He'll be Gon'll be beer. It's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do
this for October eighteenth, twenty twenty three. For the next hour or so,
let me help you sort through the world of gaming on Games Mornings Live
with me Jeff Grebb. Today, the reviews are in and everybody's going gaga
for you guessed it's Skull Island, Rise of Kong. But first, please
join me and welcome to today's co host, the Game as Mornings. It's
Lucy James. Everybody, Lucy, how are you doing? You know,
I'm sad that I'm here and not playing Kong Rise of Skull Island or whatever
the hell it is called. It's really tough to have to live lives where
we have responsibilities away from the beauty that is Skull Island, Rise of Kong.
Oh shit, that's what skill I was talking. Didn't even realize.
Skull Island Rise of Kong a game that should not exist, and I'm so
glad it does. Yeah, so really happy that it defied all the laws
of physics to appear in our reality. Have you had a chance to,
like you have you just like looked at it, or have you had a
chance to play it. I saw that tweet. Yes, I dropped it
in slack and said, we got a playlet play this. Uh. And
then I was doing much stuff yesterday, so I haven't watched the b Light
Club or Blight Club yet. Oh but Alex Tony Award winning Alex von Yellow
popped in, Yes he did. Did you have you just found the just
found the clip now, but I'm I'm gonna watch that apparently apparently he was
incredibly high, and then texted Dan this MP three of him singing the song
Mike Minatti, Mike Mike Manatti or however it goes. Uh. And then
Dan just dropped that on us unbeknowst to us. And it was very very
off putting and strange, and I don't like it one bit. I love
it. It was a good time. That game. Uh, it's something
special that game. Uh, you know, it's it. I don't know.
It's something about like okay, you hear. I think you can get
the King Kong license like public domain in certain ways, but it's called Skull
Island, which I think. I don't know if that is public domain.
It's it's I'm really confused about how it all works, Like did they get
the license, and then they're just like, whatever, we'll put this out
there fifty dollars and uh and I think it's no forty dollars. This one's
forty dollars. I think this one's forty dollars. It's it's too much money,
whatever it is. But watching damn play. When we got done,
we were just like, we could do maybe play more of that. We
could maybe because it's it's bad in a kind in a pretty fun way.
You're always wait waiting for the next next column, the next yes, the
next and then the next gollumn moment inside the game where it's like, Okay,
what's this next cut scene going to look? Like? What's the next
boss fight going to be? And it's always something bad in a really fun
way. I was gonna say, I don't even think Gallum was fun and
a bad way. I think it was just bad. Yeah, it's just
it's just kind of bad. Yeah. Yeah, this looks actually you know,
yeah, this is definitely worse and yet more entertaining. I would have
a better time with this, I think than playing Colm. All right,
let's talk about what we do here most weekdays. I Jeff Grubb will help
piece your gaming life back together that includes breaking news and maybe even some of
our own original reporting. For all these topics, I'll get the input of
a bona fide expert who will make me look smart. If you are watching
live on twitch welcome. You can always listen to the show later on podcast
feeds by searching for Game Mess Mornings, or find the RSS on GiantBomb dot
com. You can also catch the show later with chapters in timestamps on YouTube.
Hello YouTube. Okay, we have a lot to get into, so
let's start the Morning Mess with Super Mario Brothers Wonder review roundup. It's this
is actually the game that has everyone going gaga. This is from Nintendo Everything.
With only a couple of days to go until launch, Super Mario Brothers
Wonder reviews are now starting to go live, and here's a roundup of some
of those results. IGN gave it a nine out of ten. It says
Super Mario Brothers Wonder looks and play like the true next step for two D
Mario platformers. Wonder effects change each stage in both surprising and delightful ways.
The Flower Kingdom mix for a vibrant and refreshing change of pace, and Elephant
Mario steals the show. GameSpot gave it a nine out of ten as well,
says Super Mario Brothers Wonder, super brother excuse. Supermar Brothers Wonder is
a bold choice for a name. It plants a flag in the ground that
suggests anything less than a constant sense of all and delight will be a failure
by its own terms. But then surprisingly, Mario Wonder rises to the challenge
and results in a modern classic. The Wonder effects are the marquee feature,
and for good reason, as they serve as a springboard for a cornucopia of
creativity. But it's the smart and thoughtful choices around new power ups, badges,
online multiplayer, and visual flare that cement this in the Mario canon.
This is this is the rightful successor to Super Mario Brothers World, and hopefully
we'll serve as a touchstone for two D Mario going forward. I call it
Super Mario Brothers World, Super Mario World. The game's got like a ninety
three on Metacritic, way higher than I was. Actually, I think that's
acting for Tooty Mario, Totymorrow, the new you know. Okay, so
it's it's been several decades now. Super Mario World and then we had a
bunch of New Super Mario Brothers games and they have been they have been like
eighty eight at the top. I think maybe maybe a few of them stuck
above that. But my mind like New Super Mario Brothers on the DS,
it's kind of a B. It's a B. It's an eighty it's it's
it's not h. It doesn't never blew my socks off. The game's got
better. But then you had the diminishing returns on well, this is still
New Super Mario Brothers in a lot of ways, and so uh, I
was like, maybe that's just too dy Mario. Maybe maybe that's just too
dy Mario, and like that, like it's gonna be sort of uh this
vanilla known quantity and it's good and people like it and it sells really well,
but it's not ever going to be in the Game of the Year discussion.
This feels like it puts it squarely in the game of the Year discussion.
I don't know, what do you think? Yeah, I mean from
everything I was talking to skill Up about it when we were recorded FPS last
night, he's so hot on it. So is Completionist. Yeah, it
sounds incredible. I'm just I am not like a jump out of bed go
buy the new Mario game kind of gal But this one's actually got me really
interested because I don't know, like I really enjoyed what we played at packs
definitely, And then are you someone who enjoys platformers in general or is that
not quite your genre either? You know what? I think it's time to
stop lying to myself. Yeah, I don't think I really enjoyed a platform
I don't love, sure, but if I think, okay, so for
me, platformers is like when I think of video games, I think of
platformers. That's where I'm at, Lucy. But I grew up on Mario.
And if you're someone who's like, didn't grow up on Mario, I
wonder like what platformers could have got you there? And you probably did enjoy
a lot of platformers, especially back at like in the you know, the
nineties or whatever, but they haven't. That genre was the like marquee genre
for a long time and then it wasn't. It's so it's easy to be
like, Okay, yeah, I played it then and I don't play it
now. I imagine that's kind of how you feel. But I mean,
there's nothing offensive about it, I'm sure. But like, so when you
see this, like the thing that's kind of getting is like, this looks
like it has a ton of ideas, right, because that's what we were
talking about when we came out of playing it at Pax. Yeah, and
that's the thing that everyone who I've spoken to who has played it, they're
just like, oh yeah, when you find that one to see it,
it is just so magical and wonderful. I'm like, all right, Okay,
I'll give it a go. I want to experience joy again. Sure,
I guess, I guess. But yeah. And also I'm at the
point now where you know we don't need any more Game of the Year contenders.
That's definitely true. That's pretty well. Do you have like the games
that are like a shortlist if let's say we had to submit a document to
say these the games they should be nominated for Game of the Year. Do
you have like five or six games in mind? Oh? Yeah, so,
I mean Baldersgate obviously up there, Dredged, Dave the Diver Right,
Dead Space remakeer Isn't Evil full remake? Are you are are you leaving a
spot open? Yes? Are you leaving a spot open for allen Wick two
Boys. Yep, yeah, so that's all. It's already significantly more than
six games. So yeah, yeah, I'm definitely I know what you mean.
But boy, I'm glad I got Spider Man two done. Uh,
so I can just hop right into Super Mario Brothers. Yeah, Super Mario
Brothers. Wonder when it's out because I've been I've been really looking forward to
this and this is my kind of game. So yes, very excited to
see the mostly glowing positive reactions. Uh. There was like a like like
a single seven out of ten, and even that's like, this is a
good game. It's just like that some of the stuff didn't work for me
in terms of always being in awe of everything. And I think if we're
setting the bar like there where it's like being all of everything, I could
see like some people are like, yeah, some of the stuff worked and
some some of it didn't. I think from the the game spot snippet here
and I haven't read the full review yet but I will today. Uh,
it's says the multiplayer stuff, actually, the online multiplayer stuff works surprisingly well
and is a positive and there's no like online cooperative play. There is something
like like online play where like you play the game and then you swap ghost.
I can't even remember exactly how they said it worked, but I'm gonna
have to probably see it for myself to fully understand it anyhow. But I
think that's very exciting for me as someone who has spent a lot of times
in something like Astrobot, like doing speed run times and swapping that back and
forth with with Mike and Dan. And if it's anything close to that or
or you know, a similar it gets close, you know, acts in
a similar way, I'll be very excited. But mostly let's just get in
there and see what all the fun surprises that they got in store for us.
Yeah, Like, has Nintendo finally figured out how to do an online
game? Uh yeah, I mean I'm gonna say, I'm gonna say mostly
probably still know, but a cool online feature in their game. Maybe maybe
because they you know, the spot pass or street pass, like that's not
online feature, but that's like a fun little thing that you can do that
is clever an implementation of of like their NFC technology or however that worked.
And Nintendo's okay at some stuff like that. Right, here's a novel little
thing. But if you're like, okay, but what if I just wanted
to play online with my friends and have that work and be not lagging and
ntis I don't know what you're talking about. Both I don't know her.
All right, let's get to the September twenty twenty three SIRCANA report from Matt
Piscatella, who is at SIRCANA. September twenty twenty three US video game market
highlights from SIRCANA include US consumer spending on video and video and content, hardware
and accessories growing more than ten percent compared to a year ago. That's totally
four point five billion dollars growth in spending on video game content and accessories offset
in eight percent decline in hardware. When you look at the hardware, the
hardware was at about four hundred and fifty one million compared to four hundred and
ninety million a year ago. We'll kind of talk about some of the hardware
details here in a second, but for the top twenty, Starfield was number
one. It was released in September. Number two was Mortal Kombat one,
also a new game that released in September, followed by EA Sports FC twenty
four, Madden NFL twenty four, and then three more new games for the
month, Payday three, NBA two K twenty four, and The Crew Motorfest
that runs out the top seven, and then it goes to Armored Course six,
Fires of Rubicon, Hogwarts Legacy still hanging out in the top ten,
and Call of Duty Modern Warfare too at number ten, also still hanging out
there from last year. I'm not too surprised the Starfield's at the top,
but this is a game that is on game Pass, a game that a
lot of people were probably going to play through that and it turns out that
it did sell very well. It sold even better on PC than it did
on Xbox. Though that's not too surprising because I think the saturation of game
Pass on Xbox versus PC is probably much greater, so the people kind of
people who were going to show up to buy this game probably were on PC.
But that's a pretty good showing for the game. It's already number seven
for the best selling games of the year in the United States according to Sircana,
just behind Star Wars Jedi Survivor, So that's that's pretty impressive for that
game. Yeah, let's see, yeah, let's say yeah, let's see
what Matt Piscatel has to say about it. He said, Starfield was the
best selling game of September, instantly becoming the seventh best selling game of twenty
twenty three year to date. Starfield ranked is the best selling title of the
month across both Xbox and PC, with PC being its lead sales platform.
And then for Mortal Kombat once Mortal Kombat one debut as the second best selling
game of September and the number eight best selling game of twenty twenty three year
to date. Mortal Kombat was the one was the best selling game of the
month on PlayStation platforms, placed second on both Xbox and PC, and ranked
third on Nintendo Switch. So a lot of people out there buying that version
of the game. Overall, though the market seems pretty healthy. Video game
sales up really big with all these new games launching, a lot of people
showing up for them, and I'm like trying to think, is there any
game like So we have star Field, Mortal Kombat, E Sports FC twenty
four, pay Day three, NBA two K twenty four, and The Crew
Motorfest And just a note there, NBA two K doesn't include the digital sales.
Is there a game that like came out that month, like that didn't
make the top twenty. It sounds like, you know, everything down through
the Crew Motorfest performed pretty good. People are buying games, right, Yeah,
I'm just trying to think about like what came out that maybe isn't in
here, but like damn, yeah, so's a that's a good showing.
Uh And yeah despite everyone, everything selling famously stable in the games industry right
now, Yeah, yeah, exactly. That's the thing where it's like,
when we look at these numbers, a lot of money coming in, everyone
seems to be doing pretty all right, and then the companies are like,
no, we're freaking out. We got to fire everybody. There's the dichotomy
there. There's a split between reality and how these companies are perceiving reality.
And a lot of that comes back to the money coming in from selling video
games? Is you you? I always imagine it as you sell a game,
that money goes into bank account and that money goes to the people that
made the game, And of course it's not how it works. These these
companies are moving their their cash around so that they might be they might be
mostly paying their employees by borrowing money and things like that. And that was
really effective for a long time because interest rates were really low and so you
could borrow money and pay your staff and then kind of that was like a
good use of interest rates and and good use of your funds. And now
that's not an option. But these companies sort of got used to that,
and now they're looking around like, man, this is a really tight situation,
even when you can kind of look at it and be like, it
doesn't it doesn't seem that tight out there, but that's how they're behaving.
Was not on that list, Okay, Lives of p Win did that launch?
Uh end of augusta paid was on that list, but Eliza p yes,
and then yeah, but I mean last Piece sold a million. Yeah,
I wonder if that's I think that's likely that it's the publish. Sure
it doesn't report digital sales for that one, like Bloodborne, and they just
want to play it. It was September nineteen, I mean yeah, okay,
yeah, people like, yeah, that game sold a million copies since
down here. It's just because they must not have reported full digital sales,
and people do like Bloodborne. Imagine if they did just a Bloodborne and it
was colon sixty frames per second. How well that would sell, that would
be best selling game of the year. Probably. Yeah, let's see here
some of these other things. EA Sports FC twenty four was the third best
selling game of September. Again, this is Matt Piscatella. Double digit percentage
growth was seen across both units and dollars when compared to FIFA twenty three September
twenty two launch month. E sports FC twenty four launched as the fourteenth best
selling game of twenty twenty three year to date ending September. That's got to
be good news for EA, who changed the name of this game from last
year and yet sawid growth. There was huge marketing campaign. Seems like that
paid off. I don't know what's what all your British friends saying. Are
they all like, oh yeah, EAFC twenty four, I know that game.
That's just FIFA. I think I've heard a single person call it was
it e A sports FC, A sports FC. Yes. Look, look,
I'm going to be real here. That is a terrible name. Yeah,
you're not a wrong terrible name, Like it is so generic. It's
got the name of the publisher in the name of the game. Yes,
e A Sports e A sports FC was that football club you don't have?
It would be terrible, be like if Call of Duty was called Activision Shooter
twenty four yeah, or you know another realm punching guy. Yes, I
don't know that, another realm spine crusher, Yes there are. It's it's
weird, you know, bes the boring. I think that is the name
of it. But yes, the thing is is that you can imagine the
consultancy that they had to get in, like they would have had a room
of like people who are on two hundred grand a year just sat around a
big white board. Why were we going to replace FIFA with guys? Oh
I know a sports FC? Mm hmm. It does feel like what is
something we could call it that We're never going to have to change the name
again because it's just like, ye stuff we own, it's all stuff we
own, and it's just it's it is exactly what it says on the ten
like EA, sports FC the year let's go, But what does the box
up look like? Does it just have a massive football on it to be
like that is what this game is? Football? And then a guy who
kicks football, so that's almost certainly what is on there. I don't know.
He's Box. It's someone that I don't know. Is it that blonde
guy? It is blowne Go? Who is it? I don't remember his
name, but I assume he's like Swedish or something because the blonde hair.
Very racist. John Football, Johnny Football, everybody, Johnny Football. That's
a different person in America. That's it's Johnny manzil Erling Holland, Holland,
Holland. Yeah, there we go. Okay, Okay, I mean yeah,
it looks good. He's Norwegian. Okay, Norwegian. That makes sense.
I can accept Norwegian. Yeah, all right. Let's see for video
game hardware spending, it fell eight percent compared to a year ago. As
Mapustel mentioned earlier, single digit percentage growth in consumer spinning on Xbox series hardware,
so that's up was offset by declines across both PlayStation five and Switch and
Lucy. Not too surprising that the Switch is seeing some declines. It's up
and down. It's not like consistently down, but it's mostly different. Yeah,
the red one is nice. Yeah, the Mario one, yes,
and that one really want Chap, but it doesn't seem like it's going to
be like a bigger deal here. At least not a bigger deal here as
it was in Japan. But whatever, it's up and down in a way.
That's pretty surprising still for a seventh year of a video game console.
For me, I was like, I did take note of the PlayStation five
having a year over year decline because I know for a fact the PlayStation five
is the furthest thing away from being in trouble, and yet even that system
is like not always one percent of the time growing. I assume that that
must have been a comparison to God of War, right, He's got the
God of War come out in September last year. November. It was November,
Okay, So I'm trying to think of, like what came game released
to September. I feel like there was something I can just go, let
me do this. I'm gonna go to Google and right September and then games
Beat comes up, just like I always plan that to happen. NBA two,
K, Yeah, there's Platoon three, there's the Last of Us Part
one remake. I guess that probably was so something that was like number five
on the chart. So okay, so the comparison is probably I guess that
brings me back to the original thing I was getting at here where For a
while there the Xbox was gone down over year over year, and I'm like,
man, what's wrong with the Xbox? Seems like people just don't care.
But it's like the PlayStation five also can have a month where it's down.
It's like, Okay, this can maybe just might be happening. Where
last year was still that reverberations of coming out of COVID and the behavior changes
that happened there, and people were buying a ton of systems, and people
were looking for systems and it was still hard to get so when they were
there, people were rushing out even if they necessarily didn't or didn't necessarily need
to have the console for any particular game. And so I think it's like
still weird comparisons overall. So even something like the PS five, which again
we know is not in any trouble whatsoever, it's it's like skywreckoning even past
the pace of the PS four in a really impressive way. It's okay,
So in the US occasionally these things are going to still be kind of weird
coming out of those COVID. Persons that said, I I do think a
single digit improvement year over year for the Xbox in the Starfield month, I
think I was expecting more. I don't know what you think, Lucy.
Definitely, I've thought Starfield would result in a kind of a bigger uptick,
but I guess maybe not. Yeah, it's kind of it's a weird,
a weird one to gauge as well, because you have a year that is
so stacked. It's like, are people actually buying a console just for this
one release or is it just because they hear about everything incredible that's been out
this year and like that's what it like justifies that purchase. So it's an
interesting one. I mean, it's also very there's gonna be ebbs and flows.
I wonder if broader economic factors. Not to get too into that,
but like maybe people are kind of pulling back on a big purchase because it's
also the run up to Christmas. Things are very uncertain and a lot of
sectors right now. Yeah, oh yeah. Bold Gate three is actually kind
of the surprising one. If it's not coming out on Xbox, you would
expect, you know, I see in terms of software, but like maybe
people buying PlayStation for that. Yeah, I think for PlayStation fans, it
was probably like Balder's Kate three is a unknown quantity to them as something coming
from you know, computer RPG and hearing all these great things about it.
But I think it's the kind of game that if you're on PlayStation, you
buy. If you already have a PlayStation, you don't necessarily run out to
get a PlayStation to take a risk on. Is this the kind of game
I'm going to like? Because I think a lot of people don't know if
they're gonna like it until they play it. That said, I think the
EBB and Flow thing you said, it does feel like maybe we are in
a bit of an EBB situation because people were like, I'm gonna get a
PS five next month when Spider Man's here. I'm just gonna wait for that.
So like, I'm not gonna buy it now, I'll wait until that
PlayStation five Spider Man version of the console and the face plates are all out
in store, and I'll just get all of it at the same time,
and so I'm just gonna save my money. Now. I could see that
happening, because we we also do know PS five is going to have a
monster month with Spider Man two. The game is is already it would if
it was like an eighty on Metacritic, it wouldn't have mattered. It still
would have been probably one of the top selling games of the year, if
not the top selling game of the year. And now that it's a low
ninety Metacritic, which is so impossible to get, and people are losing their
mind for it, and it's still Spider Man and it's this big exclusive,
it is just going to just sell a million, million, million, million
copies. And so yeah, the PS five is going to be just fine
this month now in October. So again that EBB and flow. We're going
to see it eb now flow next month and we'll talk about that at that
point. Last little bit here. Accessories spending during the September increased eleven percent
when compared to a year ago, to one hundred and ninety seven million dollars.
Game pad spending increased by fifteen percent in the month compared to a year
ago, while racing controller spinning grew by eighteen percent. I suppose, I
suppose that must be the fortsupervs. Yes, when did Forts Forts of Motorsport
come out? I thought that was also in October. It was October,
but it must make get ready for it prep. And those are the kind
of people that would prep like a month before. Yeah, they really are.
I mean given how like you gotta move all your furniture around, you
gotta get all you gotta fine tune, and you think about your whole life.
Yeah. I do think about my whole life sometimes when it comes to
racing wheels, because I got my racing little right over there, and it's
on the floor, and I don't have a good place for it. So
I'm like I should. I got the TV right here, and I got
a recliner right there in front of it, and that's great, But I'm
like, what if sometimes I move the recliner and then had one of those
real deal like racing seats setups, not like a full like a ten thousand
dollar thing, but one of those like just metal bars and a little racing
chair that you could sit in so that the wheel has a place to sit.
Like I could get one of those and just start playing some racing games.
But I'm like, I don't even play that many racing games. Yeah,
And yet do you have a sit and state and take stock of your
life sometimes and be like you are living the dream? Yeah? Like that.
You can just do that and no one's gonna be like it's it's it's
a heinous we have a supportive family. Uh huh, it's disgusting. It's
not like IM here's what I do. I do take stock, and I
sometimes imagine it as going back in time and finding my ancestors in World War
two and trying to explain my life to them. I always imagine what that
conversation would be like, like they're literally in the bunker in like Germany or
whatever the fuck it was in France. Uh and uh, I'll be like,
Okay, so I set my basement and I play these things called video
games and then I talk about them. And I suppose the easiest way to
explain it is I get paid to have an opinion about it. It's like,
ah, what what skills do you have? Ah? Yeah, these
thumbs bitch take that have fun, have fun with whatever this is. That
meal looks fucked up. I enjoy that. I'm gonna go eat some fast
food that's two minutes away from our house. Yeah. I do take stock,
Lucy, and I never come out feeling great about it. But it's
pretty good stuff. You gotta feel hashtag hashtag blessed. Hash tag blessed exactly
for these accessories them being up like more than ten percent, double digit increasing
accessories. That always says to me, the industry is very healthy. That's
always how I read this. If accessory spinning is up, it means people
are imagining themselves playing video games all through the rest of the year. They're
thinking about, Hey, I'm gonna need another controller because we're going to be
playing a bunch of games when my friends come over and I'm getting a fucking
racing wheel because I'm imagining I'm going to be buying fortsa. If people are
buying controllers, it's because video games are going to continue doing well. So
it's like this good early indicator I think of how the industry is trending.
Okay, we're gonna take a quick break. When we get back, we're
gonna talk about more about Mario Wonder and a whole bunch of news out of
Xbox from an interview that Phil Spencer did with his team. We'll get to
that right after this. We're back. More news, Lucy, Let's get
into Mario Wonder here. This is more of like a quick correction from like
a story we talked about earlier this week where someone's like from that worked on
Mario Wonder said, Yeah, we just felt that we had to make that
Mario Wonder stand out because the movie, and that was like maybe maybe they
saw it during the production or whatever, because there's no way they just saw
it when it came out live. There's not enough time between then and now
to make Mario Wonder what it is thirds out. That might not have been
exactly the case, so the Mario movie had no influence on Wonder's new character
designs, says Developers. This is from Jim Norman at Nintendo Life. We
are just days away from the release of Super Mario Brothers Wonder on Switch,
and as has become something of a tradition, Nintendo Is today released the first
two parts of an All New Asks the Developers interview series about the upcoming game.
The conversation covers a range of topics, including how the team settled on
the theme of Wonder and the changes that have been made to the game's visuals
and sound design. But one section that immediately stood out to us was all
about the influence that Illuminations the Super Mario Brothers movie had on the game.
You might assume that the film's forecasted success, remember both were in development around
the same time, would have weighed heavily on the developer's minds, potentially even
influencing the Bro's new game design, the Brother's new games, the game design.
But truly it's written as Bros with a period, and I'm like,
I know it's Brothers, but it's so weird. Is like, get that
to work in my brain in the UK like the band Bros. Bros.
Yes, I'll just say that from now Super Mario Bros. When asked about
the film's impact on Wonder's expressive character designs, the majority of the interview panel,
which contains the likes of producer Takashi Tesuka, director shiro Shiro Moor,
and sound director Coachi Kondo, among others. Man Coachi Kondo is still doing,
answered in the negative. Art director Masu Nobusatu explained that the team didn't
hear anything about the film's content during development, instead citing the ambition to exceed
new Super Mario Brothers three D models as a more influen reason behind the fresh
character designs. And to me, Lucy, that sounds right. You are
coming off of literal decades of new Super Mario Brothers design that is very sterile,
very safe, very simple, and very cheap. And the one of
the main reasons Nintendo kept going back to it is they could reuse assets.
And most people were like, that's fine, I'm just going to have a
two D Mario game to play with my family. But that had clearly ran
its course and they had to do something, and I think that that's where
all of this came from. And then coming out of the Mario movie and
being like, hey, this is almost as expressive as the Mario movie.
In some ways, it's even more so. Isn't that great? It's like,
yeah, we plan that. Maybe it's like no, not really.
It just kind of came out of a need to do better than what they've
done before. Does that sound right to you? Yeah? I think so,
although I would have loved it if you know, they had like one
of those moments, you know that when mia Zaki goes. I strongly feel
like this is an insult to life itself about like Chris Prows. You know,
maybe, but it's just behind the scenes. But I can't remember who
dropped this in Caane high winded, Uh, did you see the thing about
the live commentary. I did not, I just dropped it in the in
our chat in crew talk. The game originally had live commentary and you could
pick between a generic voice or a sunder version. What wait, what does
that mean? How does that work? I don't know. I don't know,
like like a rude, rude but like still wants to be around you
despite being like the rudeness is implying something. It's it's rudeness with an implication.
Yeah, that's commentary. Okay, yes, explain. Oh yeah,
she did so, Maury said. Tessa san once asked can't we have live
commentary? And then blah blah blah, and then Hi Sheets then said,
we actually spent about six months seriously developing live commentary. We tried adding voices
to match the place actions. Even though we've added various voices, questions like
who's doing this commentary is tied to pop up amongst the team, and then
maury Son says even the team was evenly split, those in favor of those
against. The default voice was very generic, like a newscaster, but you
had the option to switch into a sunder a commentary, and apparently, according
to their playtest, quite a few people were switching it to that it's like
going to Dick's last resort, which is that restaurant where the waiters and waitresses
are very rude to you. Yeah. I like that the sound of that.
Yeah, so is this actually they're saying it's not in the game,
but it was playing in it, but they were working on it, okay,
And then I guess everyone's talking about the flowers, So the flowers the
compromise there. Oh okay, I could see that, yes, because that
does have its own voice actor. Yeah, instead of having like a live
commentary, then they've got this little kay interesting little freaks. I hope they
reallysed everyone in Chatta saying DLC, I'm with you at Badly Big Great just
releases free DALC. It's I heard that. When you originally said it,
I thought it was going to be director's commentary, Like I thought it was
TESTUK like talking over and explaining what's going on as a nerd. I was
like, that's very exciting. But the idea of them getting play by play
John Madden style over your gameplay, that's also that. I would like to
see how Nintendo would pull that off. I would like to see what that
would actually sound like. Yeah, Xbox Boss pledges no more exclusive Call of
Duty skins or timed content. This is from Andy Robinson f VGC. Phil
Spencer has reiterated Xbox's pledge to maintain one hundred percent parody for Call of Duty
across all platforms now that Microsoft has acquired Creator Activision. Speaking on the Official
Xbox Podcast, Microsoft's head of gaming suggested that the kind of exclusive skins and
timed exclusivity on content drops such as betas seen on PlayStation would no longer happen
now that Xbox is in charge for Call of Duty players on PlayStation and in
the future Nintendo. I want you to feel one hundred percent a part of
the community, he said. I don't want you to feel like there's content
you're missing out on, skins you're missing out on, there's timing, there's
timing that you're missing out on. That's not the goal. The goal is
one hundred percent parody across all platforms. As much as we can for launching
content. I say as much as we can on parody, because clearly some
platforms have resolutions and frame rate differences just based on performance, but there's nothing
else what your platform the series, Yes, exactly yeah, I don't think.
I don't Yeah, I don't think you mean it means it in like
such a derogatory way, right, He probably means it like, uh uh,
hey, let's the switch is doing as best it can, because how
he means it's out there really just huffing and puffing and we're on its side.
This No, it's away. It's always so funny because it's like it's
it's the thing that it is Xbox, like that's the thing. It's like
talking about oh yeah, other platforms, but it's like that it's our platform.
Yeah, And uh, I definitely get the sense here that this is
the kind of thing where, yeah, this we are so magnanimous and we're
so thoughtful. But it definitely comes back for it. And I believe that
they believe they are that this is how they feel. But you know,
when you would trace it back far enough, get back to the point where
like they had to convince a regulator so they said they would do this,
and now they're committing to doing this. It's like when you try to trick
your brain and be like I love doing dishes, let's go do some dishes
that would be great right now, and you're like trying to convince yourself.
It's like that kind of works a little bit. You could kind of control
your brain and tell it like something, it'll be like do I and I
think that's kind of what's happening here. We're like, no, we love
this parody and all this stuff. I don't you know. I don't think
that Xbox ever had some alternative evil plan here either. But I do think
that them kind of coming out and being very proud that they're not going to
have the time to exclusive but anymore anymore is more a sign of like,
this is the agreement that they've already made, and if they went back on
this, regulators could still come after them. So they're not going to do
that. That's it. Yeah, I was gonna say, how much of
that is what I so actually want to do and versus a regulatory demand.
Also, someone someone intowitch chat was like big Xbox hater, Lucy, like
as a joke, I assume you should go nextbo I don't know. Yeah,
And it's like the good news for us is like what they want to
do and what they are doing, it doesn't matter if what comes down.
It's like this is nice. Yeah, sure, then that's a positive,
I suppose, and I think I think it is a positive, but I
also, like I wonder how this is going to continue to play out,
like in like, I really hope that this is not just something that they
are you know, like for a long long time, Phil has been talking
about, you know, how important it is, like he wants to be
on the side of gamers making sure that franchises like Minecraft or on other platforms
like Switch and you know, partnerships to the Nintendo et cetera, et cetera,
et cetera. And so I really, I mean speak to see what
happens now that Activisi and Blizzard King are part of Xbox, Like it's huge
for them to make sure everything is still on every platform. But it's like
I hope that it comes from I don't know, Like I hope he just
kind of sticks to that message. Yeah, I'm with you. I hope
that the incentives that are beyond the regulator regulators, which I think is the
like prime incentive here originally, but obviously I think that they are finding other
reasons that this makes sense and other reasons to feel good about doing things this
way. I hope that that stuff is strong enough to kind of keep them
on the straight and narrow with these things. I whenever we talk about the
way these companies behave and where where executives behave, I'm always operating on their
the assumption that everyone is on the same page as me, as we are
under a system where incentives are kind of screwed up. And when I go
to the shop to buy a sandwich in the store owner there's make the sandwich.
They want to charge me as much as possible for that sandwich, well,
giving me the least amount as possible. Those are the incentives of the
system. But I'm like, I'm not going to carry around this specific angst
for that person who lives in the system and is just behaving the same way
I would if I was running a sandwich shop. So I'm not going to
criticize every single individual running a video game company for that stuff that I think
is a systemic problem. So if like, when we talk about this,
like, oh, hope he stays on the straight and narrow, I know
that he's being bent towards the desire to get the most for his investors.
I do think though, that he thinks, at least it seems this way
that if they do behave in a way that is mostly positive towards the people
buying their stuff, that that will have a better long term a result than
if they were to have short term gains of like what can we do to
basically charge the most while giving the little? Right now, we'll see how
that turns out, But for now, I'm hopeful as much as I can
be under capitalism and what could we do? Continue with Phil Spencer more stuff
out of that interview that he did with that podcast. Phil Spencer is all
in if teams want to revisit classic Xbox and Activission franchises. This is from
Jonas at Game Reactor. It didn't take long last year when Microsoft announced that
they were going to buy Activision Blizzard before fans started making lists of classic franchises
they would like to see brought back and suggesting studios that could or that should
develop games created by other teams. Now that Activision Blizzard is officially part of
Microsoft, the wish list has grown even further. But is this something that
Xbox Phil Spencer would even allow? It turns out the answer is yes,
as Spencer visited the question on the latest episode of the Official Xbox Podcast to
talk about the acquisition. When he got the question about teams reviving old beloved
series, he said, if teams want to go back and revisit some of
the things that we have and do a full focus on it, I'm going
to be all in. My question to you, Lucy is do you think
do you think that that kind of thing can happen frequently a studio going back
and bringing back something that people have been asking for. If it's this sort
of thing of if a team wants to do it as opposed to maybe Phil
Spencer being proactive about it, what do you think, Ah, that's yeah,
I mean because you have I mean what's the scale of it. Are
you gonna go all quadruple A like perfect Dark or is it gonna be more
of like a what's that phrase of like a little a little group Skunkworks team,
Skunkworks team Ken of just going in, coming up with the protype,
coming up with some like get the feel together and then pitching it like I
would. I think that would be awesome. But also at the same yeah,
why is it called that time? It's like, if you look at
the realities of video game development right now, how expensive everything is, how
feasible, is that realistically good to be I think in terms of all of
the franchises that Xbox now owns, in terms of the studios that Xbox now
own, Certainly they have resourcing, but at the end of the day,
it's going to be Matt Booty and Phil Spencer taking a look and and like,
are we going to put our eggs in this basket? Or are those
eggs best place We've got a lot of food metaphors today, are those eggs
very best placed in a different kind of scenario, like supporting a bigger project
rather than taking a risk on a smaller one, Right, And that's something
that the industry in general is kind of like dealing with. It's like money
is like games is so so so expensive. So I loved I would love
and like even this quote that you're going to read from Phil, it's like,
definitely there's opportunity there. I think it's also going to be you know,
they're not They're not going to say, oh, well, you really
like that franchise, so we'll give you ten million dollars to do something on
it. It's it's going to be a way more considered approach than yes,
fuck it, let's ball, let's bring back everything. So yeah, so
let's let's let us read this quote from Phil who says, I do think
with Game Pass, we have the ability to maybe pick a couple franchises every
year and almost to like a revisit it, like revisit it. I just
are like a revisited I think what he's saying. And he said, I
just made up that term, So good for you. Fells when the CEO
is like, I made up a new word being the boss, Like,
I'm just gonna make up a tim and that's what's gonna happen. I just
think about CEOs. I was dressed me crazy. Is how proud they are
of like just kind of put a little spin on the words. Learnings is
my least favorite word. It's like that there there was a word for that.
It was called lessons, and you're just starting learnings because you heard another
executive say it. But okay, so he says, like a revisited.
I just made up that term. So it's not a brand on a box.
But you know, I teas about things like hex in just because I
remember playing it as a kid. I have no plan for that. But
I do think when you look across all of the franchises that are part of
our teams. There's an opportunity for us to go back, even if that's
just a recognize the moment and what those things meant in gaming's history, and
do something right with it, make it available to people through game pass.
I think there's an opportunity, and I think so him saying this, I
think this continues to kind of put a shed a light of like how he
thinks about it, and it needs to be studio led and when they are
going to have a space open in their heart and then they're budgeting for ideas
like this. But I think for studios, you hear this, and I
think it's like, you can maybe bring an idea like that to us as
long as you have the big thing you're working on in production as well.
And the reason I say that is I look at something like Obsidian, which
does have several big projects in the works, and then they were able to
do grounded as well. It's like, well, if you can spare the
people and you have an idea that you're passionate about, we are we will
say yes. When it comes to do you need money for this thing that
you're passionate about. That's the one thing that we've kind of a little bit
of insight we've had and this does come from that the Psycho Knots two documentary.
I'm trying to think of the name of it. Yeah, a psychonots
Outlaw dream. I can't remember what it's called, but that huge thing that
had. There's some small parts where they do meet with Matt Booty after they
get acquired by Microsoft, and you know the really, Tim Shaffer's really worried
about, Man, we got to ask for more money. We need more
money for this game. We've never really done this at Microsoft before. And
he goes and asks Matt Pooty matput He's like, yeah, sure, here's
here's a bunch more money. And I think that's probably going to be the
experience of a lot of these teams. If you have an idea that you
are, that you've been working on, and that you that you think you
can bring to market, and you have a plan for it, and you
go to ask money for it, I think you're probably gonna get a yes,
as long as all that stuff is in place. But I think a
studio just being like, are we going to pick a name out of a
hat and just start building a pitch around that. I don't think that's gonna
work. You're going to have to have a really strong idea. And even
then it's like, is that the kind of thing that you could see through
to the end or is it like you start it and it's a false start
and you kind of give up on it, And a lot of these things
end up getting canceled. I wouldn't be surprised by that as well. But
I mean, because even from the Bethesda acquisition, have we seen any other
than the rumored Oblivion remake, I'd think they would be mining right. I'm
trying to think a little bit more like Blacks. You brought up like no
word on fall Out New Vegas two, for example, which seems like such
an easy right. I did hear that there was some conversations between Microsoft and
and but that's an obsidian about a New Vegas two. That was a very
very early conversation about maybe we should do this and whether or not that turns
in anything real. There's so many steps between that game coming out and what
I've heard has happened there. Yeah, bring back wet where we need Wet
back. Please don't put that thing of me putting two words together accidentally,
everybody. I'm so sorry, Jesus Christ, I hate myself. Okay.
The figure is you were saying, like, what have they brought back any
of these old games? Know? What they happened doing though, is like
smaller little projects that they feel proud about and that's a pentiment and grounded and
stuff like that. That's I think that's maybe what's more likely to happen these
studios. We're under Microsoft now, and yeah, we can go bring back
something that already exists. But now is a chance when we can actually make
that game we always talked about making, and we can take a chance on
that, and Microsoft's gonna say yes because it might fit in Game Pass.
So I think that will kind of the opportunity costs there might lean more towards
these studios wanted to do something original, as opposed to being like, oh,
we're the team that's going to take over Banjo. Excuse me. I
think that's less likely. All right, let's go here and say that.
Yes, Paradox Interactive parts ways with hair brain Schemes after the Lamplighter League.
This is from Zoe Handley at Destructoid, Paradox Interactive and Hair Brain Schemes have
announced that the two companies will be partying ways. This comes after Paradox expressed
the disappointment with the performance of the Lamplighters League. Paradox has acquired were originally
acquired the company in twenty eighteen. This is a kind of kind of came
out of nowhere a little bit, and it's a little bit unfortunate, Lucy,
because the way that this kind of went is Paradox was like looking at
how the game was going to perform, and then it came out and they're
like, we are writing this off, basically saying that we're going to take
a huge loss on this game. I do believe they've laid off many of
the people that work there and now they're kind of setting them off on their
own and saying, go fin for yourselves. The hair the people that remained
at Hair Brain Schemes say that they are looking for new publishing partners, new
opportunities, uh, and they probably the good news is the video game industry
is so desperate for content and talent, they probably will be able to find
something. But it does feel a little bit like a raw deal of Hey,
the lablader League's League, it's it's biggest sin seems to be it was
rushed out to market, and that was very unlikely the choice of the people
that worked at hair Brain Schemes, right, yeah, yeah, I mean
I despite you know, being in the video game Trench's day and day out,
I think I think we walked past this at packs. Yeah, we
did. Other than that, like, I've barely heard anything about it,
And it's very difficult right now for any game to cut through the noise.
Yeay, this one came out with that was like a sixty ish Metacritic,
which is just to death nail this year, right exactly, And it's the
Immortals of Avim curse too, right, It doesn't It doesn't matter who is
your publisher if like, fundamentally the game is not good, and fundamentally,
if the game is not good in a year like this full of nines and
tens across the board, yeah you're going to struggle. But I mean,
yeah, didn't didn't Paradox didn't. They lay off a bunch of people before
the game even launched too, So they've been laying people off for a minute
now. Yeah. Yeah, And then it's it's rough that they that this
is happening to the team, like you know, getting acquired thinking that you've
got that security from a bigger publisher, more money. But like, as
we've seen many times, that is not the case. Look at what's happening
with Bandcamp, for example, getting getting acquired by Epic, sold off and
then off your team is out, and so all the best of the folks
that her brain schemes, it seems like they've got a really bomb deal.
Yeah, this is the team that did a Battle Tech the the really well
received, a tactical mech game, not just well received, beloved. A
lot of people really really really love that game, and you're like, man,
they must have been working on a sequel, right, but I don't
know. Lamp Lighters League is one that I did. I had some curiosity
about. It is an Indiana Jones style thing with tactics and stuff like that,
and it's I was like, Okay, I'll check that out if it's
good, and then you know, you see the reviews and it's like it's
really broken and people I remember talking to people who were playing it for review
on Xbox because it's in game Pass, and they're like, this is the
game that has caused my Xbox to crash more than any other it's in like
the several dozen times it cost of the crash. Jesse from Xbox Era said
that he played the game for thirty hours and made ten hours of progress because
he lost so many saves due to the crashing, and it's like, that's
the kind of stuff you just can't launch. You you can't watch game in
that state and expect anything. Of course, the game was was dead on
arrival. If that's the kind of stuff people are hearing about it. Did
you see, speaking of crashes, did you see the Mortal Kombat crash log
thing? That's yes, that is wild one gigabyte. Okay, so apparently
when when Mortal Kombat crashes, it sets aside one gigabyte for the crash report.
It's like one gigabyte even the crash. That's got to be a bug.
And so even the crash reports, that's incredible stuff. I didn't think
it was. I did notice that some of the tweets about it were like,
oh man, Western studios are at it again, and I'm like,
I know a lot of what Western studios make very big games in terms of
the size it goes on your your hard disk, But do games from Japan
not have like large file sizes. I just I didn't get that that was
an East versus West thing. But whatever. Maybe well, I mean,
given the the like a lot of stuff is for the Switch, you know,
maybe they're just you're right, maybe they're much more concerned with optimization because
of the Switch. That makes sense. Yeah, but then File Fantasy seven
Rebirth two discs and that's a marketing feature though, so it is, and
that's double the quality there, it is absolutely Uh Okay, let's hit these
last couple of stories. Actually, just this last one here. Nintendo reminds
us a Switch version of Hogwarts Legacy is still coming from Alex Hopley, a
game reactor. After a few lengthy delays, it seems that Hogwarts Legacy is
finally on its way to Nintendo Switch. Fans of the Wizarding World will be
able to take their adventures on the go on the fourteenth of November, and
digital pre orders are available now. Some screenshots came out. They look pretty
good. I'm still of the opinion that there's just no way that this game
can run decently on the Switch. We'll see, Yeah, go tell the
screenshots look solid, But I mean, I don't know, I don't think
we have any video of the game in motion yet, which is what I'm
really kind of waiting for. And even then, I'm not waiting for a
trailer from them. W B those Warnerable there's they always lie to me.
Yeah, like you see there's no UI on anything. Yeah, that's that's
what I was wanting to look Those screenshots. I'm like, please feel a
bit bull shoddy to me. But who am I to judge before I play
a game amongst us can judge? Well, we'll see. Uh. I
don't think that they wanted to get through the end of this year without this
game coming out on the Switch. I think they want to have it out
for the holidays, and November fourteenth seems like the kind of the good time
to get out before Black Friday basically is what they're Thanksgiving is the twenty first
this year, right, Is that the fourth Thursday of the month. Let
me double check here. I don't know, man, it's the twenty third.
It's it's always the fourth Thursday of the month. In case anyone ever
asks you again, there you go. Uh so, yes, the fourteenth
is basically a week before that. That's kind of the last chance to get
it out. By then we'll see I'm gonna be very curious about that one
though. All right, let's get to the poll from yesterday I asked,
and I have it right over here somewhere. By somewhere, I mean,
I'm gono have to bring it up again. On YouTube dot com slash at
Giant Bomb slash community, you can you can read the question what are you
playing this week or what are you going to play this week? Marvel Spider
Man two, Super Mario Brothers Wonder or Sonic Superstars. Six percent said Sonic
Superstars, forty four percent say Marvel Spider Man two, and fifty percent say
Super Mario Brothers Wonder. That tag team of Spider Man and Mario Wonder Lucy
is pretty incredible because like those are rich, yes, really highly rated,
and then they're probably there's a there's a possibility like Zelda's Out and Hugard's Legacy
are out, and they were they were like very they sold very well.
There's a possibility these two games could end up out selling both of those even
and be like the best selling games of the year. So a big,
big weekend for video games, isn't it? Isn't that right? Addie?
I want you. What do you want? Where's the That's a good question.
It's right here, dude. There you go, There you go.
I gotta turn it on for you. There you go. Okay, you
just want to go to hit the input button and go to PlayStation. All
right, she's been playing all the Sonic games. She's playing, playing,
she playing, She's bouncing back between Frontiers and Superstars actually, so oh my
god, she's enjoying it so cute. All right, Well, I get
another pole question going, Lucy, what do you have going on? Where
can people find you? All that good stuff? So we are actually recording
this week's episode. Jeff justs was our adventure tomorrow, so that will be
going up as soon as possible. Get two episodes of Cowboy be Bob.
I did a big I love how much Jeff loves it. Yes. We
were at Mike Maharty's wedding on Friday and he we were having a meal,
which is lovely beautiful wedding, uh, and he literally was like, oh
my god, beaboup guys. I mean every time every time like you talked
about Jeff jeffs, he just like has a stop. W'd be like,
have we got the anime ever? Made. I'm like, yep, that's
correct. Mike'spiegel like, oh yeah, so we're recording that tomorrow. I
haven't watched the episodes yet. I'm not sure which onesday. Pobob is also
leaving Netflix at the end of the month, so coming over to Crunchy Role,
I guess like me. I did a big timeline of Cyberpunk last week.
It went up on Sunday over on game Spot. If you want to
watch that this week on Friends for second as well. We've got Brian Intaha
coming in talk about Spider Man two. It was a very fun chat.
Do you give me a favor and ask him this. I'm also seeing him
tomorrow, so ask him. In the game, there is a scene where
and this is just a a not even really a spoiler, everybody, I
promise you, I promise you, it's not really a spoiler. There's a
scene where Mary Jane gets frustrated because her story is not going to get in
the paper because a hack reporter wrote a shitty story with the headline tweet yes
can you ask mine? He asked them if that's from his experience working at
EGM with Shoe, because when I worked with Shoe at bit moob and then
at games b uh that's one of the cliches that I remember he hated the
most is Tiger Lions, Tigers and bears. Oh my, if you do
that construction and a headline, he would lose his mind. And uh so
I asked Brian if that's a reference to that or for that's just coincidence,
because I can't imagine that it's a coincidence from a guy that was like at
e GM at that time, we're going a shoe, so especially especially when
you're trying to illustrate that that's that it's a hack reporter, like that's the
point of the scene. So yeah, can you message that. Can you
do that? Yes? Absolutely, and then tell him that I said money
had money had money hat and fragile Eagle. I'll message you that as well.
Oh yeah. And then the other thing is we go spot on on
Friday. Uh Don Yosi has asked what it's going to be about. I
don't know yet. We've got that meeting at eleven am, so I'll find
out that that's up on Friday too. Oh. I have the new poll
question, do you ever buy games that you know are bad? Yes?
Or no? I guess is a tough one because for me, I'm like,
I do track down these bad games, but I have my waste of
getting them without having to pay money for um, so it's a little bit
unfair. I don't know if I would have ever bought Skull Island Rise of
calling for forty dollars or thirty two dollars something, you know, the introductory
sale on Steam and knowing it was bad. Back in the day, I
was always so scared of wasting the few opportunities I got to ask for video
games for my parents for like birthdays and Christmas on a bad game. And
I think that gave me a real aversion to that for a long time,
where it's like I'm not going to waste my time on something that the reviews
aren't glowing, and I think I missed out on some some like stuff that
I would have enjoyed that was, you know, most people thought were mediocre.
But now I'm at a point where it's like, I definitely want to
be playing as many bad games that are like Marquee bad games as possible because
I think there's yeah, maybe it's the Blake Club miss of it, but
having that perspective on gaming and like how you could do things so wrong still
is really fun. So we'll talk about that on Games Morning is tomorrow here
on Giant Bomb. Speaking a Giant Bomb, we will have let's see Blake
Club later today. Mike should be Major Mitch excuse me, should be finishing
up his tour in Mortal Kombat Special Forces on the PS one and then I
can't think there's anything else today but tomorrow voicemail, dunk truck, stuff like
that for tomorrow. Also Thursday Night throw Down TNT for Halo Infinite. Get
your Halo Infinite downloaded. We'll have some fun with that. That will be
around I think one pm Eastern. And then for if you see a Hamlet
of Texas asked what time for a Blake Club today, I think we're doing
that the normal time, which is two thirty pm Eastern, and about that
puts it about two and a half hours from now, so we'll see you
then. All right, Lucy, thank you so much for talking with me
about video games today. I super appreciate it. Now to do the rest
of my stuff for the day. Yeah, I thank you everybody for listening.
You're the best audience in gaming. Until next time, have a good
one, take care of yourself and goodbye. How do you get out of
this level? You gotta start and then go back. You gotta go back
to the map.