Hello, and welcome to episode forty nine of Game Spot After Dark. We
are getting really close to fifty. We have nothing exciting playing for the fiftieth
episode, at least not that I know of. Uh, but yeah,
thank you all so much for stopping by and joining me. This week is
Lucy James, Hello to more Hussein Hi, and that's when the blessings comee
blessings, Kali Blessing. Yeah, j it's me. What's up, guys,
So hold on? What's what's the background of that? I was told
that is? That is a viral video clip of let me let me actually
get the name of the video, but we use it frequently because Blessing myself,
Lucy and a few of us play overwatch friend in the podcast Simon Cardi,
group of various other folks, and whenever Blessing joins our party, he
plays that. Yeah, it's it's actually an excerpt from a video called ah
is it called be a Funnel. It's be a Funnel And of course that's
what it's called. And it's just like, uh, it's the description is
River Kids preaching and there's this kid with a mic and she's doing the whole
evangelical get hype because God's about to speaking tongues and people to speaking tongues.
It's seven minutes and thirty seconds long. It is the most clenchingly awkward thing
you will ever see. It's this little girl just being like speaking in tongues
and it's just this one bit where she says the phrases brush lah blah blah.
That's when the blessings come. Man. Yeah, yeah, there's more.
I'm trying to find other ones because there's like great quotes in there,
like yeah, I think it's this one. Hold on why And I know
a lot of you guys be blessed in here, and honestly, like it's
made like watching this video has made my life ten times better, this quarantine
because it makes me feel wanted, it makes me feel loved. So there
you go. Yeah that's the story of it. Well, thank you Blessing
for joining us. I think you're the first guest to have joined to have
been on the show twice. Now, Okay, that was gonna be my
next question actually, because I was gonna I was gonna ask, like,
you know, am I am I in the lead for the lead about after
darks appearances? Okay, you're probably the most most probably like requested as well,
Really, I don't know. I made that up. Yeah, most
requested by the game Spot team. Now can I say I do have a
complaint. There's the second time I'm on the show and Michael Hyam isn't here.
Where is Michael Hyam? Well, we're not good enough for you.
I mean, you guys are great. I'm just saying I just love Michael
Hyam. You know the other day show, actually stopped listening to the show
because MAM's on on and enough the past couple episodes. The other day on
I wouldn't know because I stopped listening on a PS I love you. You're
talking about game Stop and said game Spot and you don't hear me giving you
share about it? Yeah, damn, that's that's a bull faced lie because
he splids my d MS the other day about it with the exact clip with
the video, and I watched recorded it and I sent it to him and
what's up? And I was like, where you're going to is jail?
Blessing? Well, thank you for joining us this week, and it was
it was pretty last minute. I was like, we should get Blessing on.
It's been a while and like I don't know what four hours ago,
five hours ago, I messaged and you're like, well, I got another
podcast, but I think we should be able to make that work. Sodann
Man, for sure. Yeah, it feels any It feels any other podcast.
I'd probably say no. But Game Game Game Spot after Dark almost said
you guys, games stop after Game Spot after Dark. Of course, like
I gotta, I gotta lend you guys my time. Because I joke that
I stopped listening to the podcast. That's mainly because I ran out. That's
mainly because I don't have time in the day anymore, because I'm a podcaster
now. But if I was listening to podcasts as regularly as I was,
oh, you guys would be on top of the list. I'd be after
Dark m hm, Giant beast Cast, and then BombCast and then all the
other ones in that order. That's a good order. That's good order.
I will say, I get where you're coming from. I used to listen
to podcasts all the time until I started working at Game Spot, and now
it's like I listened to one a week if I'm lucky. Well, I
mean, also, no one has a commute anymore, that's true. That's
another big reason not commuting has done that too. I listened to so many
podcasts still, I'm always a podcast just always. I don't work. If
I'm listening to someone talking, I can listen to music. I can't listen
to no when I'm working. Like if I got up from to go from
here to go downstairs to get myself some water, I would put on a
podcast. Like that's the level of just because I don't like silence silence.
I need to like always have some sort of sound going, and I don't
like listen to music unless i'm If I'm at home, i'll listen to like
a podcast, so I listened to it a lot. Well, anyway,
should we talk about what we've been playing? Lucy, do you wanna?
Do you wanna kick it off? I have been playing Ghost of Sushima.
I can't talk about that until the embargo lifts next week. That's like not
a humble brag that I've been playing it, but it's literally consuming my life.
So that's what I've been playing. But also I downloaded the SIMS four
again for a play for all stream to do a goof Tim and I are
playing with Elisa and James Williams from Funhouse earlier today. And that's that's James
and Barbara duncoman for you, blessing. Oh yeah, oh yeah, no,
yeah, I love James and Barbara. It was actually Elisa's birthday at
least, of course from rustive her birthday a bout a week ago. I
say, yeah, wow, yeah, hang on. That took me a
second there to remember the goof. So it was playing yesterday to set it
up, we did a challenge. So things that have changed so differently from
when I played the SIMS, Like I knew of the exchange, and I
knew our ways to swap custom content and people would post stories and storylines and
storybooks and stuff. And then with the SIMS four, I didn't realize just
how much they'd leant into the community created stuff, and the fact that it
has this huge audience now online with like so many SIMS YouTubers. I knew,
like Clash Yvonne and a couple of other people and like sim Goo sim
Supply I didn't realize it had this whole sort of giant culture like I think
everyone most gamers have experienced with the SIMS, but I didn't realize just how
strong it was and how much it changed, I guess. And so yesterday
I was looking into what we could do on the stream to make it a
bit more fun and not just hey, let's just make a seventh film,
and I found this big list of challenges and so some of them are like
gold Digger challenge, where you have to try and like marry and get as
rich as possible. These in game challenges are these challenges okaya, oh no,
no, So in gamers in like you play them, but the rules
are set up by the community. Okay, I see. So there's obviously
like one hundred baby challenges very popular. There's the black Widow challenge, which
I really liked, where you make a femme fatale sim and then just get
married and kill your husband as much as possible and like do that a bunch.
And so the one that we settled on yesterday was the Three Little Sims
challenge, where you have three separate sims who all live on the same lot,
three separate houses, and the rule is that you only control one sim
per day, and the others have autonomy to do everything they want to do,
so you basically just like try and keep them on track and see how
they go off and do their own thing. And so today when we were
playing, I downloaded the vampire pack and the Magic pack so and the pets
one. So we had like one woman who's obsessed with cats. We had
a slacker teen called Liam who eventually became a wizard. And then we had
a vampire called rhese Lemon I really enjoyed, who would never walk anywhere.
He would only turn into a bat and walk and then reappear, So it
was hilarious to see him like move three steps but disappear and then reappear in
But then, I mean, the thing that really got me about because I
played the Sims so much when I was younger, just like an impossible amount,
is the way that they've changed builds and by mode I mean like build
mode and buy mode are one mode now. And the fact that like you
don't have to the way that you can just pick on a pre furnished room
and just drop it in is crazy to me. It's like incredible. Because
I'm not great at interior design or anything. I would be the person who
would spend hours and hours in build and buy mode. But then the way
that it's so easy just to drop in the pre made stuff or even go
on the gallery and just download it and put it straight in. Incredible.
And so I was only supposed to spend you know, half an hour yesterday
setting everything up, and I spent like two hours just playing the SIMS and
then we played for a couple hours again today. And I have next week
off, and so part of me is kind of thinking, well, well,
what could I do? So I'm excited about that. It's it's kind
of nice to it's a kind of comfort game, sort of revisiting a lot
of things about it that are so familiar. But it also has this kind
of sheen of being new because I haven't played it properly and at least a
couple of years. I think last time I put some serious time into it
was the Cats and Dogs stuff that came out when I had a household with
me and Oscar Isaac Connecticut. But that didn't save so it wasn't on my
PC. Whant I boot it up? So rip that relationship? But yeah,
SIMS four man, because it was shite when it first came out.
I think that was the only time I played it. I think I played
it when it came out briefly, and I was like in which, yeah,
the console version was on PS plus a couple months ago. But the
thing about SIMS four when it came out, and it's something like SIMP base
SIMS games suffer from, is that you're coming off the heels of the previous
SIMS game, which has all the expansion packs, all the stuff packs,
everything, and then you have to start fresh and you kind of have to
put some elements of that in the base game. The SIMS four, though
didn't have it had very two very weird omissions, one of which was swimming
pools, but the other, which was toddlers. An entire life stage which
was so crucial before, was just gone, and that was really weird,
and it just felt very very limited. And then they've gradually patched all that
stuff in and had all these packs and everything, and yeah, it's in
a great place anyway. That's what I've been playing SIMS four. I love
listening to people talk about since four because at a certain point, like something
will be said and I don't know whether or not they're being serious or not,
Like whatever, somebody's like, oh, yeah, there was a new
DLC and it basically like expands out on the island, experience and you get
to have an island and have a tropical finger and I'm like, okay,
that sounds reasonable, and then like another person be like, oh yeah,
also there's cats and dogs YLC. And then I'm like, oh no,
no, no. If you want to know the most ridiculous DLC for SIMS
four laundry Day stuff that was voted on by the community. The community voted
to put laundry Day stuff in. There's like eco living, I think apartment
life. There's a surprising amount because I feel like I heard about knitting recently
being a thing, and in SIMS, I don't want to see this.
This is that's the good life. That's like, that's where the gaming industry
as a whole should be. Because we're out here people out here complaining about
Lost of Us two's ending needs to be changed and certain characters need to have
different fates. Meanwhile, SIMS communities like, can we get laundry please?
And we get laundry So this yeah, actually I didn't realize that this had
even happened. The SIMS four Nifty Knitting Stuff is the upcoming seventeenth stuff pack
for the SIMS four. It marks the introduction of knitting, as well as
the return of the Rocking Chair. This is right. This is the kind
of stuff that I live for, so I'm very, very into it.
The return of the Rocking Chair. It's got a nice I don't have a
nice read to it, like the Rocky piece out of the game for a
while. These are the battles I can get behind. Well. This is
by the community stuff practice developed as a result of a series of votes for
themes built by and create same assets and icon slash titles similar to laundrier stuff.
Remember, right, the rocking Chair, Return of the Rocking Chair,
Revenge of the Rocking Chair. That's the only place my brain is going right
now. When I worked in retail, we used to have like cabinets behind
the the cashier's desk and they'd have like a bunch of games in there,
the most popular. We used to have one entire bay dedicated to Sims and
SIMS Expansions because they were they were an absurd amount of them, and they
were just selling all the time, non stop. It was like always Sims.
Like people would come in and buy a game and then just be like,
you know how you pick your your sides in a on a meal.
Like, should I get friessh I get like mashed potato? Should I get
Cole's Law? People are like, I'll take that copy of The Lost of
Us and I'll get a sim stuff back on side. Please. That's awesome.
That's awesome. Other games are like like same my Showdown. It's like,
oh yeah, let's collaborate with fur Honor for our DLC. Get a
new character, makes this huge thing. Look, get the action go in.
Other games are like, yo, let's let's not whole level packs.
Let's let's up the action in sims of like, yoh, fuck it knitting?
Can I cuss on the show? Yeah? Whatever you want the sims.
The SIMS though, like it's had some incredible times over the years.
They had an Ikea stuff packed, they had Hian air. Yeah, Katie
Perry had her own pack, like sound like we found like an we accidentally
found like a Machino hoodie in in our thing and then carried on scrolling.
It's like it's a bobber fat helmet and Darth Maul face. There's no rhyme
or reason to it. They're just like, let's love it. I think
when the actual world is on fire around you, it's nice just to retreat
into the SIMS because they probably do it because it was three on PS plus
and February. If you have a PlayStation, yeah, because Dave Drewet I
think from our UK team has been streaming loads on his personal account and he's
been doing a lot of SIMS stuff. So I've been watching that and it's
like it's slowly been making me think maybe I should stall SIMS. And now
I'm like, maybe I should install SIMS. Install SIMS that the same setup
more. I haven't got my new PC yet, it's going to come at
the end of July, sadly, but I do have this gaming laptop and
it's yeah, yeah, yeah, I could just like lay on my bed
with this gaming laptop warming my crotch, and I mean I would definitely put
a tray on or something, because I mean, this this gaming laptop,
even though just running Zoom is already Yeah. That's the thing with these gaming
laptops. It is like we've created the you know, most up to date
graphics technology in a small form factor, but it's going to scream like you're
beating at the entire time to melt through your desk anyway, that's what I
have been playing two more? What have you been up to slay this fire?
Right? Yeah, I've also been playing Huma. I can't say anything
about it again. Good title screen, good title screen, continue screen,
sword in the ground and text, well spaced, left, justified text,
nice lighting, back lighting good more important, good particle effects. More importantly,
when you're lingering on the title screen, doesn't make your fans kicking to
overdrive like some games looking at you, Call of Duty, war Zone,
Grow Off, Activision, grow Up, Just get rid of get rid of
that infinitely walking forward group of people. Just give me just text on a
screen that doesn't make my PS four screen. It's the only game I've played
where I've said this before where during loading it's actually the PlayStation of put a
system level error that says your PS four is too hot. I've seen that
once in my life, and it's playing that game, and I was like,
I've never seen that in any console ever. It was just like,
your your pso was too hot, I'm turning off. It turned off.
But I've never gotten that. But I tried playing it about a week ago
and it was like, okay, you got to install a ninety gig update
and I was like, all right, you know, I'll just let it
go overnight. It installs overnight, and then I go on to play with
some friends and it's like, you can't play this, so you gotta download
the game packs. And then there's like eight different packs that you do install
separately. You get rid of those, now, oh really, the multiplayer
pack, you can get rid of single play, you can get rid of
specificing. I got rid of Special Ops because I was like, yeah,
I should probably do that, but yeah, then I just had to install
a bunch of other stuff, and I was like, I'm never going to
play this game. Yeah, it's weird out how crazy it's gotten as far
as like all the different itemized stuff that you I guess have to download but
then don't have to have anymore, and like the the fact that Call of
Duty has gotten to the place where they're like, oh yeah, hundreds of
gigs worth of data is needed to download to play this game. And I
know I don't want to like be I don't want to like be the person
who's like back in my day or whatever because I'm twenty six. But like
Black Ops on PS three didn't have that, Like why why why has it
gotten to such its lengths, like why has it gotten to this point?
And so it's it's like all the additional mode first of all, but then
it's all that in the Battle Earth specifically, it's all that shit they're stuffing
in there for the future in it, Like it's that hiden away and and
like I think people have said that it's not particularly well optimized or as good
as it probably could be. But I hope they figure that stuff out,
especially when they transition to the next generation and inevitably have a new version of
Wars on there. If it's like one hundred and fifty gigabytes, absolutely not.
I mean, wasn't this this cutting the modern Warfare engine was like designed
for next gen anyway. Yeah, like they kind of made it ahead of
time. So I wonder if that is why you're PS four, is you
know, about to catch on fire? Yeah? Maybe so, Yeah,
Gossis Shiam has got a good title screen. I have been playing Slayer Spire
out for a bunch of platforms for a while now, and a lot of
people that I know talk about it, like Cardi we mentioned before he's always
been a huge advocate of it, and one of our on Chris Perrera.
He loves that game and he's always talked about it, and it came out
on mobile, so I was like, yeah, okay, I think it
was quite expensive though, I think it's like ten ten dollars or something like
that. But I download it and I tried it, and I think I'm
playing it wrong. I so we put out I think we should have a
review of it soon up. Chris has written a review, and I read
the review, and as well as reading the review, I realized that I'm
playing it entirely wrong. Like I was doing the thing where I'm hoarding cards
where I'm like, oh, every time it's like, hey, you can
have one of these cards, which one do you want, I'm like,
oh, it's like you can have this card, you've won this about,
you can have this card, you can have the money, or you can
get like a boost. I'm like, obviously, I'm going to take the
card. But the whole point of that game is to kind of refine a
smaller deck that you can employ more frequently, or that's one of the strategies,
Like you don't want this deck of ninety cards with one attack in it.
Instead, you want maybe a couple of attack cards. And a bunch
of cards that will like enhance those attacks and give you more chance of doing
special abilities and that kind of stuff. So I've been coming at it all
wrong. But so my kind of take on it is flawed from the outset.
Because of that. I can see why it was good, but I
didn't understand what made it special. I enjoyed playing the card element of it,
but I was like, I don't get how this is better than any
other deck fielding game. It has the rug like elements where you're kind of
working your way up upper tower and you have to make decisions on should I
have this fight or should I try and go around? Should I rest up,
or should I experience use my experience points, and you want to try
and make it to the end to fight the boss. Should I fight this
mini boss or should I go around? Et cetera like that, And I
was like, yeah, that's an angle, but it doesn't seem that interesting.
But it turns out I've been playing it in the wrong way. So
I'm now getting into it with a more clearer understanding of it, having read
Chris's review and spoken to Cardi a bit about it as well. It is
fun. I think the art style completely puts me off. It's kind of
loll fire and like dark Dungeenny, but like it's got very rudimentary animations and
art style, Like I want it, I want a bit. I may
I'm spoiled like interesting visual aesthetics even in two D, kind of like card
games, so I wish it looked a bit better. But ultimately the gameplay
is there and it does have some a lot of depth to it, and
I'm excited to dig into it. But yeah, it's it's it's definitely something
worth playing. I'm enjoying it for how easy it is to pick up and
put down, so I'll play it in between sessions of like Sushima or like
when I'm just like at the end of a work day, I'll just sit
on my bed and cry while playing Slay the Spire. So it's like good
for short burst gaming. So I do recommend it even and just make sure
you're playing it properly, not like an idiot like me. Nice. Slay
the Spire is a game that I've heard so much about, but I don't
have the slightest clue of what that game is other than its cards. Yeah,
it's pretty much like it's pretty much. You just you're just a little
icon moving up this path to the top of a tower where a big boss
waits, and then each each little dot is like a an encounter of an
enemy, and then you just get a handful of cards. You play the
cars, and then you when you lose, you get an item back,
and then you move on to the next thing, and you're slowly like making
your way to the top. So it's very simple in its mechanics, and
all the depth is in the way you build your deck and understand there's like
the other thing is that you have characters who have specific roles, strengths,
and attributes and you unlock them all the time. I'm still playing with the
very vanilla kind of night style class, so I haven't got to the stage
drive on more interesting characters. But it is all in that how are you
making your build? Does it work right now? And how do you build
that out as you go ahead? Like you don't automatically walk into each run
with a fully decked out build. You kind of make it as you go
along, so you can and then you can be like, oh, this
time, I'm going to try for an incredibly tanky build, so I'm going
to focus on minimizing my deck, so it's so it's focused on improving my
defendability whilst also kind of like having a small variety of attack cards and I
can tank through it. Or you can be like, oh, I'm going
to focus on entirely building around relics which give me wild buffs and change the
way the gameplay works quite right, So you don't you don't create a deck
before you enter the spire. You create it kind of as you go.
Yeah, so you comment with a basic hand, and then you kind of
like, yeah, so you're not spending ages in menus kind of moving things
around odds and that kind of stuff. You kind of look at what you've
got and like dispose of things that you don't want and keep add things that
you do want on the fly. It's easily the most approachable deck building slash
dungeon crawling slash roguelike game. So on that in that regard, that's why
i'd recommend it cool. I might have to give that a try. It
sounds like like drafting in Magic together. I don't know if anyone's done that.
Yeah, it do it every now and then. Where it was like
it's kind of like a roguelike, I guess, and that you make a
deck on the fly and then you use that deck for the next couple duels
or battle duels. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I did some of that
magic to gathering stuff as well. Back in the hand. It does have
that vibe. But you're just trying to make the most of what you've got
and see how how you can take this limit set of cards and use them
in interesting ways to get beyond the video enemies. I want a Yukio rogue
Light, That's what I want. That would be interesting. I want it
just because I hear people talk about slay this fire and for me, I
really like rogue lights. Specifically, games like Dead Cells and Rogue Legacy have
really spoken to me in a very heavy way. We're all get very into
those games. Uh, But like for the most part, card games that
I haven't necessarily done it for me. Well, like specifically card video games
haven't necessarily done it for me. Yu Kyo though, is like the what
exception where I can get into a yu gi Oh game? And so I'm
sure there's somebody out there. Did you ever play the ones for game Boy
Advance, which one like the tournament ones or or god, I don't remember,
but I had a lot of them and I played a lot of them.
So like I so I the Yuga games that I've played, right there
is yu Kyo Duelists. Of the roses for that was PlayStation Yes two,
Yeah for PS two, and that was like more so like a strategy kind
of game. Love that game, specifically a soundtrack that still has one of
my favorite soundtracks in the game. Yu Kyo do list of the roses.
I had u Yo Dark Duel Stories for Game Boy Color that I played a
lot. That was basically this bastardized version of Yugyo where the rules were not
anywhere near what the actual rules were, but it's like a simplified, easier
version of it. Got really into that. And then on Game Boy Advance
I did have I can't remember the exact name of it, but it was
like yu Kyo Dueling Tournament two thousand and six or something like that that were
like these are the yu Yo rules, like these are the official this is
the official way to play the game, and you would work your way up
through ranks with that and had a blast of that game. That game got
very difficult because yu Gyo can turn into a pretty hard game if you're playing
it casually. But yeah, a Yukio rogue light where it is like quick
bursts of Yukyoh sounds like a fun time. There's also a game yu Kyo
Duel Links that was on mobile I probably probably still is on mobile. That
kind of was an expedited version of yu gi Oh where it is uh,
smaller decks, smaller hands, smaller like field and all the stuff, and
it's pors like meant to be a mobile version of yu gi Oh that kind
of fits within not necessarily a rogue light, but within like a condensed experience
of u Yo. I want that plus a rogue light. Make it happen.
The money, make it happen. I know that, I know there,
I know there are developers that listen to this. Make it happen,
please, just for me, speaking of do you want to go off with
what you've been playing? Bless sure? So I got I got the opportunity
to preview Hyperscape, which I don't know if you guys have talked about Hypercape
on the show or not yet. Michael talked about it last week. A
little bit. I was gonna say, because I played with Michael and so
yeah, like you invited us over to play Hyperscape, which is their new
battery al game that I think just got out of closed beta and it's set
to release during this summer at some point, and it's basically, yeah,
like ninety nine players. Teams of three takes place in the Hyperscape, which
is basically this future version of the Internet that is developed by a company called
Prisma Dimensions. It's like there's like a lot of buzz terms going on in
this game, but yeah, Prisma Dimensions developed the Hyperscape, which is this
version of the Internet that exists I guess like fifty years from now that we
essentially jack ourselves into and become one with the digital, uh digital landscape.
So it's Internet. Yeah, why, yes, I believe. So.
I'ven't seen Free Surrama on along in a hot second, but I think I
remember that episode, yeah something like that, and yeah, yeah, you're
basically in it. And so in that in the Hyperscape, they have what
they call Crown Rush, which is like the name of the actual battle rayal.
It is kind of like basically like what they what what Apex Legends is
to Apex Legends, Crown Rush is to the Hyperscape and so yeah, like
people do for fun. It's ninety nine players, all the different stuff.
The thing that really I think makes this game interesting for me is how much
faster it is than any other Battle Royale game I've played, as far as
like the bigger ones. Yeah, yeah, like it is if it feels
like way more of an arena experience than any of the other ones. And
so like I would compare it more so to Unreal Tournament or games like that.
Break Lawbreakers will actually probably the biggest comparison I will make, and like
not in a bad way because like I think law Breakers have pros and why
did you did you cross? For law Breakers? It's no more, but
like like like evoking Cordon religion to say Breakers. So it's like I'd be
all right if that thing it was in health. But like so Lawbreakers like
wasn't like a bad game by the means, It's just a game. It
was a game that kind of didn't take off to me. Hyperscape has a
lot of law breakersy elements in terms of the movement and kind of how quick
it is and kind of like this the art style and a bit it feels
like it takes a lot of inspiration for this inspiration from that, but for
a Battle Royale, which I think makes it more interesting because yeah, super
fast paced, it's super vertical, and so the game takes place the map
is basically a inspired by Paris, Like it takes place in like an urban
environment, and so you'll find yourself on top of buildings and all this different
stuff because there's jumpads and there are different abilities you can pick up, like
there's a teleportability that allow you to teleport upwards if you want to or get
to wherever you need to go pretty quickly. There are and they call these
abilities hacks, which are there. There are things that you find on the
map, and so yeah, like you're collecting hacks, you're collecting different guns,
and it just feels like way more of a of an unreal tournament Battle
Royale, which has me kind of excited abou at the same time kind of
nerves because when I played it, I remember it taking a bit for me
to kind of like figure out the flow of it, and once I got
there, I was like, Okay, cool, this feels chaotic, like
it's it's fun and there is like fun strategy to it, and there is
an accessibility to it where you're just like, like, it's not pubgy,
it's not apex where you're having to find attachments for a gun and and different
things like that. It is, Hey, I have I got the gatling
gun. If I want to upgrade my gatling gun, I find another gatling
gun on the map and that'll automatically upgrade it. And I can do that
four times. It's like very it's it's simple and clean, it's easy.
The thing is, though, like at certain points, especially toward the end
of the matches, there they have the crown that will spawn on the map.
And what that is is basically in any other any other battle Yale,
it's last man standing, last team with all their players alves the team that
wins. It's the same here, but with the added crown element, which
I don't know how, I don't know how many players have to be left
for the crown to spawn. But once the crown spawns, whatever team is
able to hold the crown for forty five seconds wins, and so it's a
it's a it's a cool thing. There's no there's not a circle in the
game, which is why I think they have the crown instead of the circle.
What they have is the different areas of the map disintegrate and it will
essentially like if you're if you're left in an area of the map that is
degrading and disintegrating, you'll basically fall off the map. That's how they deal
with pushing players together in this huge environment. The crown kind of feels like
the last effort of that of hey, yeah, once we once we have
people down to like one or two districts, we'll then have it. We'll
then have it be so that like the crown is what's pulling people together.
The crown is gonna be the thing that everybody can see. If you get
the crown, everybody sees where you're at. It is now a chase for
everybody to get to you. And so it's fun in the sense that that
is like a strategic thing. That is the thing you have to kind of
think about as a player of like, okay, cool, do I want
to grab the crown real quick or do I want to like camp on the
crownd and like wait for some way to get it so I can try and
snipe them or kill them or whatever. And that's fun. The way it
kind of panned out for me, when I was playing, and this is
like with Michael and I think colleiaf who were also playing with When it got
down to that, it just turned into a mess of bullets of just gunfire
happening everywhere, me tapping whatever button I can find, like what doing whatever
ability that I have on me to like try and stay alive and to try
and like get people off me. It turned into a big mess, which
on one hand was kind of fun. On the other hand, if every
if every match kind of boils down to that, I can see that becoming
a little bit problematic. But I think that stuff might be fixed with balancing
guns and making basically like balancing like balancing different abilities and all this stuff.
Because the gatling gun when I played was like the thing that was super overpowered.
And you know when when the gatling gun is the thing that is super
overpowered, I think that's the thing, Like, that's what the matches are
going to boil down to, is that gatling gun which causes a mess.
And so you know, I'm I'm hopeful for the game. I think it
was pretty fun. It's not my favorite batteryale right now is Apex Legends,
and that's my favorite battle Reyale. Ever, at this point, I don't
think it's an Apex killer. I don't think it's a Fortnite killer, but
I do think that it'll probably have its place in the Batterleyale ecosystem, which
I think is pretty exciting. Do you think people who are kind of like,
I don't know, burnt out on the Battle Royale scene are gonna be
into this game at all or do you think that it's not really really I
think I think there's something there because it's it feels different, like I think
when it comes to other Batterle Royals, especially the big ones so like Fortnite
and PUBG and even throw Apex into this, I think the thing that can
maybe get tire some of them is you'll go rounds without action and then die
immediately, and you feel like you wasted your time at a certain point,
especially like if you go through all the effort of looting and finding the best
attachment and finding all the purple the purple pickups and all this different stuff like
if you if you if you get your ideal loadout, or if you if
you go down that route and then you die let's say ten minutes in,
you know that can be like that could be deflating and you can be like,
Okay, well, there there is a mood that I have to be
in order to play this. For Hyperscape, it feels very much like like
it. Match is just way quicker in the sense that you'll probably find action
and if you die, it'll probably be pretty quick and you can you can
get back into a match pretty quickly. And also like that's another big thing
is the revival system in this game encourages getting people back into a match,
like getting people back into the same match more so than others, even Apex.
Like Apex is the game that introduced the whole respawn beacon and you get
people back into the same match. This game has it so that basically,
if if I die as a player and I still have teammates in the game,
I turn into an echo and I'm able to still run around the map
and scout for my teammates. I can't shoot a gun. I can't I
don't even think other players can see me, like I'm just like an invisible
ghost essentially, but I can scout and help out my teammates in that way,
and then for any other player who dies, there the place where they
where they get taken out then becomes a respond point to where now me as
the ghost, I can go to that respond point and then my teammate who's
alive can meet me at the respond point and then bring me back to life.
And so they're just like a lot more situations where you're gonna get respond
in this game. Like I remember playing a match with Colleave and Michael and
I got them back probably like three or four times each, like back into
the same game, and it's not very good. There's no restriction, yeah,
and so like basically you're going until your whole team dies, and it's
really it's really active because of that, and I think there's I think there's
something there in terms of people keeping keeping people involved and keeping people interested.
So I could see people getting into it for that that sounds neat, like
I I'll probably try it. I don't know how into it all get because
I've gotten super into Battle Royals. Last one I got really into is Apex.
But I'm surprised that you'd be soft And they said they were working on
a Battle Royale. I think I just kind of assumed it would be like
a ghost recon Battle Royale because that world is kind of already built for that,
and like it would just make sense too, Like in my head at
least it made sense, like, yeah, ghost Reetcon, like they can
use that giant map, they can have a lot of characters on that.
There's already vehicle combat, there's all this kind of stuff that's already in place.
So like, as much as that still kind of interested me, I'm
glad that they didn't just kind of turned ghost Reycon more into something it wasn't
just to kind of appeal to what the masses are into right now. It
shocked me that they didn't do Tom Clancy's blank blank as the Battle Oyale,
because I feel like that then has the name recognition they'll probably sell a lot.
But yeah, maybe that they just had the rights to do worldlines and
whatever, and they haven't renegotiated with the tom CONCSTA. I think they own
it now. They can do whatever they want they have, Like because what
there's Tom Claans is the division Tom Clance's Rainbow Succeed. I forgot the division
was Splinter Cell. I guess like half at least half of U Soft games
had to be Tom Clancy at this point. Yeah, Tom Clan is steep
Tom Clance is for honor. Yeah, yeah, I also played iron n
VR. Oh yeah, how's that? I? Oh No, I didn't
find I haven't made it that far, so I've only made it to chapter
two and I think I'm done with the game. I'm not enjoying it that
much. It it seems very fine, Like I don't think it's bad by
any means, but it's one of those ones where I like, if if
we're looking at it, like for the story and for the characters and all
that stuff. I keep comparing it to m c U and I feel like
this Iron Man kind of pills and comparison in terms of, like you can't
compete with Robert Downey Jr. As Iron Man and so like whatever. Whenever
Tony Stark talks in the game, I'm like, all right, cool,
I see where this is going. I see your humor, I see your
quips. But you're not Robert Downey Jr. Him, You're not him.
You know, Dad, the real one. You're not my dad. But
yeah, like that that's one complaint I have with it. I also feel
like the controls are kind of complicated in a way that I'm maybe if I
played it way more I could get accustomed to. But the way that it's
set up right, like you'll have, uh, you're playing with like two
PlayStation move ones, and so if you want to, like if you wanna
leve a tate or not love a tape, I guess, like fly or
whatever, do the Iron Man like jet pack at the hands things, you'll
like hover, yes, thank you. If you want to hover right,
like, you'll press down or you'll point down with your palms and like click
the triggers that'll then like boost you up or whatever. You can like go
forward by pointing back with your palms and doing the same thing, or you
can shoot by like palming upwards toward an enemy and then pressing the I guess
center button on the move controller. But then you can use your wrist rockets
by like putting down on your palm and just like it's stuff that is cool
because it wants to make you feel like you're Iron Man. But for me,
as somebody who likes playing video games and is like so used to using
the PlayStation controller, I'm like, okay, cool, this would be a
lot easier if I can just press triangle to do the wrist rockets and press
square to do this thing. I feel like I'm learning a whole new way
to play, which one hand cool, on the other hand kind of made
me frustrated. And then yeah, overall, it just kind of it was
a little bit bland for me, like in terms of the presentation and all
that sort of stuff in the game play, and like the enemies are kind
of all kind of drony kind of enemies. But yeah, again, I'm
only I only just made it to chapter two though, and so like maybe
down the line, like once things get flowing. I know Greg really liked
it and shouts to Greg because he has a cameo in the game chapter three,
which I wanted to get to, but I don't think I will.
Yeah, overall, I think it's it's like fine, it's fine. Yeah,
I can't play. I get motions like very easily, and I just
don't even want try it. And this does seem like a motion sick kind
of game. Yeah. Rob in our office was saying that he was getting
pretty motion sick with it, and I was like, yeah, I'm just
not gonna I don't get motions sick, really, But I watched the gameplay
he posted and I was like, yeah, I don't think I could handle
this. I don't think my stomach could handle that game. Yeah I can't.
I had. I just about made it through Batman, and I love
that game in VR, and even then I was like, I'm sick,
got this. I think the game that I can only rely VR game I
can only reliably play without feeling sick is Tetris. So oh yeah, I
can only do the only stuff that doesn't make me motion sick is Vibe makes
me sick. PSBR makes me sick. This Quest not yet. Like,
this Quest has probably been my best instance of VR in terms of like it
working. And so I would say give that a shop, possibly because Greg's
got a indext So I might. I mean, I've got a week off,
I've got space in here, I might set up and play through Alex
finally, yes you should. Oh yeah, we'll talk about that later.
I've been playing. So have you guys heard of Deeprock Galactic at all?
The name rings a bell. Yeah, space junking game, right, spaceship
junko game. No, it's not so I forget what that game is called.
So, so this one is it? I guess the best way to
describe it is kind of like a Left for Dead Payday sort of style of
game, but your Dwarves in space. Basically, it's a four player co
out game. You pick your class. As you play through these areas,
you get experience and resources and you can level up your dwarves. But basically,
like the point of the game is that you and friends go out on
these randomized mining missions that are very much set up like Left for Dead,
and that there's maybe not so much different types of enemies that will like pin
you down or whatever, but there are a lot of different like randomized scenarios
as you dig through these uh the these caves and whatnot to find resources and
then bring it back. It's it's super chaotic. Uh, it's a lot
of fun, especially you have friends, and it's just like a very mindless
sort of not really a looter shooter, but kind of like a resource gathering
shooter. It's it's on PC and Xbox. It's it's really good. Like,
I'm surprised not many people are talking about it was an early access for
a while, and I think it came out finally in May. Maybe it
was out like it heard about it, but I don't even remember the context
in which I heard about it. That sounds fun. Yeah, it's really
good. Like there there are kind of a lot of systems in it,
Like when you go to your main base or whatever, your your spaceport,
there's like, I don't know, a million different things you can interact with,
Like here's you can customize your gun, you can customize your character.
Here's a shop, here's here's a here's a bar where you can go and
get buffs for your next mission. Kind of like a monster hunter in that
sense. The lear any cats making you before you go. No, but
there's a robot that serves you beer. And there's like a really fun game
where you kick barrels into this trash can. It's hard to describe, uh,
but yeah, I'm super surprised how much fun this game is. I
was playing with Tim Turry and Mike Maharty and we were having a lot of
fun with it. Did you say it was in game poss I don't think
it's in game pass. But it's on Xbox. It's only on Xbox and
PC. It's cross play between Okay, if you've got it on Windows Window
or Microsoft, if you get it from the Microsoft Store, you can play
with people on Xbox. If you get it on Steam. You can only
play with people on Steam, so it's like kind of cross play, kind
of not cross play, but yeah, I mean I highly recommend it.
I think it was on sale during the Steam Summer set, which is when
I first picked it up, and then I ended up getting it again on
the Microsoft Store so I could play with Tim because he was on Xbox.
But like I I've been having a great time with it, Like it's just
you know, mindless fun. But yeah, other than that, I've been
playing Sif six, which I've found is a very good game to play right
now because it's hard to focus on anything else when you're playing Stif six because
it's just like you're always thinking turns ahead, you're managing your units and your
cities and whatnot. But I was also playing that with Mike. We tried
multiplayer for the first time, and like, I don't know, it's it's
a lot of fun. I forgot how good that game was because I played
it when it first came out for a couple hours, and I was like,
I really like this game, but the games take eight hours each and
I don't have time to play more. But I I've been having fun with
that game too. I am surprised at how into it I am, just
because I think it's just because I've got more time right now than I do
otherwise. So it's just like I feel like I can just put my all
into it and try to figure that game out. It's complicated as hell though,
as someone who's never been that into the CIEV games, trying to figure
out like the difference between like a religious win or a cultural win or a
military win is a lot. But yeah, I've never really been into SIEV,
but people say a lot of good things about six and five, and
I'm like, I just don't think I can put myself. I just I
don't think i'd have the patience for it. That's the thing. I'm one
of those people that if I don't succeed early on, I will drop off.
Yeah, and that'll definitely happen. Like SIP six does a good job
of acclimating new players. I will say that, Like like when I SIP
six was the first one I played, and I feel like every step of
the way I was getting tutorial and not like the kind of tutorials that was
getting annoying, but it was like useful information that I can opt out if
I want to. But it was never too overwhelming, Like it pretty much
only gave you the tutorials when you when it thought you'd need them, so
it wasn't just upfront telling you all this stuff, which helped a lot.
But like as I'm playing through now in multiplayer where there's no tutorials, I
only have Mike trying to explain things to me, and he's not the best
all the time. Wow, Mike, damn, he's not listening. He's
not although although if it was, if he came back to the fold,
everyone's just like ragging on Mike. He's been he's been helpful. He's been
helpful. There's just been some things where he'll try to explain it. I'll
be like, yeah, no, I'm just gonna I'm just gonna wing it
and see what happens. But yeah, I've been having fun with that.
I'm excited to play more SIEV six uh and then like everyone else to him
playing Ksashima, but we can't talk about that. I'll talk about it though.
That's sword. I do I do want to, I do want to.
I do want to suggest the game spot feature games Yeah, game Spot
feature. Wow, you know I don't think about it, because now every
time I say, every time I say it, I'm like, did I
funk it up? Did watching? I'm watching, I've got your I've got
your message conversation ready, feel feel feel free to steal it. Since I'm
saying this on a game spot product. You know, this is all yours.
Top twenty title screens and video games. Oh, I think I think
we might have already done that. Oh really, because I really want to
see that, because I want to disagree. I want to fight number one
super Metroid. Super Metro's got a good one. It's it's it's too good
man, it's the goat. We haven't done that yet, but I know
we definitely talked about doing that as a feature. I think we talked about
it at one point. Yeah, man, mass effect two. Mass Effect
two is is good with the little computer and you go through. Yeah,
it's a good feature. Blessing. We'll take it. We'll take it.
Four count like with the face stretching. That's a loading screen, isn't it.
No, that's the is the tedle screen. Yeah, you get a
presstar. Oh yeah, you got a press I guess that counts. Yeah,
that's a good one because I spent that too much time there just stretching
his face, pulling his nose. Mate. Uh. Anyway, moving on
to the topic for this week, Best Games of twenty twenty so far.
I I feel like we're late to do this because it's already July, and
I feel like most people want to do it June, halfway through the year,
but I don't know. The start of July. We're fine. We've
let the We've let the first half of the year completely finish. Yeah.
Yeah, that's a good point. I think it's worth doing because we did
it last year, I believe, and I feel like there's a lot of
good games that have come out this year that need to be talked about.
I guess may not need to be talked about, but should be talked about.
I mean, I figured we can just kind of open the floor.
People can shout out games that they think are deserving so far of some of
the best games of twenty twenty, and we can talk about it from there.
I don't know if there's any that jumped to your head. I've got
one that I want to talk about, but I can wait on that.
Go on half life Alex I was gonna says that half Life Alex is Half
Life Alex. Yeah, this is by far my favorite game of this year.
But it's interesting because I don't think it'll get that many awards because I
don't think many people have played it. I like tweeted the other day,
I was like, Hey, what are some of the best games so far?
And not a single person said Half Life Alex. And I had like
quote tweeted and I was like, no one said half Life Alex. That's
kind of a bummer, And a lot of people were not mad at me,
but like telling me that how hard that game is to play, which
I agree with, Like, I don't think that game is going to get
a lot of attention, you know, six months from now, because of
how difficult it is to play. But man, it's such a shame because
that game is I brilliant, like people are like Last of Us two was
a fantastic game. I really liked it. But I think I think when
I like Half Life Alex does so much more to push storytelling forward in video
games, and just the way that game is told, the way the characters
are presented, the way you interact with the world, that is just missing
in a game. In a naughty dog style game, which normally is at
the forefront of storytelling. So it's disappointing that that game is going to be
very difficult for people to play. Like I imagine it'll go down as a
classic, like once the price of VR gets cheaper and the barrier to entry
is easier to get in. I imagine that will be a game that people
will like the other Half Life games that will people will constantly look at as
being like one of the greatest. But right now it's in this really weird
position where the people who have played it, no, it's good, but
like no one's really played it, and not because they didn't hear about it,
but because they just simply can't. Yeah, and also it's weird that
it's like the best games of twenty twenty so far. To me, doesn't
even feel like Half Life Alex came out this year because my concept of timearantine
or yeah, like right at the beginning of it, Yeah, it feels
weird, and like, yeah, I do want to play it. I'm
not really a big Half Life person, but I've heard a lot of really
good things about Alex, and I do you want to play it? Neither
of mine, to be fair, like I hadn't played much Half Life until
Half Life Alex. In fact, I started Half Life Alex and stopped because
it was so good, and I was like, I got to play through.
Oh yeah, So I went through and played through all of the originals,
which I didn't think it aged particularly well. I thought they were good,
but I wasn't obsessed with them. And I understand that part of that
is just because I missed out on that time, Like that technical presentation kind
of just missed for me because you know, I'm playing it twenty years after.
But I think it says a lot that I was like a couple hours
in Alex and I was like, I got to stop. I don't want
to know what happens in this game until I know what happened beforehand. Yeah.
My, I think my favorite game of twenty twenty of our. It's
weird because as much as I loved playing Final Fan C seven remake, I
thought that combat system was incredible. I don't think I've had an experience like
The Last of Us Part two in a game probably since the first maybe a
type of boloy to say, since the first Last US. I've certainly had
a lot of experiences in games that have been very profoundly affecting. But I
think Last Was Part two. Didn't expect to love Abby as much as I
did. I really enjoyed that combat loop. I think it dragged towards the
end, but ultimately I really really loved that game, and I would just
I think one pro of Quarantine is the games like Last of Us where you
can't really dip in and out. It kind of demands a bit more of
your time. It's a bit more involved. I think that was the thing
that people had with Red Dead two. It's a game that really excels when
you play it in a long stretch. And so Last of Us I would
be able to put in, you know, like four hour stints on the
regular because I didn't have a commute anymore. I'd be home already, I
could eat dinner pretty early and then just play through until I felt tired.
And so I really enjoyed it. I think the acting in it is phenomenal.
I really enjoyed the writing. I really, I really particularly enjoyed that
gameplay loop. And like I bounced from because Horizon was on sale and I
and I think I told my last time I was on the podcast A few
weeks ago, but it's like playing Oh my God. But it's like,
it's really the difference between the two where Aloy is just unbearable to listen to.
And that's not Ashley Burcher's fault, but it's the fact that she over
explains every single thing that she's doing. Then you go to a Last of
Us game where they it's still a third person and a lot of the time
your character is alone, but it trusts you not to go, not to
have the characters say, oh, I should probably look for an exit.
Oh no, there's wolves. I should probably avoid them. You know,
like it's it's maybe just two different schools of game design, right, And
I guess you know the difference there is the Last of Us is very much
more it's got more open areas, but it's very linear, whereas Horizon is
you know, that big open world. So maybe it's just that. But
yeah, I really really love the List of Us and so a miserable experience,
a very emotional experience, but I think there are moments of levity in
there. I think the I'm not gonna I'm not gonna spoil but everyone else,
the very beautiful mission that makes everyone tear up. I'm just getting emotional.
Oh yeah, of it now, which is like no, o,
can you please send me the fan art? Please please? I would like
to say that, but yeah, the way I kind of look at the
last part, the way I kind of explain it is because I know,
like during the pre pre release period, I know there are so many people
that are like, hey, everything's already depressed in the real world. Do
I want to step into this game? It's gonna be this depressing experience?
And I think the game does a really good job of having like some of
the most dark and grim, like most grim moments I've experienced in a video
game, but also some of the most warm and like you know, personal
and human moments. You know, like there are moments in that game where
you see interactions with Joel and Ellie and these are no spoilers, but like
there's some interactions with Joelanelli that like warmed my heart. There are like some
interactions between even like uh Dina and Ellie or like between quite a few different
characters that like make me go, like, man, this game is this
game is doing in a phenomenal, phenomenal job of displaying humanity and like,
you know, there there was the whole quote towards the release of this game,
right, I think it might have been like a year or so ago
where I think No Drapman was talking about this game and explaining it as being
a game about hate, and I think the Lastest Part two is very much
a game about love as much as it is about hate. Also like love,
like love is as much a motivating factor for the characters as hate is.
And yeah, like for me playing through the game, I remember dreading
it. I remember being like, I would like, I would like for
this game not to come out right now, because I just am not in
the mood. I wish that somehow, And this is me speaking early June,
right like, I was like, man, I wish they would have
somehow switched around this game in Ghost Suhima, because Ghost of Sushimi at the
time was a game where I was like, man, I am very much
way more in the mood to play that type of game than to play a
game like the Last Most Part two. And when I was actually playing it
the Lastest Part two, I remember probably be like quite a few hours in
being like man, I am engrossed and I am not having a problem with
this game the way I thought I was gonna have a problem with this game,
Like, this game is doing such an excellent job of feeling like an
escape, Like it's an escap into a world in rim and dark and and
messed up and all these different things, but it still worked and functioned as
an escape because the game is so engrossing and in its story and in this
world and uh and its characters and so I'm with you that like that is
definitely at the top of my my list for games this year, not my
number one. Necessarily it might be of year ends, but hal oh,
I was gonna say, what half for you do? What's in the running
right now? And this could all change, but right now it's Final Fancy
seven remake. I really I love that game, and like I have because
I'm a huge nerd, I have like a running document a Google document of
like all my favorite games of all time, and I will like preface this,
you do too, Okay, so I'm not the only one, Thank
god, I will preface this that like as of the day I finish the
lastest part too. I put the lastest part too literally one space right below
Final Fantasy seven Remake, right above last less coincidentally, and so they're very
close and asked me next week it might change. But Final fantas E Remake
was a game for me that that like, I don't know, man,
knock me out. Like I was not expecting to love that game as much
as I did. Because I did not play the original Final Fantasy seven.
I have no affinity for Final Fantasy in general. Like I kind of have
this running thing where I am not able to get into Final Fantasy games.
You know, I've tried playing the original. I've tried playing Final Fantasy thirteen,
which I know is the wrong one to try and play according to many
people. And like I also tried playing Final Fantasy fourteen, which is a
different thing. But like I've tried getting into Final fantasies in the past,
like even Kingdom Hearts, you know, which, which are games that I
like, I've never really fallen in love with those types of fantasy games,
Fantasy JRPGs and Final Fantasy seven remake. Playing it, I was like,
man, I don't it's this combination of the world because it is this fantasy
sci fi meld cyberpunk, like this melted, this melted different, you know,
types of types of I guess sci fi fantasy that they present to you.
It's that plus the characters that are feel so real despite being so anime
and so like over the top. Barrett's speech toward the beginning and even multiple
speeches that he gives throughout the game, as far as him being like,
hey, like you know, Maco is the lifeblood of our world and him
like kind of going on the spiel of why they're eco terrorists and why they're
doing what they're doing, Like I like, I felt that, And I
felt that not only in the writing, but in the performance and in the
face in the facial capture and maybe not facial capture, but in the animation,
Like I felt that all there story moments that happen, Like I don't
really want to point out any of the ones I'm thinking of because of spoilers,
but there are big story moments that happened that for me, I found
really touching and really at times heartbreaking, and like, I don't know,
there's something about that game that felt like magic as I was playing through it,
Like something about it felt like almost it almost felt like a Disney Pixar
ish, Like I can't believe y'all put this pulled this off with such quality
and made me invested in the story in a way that this feels to me.
This five PHAs and seven remake made me feel the way I felt playing
The Last Us on PS three and twenty thirteen, in a way where I
was like, this feels like it's an iconic story that's gonna like sit with
me forever. I and I love the battle system, so I've only played,
like I only really played Final Fantasy fifteen before Stefan, and I think
the thing that stuck out most to me with remake was just how confident it
was compared to fifteen, Like fifteen was like I enjoyed that game for what
it was, but it was it was kind of a mess. Like there
was like it's a kind of interesting open world decisions and like the combat was
kind of okay, but it like it worked, but it wasn't. I
don't know, it was lacking that punch and like right from the beginning of
seven, even though I don't think I liked it as much as you did,
Like there, it's just it's so hard to put down because of that
confidence in the way it just like puts you right in it and you start
going and the combat feels so good and it looks so good, and the
music is incredible music. All that comes together, like it really, it's
it's so hard to just I don't know, Like that's all I was doing
for like three or four days. I was just playing that game. Yeah.
And the way I compare it, because the Found Fantas seven Remake versus
The Lastest conversation is so hard for me because they're two completely different games,
completely different things. It's hard to really compare them head on. But by
the time I finished Found Fantasy seven Remake and I was what thirty five thirty
six hours in, I did not want it to stop. I wanted the
game to keep ongoing. I like, I finished the game and immediately started
a new game. I wanted it to last forever. Whereas with The Lastest
Part two, by the time I got towards the end of the game,
I was like, I'm ready for this bend and it kept going and I
was like, please stop, I can't take this anymore. Please, And
like, I'll still love the Lastest Part too, And I think like the
way in which it kind of stretched served the story, even though I felt
like you kind of did a disservice to some of the gameplay. Like overall,
like I came out of those two experiences feeling such a love for Final
fans in Steven remake and more so like of a fascination and appreciation for the
Last's part too. Yeah, I think for me, like you've pretty much
hit the nail on the head there, Like Last of Us two storytelling is
so sophisticated and like it's it's I think it's it's one of the crowning achievements
of narrative within video games. I feel like, and I say that as
someone who I think in other ways, I don't think it's that all that
great. I found the combat to be good for a while, but then
very quickly became grating and felt like a chore. And I get that there's
narrative and almost like thematic reasoning for some of that, but it's hard to
get over the fact that you're not having a good time to to you know,
appreciate the Oh, it has itselves a purpose and you know, the
monotony of all this is kind of part of its feeling, But there's still
the what it does with its kind of characterization and the themes. The more
It's one of those games where the more you think about it, the more
you can continue to find new things about it. Like you talked about drug
men saying it being a game about hate, and then you talked about saying,
oh, for you, it's a game about love. For me,
I took I walked away with it thinking that this is a game about forgiveness
and and not either of those two things. And like that's something I've been
thinking about for ages, like I've been writing and deleting and writing and deleting
again, over and over various kind of like takes on what it means.
And there's no other game this year that has, you know, is living
in my mind rent free in the way that it is, like it's it's
I think about when I'm like sitting down in a moment, I'll open my
notes AAP and write some thoughts about it and send it to some friends and
see what they think about it, and that kind of stuff. Having said
that, Final Fantasy is a game that, like you said, when I
finished playing, I felt good, I felt like I had a had I
felt uplifted, even though the way it ends is not specifically that's not what
they want you to feel is an element of it, but it just felt
like a good life affirming or gamer affirming experience, if you know what I'm
saying, Like you walk away from that being like you walk in from Last
Us being like, this is the power of video games. You walk away
from Final Fantasy thinking this is why I play video games, This is why
I enjoy video games. This is what I want video games to make me
feel. If every game could make me feel like this game, it would
be incredible. And like I get the same feeling as that. I get
that same feeling from Persona five Royal, which came out this year. Yep,
and it's that. I think those three games are currently leading the pack
for me as my favorite game games of the year. I'm not ready to
entertain and entertain the game of the year discussion because there's still lots of games
coming out, and I feel like game of the year discussions frame the the
the actual discussion itself in a different way, like you know, what's your
favorite game versus what's the most impactful, what's the most important, etcetera,
etcetera. I'm just I do not have the energy to start on picking those
elements of it. But I think Last of Us is a profound experience and
easily one of the best games of the year so far. The same for
Final Fantasy and same for Persona five Royal. The stuff that they do in
Persona five is just fantastic. Like the way obviously we're on record as being
the very Persona friendly podcast. We all have people that love it on our
on our team, and then you know, blessings here and blessings noted Persona
five fans. This is this is this is a crew of noted Persona likes.
So like Persona five is already a special game to many of us,
but the fact that they did what they did to that game to make it
even better, it's kind of astounding. It's unreal how good that game is.
Like we would have we gave it a pretty high score and speak effusively
about it. But if you have told me, like a few years ago,
they're gonna make this game even better, I would not have believed it.
Well, like, that's the thing they do. That's that's the thing
for me where Persona five Original I played in twenty seventeen, and for me
as somebody who played Persona four Golden in like I think twenty fifteen twenty sixteen
for the first time and absolutely fell in love with it so much so they
became one of my favorite games of all time. I played Persona five,
and I had so many complaints with it, I like, and part of
it was just the fact that, like Persona four Golden, being my first
Persona, I just love the characters more. I love the story in Persona
four more, like I like the soundtrack and Persona four more. And I
know that's like probably a controversial thing to say, but Persona four just did
it for me all in all these different ways. In Persona five, like
I had complaints with like yeah, no, no, no, man,
the characters don't seem like deeper interesting enough. I don't know, man.
Like the dungeons are cool visually, but I have some problem with some of
the dungeon design and some of the combat, and like, I don't know
how I feel about the balancing of the battle system and all this stuff,
all the stuff I had complaints with. Jumping into Persona five Royal some and
I don't know how, but somehow it fixed everything in a way where now
I'm like, oh, yeah, Persona five rolls now one of my favorite
games of all time too, Like it's it's it's crazy right, Like with
just the small things they've added as far as features into the dungeons and the
battle system, that stuff builds in a way that now makes it flow so
well for me, like the fact that mixing sp has done oh my god,
so much, Like it's so huge. Yeah, like that combat was
already pretty sick. Now it just absolutely sings. Like there's times there's times
where I'll do a standard enemy and count and didn't save the encounter because of
how slickly it went, like just the baton pass, the exploiting weakness,
the rush, all that kind of stuff. It's just like it's the most
I think it's probably my favorite RPG turn based RPG mechanic system all the time.
Like it feels so good. And there's others as well that are amazing,
you know, funnal fansy vagrant story of that kind of stuff, but
this one is just like top to bottom, it's just buttery, smooth and
so cool to watch. Incredible game and like, yeah, the new content
they've added, as well as the quality of life stuff that all being amazing.
But the new content they added is like considered really well thought out and
addresses things that were missing from the previous game, like the mental health angle
is a big part of that, right, Like that was something that people
came away and were like, it doesn't really explore the impact of that and
how they deal with that at all. And then they went away and did
that, which is unexpected because you don't get a lot of these types of
games doing exploring the angle of I mean, mental health is a big part
of the Persona and Shimmagami tense series as a whole, but I didn't expect
them to go back and retrofit it with this much amount of content and address
that kind of stuff and speak to it. It's just so well done,
and then there's a new character and all that kind of business. It's just
like an amazing package for anyone who plays RPGs. I went from someone who
was not going to play for Soda five Royal because it was like, I
don't know if I've got the time to dedicate, And then a couple weeks
ago I bought it on PlayStation. I bought it on the PlayStation Store.
So I think eventually I'm gonna end up replaying that, hopefully this year,
just because like I don't know what I was expecting. Like I figured,
like I knew there'd be a new character. I knew there'd be some more
story stuff, but I didn't think I would get the urge to play one
hundred and fifty hour RPG, I mean one hundred and ten hour RPG.
I don't know. I guess I think it took me like one hundred and
ten hours. But like hearing everyone talk about it and stuff like that,
it sounds like it makes some significant, meaningful additions that make me excited to
jump back into that. Some of them, I like. The interesting thing
is by some of them, like it took me a while to realize they
were actually there, because yeah, some of them are like just slight tweaks
that improve the experience so much that it's almost like they work because you can't
tell anything more than a new feature. And so like streamline days too,
like it'll just be like days where God, normally you wouldn't do anything.
It's just like, all right, we're just gonna jump to the next day.
Yeah, yeah, that's the thing. You can go out at night,
and now they've made it so that within your home you can basically do
do a thing that'll add to your overall like social stats and so like if
you want, you can raise your your confidence level or your whatever level by
like doing something that in your in your own home, which was missing from
the first game and which like makes you feel like you're not wasting time.
And also you can press the touch pad and that'll then make it so that
you can it'll then have like automatic suggestions for things you can do. It
will like essentially teleport you to those things too, which will which streams like
streamlines it a great amount. That's that's one of those games where you enter
that flow state or the whatever you want to call it, almost like a
slipstream of gaming where if you want to tune the world out and just get
absorbed in the game. The rhythm of Persona five and Persona five Royal more
specifically is just so like the momentum picks up and then pulls you forward with
it's so good that you just forget the world exists around you, like more
so than any other game. You're just so engrossed in it. But yeah,
I think those three games, Last of Us, Frontal Fantasy seven remake,
and Persona five are leading the pack. But I do have a list
of games in front of me if you want me to shout them out,
and sure, yeah, one came out this year that we forgot about.
So there's a game that I do want to give a shout out to which
I've played a ton of in a game that I thought I was done with
but I've been playing it again. Is Animal Crossing New Horizons. Oh my
god, that was this year. That was this year. Oh yeah,
that is a game that I have spent I think like two hundred and fifty
hours. It's Shane Kelly's not on today because she would she would be the
one championing this game for sure. But that's a game that I do want
to give a shout out to because, like a it was such a phenomenon.
It still is. Like the amount of people who are so invested in
this game was absurd. Like I'm I know, Nintendo, I'm sure Nintendo
knew was going to be a success, but like probably not to this extent.
I don't know how they could have predicted. Like you know, Gary
woitdis talk show which ended up being huge and getting all these celebrities on it,
Sing Sting was on it. Yeah, Danny Trejo was on it,
like a recurrent character on it, Yeah, recurring guest, which is which
is insane, but like even beyond that too, like so many people have
gotten a switch just for this game, and it is connected with so many
people who normally wouldn't play games or be interested in and like, but it's
also connected with someone like me who I've been a fan of all the Animal
Crossing games. I've played them all, at least all the mainline ones,
but like this one, it just seems to work so well with how they're
implementing updates with seasons, Like it seems like a big thing that was missing
from Animal Crossing and all the previous games, like is now there because of
this whole Like what are they called lifestyle games where they update as they go
or live service games, And I feel like just the Animal Crossing formula has
been perfected. I mean if there even was an Animal Crossing formula, and
that's a game that you know, like I said, I thought I was
done with, but I am still playing every single day, even if it's
just for a couple of minutes, and like it always I don't know,
like Tomorrow was saying how Final Fantasy made him feel really good and like it
was a game that made you feel great. And I feel the same way
about Animal Crossing and that, like even if I play like twenty minutes or
so, usually I'm walking away in a good mood because I don't know.
I chatted with one of my villagers where I caught a fish that I've been
trying to catch for a while, and the writing is super clever and fun,
Like I got so many good things to say about that game, glad
to hear it. Let me tell you about a game called Predator Hunting Grounds,
which I know all you guys are. I know all you guys are
too cowardly to shout it out. I've played that many times. I've I've
also fought through motion sickness to play that with Greg and you guys, I
don't know how you guys get motion sick playing this game. The frame rate
is and like there's a way that it moves, like there's the there's a
slight disconnect between what you're doing and on the controller and the way it moves
that it just makes you yeah, yeah, there is, Yeah, there
is when he prays that a button man the slide and that kind of stuff.
It's just like, oh, it's so, it's so, it's so,
but I love it. It's so yank. I really enjoyed. I
will say I re enjoyed when we played the beta and a lot of fun
with it, and it was really yanky. But then I played it when
it came out and it was just like it was the motion sickness that did
it for me. Like I just I physically can't play it, which sucks.
And I don't know what change between Peter and final release, and maybe
they've fixed it now, but I had such a bad time that that,
like just after launch and we all played together, that I had to lie
down for the whole afternoon and just like not look at stuff. They haven't
fixed that. And on the day that it came out, I got it
and installed it and I got a bug. The bug was, you know
on this main screen where it shows you your Predator, that none of none
of that, none of that was textured for me. So it was just
a bunch of triangles that look vaguely like the Predator. So it looks awful,
and it doesn't have any hands, it doesn't have a head. It's
just like parts of its body floating there. It's one of your favorite games,
though, Blessing, I don't it to this day. If I load
the game up, it is still like that, that is permanently my version
of Predator now on the screen, and like I'm just like, oh god,
And that's like I enjoy playing that game with you guys, specifically,
especially with like you know, when You're on and Greg's on and Andy's on,
and like other folks are jumping in and Nixon. That's fun. That's
fun to play, and it makes it worth feeling sick to play it.
But if well, I will never of my own volition go and fire up
some Predator. Well, And that's actually where I'm at with it too.
Like I don't think it's one of the best games of twenty twenty by any
stretch, but it is a game that camound twenty twenty. I will say
that if I was making a list that was top ten games of twenty twenty
that I've had the most fun with, I could see it possibly making that
list. Like it is. It is a good time, especially with friends
to play with. But yeah, no, I just want to give it
a shout out as a game make on twenty twenty. If it's okay with
you, Jake podcast master, host master. I'll shout out some games that
I've got on a list. Yeah, read them people can. So we've
done a feature I think it should be up fairly soon or is up,
which is basically the best games of the twenty twenty so far, And as
part of that, we kind of put a bunch of games into a spreadsheet.
So I'm going to read them out and do more more quickly. Maternal
is on that. That was the first one I was going to say.
I figured that would be on there, and I want to make sure we
get to it before. How do you I feel about the conversation around the
Maternal because I feel like that's a game that everybody expected to come out and
blow us all away, and then it came out and I think it blew
us all away. But the ways, well, we talked about it since
I bounced off that game too, like it felt like it was trying to
do too much. I went in there. Maybe it's my own fault for
expecting more of the same, but I wanted I wanted like a slick,
focused, fast paced shooter that I could play and like almost barrel through and
get just get like the satisfaction out of and it's doing the thing where it's
like go to the ship and go back, and these open issue environments that
you have to platform around. I'm just like, I'm not here for that.
I just want I just want the ish treading metal music and jumping around,
firing rockets and shooting guns. And it felt like it over complicated itself,
like it had a good thing going, and there was like tried to
be too smart. I was like, and then you add disability, and
that ability, it's like I don't need it. And also it came out
the same day as Animal Crossing, which yeah, you know, completely dominated
the conversation. Yeah, also also another game that's got like motion sickness vibes
to it. Well, no, they fixed they fixed it for Eternal.
They actually put especially on the console version, they've added a bunch of more
accessibility options and you can because I couldn't do Doom twenty sixteen, but Eternal
I could play. Yeah, so I never messed with the console accessibilities.
It's this game I want to go back to because I do enjoy playing it.
Also, it's an amazing case the use case for the Xbox Elite controller
because oh yeah, you just press all the things and you're doing all the
things out on the screen, So like I want to use it more for
that. But yeah, it kind of like came and went really quickly.
If I if I, if I had one complay with Eternal, it would
have been the fact that I feel like the game moves faster than like both
I can handle, and both like the design of the game could handle.
Because at a certain point, especially towards the end of the game, I
feel like there's so many enemies I did through through in there with you,
and especially the marauder. I think it was is the guy that like make
sure the mad Yeah, that dude was doing way too much. But yeah,
they would like throw marauders at you. They throw like a bunch of
different people while the marauders there, And like at a certain point, I
was like, man, this is going way too fast, Like I cannot
keep up there. There are too many enemies on screen. There's too much
happening. That said, I I had an absolute blast with it. Like
you know, Dune twenty sixteen is one of my favorite, if not my
favorite first person shooter of this generation, and like I mean that's for I
think obvious reasons. Right, Like it came out and it it reinvented Doom.
It was super smooth, super focusing, straightforward in terms of what it
came out to be and do do. Doom Eternal felt like it saw Dune
twenty sixteen and was like, all right, let's do that. Let's do
that. Less up the anty and the ways in which it uped the ante
might have they might have they might have up it too much down a bit.
Yeah, That's why I'm like, man, I because I love to
Eternal, But if they're gonna make another Doom, I would like them to
be like, all right, let's let's turn it down a little bit,
let's take a step back. Let's uh, let's go back, relax,
let's relax and maybe like get more linear. I don't know, I think
I'm with you there because as much as I did like that game, uh,
and it'll I mean, I imagine if it is on my top ten,
it might be on the lower end of it. But like, that
is a game that it I feel like it demands a lot of you,
which isn't a bad thing. Like that's probably one of my favorite things about
it. But like I couldn't just binge that game, like I couldn't just
sit down and play through it. I'd have to take breaks. And the
problem with that was that, like as you get further, the more it
throws at you. Then it's like trying to remember how you deal with every
enemy type, mostly the marauder, because the Marauder, your strategy is completely
different, and like, I don't know, I imagine i'd be curious to
hear your experience is like two more going back to it after not playing it
for a while, because I feel like that might be not fun. My
plan is to once I get my new PC play on that and oh yeah,
that'll problem because I'm way more comfortable with mouse and keyboards with shooters,
and also specifically that game because like the flick of the risks that you need
to to move around and you know, react to what's happening around you is
so demanding and I just can't get it on a controller. There is a
flow state that you can enter playing that game. Absolutely, it is that
type of game where once you get into it, like for me, I
felt like I was entering a new dimension, which I think is the magical
thing about Doom Eternal is that it kind of transports you into that world and
you feel like you're like you are uh, what's his name, doom Guy,
doom Layer, Like you feel like you are him, you are embodying
him, and you're fucking going a million miles per hour and like yeah,
and when it does that, it is a blast, And like, I
like that's honestly, I don't really have like any heavy complaints with the game.
Like I think the game is overall fantastic, but like it's not that
much more fantastic than doing twenty sixteen is. And I think that's kind of
where as far as like the best games of twenty twenty go, that's kind
of where the conversation kind of ends with it. It's like, yes,
it's another one of those have you this is a bit of a tangent,
but have you guys watched any clips of when Joe Rogan interviews Hugo Martin?
No, No, painful? It is absolutely painful. What because he got
him on the show for some reason? Like I was curious because I was
like, why is Hugo Martin on Joe Rogan? So I like clicked and
watched a little bit of it. But it is absolutely painful. I'm sure
I'll get hate from people who listen to this because people love Joe Rogan,
but like it is so hard to watch. Most of the interview is is
Joe Rogan being like, but why is why isn't there like multiplayer? Why
can't we like one V won each other? And and he goes like,
you know, we just didn't make that kind of game, and he's like,
but man, that's like the best part of games when I can we
can do one on ones And he's like, why is he on Joe Rogan?
I don't know. He was just like it was so confusing, Like
I was just I saw it and I was like, oh my god,
that's funny. I want to see Joe Rogan actually never run. I was
gonna I was gonna say I want to see Joe Rogan interview Jonathan Blow,
but I actually don't. Yeah, no, I don't want to see Joe
Rogan interview anyone. Yeah. Another game that camera is, yeah, Streets
of Rage four. I played that. I want to that good game.
Fun I'm just gonna shout out to hunt Down is what it's called. I
think, Yeah, I think it's called hunt Down. Similar kind of game
like Side scrolling shoot him up, kind of a boss rush ish game because
what you're doing mostly that games is hospitals. Really really fun game. It's
probably one of my favorite indie games I played so far this year. Are
you ready to feel really fill the passage of time? Yes? Dreams came
out this year. Oh god, oh oh yeah, And I would put
that up there for me at least. I really like Dreams. Yeah,
it's a good game obviously called Warzone. A bunch of games that are like,
perhaps not as got garnering as much attention as like The Lost of Us,
but like Pokemon, Mystery Dungeons, Rescue Team Days came out, Evans
Remains came out, It Found Chante and the Seventh Sirens. Xeno played Chronicles
Definitive Edition. Over to our resident weeb, Jake Decca. That game was
good. That game was really good. I gave it a nine. I
liked it a lot. It's hard for me to like think about games that
came out like that. That's what a two thousand and seven game that got
remastered. So when I'm thinking of my favorite games of that probably won't be
on the list, but it is, you know, a superb game.
Yep. A Resident Evil three remake came out of this year. Yeah I
did not like it. Yeah, absolutely, I disappointed. I was.
I didn't play it because I like reson eve a free lot, and I
was like, I just I'm good in like a in a vacuum. It's
a really good game, but coming off of Resident Evil to play three was
such a bummer to me and the will of the wisps I have it.
I haven't played it yet. It's really good, but also it felt like
a chore every moment I played it. I think I just I wasn't.
I don't know if I just wasn't in the mindset for it. But the
things that I usually love about metro Venues were just really annoying me. I
can't reach a dead end and be like, oh d that's my thing,
is like why haven't metro Venus evolved? Like that's my main That was kind
of my main critique with Oriy in the world of Whist, Like, you
get to dead ends and I feel like at a certain point somebody should have
thought of the idea to let us draw on the map and let us like
or give us icons like they have in Breath a while where you can find
an x icon and place that on the map, so you know that you
like you personally know that you're not supposed to go there. Like that interesting
lineup game velopers making. For think, Yeah, it's an interesting line of
thought because, like the the evolution of the metrodvenue genre seems to have come
at the expense of it, because instead of evolving that genre, people have
just taken the core of it and made new genres, which is like wild
because like you know, it's since then lists like a roguelike or whatever it
may be. So like that that genre has just kind of fallen by the
wayside the core of it, and instead of trying to evolve it, people
it very quickly went from being this new exciting genre to being a genre that
you now pay homage to, almost like too quickly, Like instead of doing
the next evolutionary step, we've got igarashily doing or making a symphony of them
like game, which is like why Furst of the Moon two is about to
come out. I think, yeah, like, don't make that same game
again, make the next phase in that game. And maybe it's maybe we're
asking for too much by trying to come up with new ways. I feel
like you can do stuff like that, which is quality of life stuff,
but you know, instead of just moving on to another genre. But who
knows, maybe that is the evolution and where we're like not giving it a
credit at a certain point. And like this gonna sound controversial, but I
don't mean in a controversial way. I feel like, you know, once
you play one metric Vania, you kind of played them all in a sense
that like or in the the Whisp individually is like a very excellent game,
and like, honestly it's also a very touching game, Like it's a very
beautiful game. They do such great things with it. But like in terms
of the rounds I'm going through in my head as I'm playing the game,
I'm like, okay, cool, Yeah, now I find the new ability.
Now I'm able to go to this place I haven't been to before.
Okay, cool, I go there. Oh sweet, I can explore a
bit all right, dead ends? Sweet new ability found it? Now I
can go through the that ends. And it's it's that same kind of gameplay
loop in a way where like yeah, that we've seen Metro Advania is kind
of adapted and turned into something like adapted in either like turn into another genre
or I guess adapted in ways where you get games like Batman Arkham Asylum,
which is pretty much for all intents and purposes of Metroidvania, but it is
doing it in a way that works for I guess this third person action design.
We see metro vedeos kind of grow and evolved in that way to where
to where now, like me playing an actual Metroidvania that is like, hey,
we're we're making a super Metroid, or we're making a Capfevidia. Something
in Sympathy of the Night just feels way less exciting to me. Yeah.
I think a couple of weeks ago, someone had asked us to question,
like, what are some tropes in indie games that you're tired of? In
mine was Metroidvania because like like you were saying, like, I feel like
once you've played a handful of metro Advania games, like you kind of hit
those same notes every single time. That said, though, Like that word
always gets me excited when like there's a game it's like, Oh, it's
gonna have metro at vny elements, I'm like, oh, what does that
mean? Like that that could be cool? Yeah, that's me and rogu
Light. Like, if you say Rogue Light, I'm like, oh,
yeah, that's too Yeah, let's go. But like, rogue Lights are
kind of kind of have the same thing where a lot of them are doing
are do have the same kind of gameplay, but they're still satisfying though.
So all right, I'm okay with it. I'm gonna rattle off some names
just to get through them because I know we've been running for a bit now.
We want to wrap it up just so they get mentioned. Yeah.
So other games that came out that are noteworthy Velorian under Night in Berthy,
Xue Late cl I'll just call it that. That's probably wrong, yeah,
Treachery and beat Down City, Tokyo, Marge Sessions, f e on Core,
Wonderful one to one, Remastered SpongeBob, Battle for Bikini Bottom, Murdered
by Numbers, Minecraft Dungeons MLB, The Show Kunai Kentucky Root zero, Act
five, Jennings's Savage Planet. That's when Jake played Grand Blue Fantasy Versus,
which I reviewed and thought was good, Golf of Mars, Gears Tactics,
Dragon bo ZrO Desperado three. I think, oh wow, how long is
this year? Come on? Rag came out. I think that. I
think that. Come on Bleeding Edge Neo two. Yeah, Bleaning Edge came
out and died this year. Did you guys play it? I played it.
It was sent out to die by Microsoft. Yeah. That's a bummer,
man, because I loved Intero theory. Yeah, I mean that they
were bought for hell Blade, right, they were bought for Bleeding Edge Neo
two. And of course the biggest game of the Clubhouse games. Oh actually,
I was going to bring up Clubhouse Games and like, my what what
what have I been playing? Segment? I like that game, though,
that game should have done a lot more, and it's for four person online.
It's very it's very it's very much a bummer that like only like five
games are playable for four people online in that game. It's ridiculous. Yeah.
Those those are kind of like the main the big standouts from the US
so far that we've kind of identified. So yeah, there is that.
This is this is a list of games that are not worthy that came out
not necessarily the best games of the year. One game I don't think we
reviewed that. I am excited to try out that a lot of people are
saying is one of their favorites is Sledge Life. Oh yeah, you guys,
Oh did that come out? It's it's on Epics store again. It's
free on Epic Game Store, I think, but it supposed to come to
Switch to it said it was out on Switch. I could not find it
on the Switch store the other day. Maybe it's been pushing back. Is
not the game where they no, No, that was. It was one
game where they announced the Switch version and developers like, oh that was indivisible.
Oh yeah yeah. Literally last week I was looking up Sledge Life.
Yeah, I was the other day because like everyone was saying how good it
is, and I was like, I want to check that game out,
but I don't want to play it on I want to play it on my
Switch, and it's not there. This is a This is specifically a reference
just for Lucy and any other British person. But every time someone says Slush
Life, I hear it as park Life in my head. Ye shout out
to jump rope challenge on Switch? What game? What do you? This
is gonna sound like a joke, but I'm being totally serious. One of
my favorite games of this year so far has been Star Wars Episode one Racer
that came that re released this last week, maybe it was two weeks ago.
On PS four, I heard that it's a great game unless you're you're
ready bad and can't get the platinum. Yeah, no, yeah, exactly.
Somebody sneezing by the way. Okay, I was like that news sounds
really familiar. Yeah a thousand times. Yeah, I was gonna say he's
he sneezes like five times in a row. He's gone. But yeah,
I tried to get the platinum an episode one Racer, and the platinum was
broken for me. I think because I used cheats to beginning my playthroughated.
I was confused because some of the some of the trophies seem like they wanted
me to cheat to get it, because it was like a trophy that was
like win a race in mirror mode, and the way I looked it up
online and the way to unlock mirror mode was to put in sheets. But
apparently also if I beat a track, I didn unlocked mirror mode. I
don't know there were some of the some of the cheats worked to get me
trophies, is what I'm saying. And the fact that like some of the
cheats might have locked me off from other trophies. How's that there? So
again in it ridiculous? Yeah, but I had a blast of that game
and also Burnout Paradise for Switch. Oh yeah, I've been wanting to play
that again. Anyway, I know these are old games. But listener questions,
Yes, all right, before we get into the listener questions, if
you want us to read your question on the show, you can email us
at after Dark podcast at GameSpot dot com, or you can in a discord
by dming anyone. Well not don't d M Blessing. He won't be able
to get you into the game Spot discord. But tomorrow Lucy or myself can
get you right into the game Spot discord. And there's a channel right there
where you can sound off questions or you can just chat with other listeners and
whatnot. It's a very good community. But the first question here comes from
Loose and Light. Lucy, do you want to read this first one?
Hello? Yeah? From loosen Light. Has the been games that you didn't
play for a long time? Because if your feeling of anticipation was greater than
actually playing the game. For me, when Breath of the Wild came out,
I was so excited to play and enjoy the game that it took me
a while to actually play because that anticipation made me happy and I didn't mind
waiting even though nothing was stopping me. I did this with Skyrim. I
mean, I guess I played Skyrim when I first got it. Oh me
too. I only played a little bit of it, and I knew it
was gonna be something. I was like, I was waiting for it for
years, super excited for it, and like, I think like Call of
Duty Modern Warfare two came out around the same time, or maybe it was
like Black Ops or something. I don't remember. I don't know. I
bought it in the with Assassin's Creed Revelations. I stupidly played Assassin Creed Revelations
first. Then I played Scram even though I had both of them and I
could have done but at the same time. But I think I did say
oh no, maybe it was Left for Dead too. I don't know.
There was a lot of games that came out that year. Yeah, but
I remember that being a game that I played about twenty minutes of and I
like stopped not because I wasn't into it, but because I was enjoying how
excited I was to play it, I guess, and plus there was a
bunch of other great games that were out, so I just set it aside
and then you know, a month or two later, came back to it
and sunk a lot of time into it. But I think even when I
was done with it, I was like, yeah, I didn't like that
as much as Oblivion, and just kind of yeah, I had that with
Xcomb Chimera Squad recently. I was so excited to play it, and then
I bought it, and the moment I bought it, just every bit of
excitement dissipated, Like I was just like done. I was more excited for
the prospect of having Xcomb than actually playing it. I'm sure I'll get to
it eventually, but I was just like, Okay, I came out Ye
runs like absolute trash on everything. For some reason, though, Blessing,
what about you, I feel like Death Stranding might be one for me,
where like that game I was, I was super excited for, Like,
I don't think I'd been as excited for many other games as I was for
Death Stranding, just because I'm a big co jamer person and the idea of
him working on a New Ip just like seemed very exciting to me. But
that game came out around the same time as Pokemon Sword and Shield and then
also Jedi Fall in Order, and like, by the time those games are
coming out, I was like, all right, I might prioritize Death Straining
last, because like I'm already excited for it. I could. I'm fine
with, like, you know, maintaining this this excitement, especially like after
reading reviews and saying that, like so many people were like, Scheme's actually
kind of boring. I was kind of fine putting it off for that and
then yeah, but I actually got to it. Like I'll still like,
I was still kind of really excited for the game, and I'll still somewhat
a fan with bit even like with a fan of it, even without necessarily
having played it. I just like the idea and like the what I had
seen of gameplay and and the thought of it. I played some of it,
and at a certain point I kind of like fell off just because other
things happened, and I've not gone back since, like, and that's not
that's it's still a game where I'm like, yeah, I had a like
it was it was. I consider it fantastic. I consider if really cool,
Like I like a lot, I like a lot of what the game
is doing, but at the same time, I've just not had it in
me to kind of go back to it, and I, Yeah, that's
that's that's kind of where where that answers that for me. I think I'm
going through that now with a PC version where I'm so hype for the PC
version and I'm worried that when it comes out it's gonna be like, yeah,
I am. The biggest surprise of twenty twenty for me is how excited
I am to play this Standing again on PC because I didn't even like the
game all. Like, I thought it was great, but it just didn't.
I was frustrated most of the time playing that game, even though overall
I did like it. But for some reason, I think it's just like
seeing that game run on PC. I'm like, I'm like, yeah,
I'm ready for this. I'm ready to go back and doing do it in
widescreen and max out the graphics and whatnot, and just you know, to
read use mods like the Moment has got like Infinite Sprint, mak him like
the road Runner, you know what I mean. Next question from Depressed Carbon.
Do you want to take this one? Tomorre Sure has there been a
game that, even though it's old, you went back and played, Mostly
speaking about consoles, although playing Half Life been a game that, even though
it's old, you went back and played. I think I think I think
they're talking about like replugging in an old console. Oh after the fact,
I think mine would have to be awkward enough time, which was not of
my generation. Although it is not that old that it's still graphically outdated,
I find it to be still visually a pleasing and the music is some of
my favorite video game music, next to Undertail. I hope you guys are
doing well and stay safe. So basically going back after a fact, I'm
playing, this person has good opinions. Yeah, yeah, by the way,
yeah the press, Corbin, you've got good opinions. Blessing improved.
Yeah, Super Smash Bros. Melee was one for me that I I guess
I haven't played recently, but that's the game that I always go back to
because I did not like Brawl at all, and I got rid of my
Wii, but I never got rid of my GameCube. I'd always look up
my GameCube. Well, I've gotten rid of my GameCube since then, but
like, I kept that for so much longer, and I'd always plug that
back in just to play Super Smash Bros. Melee. For me, it's
difficult because all of my old consoles are up at my mom's and I kind
of left them there when I moved, so I haven't really gone back and
played anything old in a long time. Yeah, that's why answer sadly dishonored.
It's not that old, but that's the same console generation, right,
because I'm playing definitive editions. Well, I guess I did play Mass Effects
one again last summer, but I played on PC this time. Technically I
did saw it on I say it started on Xbox I played and then but
then I changed it to PC. I think that that counts. So I
do regular play through the Metal Get Solid and Yeah, at this point,
I'm doing it on the Vita because it's just how's how is it playing?
Are you playing through like two and three or one? I'm playing through one
at the moment at the moment, at a moment, I'm playing through one.
Yeah, have you played? Have you played two and three on the
Vita? I have played two and three on the Beta it's and it requires
a little finger gymnastics to get it done properly for stuff like you know when
you aim first person and then look and then like get on your tippy toes
like shoot and that kind of stuff. It involves like the touch pad as
well to get the menus to them up and you can fiddle with it.
But it doesn't feel elegant, but it feels playable. Sadly, they are
taking it out of Game Pass fairly soon, I believe, so, are
they really? Yeah, otherwise that would be the way I'd recommend play two
and three in the HD collection. But yeah, that's a game that I'd
go back to a lot, and I always I regularly play the beginning of
Super Metroid, just like the just until the point where it starts to open
up, like the opening sequence, and then do a bit of like a
few of the early areas, just because it feels good to play that game.
Yeah, those are the probably the two I played most frequently. Yeah.
I love going back and revisiting old games, especially ones that haven't played
so like Star Wars. Episode on Racer for the most part, was a
game that I hadn't played much of as a kid. I played it at
a friend's house, but that was only like the first few tracks of it,
and so like actually going through and playing through all the tracks was a
really fun time for me. I played Benjo Becazi all the way through for
the first time. I'm in twenty sixteen, towards the end of twenty sixteen,
and it became like one of my favorite platformers. Trying to think of
what else. Ocreaty of Time was the game I played for the first time
in like twenty thirteen and really really enjoyed it. Yeah, I tend to
regularly go back to games just because I I don't know, there's something about
older games that I feel like are fun, at least for me as somebody
who was an NCY four kid and like spent so much time with that and
the PS two growing up. I feel like for me, I going back
to those consoles one is kind of nostalgic, but then also I feel like
they translate well for me in terms of games not aging up well or whatever.
Like I'm able to play a PS two game kind of almost in the
same mindset as I would have played it in like two thousand and three or
whatever, when the PS two was still relevant, all right. Following up
on the press Carbons question, is there an old game that you enjoyed but
can't go back to it due to its graphics, controls, et cetera.
Being older, Jankie, That one's from Robert j first thing that comes to
mind from me are like Knights of the Old Republic. As much as I
love those games, I feel like I've tried to play them again a couple
of times and it just didn't. It didn't hit like it did back in
two thousand and four whenever it came out. Last of Us Man, Oh
really, I tried to play. I tried to play that at the end
of last year, and it just feels so different, Like it feels like
a very twenty thirteen game, and it just doesn't feel smooth to play at
all. And that was back before Naughty Dog had really figured out shooting.
Like I have always said, and I've always believed that the shooting in the
uncharted games has never felt satisfying up until four and Lost Legacy, I agree,
And yeah, I think Last of Us was still very much in that
ballpark, and it just feels I don't know, it just feels very very
different. But I love I love the story so much that, like,
and the lead up to two, I decided to just watch a let's play
through instead of playing it again. It's not even like that it feels bad
or that it looks bad. It still looks great. It's just it just
felt different to me, and I just I just felt like I didn't really
want to go back and play it. It's just like just awkward enough to
make it not not enjoyable, not not enjoyable, but like it just doesn't
feel comfortable, Like it feels weird. Yeah, yeah, that's my thing.
I'm trying to think of one, but I can't think of anything that
like just to throw it out there. I've been I've been watching one of
our listeners, Foggy Bear. I've been watching his stream and he was streaming
Walking Dead season one, and man, but that is the game I could
never return to as much as I liked it when it came out. Watch
him play was just like, oh boy, this game is aged a lot.
Like the writing is still great, writing is still really good, but
like I don't know, I walk I you know, when they're at the
hotel and he's like walking around trying to get chalk and he's just like blindly
walking on. He's like, I've talked to everyone, I don't know what
I'm missing. And then you find a piece of chalk and it triggers the
next scene, and it's like, in what world does finding a piece of
chalk like trigger? I don't know. It's so strange. It made sense
at the time, but watching it, I was like, Yeah, there's
no way I can I miss Telltale. Man, I do too. I
mean Walking Dead season two is happening somehow. Walk Sorry is one that I'll
definitely play. I love among us, and I really liked Walking Dead too,
to be fair, like, I don't want to like. I thought
that game was fantastic at the time, and in some regard I still do.
But man, watching someone play through that that again, I was like,
nah, I don't think I could do it. There's like platforms from
the Nighties or that I would love to be able to play again, but
I just can't because they feel bad, like even like the Spiral games.
I mean they've been remastered since and they feel a bit better, but like
the Crashes of Spirals, and there's various other like platformers from back in that
generation that I'm like I could try that, but probably it's not I'd rather
preserve my memory of it than actually replay and potentially tarnish that. That's fair
for me, I mean, it's it's a game that I'm not I didn't
necessarily love back in the day because I didn't play much of it back in
the day. But like every time I try to play Resident Evil four,
for some reason, I'm not able to get into it, which is probably
like my most controversial video game opinion. You are coming in here with the
controversial opinions today. Yeah, my resumel foroetakes about I mean in hot Water
in the past, but for some reason, that game has never been able
to do it for me and I and I mainly blame the fact that I
don't think the controls of age well, like I don't like Oh yeah,
I mean, I agree with you that I haven't like that game did so
much, but it does feel very, very awkward to go back to.
I've finished, I've beatn that game once and I've started it probably sixteen times.
Like not, I really like it. It's really good, like it's
the front of my favorite games, but like for some reason, I'm just
it's difficult to get through that because I think it's because the opening of that
game, I think it's like incredible, and then when it starts to get
to the castle areas when I kind of start to lose interest on the PEP
play Thros. The furthest I've gotten in that game is playing it on the
Wii, because yeah, like it's surprisingly like I think it controls pretty well.
But I got to a point where I was like, I am tired
of pulling my hands up like like constantly. I like, legit, I
physically got tired of it, and I was like, I'm not playing this
game anymore. I'm not going to keep doing this. But that was the
closest I got to actually like playing through that game. Anyway, any last
minute, last minute games, the shut up before we wrap this thing up.
No, all right, Well that's been episode forty nine of Game Spot
after Dark. Thank you all so much for listening. Thank you Lucian Timore
for joining, and thank you Blessing for guesting on this episode. I know
it was pretty last minute. I really appreciate it. Yeah, thanks for
having me. This is an awesome time to me back. If I'd be
back preferably and Michael hyam will have Michael, thank you, thank you,
thank you, appreciate it me. He texted me actually something to say to
you guys. Yeah. No, I had a text back and be like,
can I say this on the episode, But he told me I can
say it, and so if this is inappropriate, Michael's in trouble, not
me. He told me that if I see Jake and Tam, tell them
to eat his ass from the front. Okay, yeah, okay, that
that wouldn't be the first time. Okay, Simes told me to s MDFP
and his ass from the front. Two more. Where can people find you
on Twitter? You can find me. You can find me on Twitter at
two more. H I'm working on what the hell am I working on things?
That audiogs thing tomorrow. Oh yeah, we've got audio loogs. Oh
yeah, we've got audio logs. We're doing the cherry streams. Charty streams
are winding down. This be done. There'll be one. The Friday one
is a kind of alto Dark Live. That's plan anyway, chill stream where
it's going to be a few of us just chatting and talking about the Playfall
experience. While we're talking about that. We just launched our game Spot store
merch store specifically for currently for Play for All, So if you go to
store dog GameSpot dot com, you'll find a bunch of really cool merchandise there
that you can buy. There's a T shirt which is really cool. It's
just like really low key Play for All logo. There's a hoodie there,
there's a face mask, there's a skateboard deck, there's a touch tool that
you can press things without actually using your fingers, and a poster that's really
cool. All proceeds from that until the from June to the end of August
twenty twenty go directly fifty to fifty split between Direct Relief and Black Lives Matter,
So any money that you spend there is going for a good court,
going to good causes, and you also get something cool out of it.
We've got the T shirts and the poster I've seen we've got ourselves and they
are super high quality. That's worth checking out. I actually really like the
T shirts and a lot of the stuff on there because it's like kind of
minimalist. It's not yeah, it doesn't hit you with like crazy colors and
logos. It's just very very subdued, which like Lucy how about you.
I'm on Twitter at Lucy James Games and I've got a week off, so
peace out, lads. I'll see you in a week this episode as well.
Actually I keep forgetting that I've also got a week off. You're get
in this episode of fifty two. I mean it's not like it would go
in anywhere. I mean, that's it, just yeah, I mean we
darling text us man. I've like, I've done my taxes this week.
Next week I have to store out my student finance. I'm organizing my closet.
I'm cleaning my bathroom like. I've got big plans to take a cracket
half Flye Alex maybe, but there's nothing that would drop. I've lined up
Diablo. I'm ready to play some Diablo. Cannot wait. I can't tell
you something serious, serious serious. He needs to buy cheap. I missed
the sale. Also, Greg was talking about it the other day, which
leads me to believe he has it. I mean maybe, Blessing, how
are you working? People find you? What are you working on? You
can find me on Twitter at Blessing Junior. That's at Blessing Jr. And
you can find my content on YouTube dot com slash kind of funny games over
there. I am a part of kind of Funny Games Daily, which is
our daily new show that happens pretty much every single day of the week weekday,
so Monday through Friday, and that happens at ten am Pacific time on
twitch dot tv. So that's kind of Funny Games Live, and so if
you like video game news, tune into that. If you like PlayStation I
host the PlayStation Podcast with Greg Miller, Loose's roommate who you heard sneezing earlier,
and that also is on YouTube dot com slash kind of Funny Games PS
Love you xo xo. That's also on your podcast services choice where we love
listening to podcasts. So PlayStation, video game news and other shenannigans all happening.
Kind of funny Get Diablo, I don't know, I don't very much.
Seems like not my GM of a game. How much is it?
On Amazon? Is the the final Fantasy fourteen update Live that's supposed to listen?
If I couldn't get into X Men Legends, I don't know if I'm
getting into days not the same thing. Relax, Day five dollars actually actually
did kind of get into X Men legends. That was a lie. I
just like that when I was younger. Uh, you can find me at
Jacob Deck and and I don't know, I'm working on the podcast, this
podcast and oh, I know Jean Luke and I are doing. We're gonna
try to make a cyberpunk video every single week until the game comes out.
I don't know if we'll hit every week, but we're gonna try to be
making cyberpunk videos very often. The first one, which the script has already
written, is a history of Night City. So a lot of these are
gonna be lore based. So if you're somebody who's super excited for Cyberpunk twenty
seventy seven and you know nothing about the world, that these videos are for
you, even if you know a good amount, Like we're gonna try to
touch on everything from the history of night City to the different gangs, to
the different districts, to the different characters. So if that's something you're interested
in, be sure to stay tuned for that. I'm very excited for those
videos. I think they're gonna be locking money old strategy call on. Let'll
see if it pays off for them. Yep, all right, see y'all
next week. Oh long,