626: Tomb Raider launched and September is here

Hi, it's Larry Hyrb, Xbox Live's Major Nelson. Welcome to the show, number 626. It's September. Jeff and I are back in the studio.

Are we still doing this thing?

We're still doing this thing. There's been a lot of people requesting that we do a podcast and well, we do what the people say.

We live to serve. That is literally what we do.

We're here and we're back in the studio. Wow, what ... It's September already. Feels like the last time we were here was July.

A lot of time has gone by. We've done a couple of Inside Xboxs.

A lot of TWOXs.

Yes, and-

This Week On Xbox.

Oh yeah.

Sorry.

For those not in the know.

Right.

... and a couple live podcasts, which, were fun to do.

Right. On Mixer. We're working on scheduling another video podcast, which I gotta tell you, I love doing those.

They're pretty popular.

I mean, it's great coming in the studio and sitting in here in nothing but our bathrobes, but this is still fun nonetheless.

We could do a video podcast in our bathrobe and challenge accepted.

Yes, exactly. So, anyway. Welcome to the show. We were just talking ... In fact, I was just coming into the studio and I was texting Laura, our good friend Laura who used to be on the show.

I ran into her randomly in the airport.

You did?

Yeah, like maybe two or three weeks ago. You might've seen some Forza Horizon 4 coverage coming out this week. We were going around the country showing the game off.

You ran into her?

I was going down to San Francisco.

There she was!

I was like, "I recognize that jacket," and we ended up talking for a good twenty minutes. It was great to see her.

Yeah, she just texted me. She works at Apple now, of course.

Yeah.

She was just saying how she got a hand on the new phones before they were released, so, she was just telling me about that, so, there you go. After they were announced, she was telling me about that.

Yeah, well it'd be nice if she'd like let us in a little earlier. Maybe get us a prototype.

I don't know what she's ... Yeah, I don't know about that.

I just want a new phone, Larry.

Anyway, let's get back to games.

We've been playing a lot of games.

We have been playing a lot. We've been playing Strange Brigade, which we're gonna talk about that. We've been playing Tomb Raider. We've been playing PUBG. We've been playing Fortnite. We've been playing Destiny 2. You have, right?

Yes, of course.

The list goes on and on. Up here on the northern hemisphere, it's the fall. Southern, [it is 00:02:38] spring. It's the time when all the games come out 'cause we're getting ready for the holiday.

Man, are they coming out faster than we can play.

They sure are.

We're in the middle of it.

By the way, and we're like a month and a half away from Red Dead, Red Dead 2 ...

Oh my God.

... Call of Duty, that Blackout Beta looks amazing.

Oh my God, yes. Yes. We're in the thrust of that right now, actually, on Xbox One.

We've got Forza Horizon 4, you talked about that coming out in just about two weeks.

... and the one I know you're all waiting for.

Yes.

Actually, I'm like being a little facetious, except I can't wait for it, is Valkyria Chronicles 4. Getting phenomenal reviews.

Is it?

Yeah. They were so confident, they actually put the reviews up about two weeks before launch comes out, I wanna say September 27th.

Wow.

I'm trying to clear the decks for that one.

Do you wanna talk about what we're playing now or go into the news? I mean, we kind of did. I mean we have stories [crosstalk 00:03:24].

You know what, let's just dive in. People wanna know what you're doing, Larry.

Do they really?

I think they might.

Well I'm doing Tomb Raider. I just got back from L.A. I was down in Tomb Raider. I saw Camilla Luddington, who was ... and Earl, who does the voice of-

She's Lara?

She is Lara.

She's also a star on Grey's Anatomy.

Seven years she's been doing that.

Literally the only thing my wife and I have in common is the fact that we have a Camilla Luddington connection-

Really?

... in that I play Tomb Raider and she watches Grey's Anatomy. The rest of it, we live in the same house.

Well, and then, the common denominator's Grey's Anatomy takes place, is set-

Oh.

... in Seattle.

In Seattle.

Right.

That all ... Wow.

Funny story is, I was talking with Camilla 'cause I've known her for a long time.

Yeah.

She and I were chatting. She's only been to Seattle once, even though the show takes place in Seattle 'cause that's Hollywood.

It's not a documentary?

No, I'm just saying they-

I thought it was filmed in-

They don't.

... Seattle Grace. I sprained my ankle.

Really?

I tried to find Seattle Grace.

No?

No.

Nope.

That's probably, honestly not the hospital you wanna go to.

Yeah.

'Cause then you gotta worry, is this doctor distracted because of some love interest down in the OR, or something like that?

These are the real things we talk about on the show.

These are the things I wonder.

Was down there in L.A. talking to Camilla. She was lovely.

She's so nice.

She is.

Yeah. We met her, or I met her, during the Tomb Raider.

Do you wanna hear a story?

Of course.

Now, did you watch the stream?

I did watch the stream.

So, if you watch the stream, go back and go to mixer.com/Xbox. Watch the session.

So, we're getting ready. We're about 15 minutes before we're going live, and there was a lot ... just this hubbub of people. I'm kind of looking at my notes and getting ready to play the game and she's sitting two people to my right and she's sitting on this chair, looking lovely as always. If you go look, there's a live session, Xbox Live session sign that's sitting on the table.

Yeah.

Well, we had to place it very strategically in front of her skirt because the way the camera angle was.

This is gonna get edited out, Larry.

No, I'm just merely telling you. It was there was a lot of care and thought put into camera angles 'cause this is what you have to-

Blocking. They call it blocking.

Well, we do call it blocking, but it was just so funny. She was great. Earl, who plays Jonah was great.

So we're playing this game. Jonah quietly becoming like the-

Right.

... tour de force. I'm Team Jonah now.

Right. You are.

Well I-

I will let Earl know. By the way, he plays Overwatch, a lot of Overwatch.

Oh. Bless it. Yeah, he mentioned it a few times.

Yeah, I've seen that.

You were trying to keep him on target.

He's Reinhardt. I said he doesn't know-

He looks like a Reinhardt.

Exactly.

It's like anthro-whatever. There's a word for it.

Yeah, he was-

He's become who he is.

It was great, but it was a great stream and it was a lot of fun. Thank you for tuning into that.

I'm gonna link into that. That was an interesting stream. It was good. I always love seeing those, when you get to host with celebrities. They put you in there, but what I really liked is what you did afterwards.

Oh, could we talk about that?

It's your show. We can.

So, yeah. It is. It's our show, Jeff. It's a community show.

Bless you.

Afterwards, we wrapped up. I'm down in L.A. and I'm talking to some of the events guys and girls. They're like, "Hey, we're doing this Forza Horizon weather simulator." I'm like, "What?" They're like, "Do you wanna go check it out?" I'm like, "Yeah, let's go."

We drive over to another studio. We're down in L.A. in Hollywood. We go to another studio and I walk into the sound stage and sure enough, there is this box that's probably about 10 feet by 10 feet by 10 feet, maybe even a little bit larger. In the middle of it is a sled. That's what we call the racing rigs that you sit down and you have the pedals.

With the steering wheel and the pedals. Yeah, all of that stuff.

With the steering wheel and all that stuff. So, there's a sled and what they're doing is it's an interactive simulator where you play Forza Horizon 4. Part of the Forza Horizon 4, a value proposition as we say, is the seasons, right?

Yeah, seasons change and you get to-

Season Change.

That's a great song by Future Islands? Is that where you're referencing? It might be an older one, but, previously we had weather changing.

Sure.

That was cool and innovative and it still is. It's still in the game, but then, it was always the same time of year. Then, if you recall in Forza Horizon 3, there was a great add-on pack called Blizzard Mountain.

Right, it was fun.

... and it was all snowy. Well now, you get all the seasons in one package.

Right.

After you play through the game-

Right.

... and you get to sort of that have a tour of the seasons, then everyone's gonna be on the same season together, and it really changes the way the game feels, and that's such a key part of a racing game, is feel. Plus it looks cool.

Right. So anyway, so the team set up this weather simulator where you sit in the middle. As you're driving the game and streaming this on Mixer ... There's Mixer 'cause Mixer is all about interactivity and low latency.

Yeah.

The viewers can impact what, as I'm driving, I could experience ... Is it gonna rain? Is it gonna snow? Am I gonna get mud in my face? Am I gonna get wind? Am I gonna get-

All of the above.

... all of the above, none of the above?

Sure enough, I show up and they're like, "Well, we haven't tested it yet." I said, "Well let's do it." It was completely, completely just like, "Let's do it." So, we streamed it on Mixer.

I'm linking to this right now, by the way ...

It was bananas. You-

I watched it live cause you were dying.

You didn't even I was gonna do this.

No, you tweeted it. It was like 6 p.m. pacific, I just happened to be looking at my phone. I was like, "You know what? We all need to watch this."

Right. Did I do okay?

Oh, you did great! It was clear ... The thing I think is funny, if you watch this, is you're sort of goading them on. You're like, "It's snowy in the game, where's the snow?"

"Where's my snow?"

Then, you got what you asked for and then some. Then, I think they sprayed you with mud.

Mud.

Was the mud chocolate?

I think it was chocolate because it had this weird milk chocolatey cheap, like Easter bunny chocolate melted smell to it.

Someone had like a tomahawk chipper shredder and was throwing Hershey's Kisses into it.

It was weird.

It was a lot of fun. We do the whole thing and if you watch the stream, what you'll notice, Jeff, is that I'm driving ... which, is essentially the demo that's available now, by the way. The Forza Horizon demo is available now.

Yeah, exactly. You should download that.

... I'm driving and they didn't put any assists on. That game is hard alone, but-

Yeah, especially that particular sequence.

In a sled, on the snow, it's really hard! I came out of it, and I'm like, "Guys, you gotta turn some of those assists on," cause having stuff thrown in your face, and dropped on your head, and splattered in your mouth, while you're driving, is all but impossible.

Yeah, but here's the thing. It was funny and that's why you did it.

Was it?

Oh, I enjoyed watching that! Then, at the end, it was clear that mud was dripping all over the place and you couldn't wait to-

I was terrible.

... jump into a hot tub.

Let's be clear, I had really not prepared for that so, I had stripped down to essentially my underwear and my T-shirt, inside that jumpsuit, because I had the clothes that I ... Meanwhile, an hour before, I'm sitting with Camilla Luddington, a Hollywood star.

I was imagining that she was sitting right off screen just watching you.

No, she went home.

No.

She's like, "I'm out," cause it was a completely separate thing, but anyway.

She did what she needed to do.

Forza Horizon 4, as I said earlier, the demo is available now. Go download it.

I'm looking to link ... Now, don't forget, Xbox Play Anywhere. Xbox One and Windows 10. Looks phenomenal on the Xbox One S, their X, rather ... I mean, it looks great on the S, but on the X, there's a performance mode.

Yes, there is.

Let's say you want to optimize frame rate over resolution, where you can run at a locked 60, and it is butter. If you're running on a 1080, personally, I'd prefer to run on 4K when you can, because, especially the environments and the cars are so detailed, but if you're running, let's say, a 1080 TV and you have an Xbox One X running this on 60, oh my god, it is so smooth. It's beautiful.

If you have a Windows 10 PC, as I know we both do, actually, I've been playing on my Surface Book 2, you get the best of both worlds.

Yeah. Assuming, you have graphics ... If you've got the rig that can handle it.

If you're running a 1080 or ... I don't know what you have to run to minimum specs but, it looks great. It looks great.

It's interesting you talked about those two modes because Tomb Raider, we talked about that during the-

Yeah, another one!

... has a similar situation where you can go with a performance or you can go with visual.

One of the tips that Rich Briggs from the team gave us was, "Hey! Run with the visuals, then, when you get into combat, you can just go switch it. You don't have to reboot the game, it's on the fly."

That's really cool.

Yeah, Tomb Raider did a great job with that.

Yeah. From the very first moment they announced Shadow of the Tomb Raider, I've only ever seen it on Xbox One X and it's something.

Really?

Yeah. They had a couple of events back in May, maybe? I can't remember, and they showed it off on the X and it's nice working with a partner who can really push the hardware, nice and hard.

Right.

Tomb Raider, that's coming out in a couple ... Actually, it's out now!

Oh, it's out now!

It's out now, if you're totally-

If you're hearing us, you're playing it. What do you think of it so far?

Oh, I'm having a great time. I mean, it's Tomb Raider ... As I said during the stream, and again you can go watch the stream, is it's just disturbing ... In fact, I think I've got one, I'm gonna pull it up right now. I should tweet this out.

Photo mode?

Well, photo mode. Let's talk about photo mode, first.

Yeah, so, they added a full on photo mode into Shadow of the Tomb Raider. The way that differs from just taking a screenshot is it pauses the action, but then, you can move the camera around and you can mess with things like the bokeh (bo-kAY), is that how you say it?

Yes.

The depth of field. You can put filters on it, frames on it. You can add the title on it-

Bokeh (bo-kAY). I think it's bokeh (boo-kuh).

Bokeh (boo-kuh)?

I don't know, we're not photo guys.

I don't know, I'm not a good photographer.

Anyway. B-O-K-E-H. It's depth of field. Anyway.

The thing that people are having the most fun with, is you can change her expression. While you're normally playing the game, there's a lot of horrifying moments and the face that ... I wanted to say Camilla, that Lara has, it matches the intensity of whatever she's doing.

If she's swinging over a bottomless chasm, or fighting a mystical jaguar, her face is gonna match that, but, when you go into photo mode, you can change her face to make it inappropriately happy. That's the funny thing.

Awkward.

PC Gamer ran a series of screenshots where Lara is in harrowing situations, but puts it in photo mode and makes her smile. It looks like the most messed up Instagram that you've ever seen, where she's posing in front of skulls or in front of someone who's coming after her or whatever.

Why don't I link to that? Because I got a good laughs on that.

Yeah, it reminds me of when Grand Theft Auto came out on PC. Remember? I don't know if you remember this, I went around and I did nothing but, basically, jump in the back of people's houses and took pictures of the pools. I don't know why, cause I'm fascinated by pools, I love pools.

You know, when you fly into L.A., it's amazing how many people do have a pool.

By the way, I took this screenshot yesterday. I see that a lot.

Just death?

It's just a black screen with death.

You do die a lot more in this game.

It's disturbing, we've talked about [that 00:14:11].

These three games, the Tomb Raider reboot from 2013, Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are like a three game arc that sort of take the story of Lara from being just out of college, essentially, and recently orphaned I believe, and-

Did you like this photo, by the way?

I took the same photo! Did you see my tweet? Literally, the exact same photo from another angle. I didn't post it cause I was trying to find just the right caption, but yeah. It was funny that we both used the photo mode in the exact same place.

In the exact same place on the game where she's [action shot 00:14:43].

Yeah. I would say the first two games weren't necessarily hard. They were fun, they were phenomenal games but, there was very few points where I was like truly challenged. At least, in terms of figuring out what to do next.

The gunplay could be challenging especially later in the game, and I mean, that's great, but in Shadow of the Tomb Raider, the game does not hold your hand. There's a lot less making it super obvious, like, "Oh, this is a climbable area."

It can and Rich, during the stream, he talked about that. There's three elements that you can torque the ... you can change the difficulty, turn it up or ... and you can slide them around.

It's really innovative that I've seen this.

Yeah, so, you can independently alter the difficulty of exploration and seeing things in the environment of puzzles and of battle.

Let's say, you're someone who ... you love the gunplay, but you really don't want to spend a lot of time trying to figure stuff out. You can put that part down to obvious ... you click the right stick, which is the explorer or the Tomb Raider's instinct and she'll just literally tell you, "Oh, I should do this," and then, you just do it.

She'll also give you more verbal cues.

Yeah, exactly, but if you love the puzzles and you don't really care for gunplay, you can make the gunplay easier and less of an issue and there'll be ammo everywhere but you can make the puzzles real brain teasers.

Something that happened to me last night, I was playing, I was just like, "I'm gonna play for an hour and I'm gonna stick onto the mainline cause there's a lot of games to play. There's so many side missions and so much to explore and do." I was like, "Let me just make a beeline for the end of the game."

Sure.

... but then, I found a Challenge Tomb and I was like, "You know what? It's optional. I'm gonna go ahead and do this." I spent an hour doing that. I had to puzzle over this particular sequence for about 45 minutes to figure out how to get in there cause it didn't hold my hand and I loved it.

When I was done, there was that sense of accomplishment of solving puzzles that, honestly, I hadn't had since the older Tomb Raiders back in the day that really didn't hold your hand.

If you like that challenge, that sort of mental challenge, as opposed to the git gud reflex challenge. You can set it independently that way. I love it.

There you go.

There's just a lot more to do in this game.

Yeah. Looks great, plays great. It's fun.

I'm linking out to that ... The headline was, "Turn a grim nightmare into an awkward vacation with Shadow of the Tomb Raider's photo mode." I think we're gonna see some good stuff with that.

Shadow of the Tomb Raider. Check it out now.

Yes, out now.

What else? Oh, you know what we should talk about is ... Yeah, we talked a little bit about the Forza Horizon demo that's coming out in a couple weeks. We have a show on the next episode of Inside Xbox.

We're splitting up, we're breaking up the band.

We're breaking up. You are going to a different continent to support it.

Yes! Are we talking about that yet?

Well, no. We just tease a little bit.

All right.

A lot more details on that, probably next week or maybe the week after. I don't know.

Whenever.

Tallyho Jeffery!

Oh, dear! The Strange Brigade!

We're playing the Strange Brigade and it is just delightful!

Very good. I'm sure ... Oh! The complaint light is lighting up from the direction of the UK.

So, yeah, Strange Brigade, this one, the team that made Rebellion, who made the Sniper Elite games, at least the most recent ones.

Nothing like those!

No. A four player-

You and I some of those co-op.

We did.

Yeah.

A four player co-op. Actually, it's very Tomb Raid-y.

It's puzzle-y.

It takes place in ... it has a very 1930s-esque ...

Raiders of the Lost Ark kind of thing.

The narrator is what makes this-

The voice of God.

Yeah.

Who is this guy?

Actually, do you wanna know who he is? Cause I looked it, his name is Glen McCready. He's got quite a-

Is he theatrical?

No. That's what I expected. He does tons of voiceover stuff. He's been in, mostly, in smaller games. He was in the Pillars of the Earth. He was Prior Phillip, I did play that. Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun, Tropico 5. I'm just naming some of the games he was on, on Xbox. Risen 2. He was in Wallace and Gromit.

He has-

Oh! Stop the ... I love Wallace and Gromit.

He has a really wide ranging resume. He did start off on TV but he's just such a-

This may be some of his finest work.

This is great stuff. If you liked, what was his name, Sir Hammerlock from Borderlands 2, just that over the top sort of Teddy Roosevelt-esque [adventura 00:19:17] but he says a lot of funny stuff.

Jeff and I are playing it and we had somebody join us, just randomly.

Yeah, and you know what?

He was good.

He pulled his reign.

... or she was good.

Yeah.

Yeah, we played it and just the voiceover is just hysterical. The puzzles are fun.

I'll just give you guys a tip. Download the game if you can, buy the game. Play with your friends. Jeff and I sometimes, cause we're busy, we can probably play an hour, an hour and a half. Each level is about an hour and we just have fun.

Yeah. I've had a ton of fun with this one. Strange Brigade, definitely worth giving a shot. Watch some streams, whatever you wanna do, but the narrator just constantly [stopping 00:19:55] for a second.

My Joe Jeffery!

Yeah, yeah. It's so ridiculous that it's great.

By the teeth of the Queen, what have you done?

It's a real donnybrook! Oh, Queensberry Rules, eh?

I don't even know what half of the stuff is but I think it's hilarious.

Strange Brigade. It's not what I thought what it was.

No, and I'm glad we spent some time with it. Hopefully we get some more ... We got to set aside a little bit more time-

What other news do we have?

We're going into news?

Actually, we do have a little bit of news. We talked about it TWOX, PUBG went version 1.0.

Yeah, it sure did.

Congratulations.

Achievements are there.

Achieve-ohs are there.

Some of them will-

Retroactive.

Yeah, so if you've been playing throughout the Xbox Game Preview era, and you upgrade to 1.0 and you launch the game, you may find some achievements ... it could rain on you like a slot machine of achievements.

You had that happen to you recently with something. Actually, you know, Strange Brigade was giving them up pretty easy.

There was a point where, yeah, we did pretty well there. My favorite one was the original Destiny. I played a ton on Xbox One and then, it was essentially the same game on Xbox 360. I had borrowed someone's disk and I popped it in, I signed in, and it gave me all those achievements.

Again, I feel like a real Ray Cox, a real Stallion83.

Oh, good ol' Ray.

Yeah, good ol' Ray. Close to two million gamerscore-

He's still cooking.

Yeah.

Good for him.

Good for him.

All right. Let's get to those headlines. Over to the news desk. We'll get to the weather later with the hurricane but right now, Jeff's gonna give us the headlines.

Oh my god, we'll have to talk about that but, yes, yes! Forza Horizon 4 has gone gold.

Hurray!

What does that mean?

That means, Jeffery, is that the code is ready to be printed on disks and distributed, or in this case, printed on disks and also getting ready for digital distribution.

That means the game is just about done.

Well, the game is done. They'll probably Day One Patch.

Well, I mean, yeah. They'll continue to support it and the seasons will change every week.

Seasons change.

Effectively, it should be just an exciting marker that, hey, Forza Horizon 4 is almost here.

Yeah.

As you know, it's October 2nd and you get it a few days early if you have the Ultimate Edition, but yeah.

A couple other things noted, that just yesterday, the Turn 10 team announced the Best of Bond Car Pack, so for-

...

We've just been sued by Albert Broccoli.

I can't do anymore ... Well, I've had them on the show. They are friends of the show.

Really? Is this before my day?

Really, yeah, I had the-

I think I would remember.

I had his daughter on and her brother on.

Oh, the Broccoli folks.

Yeah, yeah. They were delightful.

What a name!

Right.

It's a wonderful name. I'm going by Jeff Cauliflower moving forward.

It just makes sense that in a racing game, that takes place in good ol' Blighty, that you would have the Bond Car Pack. Especially, since you're driving all kinds of cars, Aston Martins-

Even those weird time in, I think it was late 90s, when they did a deal with Ford.

Did they have a deal with Ford? I remember they had a deal with BMW.

I remember they had a deal where they had to drive the Mustang and he drove I when they were in Cuba or maybe it was some South American ... somewhere below the equator or I don't remember, some tropical country.

Is this the GoldenEye era?

Yeah, exactly. It was a Pierce Brosnan era.

Yeah, I don't know if those were my favorite. Great video games.

This will be for another discussion, for our movie podcast.

We all know the Aston Martin DB5 is like that classic Sean Connery car. If you've seen Goldfinger, Thunderball. GoldenEye, at one point. Skyfall, which, was a phenomenal movie and Inspector.

Yeah, they had it as a nod to the end.

Yeah, but a number of other cars throughout the year ... do you remember For Your Eyes Only? The Citroen 2CV6.

Yeah, that's the one with the door that opens front?

Well, I guess you do remember. Who was in that? Timothy Dalton? Was that a Roger Moore?

That was a Roger Moore.

Okay. It's sort of the middle era.

The Spy Who Loved Me?

No.

Moonraker? What did you say?

For Your Eyes Only.

Who did the ... I don't remember, oh, Sheena Easton, she did the-

Good lord! The recall.

The recall on this gentleman! Stratospheric!

There's the Jaguar (ja-gwar), there was that BMW-

Or as they say in Europe, I think it's Jaguar (ja-gu-are).

Jaguar (jag-wire).

Jaguar (ja-gu-wire).

Blake Bortles probably says Jaguar (jag-wire).

Jaguar (ja-gu-wire).

Jaguar-

Jaguar (jag-you-wire).

Jaguar (jag-you-wer).

Yeah, that's it, cause I think even in, I don't know if this is a spoiler, but in Tomb Raider, she gets attacked by a jaguar and I think Camilla says it that way.

Jaguar (jag-you-wer).

Jaguar (jag-you-wire) yeah.

Okay. We'll have to go play through that, that scene-

... but this is a vehicle.

That was a frightening scene.

Yeah, it is almost like a horror game.

Yeah.

In many ways. I love the new Shadow of the Tomb Raider.

Anyways, Best of Bond Car Pack and of course, that demo. That demo gives you a really meaty slice of what the game is. I highly recommend you take some time off, sure why not, and go ahead and just-

I'm sorry. What are the cars in there, again?

There was the Aston Martin DB5, there was the Aston Martin DBS, AMC Hornet X Hatchback, The Lotus Esprit, from The Spy Who Loved Me.

That's the one that goes underwater.

Okay, that I feel like I remember that.

That's the white one that goes underwater and turns into a submarine, called Wet Nellie.

A couple of other Aston Martins, the Jaguar-

Is the Hornet in it from The Man with the Golden Gun?

The AMC Hornet X Hatchback from The Man with the Golden Gun, 1974.

That's a funny one. There are actually lot of AMCs and there was a whole bunch of AMCs, if I remember correctly.

I couldn't identify that car-

The Matador, the Concord, the Jeep Wagoneer. The list goes on and on.

Apparently. AMC, does it stand for American Movie Classics, still?

No, it doesn't.

No? Okay.

Go ahead.

Anyway. That's it for Forza ...

Anyway, the game's phenomenal. We're seeing some streams that are coming up from the demo. There was a lot of footage, like a lot of the big racing YouTubers, like your AR12Gaming and your TC9700, and JackUltraMotive were putting out their videos.

It's good to hear from ... I can sit here and say the game is good all day, you're not gonna believe me, or maybe you will. I actually love the Forza Horizon series, but, hear it from other folks and get excited.

Oh, another element by the way, if you are gonna play via Xbox Game Pass on October 2nd, you can get ready now. You can buy a year of Xbox Game Pass for $99. That's like $8 a month.

You will get to get Forza Motorsport 7 and Forza Horizon 3, now. You can play those games now and then, you have until September 30th. That'll get you ready for Forza Horizon 4, which of course, is included as part of Xbox Game Pass.

Hurray!

It's the gift that just keeps on giving.

Every month, Jeffery. Every single month.

It's funny, every time a new game comes out, and you probably get this too, some of your friends or your family, you're like, "Hey, can I get that?" It's just like, "Here's Game Pass. You're done. You get it all. Done."

Game Pass. That's the answer. You want more games? You want more games than you could ever play in a week? Two weeks, three weeks? A month, two months, five months? Game Pass.

I wanna thank the Game Pass team for making my conversations with my family as short as possible. "It's just Game Pass. Go, bye. We're done here, bye."

Grandma is asking you for games?

You know, she's retired. What else is she gonna do? Sit there and watch the lizards crawl the trees? They're pretty big. They're pretty big down there, Larry.

There is only so much Canasta you can play.

She's gotten really into Bingo. She's weaponized Bingo. She's running five cards at once.

Okay.

Here's another game that, it's something I had to play at Gamescom. State of Decay 2 Daybreak Pack. That came out this week. This is a zombie siege experience, is the term that they're using.

Basically, you and up to three teammates, if it's just you or you and a friend, then, an NPC with come in there and help you out. You're, basically, holding down a fort, a base, that can be destroyed from an ever-strengthening, an ever-more growing numerous squad of zombies, including the new Blood Plague Juggernaut, which, you don't want to mess with.

The longer you make it into this, you don't have to worry, this isn't your regular character who can die. This is a free reroll that you get, so you don't have to worry about losing somebody from your main game and you can play through, risk-free.

The further you get into it and the better you perform, you end up unlocking weapons, not just for this mode, but that will go back into your community in the base game of State of Decay 2.

Let's say, you've hit a wall, you're low on supplies, whatever. You can play this mode and it may help you break through there. You might get some explosives-

Were you playing with us when I got my guy ripped apart?

I sure was.

It was you, me, and Graeme and-

What happened was that, a juggernaut came in and we all ran. You didn't. You stood your ground and you paid him with your life.

I did.

That's kinda how it goes. You need better friends.

Yeah.

Cause we did not have your back.

Yeah, I turned around and you guys were gone. Gone.

No, that was bad news, but you know what? It made for good footage. You took one for the team. You were like, "Oh, yeah, that's my permanent character."

Yeah, not anymore.

Anyway. It's something you can play over and over again. It's only $9.99. There's some new achievements, some new gamerscore. Definitely worth checking out. People had a lot of fun with this during Gamescom.

If you wanna see what's going on just head over to my blog, majornelson.com, now going on its 14th year.

You should put a ... like when you look at your profile on Xbox, you can see how long you've been on Xbox Live, you should put that on the top.

Yeah. Anyway, check out all the details and sales, and everything we mentioned is over there.

You have something else going on this weekend.

Yes.

What are you doing this weekend?

I think we're gonna play the Blackout beta.

The answer was, "I don't know."

"I don't know."

We're doing a bit here Larry.

Oh, "I don't know."

"How much money do you have in your pocket?"

"I don't know"

"How much money?"

"Zero."

"Zero! Oh, well that's great! I've got just the game for you."

"Okay."

"The Division, Xbox One."

Can we do that again? Can we start over?

We can.

Yeah, go ahead. Start-

"Hey, Larry!"

"Yes?"

"Whatcha doing this weekend?"

"Gee, I don't know, Jeff. I don't know."

"Do you have any money?"

"No, I have no money! I don't know what to do!"

"No, money whatsoever ... Well, you know what?"

"What am I gonna do?"

"You're in luck."

"What?"

I really hope we don't edit this properly. The Division Xbox One free weekend begins! Well, it's actually going on probably at the time you hear this, for Xbox Live Gold Members.

We've talked about this before, jump back into The Division, when they announced-

That's right.

Since E3, when they announced these medallions or the commendations that they put into the game, shields, that will go over into The Division 2.

I realized that I hadn't played in a while.

That's true.

There was a lot of stuff waiting for me, some exotic weapons.

What have you been doing?

God only knows. I'm experiencing missing time, so, maybe alien abduction.

That would explain a lot.

Yeah, more than you know.

If you haven't played before, this is the perfect time to just jump in there, literally no cost. If you haven't played in a while, you might want to see what's waiting for you cause they've added a lot of different new modes, a lot of new missions, a lot of new spaces. Like in the back of your base, you can run down the stairs and there's a whole other underground warren with some pretty difficult stuff and a lot of cool weaponry.

Anyway, that's happening until September 16th.

All right.

Something else, a friend of mine has been working on.

Is there more? There's always more.

Well, I mean there's always more Larry.

'Tis the season.

Minecraft. We love Minecraft.

We do.

Some cool merch showing up at Target.

I think Minecraft has been really good at coming up with cool things, outside of Minecraft, you want. We've all seen the Creeper hoodie. We've all seen the diamond pickaxe that turns into a sword, I have that.

Of course you do.

There's also a torch that you can use as an actual lamp and you can hang it on your wall.

Anyway, very clever. Anyway-

I have three of those in my home office. The ones that the bottoms rotate?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Oh, that's cool. Yeah. Well, I didn't know we had those around the office. I'll have to pick one up.

I don't know where I got them.

Anyway, we've teamed up with Target, in the US. There's gonna be 80 only at Target MineCon Earth merchandise.

80 what?

80 different things.

It's not like 80 pieces?

No, but there's even some cool stuff happening as part of MineCon Earth. There's gonna be an in-store event on September 22nd. God, it's MineCon already.

MineCon!

There's gonna be Mobs in the store. There's a Minecraft scavenger hunt. You have early access to a Minecraft mini game-

You like Target.

The Target (tar-jAY), we call it.

Yes.

It has a French ... I'm getting a lot of support for Target here in the studio.

Yeah.

They're building one in my neighborhood.

Are they?

I'm not far from it, yeah.

The gentrification of your neighborhood continues.

Yeah, I don't know where everyone's gonna park cause parking is optional in the Seattle ... anyway.

The first 200 guests, to select stores, will get to meet certain folks. There'll be content creators-

Where do I learn about this? It's too much information.

It's Minecraft.net, I'll link to it.

Yeah, let's put a link to it.

There's some cool stuff and ... JeromeASF, Shubble, a few other folks. Famous YouTubers are gonna be at certain Target stores around the US.

Am I gonna be at one? I'm not a famous YouTuber.

You're not a famous YouTuber.

No, I don't have time for that.

Don't you though?

... No. People get enough of me every week with This Week On Xbox.

I'm not debating that.

Every month is Inside Xbox. I got the podcast. I'm available everywhere.

You can't turn on the Xbox without your face just smiling at you.

I'm sorry for that. Millions and millions of people. Pewdiepie who?

Who?

Who?

What? Okay.

Earlier today, the mail person came through, FedEx or whomever-

Oh, here at the office?

Here at the office.

That's right. Oh, that's right!

Yeah.

I know where you're going with this.

You were like, "Jeffery," cause you call me Jeffery, you and my mom only.

"Jeffery," cause you don't sit next to me, you're a few desks away.

I'm a full 10 feet away, which necessitates-

"Oh, Jeffery!"

Yeah, that happens several times per day. You were just like, "Come over here. What is this?"

Right.

There was an Xbox One X box.

We knew what it was but I was like, "Why am I getting an Xbox One X?"

Yeah, why would someone ... You probably have three in your home, but not like this. We're celebrating the release of Solo: A Star Wars Story, which is coming in 4K Ultra HD.

4K, on Xbox One S or X.

So many pixels, over 4,000 of them, just in the horizontal access.

A special Solo: Star Wars Xbox One X.

Sitting at my desk right now.

It's at your desk right now and it's something that you can win.

Yeah.

Of course, it comes with Solo: A Star Wars Story on 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray. You can enter at soloxboxsweeps.com, I'll just link to the store on that-

I'm also gonna give one away too. I haven't decided yet.

We're gonna be doing this at the end of September. This is a beautiful console. The controller looks great, it's got the Millennium Falcon on it. It's got a cool matte finish. Obviously, winning one of these would be great. They don't all look like this, this one's really good. This one's above and beyond.

Yeah, this one is-

We all oohed and aahed. It was like you brought your baby into the office.

I believe they call it, "Extra."

Yeah, "They," the kids. It's quite extra, rather. "Rather extra!"

"It's rather extra, I say! My Joe, would you look at that console?"

We need to get him on the show.

Yeah, I know.

Glen ... or whatever his name was.

He's just gonna sit over there and give us, "Move it along boys!"

Yeah, god knows we could use that sort of editing.

Ever since Laura left, we've been a mess.

No, yes, that's true.

All right, last thing I wanna mention was our good friends at Ubisoft. They're good people.

They are good people.

They've decided, "We're just gonna slash prices, left, right and center for Xbox One." There's a big Ubisoft sale happening right now on Xbox One.

There is.

All these Assassin's games, Far Cry games. You can get Far Cry 5 for 40% off, 45% off. For Honor, Rainbow Six Siege, which, everyone's playing. South Park, Steep & the Crew-

Are they Jeffery? Are they playing it?

Rainbow Six Siege is incredibly popular. They did a really good job on the Esports [Sign 00:36:21] and really listening to their fans on that game. Trials of the Blood Dragon, that was a fun one. Watch Dogs 2, which, I love. That one is well of 50% off. It's 70% off! Wow, they actually have the numbers up there and I'm sitting here trying to do math.

Yeah.

Steep, you know, I miss my snowboarding. Play some Steep.

Oh, man, those were the days.

Already planning.

Those were the days.

What do you mean those were the days? I'm going back this Winter.

Are you?

Yeah.

Okay. Dear Podcast listeners and viewers and followers of Jeff and I on twitter, let us know what your over-under is and what he's gonna hurt this year. You're gonna break a leg, an arm?

I don't know. Ribs usually tend to be the case.

A toe?

Maybe a knee?

A knee?

I hope not.

Take an arrow to the knee. Callback [dare 00:37:03]. Haven't heard that one in a while.

I was okay with that, to be honest. Yeah, my goal is injury avoidance, but it's still fun. Occasionally, I feel like out of an 8 hour day of skiing, there's three or four minutes where I looked cool.

Yeah.

If someone was following me and could edit that together-

The wind flowing through your hair ...

I wear a helmet. Are you crazy, Larry? I would kill myself.

... and your goggles, looking all svelte. Coming down that hill in your spandex suit, picking up speed as you-

Cortex. Cortex, Larry.

... as you hit that mogul.

Yeah. You sound like someone who's been around people talking about skiing before.

I never went skiing.

I can tell.

I went water skiing.

You don't want to board off a mogul, you'd kill yourself.

I'm a great water skier.

Really? You know, I may have seen pictures as to this. I've never gone water skiing.

I would be up at Cypress Gardens.

Very good. Give me some good water skiing terminology. What do people not know?

They're all the same as me.

Just like a triple frumpy or something? Is that a cool move?

A triple frumpy, that's me. That's me.

I mean, maybe. Not you.

I used to go monoski. I could do monoski back in the day. One ski.

Really?

Yeah.

Isn't that how they typically do it.

No, you have two skis. Then, you have one ski with one [inaudible 00:38:14] in the other.

That seems safer. No?

It doesn't matter.

I don't really know. I stay out of the water. If I can't stand in it-

You have this massive allergy to the water.

It's called a phobia and it's cause I don't want to drown.

That's why you learn how to swim. That's why I go scuba diving and I love water ...

Sounds like a lot of work.

I will tell you this, though. This is probably something you've never ... This is true. This is not rehearsed, this is something you don't know about me.

Okay, I'm ready.

When I was a little boy, when I was swimming, I was ready to do a backflip off the diving board and I went back on my toes and I slipped. The diving board came up, cracked me here. Can you see that little thing out under there?

I thought that was from a shaving accident.

No, you can actually see the slice across the bottom of my chin. It was when I went down, cracked like this, knocked myself out-

Really?

... went into the water and then-

You're gonna be rescued, right?

Cause you're in the deep end and I just remember floating to the bottom. They came in after me, I came to the top. It was bad.

Ah, you're lucky. If that diving board had hit a little higher, we wouldn't know you.

No, that's right.

It would have taken out the moneymaker or something.

Is that what you call my nose?

Well, I mean, if it hits you, it's like, "Not the face!"

"Not the face!" It was brutal.

It could have been bad.

It was brutal.

Wow, and you're gonna talk about when I'm gonna hurt myself, while you're falling off diving boards?

I was seven years old.

I don't know.

Apparently they don't allow diving boards anymore.

What?

Yeah, people hurt themselves.

Where do they not allow diving boards?

In pools. Where else would they not allow-

Where else would they have one? I can understand not having a diving board in the city street or something.

I don't know, this is what I was told.

Where are you getting your information from?

They don't have them at public pools.

I don't have any evidence to the contrary, but I'm gonna keep my eye out. Every time I see a diving board in a public pool, you'll know about it.

Please do.

Okay. I just can't believe this.

I'm giving you the facts.

Is it because of you? Because you fell?

No, a friend of mine was building a pool and they said they can't have it because two things. They don't put it in public pools anymore because it's too expensive and their insurance.

Sure.

... and B, you have to have much deeper water now.

That's probably safe.

That wouldn't have helped me! When I had slipped, I would have just gone deeper.

I guess that's true.

Anyway, all right. Enough about this.

Yeah. Want to say something about Hurricane Florence and just wish people well?

Hurricane Florence. I don't know when we're gonna post this show but I'm sure it's gonna be just about making landfall, so, be careful down there. I've been in my share ... I know you've been in your share of hurricanes.

Yeah, Hurricane Andrew. Hurricane Erin.

You used to have to be the weatherman telling people to get out of town, right?

I did that too, which, was genuinely frightening that people would listen to my advice on how to protect themselves. What I would say is, don't do anything stupid. Stay away from your windows. You can be very curious what was that noise, 'Did this tree fall over?' Whatever it might be. Stay away from the windows, it's not worth it. Especially afterwards, that's where the problems are. A lot of times, wires can be down.

They can be energized.

Just let people come to you and fix things.

Yes.

"We're thinking about you there but-"

Were you living in Miami when the zoo animals were ...

Yeah, that was Hurricane Andrew, 1992.

Terrible.

I was there and it was a heck of a night. Fortunately, for my neighborhood, and very unfortunately for areas like Cutler Ridge and Kendall, and Homestead, it jogged south. My area, which was slight further north, was mostly spared but it's scary stuff.

Yeah.

Just be careful out there.

North Carolina and everybody in the path of the hurricane, any hurricane, just be careful and heed to the authorities and don't be stupid.

Yeah. Don't be overly curious. There's trained professionals that be there to help.

Whatever you're doing, it's not worth the Instagram selfie.

That's basically the thing.

That's really what it's all about.

Yeah, let the weather people do that. You see all these montages of weather people that are out there-

Have you done that? You've done that.

Standing out in the rain?

Yeah.

Heck no! I would never have got paid enough for that.

You were in the studio in front of the green screen.

Yeah, exactly. "This is what you need to know and ..." What is the point of that? You're standing out ... "Hey, it's windy!" We get it. Okay. Don't stand outside and get hit by a blowing lounge chair.

A trash can.

A lounge chair.

An umbrella.

An Adirondack chair going at 75 miles an hour.

That is a weapon!

That is a projectile.

That is a weapon.

You wouldn't want to be anywhere near that. Anyway.

All right!

That's what I'll be thinking about this week.

You know what we're gonna do? We're gonna wrap up the show.

We should do that.

We gotta get people going here. We wanted to come in the studio. I know we only gave you about half hour, 45 minutes a show but we wanted to get in-

It's more than most people want.

Way more. We're gonna try to get into the Mixer Studio in the near future. We got another episode of Inside Xbox coming up. Jeff and I will be live. He'll be in the UK, I'll be here. That's coming up at the end of the month. Right?

It sure is.

You're leaving soon, actually, right?

Yeah. I'm gonna go and take in an Arsenal match. That's a soccer thing.

I know, it's football.

Correct. I can't wait, I love London. It's my favorite place to be.

"Have a jolly good time, Jeffery!"

Yeah, I'm gonna look for the narrator from Strange Brigade. Anyway.

All right. If you want to follow Jeff and you wanna complain, make sure you hit him up on Twitter, you can follow him at ...

@jeffrubenstein

Hit me up at @majornelson and hey gang, we'll see you next time. Bye, bye everybody!

Bye!