Hey everybody, it's Tuesday. Welcome to the Giant BombCast, Episode eight five,
eight oh five, coming to you from my hotel room because somehow,
for some reason, whenever we're all together, we have to record content in
my hotel room. It's just the one that smells the best. That's right,
Thank you, Okay, I'll take I'm your host, Jana Chella,
joined by Code Captain of the Ship as always, Jeff Grub Howardy. How
you doing Jan? I'm doing great. It's a little cold. If you're
watching the video for this, Uh, there's something slightly off, and that's
uh, Mike Naughties here. Hey everybody, I'm sorry, Michael kind of
a way to my first my first in person podcast. That sounds right.
Yeah, yeah, it's off because I don't know how to match Mike's immaculate
vibe exactly, his energy, his energy. Yeah, how are you feeling?
Like? I was trying. I was going to be like pretending really
low energy. After you did that, I was like, no, that's
bad. Ray, I'm feeling great. Man. Mike's had an interesting morning.
He discovered the hand vagina. I was trying to teach him that if
you like do this, if you're hand, he's putting his he's putting his
fingers in his knuckles and like bending it towards me. It kind of looks
like inverse corn rows like that, like the hair, the hair corn rows
of corn trying to trying to show you know, you're trying to pay the
picture with words, right, Yeah, But then I was taught something else.
What was that? The hand vagina trick? Yeah, and the hand
begin I never saw that you need a friend. And it's not how executive
stand when not on any three stage that is also vagina exactly. Uh,
the authority leading author already on hand vaginas Lucy James. I was gonna make
another joke then, but I want good morning. Yeah, probably hostel room,
John, thank you. We've all spent a lot of time in here
this year. Oh yeah yeah yeah it's uh. I normally explode out of
my clothing and my luggage and then having to be somewhat semi presentable. Shock.
How oh yeah actually yeah explode right yeah yeah, do it? Yeah.
Uh. And of course we're joined by t Moore, who say,
oh, you just saw this the way which makes me the most time.
But you also love the comfiest I'm very comfy. Yeah, I like the
stance you got going on. Dam if you can fall asleep, we're not
gonna wake you up, all right, if you if you know, not
off like just my diffuse see about the huge I cleaned it every morning?
Is that is that guy who fell asleep in your first panel that the forces
had to wake him up with you? There's no shout out section this this
week. But as that guy that's living out, that's sliving, that's sliving
it out. Oh yeah, sliving it away. You can only do at
packs and you know, tam Lucy, this is Hill's first packs. Y'all.
See any fun games? Good talk about games, gaming, any fun
games. So the only game I've played thus far has been Pacific Drive.
Okay, well I'm going to play Thank goodness you're here. Lates it oct
Yeah we checked that out. Yeah, excited, but no Pacific Drive.
We were all there. I gotta say, I'm really into it. So
I just watched you play. Yeah we all did, Yes, we all
did. That's right. You gave the control yeah you know, you gave
the CONTROLA to the one person who can't drive, and yes it wise,
it was a lot of fun to watch so the vibes I was getting and
Tam you told me this. I think Outer Wilds with the car and the
Pacific Northwest. That is a very good touchdowne for that games, the half
of now that we've sold. Yeah, and I don't know if it's actually
true, if it's just like five rids it. Yeah, my eternal,
Like you really need to find something that's correct, right, I'm on that
journey too. Yes, And it does have that kind of like hands and
open space. Weird things are happening. Maybe you'll understand it a few hours
down the line, but it would be cool. Who you do. Yeah,
so basic gets it's a rogue light where you you're you're in the vehicle
and it's a old station wagon and there's the guy, the developer, the
creator. I think it's in the creative director's name is Alex I think yeah,
and he it's been like, you know, there's maybe something more going
on with the vehicle. As you get it, you get that idea it's
your wife, it's yours. It turns out it's your wife and my wife.
Okay, thank you. And it's so you get in the car and
you take it down the world and you're gonna discover these weird anomalies and you
don't really know what to do the first time, But then the second time
around, it's like, Okay, maybe I have a better idea. Now
I can push further out and I can build my station wagon in such a
way that it's better able to survive the world. And I'm super into rogue
lights. I think it sounds like a really good idea. Yeah, I
heard you want to turn everything to a rogue light idea. Armed core will
be better for the It absolutely don't disagreement. Yeah I don't. I'm really
mad about it, and I have a lot of opinions and an ex friend.
It was really fun and also like you're handled because as you're driving around
there are love crafty and I mean it's definitely like I'm getting. I mean,
it's a specific Northwest so Stephen King vibes were really heavy. Yess you
mean excuse me, Owen wake vibes. Of course, that's what's the joke
I called the car Christie. Yes, yes you have to, but yeah,
you could just be driving going to collect something because as well, there's
no map, you have a compass on the dashboard. You have to physically
look off. It's even call it the passenger seat map. It's the big
it's like a car, yeah yeah, and then you'll be looking at the
map to to figure out where you're going, and then some oddity will just
come and grab your car, right and they're like, you know, some
someone like you know, the half life like tongue things. Yeah, it's
reminded me of exactly, but there seems like there's a whole variety of things.
And then there was like the random or the procedure you generated as a
procedu generate like a just like a random innocence, yeah, maybe a lightning
storm. He was lightning, or he's had a world event wilderment. And
then what was it called It was instability happening, so that this cunsting count
that's the timer that like that it's very much of the roguelade element love exactly,
So you're gonna be able to survive for a certain amount of time.
But it's basically like a bottle way right, and yes, exactly, it
became this it's huge storm, and then there was a circle that was getting
smaller exactly like a battle right now, very different than what I originally thought
it was the same too. Yeah. I kind of just imagine a maybe
a low key market grim and a narrative driven thing where you go across the
end you're going to discover stuff like my strange addictions, where like I falls
in love with his car exactly. Yeah, well, what what's the name
of the Chase? Chase? But have you seen the update? I not?
No, he loved Chase it. No he hasn't. He has another
truck, that fucking slut. Yeah, Chase died. Chase died. Okay,
never mind, I'm sorry that haven't. You're allowed to love again everyone
everyone else. When we're talking about people who they called people specifically called pet
think that's that's great. I just think that's I think they Yeah, I
think that is mainly to do with the car itself upgrading it. Yeah,
it's like, did you think that's much Internet and you're fucking all these orbs
or something? Yeah. Oh remember when we were just at the petrol station
and bits fell out of the sky hmm open just a bunch of call pots,
oh right, and it was like cool, like a bug and we
were like, was that one hole? Yeah, and don't worry about it.
It's like the general idea. It's like it's weird stuff and you're not
gonna understand the first time. You're probably gonna die. But like the whole
loop is figuring these things out and being more confident and building the car in
such a way that you could survive. But I also kind of like,
how because you are driving a station wagon, you can't just drive it over
any and everything. Right, you are very little and it's uh and he
he said he had a a buicle Saber. It was his first car talking
about this. My first car was a next day shedding Alabu. And the
way that this suspension worked on the car when you were driving it, it's
that big rocky boat on wheels and it looks so realistic. And he's like,
yeah, that was very important to me. That's like, that's how
I remember cars being it. And it's like you're gonna have to deal with
that, which is not great at driving off road when but you have to
drive off road when the instability started happening, Lucy, when you were driving
away from it. I loved a little touch up like the side view mirror
just se yeah, and another one is as the rear view review as well,
so that and then like you kind of can't overstate that because when the
instability was happening, it's like this big red storm and time view and like
maybe that's reflected around you or you can see it on the on the horizon,
but in the side view mirror, like you were driving, it was
taking up the whole thing and it was like blowing up treats behind you like
Independence Day kind of yea, but yeah, but also let's not forget the
point where I was getting out of the car and picking up those things and
I turned around and they'd spawned in mannequins. Mannequins. Oh yeah, in
place like in the Doctor New episode statues. There's a lot going on.
It looks very cool and it's uh that game has been shown at a so
many state of play before. I think so someone's been kind of involved with
it, and I think it's kind of it's gonna have a they launch.
I think Fine Wood Studios is developing here, but I don't know who's publishing.
Yeah, I think they said they had a couple of publishing cons.
It's gonna be on five seam Epic Games though, yes, right, yeah,
it's definitely gonna BEPS when the first for comic Weakness and now if you
want. Yeah, but I think it looks I came out of watching you
play being very excited about published by Kapler O. Yeah's it. Yeah,
Yeah, okay, kept is very good. But other than that, y'all,
how's how's your first packspen? It's been awesome? Yeah? Great,
it's so nice to meet everyone. Yeah when everyone's so nice. Yeah,
everyone's been so lovely coming up. But we're also not very used to that.
Yeah. I think this is our first live event for many of us
as Giant Bomb is sort with like a lot of people for Yeah, I
mean like the games, good stuff like that. Yeah, but that's like
mostly just industry. Yeah and that's fine, that's great. Yeah, those
people were paid to be nice to us. Y. Yeah, I mean
we have a few people cover count as well, but that was just the
two of us, Like sure, you guys were now were the people are
just walking up to us and talking to us And I'm saying, I don't
see like that friendliness that you don't real Yeah, yeah, it was like
a connection, right, they're mentioning it's like it's mass feels to see how
like close the content gets close to the people, right, I can't see
it, Yeah, to see the other wire that it's not just a content,
it's not just content. I think like it's not just hashtag content,
like people being hashtag content. Yeah, wow, shout shoutouts will always be
clothing for the presies too. There were so many people that we wrote down
before the panel, like everyone who came up to us. Oh, we
wrote down a bunch of names of everyone who said Hi, that's a good
one too. We wanted to like give them shout outs during the actual podcast
the life shows. Sorry, and we were running out of time, but
like, there were so many people that came and they came to the bar
afterwards, and yet great more game works and it was a good time.
I beat Mike and street fight or three thirds trying to talk about that,
and I think we should talk about it. I think it's important. I
got to Mars kack On to get me back. Yes, we've been filming
a general Packs weekend vlog. Still figuring out how to stitch that together.
We'll get there eventually to cut with us bouvery yes, yes, constantly tost
cheer thing. Oh yeah that's good. Yes, Yeah, it's been fun.
We do the first person of that hand Vagina thing at some point now
I think will be band the first look. Can we hey, can we
name this episode hand Vagina high vat invert corn though or whatever verset corn?
Maybe? Sure? Right, Okay, I actually have to pay attention to
this episode because there's not a Google doc. And don't worry, we're here
for you a terrible memory channel. Yeah, speaking about your terrible memory grub.
Is there anything you've played that you've enjoined? Yeah? I played It's
this in the game Super Mario Brothers Wonder. Oh yeah, we all played
that. Yeah, we all played that together and I had a great time
playing that with you guys. Full Nintendo Live situation in general, I've really
enjoyed. So the thing would also have a video of that specifically coming.
The thing with the Nintendo Live is it was very hard for people to get
tickets. Before we got to talk to PR, I tried to get tickets
and it was only gonna be for one day and they denied. It was
like, no, you did not get the lottery. And it's like,
oh man, that stinks. But when you're on the show floor there,
you're like, this is nice because it's not packed. The Super Mario Brothers
Wonder line is so short that like, yeah, we went back a second
time and did not even really win up. Yeah I got to play that
time. You got to play exactly because the first time it was US four.
The longest slime we waited and was to meet KK Slider. Yeah,
yeah, yeah, we we went back and we like metal. We did
a bunch of photops with a bunch of other ones as well. It was
Nintendo Live is a really good time. It was a lot of fun.
But Super Mario Brothers Wonder in particular, I mean, I guess the big
thing, the highlight thing is I think when people think of four player Judy
Mario, they're gonna think of the time that their friend threw them down a
pit, or when they were trying to make a jump together and someone bump
bumped on their head and not have done a pit. They did get rid
of that good. Yes, yeah, I know that Dan Records, they
were are going to be upset about it. I actually spoke to the director
Test Plus and and oh yeah, that's right, you can have. The
interview is probably going to be up on Games Plus. Tescaa Ta has been
working on Mario or for forty years, both of both of them have been
working on the They've they've worked on Mario and zy on the think some of
the Metro games, like in various capacities, think O, the Tessica worked
on Weeks Away. Can you just want to that's my boy? And you
said, like they took that out? Oh often, Like did they expect
that to be the case when they put that feature in? And they were
like, yeah, kind of, we saw it happening, but we also
why they cook it out, And they were like, because you end up
having characters be just so drastically different sizes and shapes that it can really cause
problems with collision. So like, if you're a big big Mario and like
we haven't seen them, because you can turn it into an elephant. Yeah,
you can also a bigger, bigger, bigger monitor, like and you
get the real bad short yeah. Yeah. If you like pick someone up
with that, it's just gonna be like a bit o, it's gonna be
weird. Yeah. Yeah. And also you need to collide with the world
itself, so like and we've had the Mario games where you do collide and
that it still exist. It's nice to have this one that's much more like
the ray Man games, where it is about everyone just getting to the finish
line and doing fun stuff on your own next to each other. We talked
to him about like the pacing of the game, because it's like one thing
I know is is that there was no time or on the stage, it's
time that it's it's also time for that to go, right. Yeah,
So they yeah, they talked about it. They were like we spoke to
the youngest off and then the youngest off, but like do we need to
have that and we don't make a lot of sense wherever they intend it or
not. But it slows the game down so that you don't have to rush
and you can actually enjoy what's around. That reminds it's like all these things
that are still somehow like handed down from Arcade generations, Like it was just
Brio Odyssey is like why do we have lives? Is that a thing actually
anymore? So so that like that that brings it's like, okay, so
like where's the difficulty because in recent to the Mario games, the difficulty is
can you get these like three hidden coins before the timer runs out and then
get to the end and it's like, Okay, that's fine, and they
still kind of have that, but they actually now have like difficulty ratings on
the levels. Yeah, so it's like this is like a one star rating
and this is a three star rating, and they're optional. You can go
past them if you want, and so it's like they're finding other ways to
make it more challenging and the three star to cook about the weekend. Maybe
it's two star. That's great. There's like it's fine, you're running in,
that's all right, and up until like a set piece moment happens,
and then it's like the difficulty comes in making kill all of you can navigate
way over there, and it's like and it was like it really was like
a set piece, and it was like the level is just basically you're gonna
get the driller hat, and at least one of the persons with the driller
hat is gonna have to break up these pieces so everyone can get out of
the way of this giant thing falling down on top of you. And it
was like really fun and harrowing and everyone working together. Yeah, but also
Daisy turns into an elephin and I get it say that Daisy Trunk like killing.
Building off of what you said, Greb, I feel like like even
intentionally trying to play, not trying to grief my friends or co workers playing
New Super Mario Brothers, you would just wind up happenings way. Yeah,
yeah you can't. How this it felt like a more collaborative, like we're
actually working. Are still some way's gonna rack? Like if you have a
Yoshi. Yeah see that's so typically right the Yoshi A good thing about the
previous ones where it's like you could pick like I could pick up my daughter
and like, okay, this is a hard platform in section, I'm going
to just carry your character over this. Well, now you can do that
if I play Yoshi, right exactly. And Yo and like Yoshi's are also
kind of an easy mail character in that they can't die. I can't think,
they can't take damage, they can't fall in pitt still if you if
they just sitting on them right really exactly. Yeah, but the trade off
is Yoshi doesn't take on any of the power, right, so Yo can't
be enough. I'm playing Yoshi, and I was like, remember I wish
I could know? Yeah, yeah, I think that is gonna be as
ticket, Like I don't think yosh would be if you're playing by yourself with
just still how I'm probably gonna play this game mostly like yosh would definitely not
be my first choice because of that. And yet it was a baby change
where they stript all of them off their like unique characteristics. Yeah, storry
for like the Yoshi who does but just stuff. But like yeah, like
the right doesn't glide people, but they all have little parachutes too. Well,
well, no peach can glide if you get the badge, right,
So I move that badge into badges, so it's like different abilities and like
modifiers to what you can do. While it's selecting those badges, I think
he just puts it on everyone, so like you can't give everyone a good
wall jump, yeah exactly. And that it's like it's gonna change up levels,
right, You're gonna be able to take on a level in a whole
new way because you equipped a different badge. It's really different from for a
Mario platform. Did they mention if it's going to remain one badge your whole
places? So, but I don't think you get an extra badg slide at
Yeah, I think it would cause a bitter CHAOSI right in terms of level
design, if everyone could ride a different badge. Oh, I was talking
in more so, it's like you could get the coin magnet and then all
the wall jump. Oh yeah. The best thing about the game is just
the animation work. Now, like those show the New Super Mario games were
so bland looking for so long, and this one just has so much personality,
just like going into a pipe and coming out of it, like well
one point you had the drill hat on you hear, Mario, you like
went into the pipe, but the hat stayed behind, so this little hand
came out of the pipe and grabbed it. It's like it looks like a
little cartoon new and like you're right in the feet when they're going in.
It is night and day compared to us to Drive Brothers. It's like someone
just posted that still of Luigi from New Super Mario Brothers games and this and
it's like he just you it actually looks really bad and Super Mario. I'm
just compared to what they were doing here. It's we asked them, yeah,
yeah, and they were basically just because this game was had a slight
even more development time unusual development time. Yeah, because they didn't really have
a deadline until and then they set one for a year and a half,
so they were just like new ling on ideas. They actually said a lot
of the ideas came from the sound team. Oh that's cool, this is
a lot of cool idea. Yeah, oh Tommy tellerco. Okay, yeah,
I don't know they were saying so like they just solicted ideas from every
one of the teams about it, how they were. This is the thing
I'm've noticed in the most is that this is the first two D Mario game
maybe ever that feels like it has the similar kind of designs the three D
games, but it's just a million I does okay call them So I'm going
to slightly credit the mobile Mario game because there was a lot more animation with
Mario there than like New Super Mario Brothers. Yeah, it's not that probably
did affector in too much, but like the movie has had a major impact.
The watch that movie and have these expressive characters and then come to this
game, the next major Mario game, and have everyone be bland in the
face. You know what. I think this is where Sonic completely dies because
that was this thing he had the two and now everyone, you're counting out
Sonic Superstars? Was it called Superstars has already? That comes out three days
before this, right, so it'll be it'll leave of course, yes that
I do, which Sonic Superstars had even this level of animation for sure?
Yeah? Yeah, yeah, it was awesome. Like I'm famously not a
very big Nintendo personality, grow up with it. I love likewise we actually
we played. We played with Chris Dring and I was like, did you
did you grow up with the intern? Know, It's like it was tough
because everything came out of year later, but he's like, but eventually,
yeah, like I got into it. She's like, I've played this game
four times. I'm like, man, drink all right, let's go.
Such. It was so charming, it is. She's very fanciful exactly.
Yeah, And I mean I think that's something like even if you didn't grow
up with Mario, you could see like I like you. Oh yeah,
I mean yes. I did get the best text of all time from my
sister though, where she messaged me and she went, I've shown the girls
who are four and seven minisces your Instagram and they're obsessed with Mario. And
I was like, wait, what do you mean they obsessed to Mario and
she went they made me rent the Mario Brothers movie and we watched it four
times in twenty four hours. Wow. D yes, because they've been Disney
pilled. But two wait wait by time to show kids list one as well.
Also really like Sonic, So there you go. You gotta go fast.
Yeah, yeah, but it's it's a really interesting game, especially to
development stuff. They not to go back there, but like they elected,
they didn't have the deadline, like like they just can't. It was very
funny though, because when they were like and then we set a deadline,
like, yeah, we had a deadline, So like they spent a really
long time just creating ideas. I mean, and can you think of another
publisher, Studio Gammier they could ever do that? And they can't. Then
like they kept going until they reached a point where they were like, Okay,
we now have a kind of foundation for what every want to do.
And that's when they set a deadline to be like xcs from now or x
time from now, we need to have this game finished. But like up
until that point, it was just no dead like free for all we ever
wanted to in the company pitch an idea, everyone could go that's so cold.
So that's why it feels like I often I was like this because married
again, Traditionally, they have a core gimmick that's built around and then you
explore it in different ways like Cappy for example, that's one givens do everywhere,
and it feels like a game full of a bunch of numerous givings that
would get one in time, but you still have like that one the wonder
drug or whatever. It is, like there's one of those in each level,
and that is like the courst gimmick because it's not just like getting a
star power up or getting or something. It doesn't really stars. Yeah,
right, you have no idea what it's gonna do. It's it's always a
little challenge too, because if you do whatever you kind of need to do
there, you get one of those wonder seeds and you need those to unlock
things later. The almos kind of like the moons or the stars. Now
decent amount of it, like wearing the flower Kingdom, which presumably be as
well with like flower plant the plants come from Man and all that kind of
business. So we're getting into deforestation. We tell people think that Daisy's the
princess. She knows she's the princess of Sarah Shausha Land from Super Mario Land.
What. Yeah, that's where she was first in that. There's a
bunch of like Kingdom's next to the Mushroom Kingdom that we've had the Bean king
Sarah Sasha Land or something like that Star Social in here. Yeah, damn
that that The development thing is like so interesting, cause it's like, uh,
Nintendo has the structure of like you put out one of these games for
every console, We're gonna put out one yeah, Mario three, Mario per
console, we're gonna put out one big sell or maybe two. Uh And
it's like okay, well that that's cool, but how do you take advantage
on the other side? And it's like it sounds like that's what they're doing
with this game of like if we have all this time, what can we
do to make sure that this is a creative as possible? And other feels
because they weren't doing that New Super Mario Brothers. Yeah, I think it's
kind of like not to kids Nintendo's ass or anything, but like it's one
of the food few companies that is actually doing what people wanted from it.
Yeah, companies, which is like they have a maja success whatever that's a
movie, a theme call, or a game, and instead of just being
like doubling down and doing something again and annual releases, yeah, like back
off and then like we ever had a maya success with this movie and this,
you guys go and figure out another good game. Take a time,
ye like it could right, Like they're gonna put the game out and they're
never gonna lower the price, and it's like that sucks. Well okay,
but what if because we never lower the price, we have extra time to
make the next game even better. Well, no company's gonna do that,
but then think they are, and that's kind of like really encouraging. Yeah,
it's difficult because like most people capitalism so right, and yeah, but
so they've found the way to make the capitalist whom sort of work in favor
of their creative just making it work. What is the most I don't know.
Western companies we be like we've had a major game, winning another one,
right, yeah, it doesn't matter way, it's like we need to
make money off that name very quickly. Right, it's hard not to be
a personal respect Nintendo for that, I kind of do when you talk about
the smoothest thing any of us have ever seen, but all Dug Bowser,
Dug Bosa. Ok So we were standing outside, we were figuring out what
it's getting more and there's these cost players and the stunning next the big sign.
They all taking a picture. Dug Bouser comes out and he goes,
hey, guys, do you want a Bowser for this picture? Hey?
You get the fus. Yeah, it's so good. It was the only
one missing Ducks and Duck see saying he's really got to hang at the like
it was like a baby like right always you're gonna be able to be able
to fill Reggie's shoes and now he's like so natural stuff. He was amazing
seeing him because he was walking around with yeah, like he was not like
security anything. He was wondering. We got a picture with him just because
he was like walking back. Yeah. Yeah, I don't think he knew
it who he was the best. He would have kicked me out it that
way. Yeah, but like I saw it a few times. The Yeah,
he was just wondering around on his own, like saying below to like
random people. The whole thing was so pleasant I really enjoyed it, even
though like a lot of it was photo ops. They were really fun photos
hen't know. They were like so high quality, like I've seen some shit
giving totally. We all had so good. Yeah, and like the bands
was awesome. They had both bands. They had specific band's Zelda and Mari.
There different Yes, there was the Mario Big Band and the Zelda Orchestra.
Yeah. Shout out to Victor Lucas because he didn't right, yes,
he was shout out the super Bell Hill. Oh my god. They Yeah,
I hope I got that. I hope like completely got that. Yeah.
Yeah. So we're in the we the Mario concert starts up and we
go go over the side. We're able to sneak over on the right side
and watch it, and Victor Lucas is hosting, and he's like all right,
we shows pictures like what's this from? And everyone's going to answer it.
And we get to the last one and it's just like it's like bombomb
Battlefield, Pheno Plaza easy right, well where we are all shot on that,
And then it's a third one in it's Super Mario three D World.
The first one like this one's a little harder yes, and and then it's
dead quiet when it as soon as a picture pops up, and then from
right next to me, Super Bell Hill, Let's go, and it's back
went out of yellow and it couldn't have been more perfect. Yes, so
that's the episode title. There you go. Yes, it didn't even pop
up on my screen yet. I like that song. That took good song.
So yesterday they had a lot of media, They were recording a lot
of it. Then can you imagine if they just had that in their company
archive, It'll be like that time I stood up early to get out of
that. Every people keep saying the fun thing, which is kind of I
don't know if they's awsome to do it, which would be a little the
various, but like when the music is playing, you can just see the
various Nintendo attendance, just like don't send them like well I don't remember.
We'll marry again is what you picked the music for? Everybody? That's all
the new Super Mario bads we go. But like, honestly, like you
can speak to this, that's almost like how it functions in Disney. But
if it Disney vibe, you know, I think that's kind of what they're
going for so, so this whole thing only exists because E three died,
right, they took the budget they would have put in their their E three
booth and they're doing this instead. And it's like ether booths were always high
quality. Yeah, but it's like in La the Breath of the super Mario.
Honestly, yes, yeah, so in these things they're they're gorgeous in
a lot of effort. But now they're doing it down the street from where
they're headquartered and where they keep all this stuff. And it's like, we
could just we could easily just bring a Curby thing there. We don't have
a new Curby game, but we're gonna have a whole thing for Curby and
just have have all this stuff represented and maybe take the extra time to work
with the local uh, like Triple they're going to get like the eight the
pr companies that might we have a relationship with, like Okay, we want
you to really go all out and we can have a conversation about what that
looks like lego, right, and then just yeah, yeah, there's a
little about third party, many many just the stuff that clearly they know that
their audience is into, right, they mean Inlish Islands, exclusive to a
switch right now. So yeah, they have the big lego bowser, but
they also had little stands where you can make a little legoat and then take
that home with you. It was really it was such a good event,
like it's something only Nintendo could do. Yeah, it's such a like a
viable alternative to go into all of these more pool one hundred percent. Like
I feel like this can easily if they scale it up, become like their
own, like Nintendo show that. Yeah, I mean it could be their
bliss con. Yeah, they could be their bliss can exactly. Like it's
a very good fix that much line you need to order ahead thing or a
second one or something we got. We got. We tried to get in
line early the first day and then they're like, well, it's not gonna
open to eleven. So we went to go do some more photo ops and
play Supermarrow Brothers Wonder a game, and we went back out and like the
line had opened early and we are all right, we'll go get in line,
and then we were like, once you get through this line, it's
another forty five minute wait, sixty minutes, sixteen minutes, and I'm like,
guys, I can't now and who we were waiting in the sign,
but like just doing things like whenever you play at demo or media character,
they usually handle like a pin or a bag. So it seems like I
just think trink gets to remember I was here exactly. That's good enough.
Shout outs to the inflatable Kirby walk around. Oh my god, Oh my
god. That was just seeing him go by. And then you know everyone
in those costumes, that's rough, it's hot. We wasn't impressed by this
one. Everyone's doing good. But the person in the Pika two guys total
pro They could emote so much in that thing. It was I thought it
was the real Pikachu. Yeah, they were top rocket and everything. It
was Yeah, because we're fighting at Yeah, just look at that gift of
Yeah, they must have very short people on those costs. Yes, this
is like four shut people. Now, there we go. Maybe it's maybe
it's a children like Dan Ryker's been suggest that's why they can only do twenty
minutes shifts. That people love child labor jokes. Yeah, they do.
It's one of their favorites. And with that, we're gonna take a quick
break and we'll be back on the other side to talk about Stark and We're
back. I actually checked out a game yesterday. Lucy and Tam joined me
and watched over my shoulder for a hot second Arco. For a second.
When I looked at my Google calendar, I thought like, do I have
to go to a gas station? Knockos? Do you think you would see
Pedro Mascal. I'd love to see Pedro here. I think he'd have a
great time, but I think he would think did two handsome men meeting?
You know? Zoom call of the Ages? I know he was on the
n actual phone, satellite phone. Oh absolutely, Pod, It's just me
ok there mind. But Arco. It's an interesting game because how the devs
described it, it is an like a turn based game, an active turn
based game where very very final fantasy where you are taking your little dude and
you have a series of actions. So as soon as you make an action
like you're moving or you're waiting, uh, the enemy will also reap not
retalied, but also make their move and it's kind of projected, so you'll
see like, oh, your little dude is going to go to the left,
but this person is ready to attack you, and their range of movement
will go this way, or their projectiles will fire this way, and then
you're as you're moving, you're building up like magic points. Uh, if
you're waiting around, you built more magic points, and then your attacks will
happen at the same time, so you're both taking turns along with AI and
moving at the same time. So looked by some frogs. Yeah, the
frogs. Frogs were no joke, and I thought I was an ally of
the frogs. But it's really neat because it gets a frog with your green
honey rib it and it's it gets even more complicated because you have to be
juggling around like how many how many magic points you have? There are a
couple instant action items or actions, like you can pop a shield and it's
not going to cost any action and it's not going to count as a turn.
So you could purposely tank a hit from someone and then as soon as
they land on you fire off one of your attacks. And then as you're
picking your placements when you're moving, can also hold it down to like kind
of add a key frame kind of and arc around versus just going in a
straight pattern. Okay, and it something they introduced in one of the first
boss battles I went through is there are ghosts that are constantly moving, So
even though you're planning your turn out, these ghosts are still going to move,
so you have to think faster. Yeah, ghosts are always chewing.
There's able to do things. You know. Casker just let you cook,
you know. He was like, I'm apparently ghost. I'll let you take
a turn. That's right. So that was like, actually cook, I
wasna remember that. That was a scary movie. That's weird. I would
cry at that movie. Yeah, nineteen nine. Yeah, of course you
cry when he talks about how he died. No, no, yeah,
like when he got turned into like when the dad got turned into a ghost.
I freaked the fuck out. That was weird when he was talking about
because he was just talking about the fact that he he was basically the outside
in the cold to go sledging with his dad and then his dad felt so
bad that he withered away died. Yeah, it's a tragedy. And then
he had those street uncles. Can I keep that was? Yeah? Now,
these kids movies just loved like killing kids. Yeah. Have you watched
hocus Pocus recently? The first staring in the start? Yeah, I just
can't believe how much of that movie revolves around this guy's a virgin. This
guy's a fucking virgin. Yeah, that's what Disney's missing. Disney what used
to have edge? They did making another new one. God that focus has
had a big Yeah. Oh man, Sarah Jessica Parker the first one.
Wow. Yeah, she's working. She's like she looks I watched All of
a And just like that, which is the worst TV show that I absolutely
ador It's terrible, but I love it. She I think she used to
do ballet, oh, like I could school and like she's in a fifties
god down, look like that. I want to look like that now,
Okay, okay, I heard something. I'm like, I want to fuck
that. Wait all heard that looked like that. She's not my time.
I mean you would say no, I would so arco you know what,
Matthew, Matthew roget to kill you. So that's that's Inspector Gadget. Yeah
no, I mean, never get in a climate. Never seen that their
Gadget movie. And it was like seventeen minutes long, and even as a
kid, I was like, that's too short to be a movie. My
no, No, I went when I was a kid, because at the
same time I believe it was The World Is Not Enough was playing and my
whole family was like, we're gonna go to the cinema, and my aunt
stupidly said that she'd already seen James Bond, and my dad was like,
well, Lucy's too young to go see James Bond, so you have to
go see in gadget so she doesn't forget. We should start French cinema with
the arts cinema with the first steward, what brace up? I know a
French steward is like the parody of it in the celebrity Jeopardy thing. Jimmy.
We always do this every time, we're like, what's he doing now?
Which is not a first name it is it is a mustard. But
the added layer of complexity with ARCO is that you start off with one character,
but then you eventually start controlling three characters, and then a lot of
their abilities, like interact with each other really well, so you can send
someone off to go into the heat of everything, but they're a little bit
more fragile, and then your other character that is a little bit more built
out can teleport with them, so you send your dude in swap them out,
and then your big dude is punching, and then there's abilities where you
deflect bullets and everything. It's really up my alley. There's a lot going
on like that, the Keeper anything you talked about. So it's like because
you basically you plan on the turn, and the turns happened simultaneous with you
and the enemy. Right. Yeah. So it's like at a certain point
during the turn, you could, like I say, okay, this is
gonna be an a pivot point kind of is that it works, So you'll
you'll arc your movement like I like that idea, but then you'll you'll wind
up finishing that movement at the end of your turn. Okay, I like
just like that idea a lot. French Us name is Milton. He was
like Milton French. So yeah, I told you it wasn't a first name.
So I guess it's now time to talk about a game that is it?
Is it packs? No, it's not. No, No, I
don't think Sony's not here and Microsoft's not here. That's correct, yep,
yeah some people there, Yeah yeah, yeah, saw the lobby with Great
Race all great Race? Is he? Oh? Nothing? Great. Uh
so something that came up right before we left all left for packs still know.
Yeah, well it's the access Yeah. A million, like a million
people are playing right now. Yeah, Starfield. Yes we've all played it,
Jeff, you and I and Dan did a quick look. Yes,
I played about thirty ish hours and I'm in a place where I'm really liking
it right now. It takes it took a minute to like understand that I
was like really liking it before. It was like, this is Fallout in
space. That's good enough. It's it is h like you know, the
seven out of ten scores going around, Like I totally get that. It
starts off at a strong seven out of ten game. But as I'm getting
down these quests, there's so much more going on that I'm I'm really having
a good time, And especially as I got a gain mastery a little bit
of the ship building and the outpost building, and as I get more characters
that I'm like, oh, this character is good at managing an outpost.
That is encouraging me to go do so for that post, and now I
can put them there and it's like all these tiny little crumbs that are building
up into something more. The thing that I am most in tragu about by
right now is very spoilery, so I can't really bring it up yet.
Well maybe in a couple of weeks, so a lot of people are gonna
start getting there. They're gonna like realize there's this whole other thing kind of
going on in this game. Uh that reads into New Game Plus. And
I think the thing I'm gonna say about it from talking to people and as
understanding it from getting to a certain point of the story is it's maybe the
most the most apt point of comparison is near automata in terms of like what
happens with the story of this game as you keep playing it and it play
it again, and then play it again, and it's like a New Game
Plus and New Game Plus Plus are very different from one another, and there's
and I'm at a point in the story where I can see how that is
a possibility. And so I don't know, because for me, I'm like,
I don't know if I can dedicate that much time to a game to
like fully experienced something like that. But even like leaving that stuff on the
table, it is a game that like is serviceable in many ways, and
then in some ways it is. It's gonna start off. I think it's
gonna turn a lot of people off because so you are going to go,
you're gonna do a get a mission, You're gonna you're gonna fast travel there,
You're gonna shoot some pirates, You're gonna go back home, and that
stuff is very routine, very wrote. And I think it's gonna blore a
hand quite a few people. I think I don't know if this is necessarily
a patience patience issue for me. I'm about maybe six or so hours and
now, and I think the two skills are classes. I picked was bouncer,
which is like the punching of boy class, the bouncer uh and the
chef class. Yes, yes, chef exactly punching things and cutting things and
cooking things for my friends. The punching aspect has paid off where I am
very meine heavy. I can't punch rocks, so I have to still use
the laser field. That's who I want to be. I want to be
Leon Am I talking about it. You could rock that jack, you could
rock that rope, But I want to be Ashley. You can't do that.
That would confuse me in a lot. But like the chef aspect of
my character hasn't really paid off at all. Oh yeah, I picked the
skull or yeah, my my backgrounds, Like that's really interesting and like a
lot of that is just like you're starting parks. Yeah, but like no
one like except for the very beginning, no one's coming to be like,
oh you're a sculptor. That's well, this is how this is gonna change
or that's happening with long haulers definitely, where like people bringing up like oh,
we need you to help carry this thing from from place or another,
like, oh, you have experienced with that, and it comes up in
the conversation and it says in parentheses longer. I guess how long did I
pick? Like you know, I remember I picked, I picked, I
picked parents, and I picked what's the one I wanted? So it's like,
yeah, people, I'm always chased, my body unders what's that?
What's the word empact impact? So it's good like speech check. Yeah,
but I can't remember the other background. I Oh, I think maybe I
picked like the other scound Yes, I almost picked that one just because they
ain't been perks. Yeah, Star Wars for Tears. You can live out
the space scoundrel like that. Every time I've seen anything fromselves out, they
just keep saying the space Schule. But I think they know what cells there.
They have the Jadi game, there's the Han Solo game. Yeah exactly,
but yeah, that's not really come up with me. I'm like five
six hours into and I think, I think you've got to still be in
the I'm in that fast travel exactly. Like I'm not being money that it
has such a slow start, but it's not a good even going to in
that beginning part if there's nothing like my parents are cute. Actually, my
dad looks pretty fucked up. That's one. And I think that in the
doesn't work backwards from like how you design your character. Well, I don't
know, because Jake deck is the dad that he had looks a lot like
the dad that my game has. Okay, just the lip is weird,
like the lips, Yeah, he kind of clips through his nose. I've
had a lot of bus Yeah, that's too many. I've been playing on
PC about a fan PC and that's it's a roll of dice. I don't
think it matters. I think it's a complete roll the dice. I've had
a lot of you had a semi game breaking bug. I had two semi
game to I too. I won semi game breaking, one actual game breaking,
so one where my ship disappeared for about an hour, so I could
not but yeah, well I'm going I was doing. I picked. One
of the things I did pick is I'm very good in space, so I
could like have more oxygen. I could take one. I did the dan
Ryfords perk. Yes, and so I do spend a lot of time like
fighting and trading up in space. And that was completely not an option anymore
because I didn't My ship wouldn't appear, so it would not fly anywhere,
and I could not activate my scanner to talk to other ships, and I
couldn't shoot anything. And I was fast traveling for a place to place,
trying to get the ship to a peer, and I went to an asteroid
field and I heard a big bang and then my ship flew in from the
side of the stain like seven thousand miles per hour. I was like,
I'm back, and it was exactly and I'm like, what the hell happened?
I was, of course, I was like top of the pr I'm
like, it's back. I hit something and then it came back and came
back on the trip like, well, that's weird, Like, yeah,
it was. The other one was I was, I was doing the main
Quest, and I was I had there's there's this point where the main Quest
forks and you can go here or you can go there. And I went
here and I did what you're supposed to do up there, and they're like,
okay, now go back to there, and I'm like, okay,
I'm gonna go back to there. And as I as I did the fast
travel, it's like, okay, you're in orbit and now you can't land.
It's grayed out, and I'm like kind of, I'm like something off,
something's not happening, supposed to happen happening, and the Pire like,
oh, the scan for the contraband that they do when you come to a
United the colony system is not triggering and therefore you're not permitted to land,
I mean, and that just bugged out. And so that was the main
Quest and I had to do this. Yeah, and I would go talk
to people back back here and they'd be like, go back to the lodge
and talk to people and they were completely inaccessible, and I had I tried
I did a bunch of things to try to fix it. So all my
autos say, we're now in this zone where this thing was no longer accessible.
So I had to use some Emmanuel save that was three hours old,
and I lost. So I lost three hours ship. I tried a whole
bunch of different stuffy out Yeah, and Mike, has your time been?
Are you a spaceman? I'm space I was a big star trek guy for
all a long time. Actually like the newer stuff I fallen off of,
well, like Space Prey Well, I'm like the likes of ships to be
punning a bunch of window I do like that the ship buildings pretty gummy ship
but actually more restrictive than gummy ships in some way because like you had that
specific like joint points here connected. But I actually liked the shipbuilding a lot.
That's fun. I like the game a good bit. I'm probably like
thirty hours and at this point whenever I'm playing it, I having a great
time. I'm excited to play it. But now like whenever I'm talking about
or thinking about it, like all my annoyance has come up that I think
the game is still very JANKI the flogs like even just like the little ones
and that people like, oh I like these bugs, you know what whatever,
I'm not saying they they I am that person. It doesn't work for
me in this game as much because it's like the Nasa punk vibe and ye,
the bugs make it feel more or less immersive. Plays the game around
it. It feels more published. Yeah's exactly, it's Weird's exactly. It's
exactly like I'll walk in my ship and like the one person's out of console
and half his bodies through the floor. That's just him. You know.
Every time you like look back your your computer control to allies like running to
get into their spot. You talk to a person and then it literally becomes
those TikTok NPC memes, like another character walks into them like turns and it
starts talking to you while you're already having like the NPC conversation. All this,
you know, typical Befesta stuff. It's motion engine stuff. Yeah,
people creation game. That's you know a lot of people like, well,
what are you expecting? I was like, well, game took a long
time, and there's been a lot of games is just going I was expecting
most of this stuff to be better stuff a little bit better. It's not
a huge field. And then like I think the biggest Greenman says are UI
and that stuff not good. The lack of a local map for a lot
of places is very weird. Yeah, that's bizarre, even just like weird
things like getting carbon into my ship. I can open my inventory and the
ship, but I can't put it in the ship cargo until I push a
button to look at the ship cargo, then go back to my inventory.
Then I can put my stuff in that There is a small little cargo a
console anything, and it's hard to find. I did not find it until
at twenty four or five. I found it by accident at night. Yeah,
I find the menu system very common believed might. So the thing about
stoff Field is it's not it's not grabbing me, but there are times where
I'll be playing it, I just zone out. I'm like, yeah,
if you can get to that zone out face, that's actually where it's as
past. But my biggest complaint, and this is gonna sound weird, but
I also had a similar complaint about like Callisto, Procol and Dead Space Rebak,
and that is we're to point in the console generation gaming generation where in
lou of a distinctive art style, we are obsessed with things that look realistic.
Yeah, how we fail from a game design and a player perspective because
things are too realistic. I don't understand what I can and cannot interact with.
Yeah, because it is not immediately because you have to use a scanif
everything. Same asside point, you have to use fucking scan if everything,
And that takes me out of the experience and the player. And also when
I'm approaching outposts and in those first five hours you approach at Yeah, I
don't know immediately what I can go up to, Like I didn't realize you
could hack the turrets. I didn't realize you could have everts by finding the
little pay they look like in any other older game. It would just be
something in the environment that you couldn't interact, like if you look at Dishonored,
for example, a very limited amount of things that you can interact with
in the environment. But you know exactly what we interact because they have like
a weird there's a visual language experience people made fun of people complained about before.
I mean, like the yellow marks, like the boxes you can break.
You kind of need something like that when your game indicates it, And
like that's been my biggest thing in Stockfield right now. It's because as well,
like I don't want to pick up a shoppy, I don't want to
pick up clipboard. I don't want to you know, there's a ton of
the star and stuff where it's like you have to learn how to like you
have to learn how to play that part of the game. And it's like
a curve and it's like, shoot that you're learning curve of Like, yes,
so I go up to it, I look at it, I hover
over it. Some information comes up, tells me what it is, gives
me a description how much it's worth, and and then in that description will
say can be used to construct other stuff. And if it doesn't say that,
then it's just useless, chuck. And you have to like learn that
through and the only way to learn that is by playing the game for ten
to fifteen hours and understanding the language of the game. And it's up touse.
Also, I'm not being done right, but there is no mark for
sale button in your inventory. No, Now that sucks exactly. Yes,
it also has like a knock on effect on so many different things because I've
opened my Inmage transler, You've got seven bay balls and hate coffee cups.
I don't remember how when I picked up I dropped mine because I just thought
it would go somewhere, and then it just was littering my ship, and
then I left it go back, and so you end up with somehow just
a bunch of bollocks in your pocket. Yeah. On top of that,
you when I went to the thing, the ship menu, the little screen,
it took me ages to figure out whether I was putting something in or
taking something out fourheaded so that you would see your inventory and the like other
person or things. Sorry here it's like only one at a time. And
then with another thing which I in this game, I don't think it or
I just don't want it in this game is encumbrance, Like I just yeah,
it's twenty twenty three. I get into but it's way too low.
You like so much like it's there because it has as it's like a load
bearing thing for so many different economy economy there's also like abilities that give you
like you can carry more, and if you remove that part that you rip
out so many So I'm like being like, I'm just gonna throw all these
So it is, but that's the game. You could almost certainly the console
commands will be available here like in a game now, so yes, just
going to console command sit here, Encumberts level. You should just break this
game, is what get wise there. And I'm like, for me,
I really like the economy. I like that you go to a vendor.
They only have a limited amount of money, So it's like, Okay,
if I have a million things, I could just go to there and like
wipe out the money for all of these vendors and just be selling coffee cups
to them. Yeah, but I get the complaints as well. So I'm
like twenty hours in and for me, a lot of the stuff that you
always talk about is like I agree. I'm also at the point where like
I can play it. I'm not stirred by it. I'm not moved by
it. Sure, it's it's like given not making me feel anything. Sure,
And I think I realized, are you doing the main quest or what
are you doing? Yeah, I'm doing I'm doing little bit of everything.
Okay, I've done some quest that I'm like really involved and I've been like
that was good, but also like this is my issue The main issue I
have of it is there's a massive disparity between the quality of certain quests,
Like the main quest is good sometimes and then the quest menu is just full
of other things that are just worthless and they're so forgettable. And that's not
to say everything in Skyrim was amazing. It had that same disparity or the
difference between Skyrim and Oblivion and Moral Wind and Fallout, and this is it
had a unified world to traverse, just because it made the act of going
from one quest to another also part of them something that you weren't expected.
Even if it's like, even if on both ends the quest is not great,
the journey there you would see something interesting, have a combat encounter that
was vanilla, whatever what You're doing something and it reminds you of the journey
that you took to its stitches. In this you get in a ship you
fast traveled to somewhere, go somewhere, and if that thing is shit,
you're pissed off. Nothing in between the space, the space for anything to
happen, it's much more limited. And I'm kind of like that has a
very like big knock on effect because that's when when I realized that I was
like, now I'm in space and I cannot actually fly anywhere fast any other
thing. Yeah, like UI, and I think this is the thing,
and I think the thing. A lot of people are kind of you're gonna
realizing. The people who are bad about seven like out of ten scores don't
realize that thun. They're kind of like, oh, yeah, I don't
like this. Also, that space ship stuff is very limited, Like you
can't fly from a planet to its mode, from the orbit of the planet
to its mood. You still have to fast the daddy. Those planets are
usually very barren. There's like nope, like there might be a mass affect
one, but they're like there's nothing there, there's something everything looks but even
aspect one though, like when you went to a planet, you were there
for a while, so when you went back to the ship, that kind
of felt important. Maybe you were gonna hang out there for a bit.
No in main missions, but like the random planets would be like, oh
there's a two, Yeah, you have to get in the Yeah, it
feels it feels very I don't want to say, it feels very like filler.
And it also feels like a an ambition that wasn't realized, and it's
very evident because of that, and I think, like everything else feels it
is impacted by not having that overworld in a major way. And it's also
what I think they do best. So the fact that they did this approbam.
I would take one land mass that is really detailed in the way the
time rail stuff was, or you know, the fallout locations over this kind
of expect We've got hundreds of planets, thousands. I hope that game developed.
What they take away from this is like bigger isn't better. It's not
like so even you can't do a smaller scale space game like Out of Wild
is want to keep doing exactly it's tiny comparatively. Yeah, like the moment
you start playing out or it's five minutes, five minutes in, you are
having a jaw dropping fascination. Yeah, I think the thing I do I
want now this game did not serve it is the outer Wilds that is an
RPUG where it's like it is like where you can fly to this planet.
It's a small solar system and their stuff happening on these different planets. And
but the act of traveling that you mentioned, that's super important. But when
they do like really focus on like a kind of like Keystone Area, I
like that a lot. I think that, Yeah, that's it is the
thing they do. I'm doing him Neon looks great. Great. When I
get to like a place like Neon, I could stay there for like a
few hours just doing all the quests there, and that's when the game is
that it's best for me for career. Yeah, I'm doing space out of
Jensen. What's his name, Cosh like sat Soldi, he's my sweetcheese.
He's I'm doing, like doing his stuff and with his family. Yeah,
in the middle of that's taking him to that particular planet in that city,
and like I like that, like a fire Fly city. Yes, the
Space Western. I know people are sick Space Western. I really like it.
Here, the Muddy main Road, I'm like at it. That's like
my favorite quest change so far too is the Free Star Rangers, which is
the Space Sheriffs. Like I like the reward for that is great too,
Like you get a really meaningful reward when you finish that something like that.
My recommendation for people will be when you start the game, you pretty quickly
get to what's the first location, go to the police station, go behind
the desk, and steal something immediately get arrested. Oh you're doing the Crimson
Place stuff. That is like, if you do that immediately, you'll get
a good taste of what stuff it can be when it's at its best.
Agree, if you don't do that, you'll be meandering for a lit while
thinking what's going on. So I do recommend that it doesn't matter what you're
alignment is. Just get arrested. Yeah, yeah, like the Crystal Fleet
stuff. You see. I'm like a bit of a baby because I'm like,
I'm a good guy and now, but that it accounts for that.
But you're doing you're doing the free Star Ranger stuff, which I think it's
the alternative there for people who don't even want to get arrested. Yeah,
okay, but even if you do get rested, I don't want to spoil
it, but you you could play you can still because I haven't had some
quests where I want to play a different side. Like there's like, I
think where there's a Kiosk and I submitted a job uplication and I ended up
getting a job at this kind of very seemingly evil company, and there's like
a quest like go to the our arrival and like put a bug in their
computer. You go to the rival and they're very clearly like a mom and
pop thing, and everyone there's nice. I'm like, oh, I'll just
talk to the owner here and tell them what they want me to do and
how I'm not gonna do it. And you talk to them. That's just
not an option. That's shit because if you look back to flow out,
you vegas or something, you could probably yeah, like jump in more options.
But again, I do think it is a bit of that is game
is so big and there's something too bigness itself for sure that sure size size
isn't always everything right, but like there is something about it, like the
skill can be impressive and it can't be cool, and it is like people
are discovering that now with the new game, new new game plus stuff like
it's like people are being blown away by that aspects. But there's a lot
of crust between there and quest. You get very unequaled Mantis you should do
that, and it's one of those ones that you may not be able to
complete to its end point immediately, so it would just hang around in your
in your kind of block but keep going back yet, So there's one point
where it's like it's clearly a wall that you need to be quite powerfulish or
have the right abilities to get past, but pay attention to the things that
you're picking up along again, Like it's a disparity between like you pick up
a lot of the notepad stuff and the reactions of its ship. And then
that means that when you go into a quest like Mantis where it's really important
and really well written, you're just like, I'm just gonna button through this
because it's bollocks so far, But it's really important to that small quest and
the payoff for it. You need to know what it is to get there.
It's a really fun quest that you should do, especially if you like
Batman. I think the thing that like I've been bummed out the most,
and Tim I think he pointed this out for me, nailed it is.
I kind of wanted something similar to the Outer Wild experience with like the budget
to really reinforce it, and it's just not that, Yeah, I wanted
to be able to like take off from my ship at any time and like
absolutely crash into an asteroid and be like, oh I want to be I
want to set my ship to travel to someplace. Yeah, I want to
get out of the pilot's seat, go do stuff on the ship, talk
to them as we're moving, and then have the large go off because okay,
suddenly now we are getting attacked or the raise it the or there is
some some up space anomaly and feel that and this game is is not that.
I mean, that doesn't so that's our expectations. It's right based on
exactly which and I mean there is obviously the disconnected, but I do think
I think there is some there was ambition here to do some of that stuff,
and you could tell that they pulled back from it. I think though,
because based off of like some of the presentations we've seen from Starfield over
the past couple of years, now that that was my genuine expectation. And
you said earlier about like how the world is better in some ways, so
that Jink stands out more. I mean, but the going for everything,
accounting for all these possibilities makes it stand or when some things aren't possible,
and in space Fire, it seems like a very basic things. A distillation
of that desire isn't specifically that you want to have an experience like a wild
You want an experience that presents a version of space that isn't as bland as
it currently looks. It feels very plastic. It feels plastic. And also
I think, like I might like enjoyment drastically dropped when I realized everyone's just
humans. Yeah, and like everyone he gets some weird like and fauna.
But because it's the NASA punk thing, Yeah, it's great, but like
also there's it's just it's indicative of how little wonder there is in that galaxy
as well. So I think they now, Yeah, so I think that
that's there's a big switch happening there. Yeah, that's one. I know.
I'm yeah, I don't know where I'm getting it. But also it's
like I land on a planet and I immediately look at planet and go,
oh, this is the cold planet instead of like why does this planet have
five moons all obeying each other? What is going on? That's it takes
me like ten hours to realize why that is happening, or like you know
what is I'm on this planet suddenly the floor is falling down and I'm in
the core of it and I'm being stuck through a black hole. It's I
go to space and I'm like, okay, because for as much focus as
they have put on the ship building part of it, I'm still rocking my
first ship. You know, like I barely did you expand your story the
end of the story? Charge you want to do? You want to like
the big quest lines. A lot of those will reward you with a much
better ship. And that's like saying at like making years better you can do.
You can get one of those ships and use it as your new base.
Yeah, and that's a very big opt so in terms of like just
wandering around and stuff that that's like the thing where there is some fun stuff
there. I've I went to some random star system. I met a lady
who's like, hey, come document ship and have dinner with me and then
and then and she's like, uh, you know, I know this sounds
where it's gone. But she's like, I'll join your crew if you want.
I didn't have enough monet you like hire or on. So I'm Uncle
Mack later and get her to my crew. And it's like, oh,
I don't that seemed very random. And then I just kind of came across
a religious zealot ship that wanted to attack me, and I beat him in
combat, but I didn't blow up their ship. I got that killed everyone.
And then I because my pilotings Go was so high, I was able
to take over their ship and just steal it. Now that's my new ship.
But yeah, I'm and it's like that kind of stuff does work for
me. But it sure it took a long time and we didn't talk about
much. But the gun play does feel a lot better then it's felt it.
Oh yeah, and I don't know, actually, well, how does
the punching feel. It's it's it's taking a while to actually just be good
at punching. Ok, it's a lot of level navy. If people are
on the same kind of levels. I just I don't have enough weapons.
Oh no weapons over bullets. Emma was a fan eventually, like you just
so much. I got. I had the same thing where Emma was a
major problem at first maybe ten hours. Then eventually you just kind of stopped
proboling enough by looting everything, all these corpse but amo actually killing up people.
You take all the little bullets and you're good. Yeah. Maybe maybe
my time with the game is a little skewed because I am hardcore trying to
live up to my character of being a punchy chef. Yeah, I think.
Yeah, there's like a lot of that where it's like, here's what
my character is gonna be. There. You start and you actually realize how
the game plays and how it works, and it's like, well, I
didn't really think I was going to be getting into a lot taking but sure.
A lot of shouts out to Janet Garcia because she had the same expectation
as me, because she also picked the cook chef subclass or background and name
also named her character j Anthony Bourdain. What really? I was like,
Okay, you're deeper into this game. Does this matter? And she was
like it doesn't. Fucking man. You do you have like the cooking thing
and you're on your ship. Yeah, but think a chef just means that
she he got like a starter chef skill point. Okay, strown me right,
I thought it would factor in or something. I get a fun hat.
Sure, I'm sure there'll be a fun time. Probably I got I
got a little a little any any other thoughts on Starfield Set. It's a
big game with a lot of the same game. It's right, it's a
good guy. Yeah, I don't think we've spoken negatively. It's just like
we think again. It's like whenever I start talking about it's like, here's
I agreement, says and I like they do kind of come up. Really,
if you played thirty hours and I'm gonna have another five hour session here
in a couple of days probably where it's like I just played that I and
the entire time was a good time. There was some jak. I'm expted
to go home and spend some time in the same year. Yes, And
I think everyone playing it now is kind of coming to that same realization where
it's like it's a good game and it's the kind of thing where I do
believe that this is going to be their next, like ten year game,
just not the exact same way it's got. Yeah, And like, just
to kind of address the elephant in the room, the people that are mo
Marius you, the people are the the are the most upset with other people's
analysis, criticisms, or diverging opinions on them. Are people who need the
game to be more than just a video game. They need it to be
an identity. They needed to be something that they can use others to tear
down with or to reinforce their own opinions. And if you're that person,
like grow up, grow up first of all. Secondly, you rethink what
you're doing and it just can't be there, and you can't expect everyone else
to treat that game and to play that role for you. Other people are
just playing the video game, maybe some of them are reviewing it, maybe
some of them are talking about it in a artistic educational way. Just because
you need it to be the game that makes Sony fans cry or Nintendo fans
cry, or prove that game pass is worth it doesn't mean everyone else has
to abide by that same. Good news is I think this is going to
get a lot of people to track game past in many ways, the perfect
game pass games. Yeah, yeah, you spend that money fifteen twenty dollars,
You've got like one hundred plus our games to play it. That's amazing.
Yeah, you can know like that for a month. You can't in
the second, no life for a month. To those people, I suggest
they get into sports. Yeah, because those days it's a similar mindset of
constantly being a set at a group of people rude. But it's like it's
the foundation of Western culture, especially American culture. Tribalism is built into over
It's like sports teams, you know, Chios versus the other one, red
vines versus the story vers Sierras. Thought of American Western culture is designed for
tribalism. So it's no surprise that everyone is doing that, but it's just
you should that that should only work up until the age of fifteen or something,
when I realize that it's dumb and there's life beyond it. You can
get a video about this, right, Yeah, well so that's that's why
fantastic just a video on spot on about this exact topic and how it makes
us feel. And hopefully it's we're not trying to attack people, We're just
trying to say, like, what do you say? Would you say?
Awful? Lot? But like the point of it is like, because of
this, we're not able to have the actual discussion about these games. Would
you suggest people to tamper their expectation that just two minutes? Do you see
where you wouldn't? I grew up to French cinema away from me and I'm
a bit upset since last I like the music a lot. Music every time
I'm on the opening many Of'm like the theme has moments where it sounds like
the home Alone theme. Sure, sure, all right, folks, we're
gonna take another quick, bricky break and then we'll be back with I don't
know, segment things. One shoutouts orders, we'll come back and killed Jeff
grab on camera. I will pay for my grimes a live execution. We
can't. Nope, Nope, we can't do that. And we're back.
May have a new story, just just two things. I would just pulled
up on Starfield. There's a thing like it only supports FSR. We didn't
talk about the performance really, I think visually the game. Visually the game,
it looks pretty stiff, like plastic. It was a good, good
one. It's still a really heavy game, and even like on my forty
ninety, occasionally I'm getting like, like lower than sixty brands per second performance
as self. For me, there is a d LSS fan mod going around
that is a game changer for I've heard folks talking about that. It is
the elevator today. Yes, it's such a huge difference. We are already
bonds are fixing the game exact day two, day three. Yes, so
I would definitely check that out. If you have an Nvidia GPU, and
then of course Starfield came out, then that's a great time to announce that
you're laying people off in closing studios. Volition is shutting down. They announced
that right after start. It's already going gone. Ye right, it was
effective immediately. It's literally sent out like their tweet about it when the review
and bart Over started. Whatever is so scummy. We also did it on
the last day of the months of everyone lost health into it, right,
So if if they would have if they would have shut the studio down the
next day, everyone would have would have had health insurance for the next month.
It really is a scummy as you can think, this is uh an
Embracer Group studio. It's under that umbrella. It couldn't It feels like it
couldn't be more obvious now, or it's more obvious now than ever before that
Embracer just had no real plan that if the money if that they gove in
and then they're diving out the money. Spickett got turned off in Europe and
they they look around, they don't know what to do anymore. It wasn't
just Volition as well. Once you remember those lay offs on the Gearbox publishing
side, las Gearbox publishing the home world depths, uh the coult but how
how could they do? Gearbox was like the one like consistently this is this
is the weird thing. It's like, this is Gearbox has successful games.
They've had mult to the Embracer Underthumbracuer they had multiple successful games day and two.
They had another thing recently I can't remember, but it's like it did
very well, and yet none of it's enough. Two was out there,
Yes, they've read that. There it is. Take it very well.
It's sold a million companies in the first week, so they have hits,
and yet that's not enough. It continues to be a really bad sign for
the future of this publisher because I think they were expecting, like, Okay,
we're gonna get set up and then Saudi Arabia's gonna give us that two
billion and bring two billion here and there, and that everyone just wants to
invest in video games. It's so hot right now, and a couple of
companies got cold feet, and now Embracers seems screwed. We've talked about this
on Game Best about embracers lofty expectations and that there it's gonna bottom out eventually,
yes, and men that the whole idea was just that that. I
mean, if there was an idea Europe had a very good rates in terms
of borrowing money in terms of investment, and it's like, we can take
advantage of that because we're based here where have those relationships, and we go
out across the world and these studios that are undervalued right now, we could
take that money and we could just kind of it's gonna be instant increased on
the value and so it just makes sense. And then the world changed just
a little bit and now are out of pocket on a lot of these I
think the intent if I had to like look at use my experience and seeing
covering the business side of the games is I imagine they looked at it and
we're like, we'll buy all these companies up. And there's two avenues.
We either flip them because they have valuable properties, or they're popular enough that
they can make a game and it will earn us money. Well, they
don't probably didn't account for being just a group that buys everything. Is those
games take a lot of time and investment. So like if your intent is
to buy a company have them produced something and then get the money quickly.
You're not going to do They weren't going to have a money because they thought
they want to keep getting to invest. The other thing is like you can
do the flip them because they're a valuable company. Thing and they did it
with one they did it was a Crystal Dynamics and the tomb lad of property.
I think they sold off right, they like the Amazon for a lot
of money. Yes, they thought they're going to do that. They're they're
going to do that, which could have been viable if the economy of the
world didn't shift so drastically, and also if the major companies that would be
interested didn't already make significant investments PlayStation, Ball, Bungee and various other studios,
Microsoft, just Ball, Activision was in the process of it. They
their money and business and legal and everything is tied up in those acquisitions to
the point where I doubt they're looking at him Embrace or even we know that
Saudi Arabia was looking and in Saudi Arabia was like no, thank you,
and I to me that sounds like they did their due diligence and they didn't
like what they saw. Yea they like, you don't have a plan,
and that I mean if lawns Winger first, the guy that runs Embracer.
If that's not true, come out and tell us you're planing, and tell
us what your plan. How were your planing? I've been asking for years.
Was he the guy who did the interview the day after the deal?
Probably? You know, the guy who just looked at that sounds RAI.
The problem for us is it sucks because they have so many valuable ips that
are imped to us as people who enjoy video games. It's about this legacy
game, but it's about many others they own. Yeah, they own data,
says State own like they're important to the history or video games, like
dat. Sex is a franchise that is critical to the development of design and
development of games. It's just locked up in a in a in a company
now that has no idea what to do with it and could like volition is
gone. We don't know what's going to happen to Red Faction. We don't
know what's going to happen to Saints Rowing. Not much. Yeah, Saints
Row is a fairly recent franchise, but like it is the one, it
was the one viable alternative to GTA, and that's important historically, but also
forget that it went on PS plus on Wednesdays and down on this. Like
the thing about it is like we are doing our best to or people are
doing their best to kind of catalog and preserve game history from a action software
perspective, what happens to these franchises now, like because they are also they
have equal value right Like again like you know Minecroft for example, it's it's
impact and what it brought to games is so important that if it suddenly died
and went nowhere and just like it wasn't being preserved in any way, that's
a that's a problem, like and the same gods what they say, it's
the same goals for for me, legacy ocame like what they do with it?
Give it to someone who try and do something with it, or at
least of the rings and that's least rings. Yeah, it treated with some
value so that it's like it's preserved to it, Like what happens to those
assets that are tied to those to those what happens to the volition assets now
right? And that's my Johnny gat model. Yeah. The scary thing is
like the thing, you just lay out, just give these things to someone.
It seems like they have little in sensive to do that because even when
the games succeed, they are lost. They're not They're like, man,
we're screw We're not. This is very bad. Are their stock price drafts
like thirty percent? Even though they have multiple successful games. So there's Yeah,
and the lesson for hopefully for a lot of people is you can't just
buy your way into the games industry in that way, like and not to
gate keep it, but like to be a big publisher. Yeah, you
have to become a big publisher. You can't do it overnight in the way
that they did where you gobble up everything because you don't have the infrastructure,
you don't have the history, you don't have the expert knowledge. I'm not
saying give it everything to Sony, but I would prefer Sony has all of
it, then Embracer has all of it, because at least Sony has the
understanding and the and the kind of lineage and the history to know that this
is important. Let's make sure we get all of this stuff, put it
somewhere, at least in a vault where it's safe like that that embraces stuff.
If Embracer goes under, they could just be like, all it'll be
aq, it's all having a THQ. Where is the blob now? So
much of that was we're gonna brace from that dat. Yes, what happens
to Keith David? Yeah, listen, you can gotta keep him safe,
that's what you gotta do. Yeah, it just fucking sucks. And then
and you know this is probably just the start of it with the Embracer.
Yes, honestly that there's some vend news how to embrace an embracer, Like
the last couple of weeks like that, there were these weren't their first layoffs.
I don't know, the flatbows right, so there have been some over
there. Yeah, you're Private Division got hit as well, and do they
have anything like coming out? So it'd be like they're starfild like the game
like all this is like when maybe investments that they put in it is so
the mag and the magnitude, even the even a like Starfield level success wouldn't
put then in what I need to recoup and that that's that was the big
mistake, is that they are set up in such a way that you can
have that I want to be a success. You can ever in it to
be a success, and it doesn't matter. It can remakes many destroy all
humans as you want. That's it's not gonna matter if I'm gonna do it
well, grub is is that all the news? Bioway? Yeah, Yeah,
we talked. Yeah. I came up with if we talked at fifty
out of it two hundred many writers as well, legacy writers, writer of
Boulder's Gate, the other thing in mass Effect and a dragon Age and a
lot of the developers on the dragon Age that left or what laid off with
like we're happy when dread Wolf is now, which is encouraging, but also
like it's not a good look from the outside in to see any studio based
on narrative and character writing losing or getting rid of them. And it couldn't
be a worse look than would Skatetory takes off the world, We're gonna fight,
We're gonna lay off the writer of Boulter skate War. And also there's
whistlers of Ai suddenly being used for the Only other thing is I probably will
follow up with this more on game. This morning is when I have time
to like actually look into it a little bit more. But people always ask
about Vampire the Masquerade too, what's happening there. The Chinese Room was announced
that's taking over the development of next of that game. Chinese Room, did
everybody everybody Walking Sim's before, which finally I like this game from walking Sam
to him versus Sim right, so it's like it's a very different thing.
But that doesn't mean they can't handle it. I guess we'll see where this
goes. But yeah, this is like coming out party again for that game.
But other than that, Jan that's that's probably what I got. Okay,
well I got no emails for Okay, sure, BombCast giant bomb dot
com is the email to side your emails too. But I think once again,
I want to reiterate, we had a fantastic time every game. Everyone
who said hi, Legends, thank you a Legends, thank you for being
nice to me. Yes, thanks for being nice, thank you Mike for
coming along. Yeah, thank you for letting me to egg along all weekend,
and yeah, I'd love to do you know, I always enjoy seeing
everyone. You know, I've lived in the same city as these two.
Don't nearly see them auto because they could also hang out with you guys.
Are really is. Yes, we took a train also, yeah, which
was incredible. Yeah, say all up for us. Yeah yeah, yeah
you packs and it was amazing, Like it was so cool. I'm amazed
they signed off on it because I I pitched it as a joke. Yeah,
because I've been really interested in trains recently. I think they doesn't like
this is a good opting for content. The pitch was like the way you
guys said the pitch is like, well, we need a sleeper, I
can't you know, you're right thinking for safety. H Yeah, so actually
genuinely, yeah, what you call people would sleep in the chairs and the
chairs the cart that we didn't go into. Yeah, those chairs would like
fully and were sleeping there. Yeah, I've done that before you sleep across.
I was kind of worried because you can't lock them from the outside's fair,
but from the inside you put a latch over and then you swing another
thing down so no one can like Jimmy Jimmy from the outside, which is
important because like a lot of equipment I love, you know, we could
have got my Roger ally now, which it's a great thing to play arm
record six on. But then don't talk about that next. Recently, they
put out a specific update to improve performance. Ah, they did, because
it wasn't not working at all from start. Was pretty rough on Steam.
Yeah that's the thing. I'm not compared them, but Steam that seems kind
of rough. Still, but I believe the Well, I'm gonna get that
a shot. This is gonna be a weird week at Giant Bomb as we
get reacclimated to everything. Gave us to move back tomorrow on Wednesday. We'll
have Blight Club on Wednesday. Still probably yeah, we will. We're gonna
try and have a power Bomb cast because a lot of wristling stuff happens.
Book man, I'm so sad. He isn't even know you boy, he's
punching people. Oh yeah, he got fired fired yeah yeah, Well what
are you so excited about this much? Oh it's sarcastic. We hate him,
yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, he sucks the biggest disappointed. But
their show is gonna be in Chicago, which is his hometown, and the
audience will be changing. We'll see. Well, they had collision in Chicago
the last time. Apparently like it wasn't too bad. Even Chicago is a
little over and we'll imagine if Chicago turns on Punk. Yes, nothing left.
Yeah, we're gonna have a bunch of videos slowly trickling out of packs.
We spent some time at Nintendo Live General Packs video. We'll try and
archive the panels. Of course, we've already had that gameplay of Mario Wonder.
Yes, yeah, watch it. It's a really good idea of what
the game is like, adding a lot of joy and that. Uh and
yeah, it's you know, just happen to see all y'all, y'all,
it's awesome. Yeah. I don't have emails, but I do have the
shout outs from the Packs panel. We read this when we shaved my head.
But just in case you missed that, it's gonna be here. Uh,
shout outs to Lynn Myron, Elyssa, JJ Blake, Tessa Sebastian,
Nathan Alexis, and everyone else that said hi to us, Yogi, Dottie
and the Dogs, Lemons, Jan My last name is Barber. If you
need a haircut, Heart Oliver, the Mini Docs and Charlie Bucket plus Big
Bogert. Uh. It's reminiscent of classic Second Genesis games, Raz the Best
Cat Felicia, Justin and Christine Smith, Matt Banana Yellow b Donnie Snyder,
first podcast I ever listened to. Thanks Za your Robo, Mitch jan Note,
Garrett choa Waffles, Sam, Why did Lucy punch the train conductor?
That's a story to Garrett demes Cora Guess Forever, Desert Bus game Jam,
No Clippers bs, the crowd demands it rope? Is this rope or Nope?
Joe Bianca and Yoshi Pizza, The fogy Boys, Geekoholics and Honors Podcast,
the number one podcast in Canada. Knights and Bats, my Boys,
Shanks into everyone that's high pats, shots out the packs. Hey, you
guys want to maybe go to East I'd love to. God's favorite podcast goes
to Paxxi slotch out exactly. You know what they should instead of giving us
a panel, give us a whole day. Yes, give us a whole
day. Shots up all the into the site that we saw. It was
great. Danny see Kim the completion about our favorite celebrity friend after friend,
Ben starrs Chitcake Factory, Fish Gionado. He wanted to stop talking about him
again. He was like, oh, you go to chart the brown Bread
It's really great. Yeah, always always being yeah, shouts out to the
Young God and shouts out to us, God's favorite podcast. We'll see you
next. We're another World Service give bomb baby, We'll see you for another
equip oh dot Boda