuff. We got news. We talked about that. Any fun gadgets any of you guys have, have gone into? We talked about the, uh, the drones earlier. I can talk about the gaming PC that I, uh.
Laura Massey: Yes. I want to hear that.
Jeff Rubenstein: I'd love to hear about that.
Larry Herb: Yeah, so. I t-I worked with my good friends at Origin in, um ... they, they make custom PC's and they, uh, they made me this, kind of this beasty, uh, this beasty PC. I was testing it over the weekend. Uh.
Laura Massey: Is this one that they built custom for you?
Larry Herb: Yes.
Laura Massey: And they streamed it?
Larry Herb: They streamed, yes. Did you watch the stream?
Laura Massey: I don't think I watched it, but I heard about it.
Larry Herb: Yeah, yeah. Uh, it was uh, it was kinda crazy in fact. Let me see if I can pull up the specs here. I'm going to be doing a blog post on it. Uh, maybe next week.
Laura Massey: Right.
Larry Herb: Um so it's, it's got a, it's got a Titan N video which is one of the top video cards in it.
Laura Massey: Nice.
Larry Herb: I think I got 42 or 46 gigs of RAM.
Laura Massey: What?
Larry Herb: It's an SSD primary, 1 terabyte secondary.
Laura Massey: That's fantastic.
Larry Herb: It's about th-it's about this big, Laura and I ... You can-and no user.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, he's, you put your arm about R2D2 height.
Larry Herb: Yeah that's exactly what it is. [crosstalk 00:39:07] It's got, it's got custom etchings on the side with Major Nelson green. It's got LEDs. It's got bling.
Laura Massey: What?
Larry Herb: Yeah they do this whole strobe thing. They do.
Laura Massey: Can you program the strobes?
Larry Herb: Yeah well I ... It's got a little remote control to like what color you want.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Jeff Rubenstein: Do you have glow sticks?
Laura Massey: (laughs) Just turn off the lights.
Larry Herb: Maybe.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yeah.
Laura Massey: Have a little Rave.
Larry Herb: Maybe.
Laura Massey: You can coordinate it with your Phillips LED lights.
Larry Herb: My hue, my hue lights yeah 'cause that's a, trust me. You don't want to come into my office.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: Anyway, there's so the Origin is a, is a, is a pretty amazing, extraordinary piece of, uh, machinery so I was really thankful for those guys. I'll a, I'll work o-like I say, I've got a blog post ready to go. I'm working on that. Looking forward to playing, uh, Toom Raider on PC which we announced, uh, last week. Did we announce that w-last week?
Laura Massey: Think so.
Larry Herb: Coming to, uh, to Windows 10 and of course it will be also on Steam. So I'll be playing that. Uh, I'll be doing some test streams over the weekend as well. I did one last week with, uh, with Orrie, which ... Did you finish Orrie?
Laura Massey: I don't think I finished it.
Larry Herb: Okay. What did you do to it then? (laughs) the way you said that it may just ... I think you did something else to it.
Laura Massey: I think I spoiled the story for myself.
Larry Herb: How did you do that? Did you look online somewhere?
Laura Massey: Talking to people.
Larry Herb: I didn't say ... D-did we, did we spoil it?
Laura Massey: No, it wasn't you.
Larry Herb: Okay it wasn't us in the show was it?
Laura Massey: No.
Larry Herb: That would be terrible.
Laura Massey: No it wasn't.
Larry Herb: Okay then we.
Jeff Rubenstein: Never talk to anybody. It's just not worth it. Just about anything.
Laura Massey: Just, just shut yourself in, in the house and never come outside. (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: See this is the only, the only conversation I have all week.
Laura Massey: Only with. (laughs)
Larry Herb: Is with myself. Uh, so yeah. So I played, I played Orrie on that and streamed in. And I'm gonna stream some other stuff as well, so. If you follow me on Twitter at MajorNelson then you can, uh, you get all the updates there. And, of course, my twitch channel at twitch.tf/majornelson.
Laura Massey: Right.
Larry Herb: We, we gonna stream again, Laura?
Laura Massey: We should.
Larry Herb: What do you want to stream?
Laura Massey: It's fun to stream with you. We should [crosstalk 00:40:42].
Larry Herb: Can you take me for a ride in your, in your, in your spacecraft so I can see this auto docking thing? Ohhh.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: H-honestly watching, um, streams of, of, um, Elite Dangerous is actually very compelling. [crosstalk 00:40:55] It's a nice extra. Can you name your, can you name your spacecraft?
Laura Massey: I don't know.
Jeff Rubenstein: Future request.
Laura Massey: I never got that far.
Larry Herb: Right.
Laura Massey: But I did play it when it was on PC and in beta.
Larry Herb: Right.
Laura Massey: So they might now have finished that. I don't know. It might be there.
Jeff Rubenstein: Uh, it's crazy. They keep building on and on to this game and they're.
Laura Massey: They do.
Jeff Rubenstein: They just so if, if you have it, it's part of the game preview program. It is, um, finalized. They're beyond 1.0, but they're still adding stuff to it. And eventually I think you're going to be able to land on planets.
Laura Massey: Yes.
Jeff Rubenstein: And rove around and do cool stuff.
Laura Massey: Yeah they have that ... That came out on PC recently.
Jeff Rubenstein: Yes, so I believe it's coming next fall as well.
Laura Massey: That's great. It's super fun.
Larry Herb: All right, (sighs) and we talked about that. We talked about drones. We talked about the, the PC I'm working on. What else are we working on? I think, you guys got anything else you want to share before we wrap up the show here? I want to thank you guys for coming down.
Laura Massey: Yeah, no problem.
Jeff Rubenstein: Happy to be here.
Larry Herb: Yeah so next week is ... God, I hate being so inconsistent, but next week is gonna be tough 'cause, 'cause we're moving offices. Jeff and I are, are sha-you know.
Laura Massey: Yeah.
Larry Herb: We, we're in the same area. We're moving offices to a,frankly ...We're actually moving to a different town.
Laura Massey: Further away. Different city.
Larry Herb: True story. We're, we're moving to a different town, so.
Jeff Rubenstein: But the, the food there is so good.
Larry Herb: Uh, we're gonna ha-Laura, hopefully we'll come over and visit, but don't hold your breath.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Herb: Um.
Laura Massey: Hey the food's good.
Larry Herb: We'll, uh, okay well that'll work. We'll uh ... the shopping's not bad.
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Larry Herb: Uh, if you can afford it. We'll be over, uh, we'll be back here 'cause the studio, the studio's not moving.
Laura Massey: Okay.
Larry Herb: So we'll be, we'll ... So hopefully we'll be back next week or the week after. Next week may be a bit sketchy. May .. You know, we haven't done a, we haven't done a Google hangout in a while.
Laura Massey: Yeah, it's been a long time.
Larry Herb: If you guys want to do that. You know what we could do .... Now that I got this crazy PC, we could just do a, a, a stream and I can have each one of you guys on the, on the s-, on the thing in the, in the twitch stream.
Laura Massey: Oh, interesting.
Larry Herb: Right? That'll be fun. So may ... Well we'll talk about it off the air. But we'll, we'll, maybe we'll come up with something else if you guys can find some time one night. Okay, so. Yes, Jeff. What, what, what, you got something you want to say?
Laura Massey: (laughs)
Jeff Rubenstein: Ah, not, not yet.
Larry Herb: Okay not yet. All right, well we're gonna wrap it up. Thank you guys for, uh, downloading the show. Thanks for spending a little bit of time with us. We'll see you on Xbox live or w-you can follow us on Twitter at Major Nelson. You can follow Jeffrey.
Jeff Rubenstein: At, uh, JeffRubenstein.
Larry Herb: And then of course, Laura is.
Jeff Rubenstein: At LauraLollipop.
Larry Herb: That's right. She tweets all the time. Way more than I do.
Laura Massey: I don't know about that. I don't know if anybody does.
Jeff Rubenstein: You're too busy on snapchat, Larry.
Larry Herb: Oh that s-that snapchat thing. All right. We'll see you guys next time. Thanks everybody, bye bye. (Music)