Hello and welcome to Side of Quest. This is our video game show here
at Gie Versus. I'm your host, Dyl must night with me the trainer
in the field. Let me go on with my friend. It's going very
well. Happy to be here. Nice fresh start of the week being your
guest on today's episode. Yes, the freshest way to start a week.
Very excited for this episode. We kind of a mishmash of topics. We're
mainly talking about Power World, which is the biggest game in the world out
of absolutely know where that happens, So we'll talk about all that and we'll
just talk about something games have been playing a little more Avowed. We talked
about a Vowed last week with the Xbox Direct and they had an even deeper
dive with some more info that came out like right after that. They didn't
even like announce as part of that director Very us. But we have some
more Vowed stuff to talk about, so should be a fun, shortened sweet
episode later this week. There it was announced that there is a PlayStation Sony
State of Play happening on the thirty first, that's Wednesday. If it's super
juicy mean Travis are probably gonna do an emergency side Quest episode will probably record
that Wednesday and put it upright away sort of thing. If not, which
I know they announced like Cellar Blade and Rise the Roan and A're gonna be
there, which makes me think those might be like the two big schames there.
If that is the case, then we might just roll into next week's
side Quest or just stay tuned to the feeds on that. You might have
a bonus episode this week or early I guess. And then Taylor, I
don't know if you have seen these Metacritics scores, but two games from our
draft have already come out and we have a start to this race. So
you had tech and eight on your list, which is out now. Travis
had like a Dragon Infinite Wealth, which also came out. Here's the funny
thing with this is like the all the different versions, like you know,
PC, PlayStation, Xbox, slightly different scores, and it actually both of
you picked the version that did weaker, if that makes sense. So here's
the breakdown of it. You picked teke An eight on Xbox. The Xbox
version has an eighty seven. PlayStation's had a clean ninety and pieces at in
ninety three, so that's actually like a fairly big difference, like six whole
points of difference there. I'm surprised I picked that for Xbox in retrospect because
I feel, yeah, those fighters always seem to do better on PlayStation.
Yeah, I mean, I don't know, maybe like maybe Street Fighter six
or Mortal Kombat one where the opposite last year and you had looked at that,
I'm not sure. And then for Travis, he picked Like a Dragon
on PlayStation. PlayStation was at an eighty nine, but the Xbox version was
out in ninety three, so both of you kind of missed out on like
a big, juicy ninety three opportunity. Now it's still early. Things could
change, more reviews could get added, you know, within a month or
two. It should all be. I don't know how long it usually takes
for sort out. I don't really count the numbers until the end of the
year anyway, but interesting start of the year. So technically Travis has the
early lead by two points there. But yeah, man, I was,
I was especially for tech and like six whole points worth of Metacritic difference.
That's like it's not a ton, but it's it's a notable amount. So
I don't know if Xbox version is just worse, or if there's just less
reviews on that version and therefore it's I don't know, the numbers a bit
more random in that way. I'm not not too sure, but we'll keep
it on that and maybe maybe who knows, maybe you'll climb up, maybe
his will go down. Not too sure. Does Metacritic compile the reviews like
regardless of what console it's on, Like if there was like a division to
see why people are choosing to put it at this on this console or this
one, let me open that up. I feel like they might have implemented
something like that recently because it made me think, like, oh, yeah,
I guess there's a universal acclaim. Maybe is that what? Or that
might be that what that means and that would equal it at a ninety.
Yeah, that would equal it at a ninety, So I guess going.
I think that is a newer thing. Maybe that's why we didn't do it,
So maybe that's the thing in the future. I kind of like rolling
Dace of picking a column. It's the same time. I feel bad for
you in this case because you kind of got screwed over, and so did
Travis, even though both picked opposite versions, So yeah, I don't know
that that is something to consider though, Like that just a that could be
really funny for like a game though that has like a switch port or something
that is just really bad and that gets way lower or something. I don't
know if that really happens. But anyway, good start to the draft.
So that's fun. I have a couple of games on there. Let's just
get right into We're gonna talk about Power World here. So first of all,
did you have any time over the beginning to check this game out at
all? Cool? So we will talk about our thoughts, but I first
I want to talk around this because this has been such a big surprise,
I guess at the start of this year because I remember, you know,
last year, maybe even the year before, seeing a trailer for this game
and thinking like, oh, it's it's Pokemon with guns. That's like there
their little I don't know if that's I mean, I don't think that's a
tag on they used, because then that would get them in maybe some murky
water there on the marketing. But that's what the community has called it.
Even I was looking through some of the YouTube like trailers, and that's what
like IGN put in their big like trailer for the launch trailer whatever. It
was just like pell World trailer in brackets Pokemon with the guns, So like,
you know, when IGN's pushing that narrative, it's gonna catch on.
But that's very much like the vibe that the game had, and I thought,
you know, it's gonna have its audience. People are gonna be into
this. But man, it is exploded. It's already sold and these numbers
could change and are probably even higher than this number I have, but it's
apparently sold over eight million copies on Steam already, which is absolutely insane.
It's the second game in Steam history to ever hit more than two million concurrent
players. Yeah, like two point two point one, I think it hit,
which is just I think PUBG is the only game that has had more
concurrence in it. So it's beat Out Counterstrike Global Defensive, like Do to
two, like I don't know, Cyberpunk, Skyrim, all these huge games
that have a ton of people on there. It's beat that, which is
insane. Uh And on Xbox they don't really have numbers for that yet,
but like quietly, this game just launched on game Pass as well, so
I'm sure there's a ton of people playing on Xbox. I don't know what
the sales would be, and actually, can you while I'm talking, can
you look up how much this game costs? Because it is an early access
on Steam and then game previews what they call that on Xbox, So I
don't know if it's maybe just a really low price because of that, and
that could obviously inflate some sales more people jump in there. But yeah,
randomly, just an Xbox console exclusive on game Pass, that's a really big
deal right now, So I don't even it's kind of weird that that just
kind of came as a surprise too for the Xbox community over there. I'm
seeing twenty nine at ninety nine USD. So that's a really solid price.
I mean, for early access, I'd say that's probably like about average.
But for a game like this, that seems like a pretty solid price.
I have to imagine that's like same or similar on Xbox as well. But
of course, if we don't have access to game Pass, I don't know
if it's game Pass PC, which if that is the case, that would
make me wonder if those why those Steam numbers are as high as they are.
I mean, that there's not that everyone subscribed to Xbox Game Pass on
PC, but still that would be maybe a bit of a surprise there.
But maybe people see the thirty dollars price tag and they don't really care.
So yeah, and then you know, I even I went back because I
wanted to see, like how many views were these trailers getting, Like was
this game bound to be massive? And like the announcement trailer from their channel
had like four hundred thousand views. That IGN trailer was talking about had like
one point eight million, which is like, that's pretty big. That's still
IGN. But I'm still just shocked at how much this game has exploded.
But at the same time, maybe I shouldn't be. I feel like there
is a appetite for Nintendo like games, and specifically like Pokemon type of games
that are of just like a higher quality that feel like a current gen thing.
Right, We've seen that with Pokemon recently. Scarlet and Violet is a
big detractor of this, where it's like, man, that game just ran
like garbage. It probably feels like an early access game, but they still
just put it out there for ninety bucks. Two versions probably got one hundred
and eighty out of a lot of people a lot of money, or even
like Archaias, like, sure it's a great game, maybe, but it
absolutely dogshit graphics looks horrible. Not to say that this game is any better,
we'll talk about the quality of it, but I think maybe there is
an appetite for you know, this is like an Unreal Engine five game,
like this big, higher quality version maybe has features that Pokemon refuses to do
because they kind of just release the same game every year with a couple of
new creatures and one one to two new mechanics. But yeah, it's it's
pretty crazy how much this game has exploded. Do you have any any thoughts
or any theories as to why that is? Especially like, I'm curios about
your perspective here because you are a Pokemon fan, You've got Scarlet Violet.
I think you've pretty much been in there for like most generations of Pokemon,
at least, I really just jump, like I do have Sword and Shield
and I play the odd spinoff game. But I'm definitely not the be all
and do all in terms of Pokemon, that's for sure. Yeah, I'm
usually there for every generation. Now, as to why this game has popped
off, I could not understand or have them that reasoning. It's beyond my
so uh, I think that it's it's just falls into that mysterious category of
being something that people just latch onto and love and it's just been memed and
it's blown out of proportion. Then when you see Nintendo come in with their
lawsuits, people get even more excited, and that only stokes the fire of
people like I gotta try this game kind of a thing, So it just
expedites a little bit more. Yeah, that could be a thing too,
where people like, man, I gotta play this game before Nintendo takes it
down. That's like genuinely a concern that people have because I'm sure like all
the articles have that all over their their headlines to get to the good clickbait
going on. But like, I don't know if this game is actually going
to be in any sort of legal trouble with Nintendo. I think at the
most they might do some sprite at like character changes or something like that,
But I don't think the game is going to be pulled off the shelves anytime
soon. Yeah, I definitely I wanted to read that. So this this
was Nintendo made a post. They didn't specifically call out POWERLD, but it's
pretty obviously right here, but it was just inquiries regarding other companies' games.
We have received many inquiries regarding another company's game released in January twenty twenty four.
We have not granted any permission for the use of Pokemon and ellectual property
or assets in that game. We intend to investigate and take appropriate measures to
address any acts that infringe on electual property rights related to the Poke, related
to the Pokemon. We will continue to cherish and nurture each and every Pokemon
and its world, and work to bring the world together through Pokemon. In
the view, I had never even read that in that far to the statement
that's a weird ddition that's from the Pokemon company, so you know under Nintendo
there. Yeah, I don't know, like I really don't foresee this actually
going anywhere in terms of there being any sort of legal trouble. How many
games have we seen before that like really borrow art styles from other things,
And this game is certainly egregious in some cases, especially after playing the game
and seeing somebody's I'm like, oh my god, this is this is very
close. But I still don't feel like there's gonna be any negative repercussion here.
I'm very curious to see if that does happen. If anything were happened,
I think it would take years at this point. Like, I don't
think we'll see Steam taking this down or Xbox taking off their marketplace in the
next month or anything like that. But yeah, what do you what do
you think now, because you have more, you know, history with these
Pokemon when the more you're seeing these characters in game and whatnot, are you
you think there's any any danger there for for this developer? I get like
I said, I don't think there's danger for the game to be pulled.
I think the only danger is just having to re change the skins of some
of these these pals, you know, getting into this world immediate, it's
like, okay, this is like a whole new next gen uh situation of
Pokemon. Now they all totally look like Pokemon. It's actually hilarious. So
that's madest, Like mass, what do you think? What do you think
that these are? What do they remind you of? Oh? These are
Pokemon playing a Pokemon game? No, no, no, yeah there is.
There's one of those dirty little guys that came across early who is this
is just Ditto with like a slightly different skin color and a frickin' tuk.
It's like that is that like the green and brown one? Yeah, like
that thing looks exactly like Ditto. I think. I think it looks cool,
but of course it doesn't feel entirely entirely new in that way. It
feels like it's definitely heavily inspired by maybe one of the developer's favorite games or
series. I'm not too sure. The dot for eyes just like exactly right.
That puts it over the top. Oh, that's hilarious. I do
think as well, though, the depending how things progress, I think that
Nintendo might be afraid of confusion. I don't think they'd want people to get
like misrepresentation, Like it's one thing to like steal full on cop carbon copy
or content, but I think they may be afraid in the future, like,
hey, people are talking about Pokemon and they're mistakenly referring to Power World
and especially taking a game that is incredibly e rated like Pokemon and this being
Pokemon Guns where you're shooting Pokemon down and essentially like just committing slavery with them
in terms of making them do all this work for you in these bases,
so I could see them taking an issue with that, but yeah, I
don't know if there'll be much of illegal standing for them to do much about
it. Now. On that note of legal setting, I'm not sure if
you're gonna transition to this at some point. But p Eta Peta was I
also saw looking into some stuff with Power World. Really, what is that
about? I think it was the animal cruelty, yeah, because I mean
there's definitely some animal cruelty going on in this. I don't see Peta going
after last most part too, when you could like shoot dogs in that game.
So I don't know. I don't know why Pita cares about these freaking
fictional creatures that are very It's not like they're bleeding everywhere and their heads are
chopped off, like their eyes just get crossed out, and they roll around
like on the ground. That one seems like they're just trying to maybe drum
up some people to go to the Peter website and get some hits there.
So this, you know what, in retrospect, maybe maybe this is my
bad. I have to redact what I said. Maybe people have been saying
that this is oh yeah, PETA's like worst Nightmare or something like that,
because how they're treating at all. Yeah, that would be that would be
really funny to me if if they were actually going after this game, going
after Rings of Power and they're going after Power World. That's there. Two
things. The things you do to some of these, uh, these pals,
it does blow my mind. And I think I was watching some videos
when you get a meat cleaver and you're like attacking them, it actually blurs
out what you're doing, okay, because it's very bad, but again it's
not like chopping up or anything like that. I appreciate how they mimic the
Pokemon fainting aspect, or the Pokemon just falls back and like they look like
they're fainted with their eyes the same design too of Pokemon as well when they
faint. So yeah, you're right there. You are still beating them up
with cleavers and you had guns and stuff. This makes me wonder how much
because you know, there's been copycat things before, things that borrow art style
or gameplay mechanics. There's obviously all sorts of that in terms of genres taking
off, and whatever genre is popular, of course they're gonna take inspiration from
other games that are popular in that genre. But it makes me wonder how
many other companies are gonna try this sort of tactic, which is like really
on that razor's edge of plagiarism in terms of art style. And you know,
that's what surprised me the most when I first got into the game is
that this game doesn't really play at all like any Pokemon game. Like there
is the palas, you're collecting them, and maybe some mechanics are similar,
and there's a thing that looks a lot like a poke ball and has the
same animation that it's blue and has like you know, some little gold tips
on either end, so it's different from the legal standing. But it's like
this doesn't really play like Pokemon. It all plays a lot more like a
combination of Minecraft and Breath of Wild, you know, which are just very
popular. Just any sort of crafting game mixed with any sort of open world
game that takes inspiration from that Breath of Wild style. So maybe that was
the big thing that surprised me. I mean, I guess, I mean,
when people are talking about the plagiarism element of this, it's not that
they're stealing everything from Pokemon. It's really just specifically that art style and the
Pokemon in the palas is the is the similarity that people are going after.
But yeah, do you feel like this is going to inspire other companies to
just try to mess around with some of this infringement stuff? Like I remember
this was the thing recently where I think it was Last Fall. There's this
game that released on Nintendo Switch and it was I forget what it was called.
It was called like The Last survivor something generic like that, and it
just looked exactly like The Last of Us, you know, like a kind
of a derby version that someone probably made in you know, three months or
something like that, but just very much take And it's not that Last of
Us is set in some crazy cartoony world with a distinct art style or something,
but it just borrowed so much the point that Intendo did take that down
from their E shop I believe. I don't know if there's a resolution to
that, but obviously other games of this and failed in the past, and
this one's not on Nintendo. I would be shocked at this point of where
to allow a port of this game to their console. Maybe that would be
the most surprising thing. Of course, it is Xbox exclusive. We don't
know for how long or anything, but yeah, I don't know. Do
do you think we'll see a rise of this just because of the raw monetary
gain that this company has seen from this. I think that it's very,
very possible. I copyright is definitely its own, its own thing, but
I do think that there is a lot of value in being able to allow
people and teams to really work and fendangle very closely to those lines of copyright
and build better off of it. And we see that with the modern community.
I mean, they just do amazing things off of some of these games.
So I think when I look at certain elements that this game has,
I'm wondering if it's going to be the reverse and if Pokemon, like they
did certain things the way you catch these pals, when you do certain things
in this world that it makes me feel like this is really what the next
iteration of Pokemon games should have been. Ten years ago at least it should
have been working its way towards this, because I really appreciate a lot of
the detail, even things that were implemented back in Pokemon Sapphire and Ruby with
like hidden building secret forts and stuff like that, very baseline stuff. Of
course it was on a handheld, but this has just been expanded beyond belief
with what you can do in here, and I really appreciate that, and
again capturing the pals as well. So I'm wondering, Okay, is this
something that Nintendo is going to try and copy in the future. But then
also there's a big significant risk here because you look at this kind of a
game done with like probably a quarter of the team size that Pokemon has.
It's selling for a quarter of the price of a Pokemon game, and it's
much It has so much more going for it, so much more you can
do, so that I feel like Nintendo should be shaken in their boots.
Well game freak, I guess game free not really Nintendo. Yeah, yeah,
same same. I mean yeah, like Pokemon are still those games always
sell insane even though it is locked to I guess one console at this point.
But I guess for me, like where I would deviate from the point
you made there is that like I don't really feel like this game. This
is maybe my biggest issue with the game so far, as I don't feel
like this game has any identity of its own right, it is borrowing that
Pokemon artslet it's about monster collecting in a very similar way, but then it
is just a classic rock and stick game like Minecraft. You know, it's
such a basic crafting game in that way, and then it has a fucking
freaking glider in there, and it's like third person combat, so it feels
like more like Breath of Wild. So to me, it's like, if
anything, Pokemon Company is looking to those games as their inspiration. I don't
really know what they would look to this and say like, oh, we
need to enhance. It's like they those games have been out for so long,
and I think that's just how Pokemon's going to go because they have such
short development times for those games. They just rush them out and don't really
do much with them, and they do spin off which maybe do the more
interesting things there. Like Archaias seem to be a game that a lot of
people wanted that is closer to the Breath of Wild formulas, like they've already
tried part of that here, So I don't know. Maybe they would see
the success of this, but I don't know. Do you do you feel
like that when you're playing this game? Do you feel like it's just such
a rip of other games and it doesn't really have its own identity as a
game. I haven't played enough, really, I don't even know how I
could count on my fingers probably how many minutes I've spent playing Breath of a
While. That's something I need to get more and I go to. But
as far as h like Pokemon, like, I love just the feel of
throwing the pal spheres. I think that was really cool, just the way
it just felt so it felt so updated from what I'm used to just throwing
the pok ball. Maybe kind of think a Fortnite a little bit with what
you're harvesting materials to a slight degree. You didn't play Archias, right,
No, I didn't, so I don't have a comparison for that, Yeah,
because I feel like that might have that that better game field, like
throwing the poke balls and like sneaking up on Pokemon. I don't really know
what the like in those games, but I mean it is like a third
person game, right, You're like throwing the balls at them in more real
time sort of way. Was it motion like throwing? Because I think like
Pikachu and Ev had that. I think right, Yeah, maybe they had
at that in the control scheme. I'm not too sure. Actually that could
help two other things. So I saw that Nexus mod is a big moding
site, like, you know, probably a million sky or mods on it
for every game. And I saw that Nexus mod made a post that they
are not going to allow modding for this game, like on their website,
just because they don't want people to do Pokemon modding and risk them having any
sort of legal trouble with people modding like Pikachu's into Pale World and stuff like
that. So I've thought, but I don't know if Nexus mod is the
biggest modding site in the world at this point. I mean, I'm sure
Steam, like the Steam itself like boding community is bigger than Nexus Mod,
but I'm sure it's Nexus mod really is the only one I've ever heard of,
so I'm sure that's a pretty big deal. But I found that to
be an interesting thing. And then I was also feeling like, man,
I feel like this is one of those games that is like never really gonna
leave early access. I feel like they just like put that out there,
They're gonna kind of cash in and move on. Maybe I'm wrong, Maybe
this game does have a lot of passion and great ideas behind it, but
to me just feels so deridive that I don't know if they're really I feel
like they maybe at this point could say, like, man, we've already
got like our money out of this, we could move on to the next
thing. But I don't know, can you really get bigger than Pokemon in
terms of ripping something off. So maybe they do keep milking it for years
and years to come, and then they have that big one point oh launch
in the future and that gets a bunch more people to jump in. I
don't know. I don't really know what the future that they've announced like a
roadmap which has a bunch of new features like PvP and big raids and all
these sort of new mechanics in there. So I'm not saying they're gonna just
abandon it this month or anything like that, but I could I could just
see this being one of those games that never really is finished and they just
kind of forget about it one day move on to the next project. I
agree it's funny with the the mods because I don't know the name of this
guy, but he was one of the people that put in some Pokemon and
I think he just put like a tweet saying that Nintendo's come for me and
he had to take things down, right, So yeah, that's us.
Nintendo is just absolutely savage when it comes to mods of their games, even
old ship like Melee, they still care that you made that game. It's
like, come on, really, well yea, yeah you probably. I
don't know how it works with copyright claims and whatnot, but I'm pretty sure
a company would go through like a third party or the government group or something
to file a CLA or probably like oversee your claim that you filed the YadA
YadA YadA. But I'm pretty confident that Nintendo actually has like a strike team
that is actually investigating and doing things themselves, a team of assassins, like
a sleeper cell. Essentially, they're like in every country all over the world,
just ready to strike at any moment. Yeah, they would do something
like that instead of letting people just play with there's already people are playing like
Mario Odyssey on their Steam deck and stuff like, I don't know, there's
you can't stop it, Nintendo, just stop get out of the way talking
about the game itself. I want to hear from you first, So it
seems like it seems like you're into this game, seems that you're enjoying it.
And I think you have a very valuable perspective here of someone who's you
know, really big into Pokemon and plays every generation, and this feels like
it's maybe hitting a new niche for you or something that you've at least some
features you've wanted Pokemon to try for a while. Yeah, some new features,
And again it's it's probably a lack there of knowledge of what this game
actually was beforehand. I kept paying the term Pokemon with guns, and I
thought legitimately that you were just playing as one of these cu creatures and you
had guns and it was just a run around, shoot them, very basic
game. So I started hearing about all the craziness people going crazy about this
game, and then my too, my friends got into it and they were
talking about it, and they talked about some like building things or whatnot,
Like, okay, that's like I didn't put much stock into that at the
time. I just went over my head. And finally when I sat down
and I played it, I was taken aback by not playing as one of
these pals. I was taken aback by just the open world and seeing how
all these pals are maneuvering around, and then saying that there's basic skill tree,
seeing that there is crafting capabilities and harvesting resources, finding treasures and stuff
all around the map. I was really really surprised how much of this worked.
And I think that's something else that I really liked, because well,
you say that a lot of this is like the breath of the wild and
Minecraft kind of feel to it, those types of things mixed in with this
Pokemon vibe. It's uh. I think that's one of the biggest things I
really really enjoy, is having such a a world like this, And I
think Pokemon might benefit to a slight degree with this kind of thing, but
I think it's still limited because it can be very overwhelming when you have such
a huge world like this and detract from maybe some Pokemon stuff. But that's
besides the point. When I when I started making weapons and actually like fighting
these these pals, I didn't I couldn't properly determine like what pals are stronger
than others, and I just like, you know what, Okay, I
killed a couple of little killed a couple of little ones, but let's just
go after one of these big suckers. And I just got inset killed a
few times. Yeah, there's one of the he's the level fourteen. I've
I've challenged him a couple of times because I feel like, okay, I'm
like level nine or ish now, like I sh you'l be able to take
this guy. He just keeps spawning, like roaming out to my base and
just continually over and over again. He keeps wrecking me and all like hit
him once and I see like, oh, I'm doing like no damage,
so I just leave him alone, but he just he never forgets. He
just until I'm dead. He will not leave me alone. Then I had
some like wolves raid my base at the exact same time. It was pretty
brutal timing have you gotten guns yet? Because I have not. I've just
got the bow and arrow, and I was curious when the guns come in.
I was wondering the exact same thing because I'm still like technically in the
tutorial. I guess that seems I think I only have like one more thing
in the tutorial to do, and it's like, go challenge this boss and
make sure you're you got a good equipment, and you're leveled up. I
have no idea where that is supposed to be. Maybe it's on my map
somewhere, but I just feel like I'm still I haven't even really explored around
my base a whole lot yet, so I'm still doing that. But yeah,
I've not seen a gun yet. I also have the bow and arrow,
so it sounds like we've played maybe a similar amount of this game.
Yeah, so that's something that I wanted to bring up, is like,
so far, the combat is like really boring and not very engaging, just
like baseball bat and these Pokemon down and or these palads sorry, and you
know, the bow and arrow is fine, but nothing special. And that's
where I'm thinking, like, Okay, maybe this is more fun when it
gets to the third person shooter part of it, because that's always fun in
games. So that's maybe what I'm hoping for. Maybe it'll get get a
bit better at that point, a bit more engaging, because so far,
I'm finding the combat to be pretty dull. I don't feel like I'm fully
understanding like how I'm supposed to use my pals in this game. It seems
like you can only have one out at a time, but you have like
six in your bag, I guess at a time, so you can like
switch between them. So I don't know if that's the idea, is that
you're kind of switching which one you have out in the active way, which
I guess is similar to how Pokemon works. But then also, like you
know what, you're kind of sending those palace to like do tasks for you
at your base. So I don't know, I'm a little confused about how
it all works. Like there's a ton of things introduced early on in terms
of like base building and whatnot. But yeah, are you finding much enjoyment
with the combat? I think my favorite part is just throwing the I don't
even know what the poke balls are called in this game, but the puspheres
pala spheres. Yeah, Like throwing those is fun, just because that animation
is always great in Pokemon when it just bounces off the light, pops out,
absorbs them in you wait for it to like shake around like that's always
great. So that's part I'm liking the most. But so far, I'm
not caring too much for the bow and arrow or the baseball bat. Yeah,
I uh am not really enthrolled the combat system, it's just just hold
the trigger down and you just keep boom boom boom, swinging away, very
very basic stuff. So it's it's no different from harvesting resources essentially, and
that's kind of a shame. I feel like the two should be at least
marginally different of an experience point. Yeah, they are pretty much the same.
Yeah, and maybe when you like building, you just whole x yeah
structure for something to I'm hoping that at least maybe the guns have a different
a different vibe to it, but I'm really doubtful. Yeah, I mean,
even just looking at the U, I guess what would you call it,
Like the crafting menu and how you get like new row and then you
can choose what you want on lock there like that list. There's so much
in there, so many things I haven't even built that I've just gone right
past. And I'm sure you get tons of guns and weapons and all sorts
of crazy things in there. Like I've seen a couple of videos of people
who are very far in this game and have like huge bases where they just
have like I don't know how many Pokemon, but it seems like tens and
tens and hundreds or something that are all like doing tasks and just running this
huge factory essentially, and I don't think I'm gonna get to that point.
Like, I don't think i'll play much more of this game. I'll probably
look it up to see how long it takes to get a gun, because
I just want to see how that feels and if that's more fun. But
I think I'm just a bit overwhelmed by it and a little uninterested because I
just feel like I'd rather go make a new Minecraft save, or like I
never finished Here's the Kingdom, so I'd rather go do that, and I
just don't or like even like Sword and Shields, a game I've kind of
been playing on and off for years, still finished, I might just want
to go do that instead. I feel like it's maybe the lack of focus
that is taking me out of this. But I also feel like this game
would probably be a lot more fun and co op. I mean, most
games are more fun when you're playing with friends. But I also just feel
like with how long it takes to build, like how much I just have
to go collect wood in this game, it takes forever. Clexstone constantly running
out and I feel like some of those things would be a lot more fun,
unless tedious, when if you had a group of friends, and maybe
the combat would be a lot more fun too, because it before you beaten
up on these guys and okay, I'm gonna try and take the egg or
of them by like going up in my baseball bat and a couple of people
in the back with their bows and guns different Pokemon types, Pala type.
Sorry, I feel like that could be a lot of fun, and it
does seem in a lot of ways like that's how the game was designed,
and I don't any criticism you throw this game right. It's also like this
is an early access game and it's not finished yet, so it feels like,
okay, you're grain assault here where maybe this game is just not done
yet. Well, it isn't done yet, but that's definitely the feel I
got. Did you play with your friends who were telling you about this game
or are you playing solo? No? I was doing solo, and I
think I might go back and see if they are open to just trying a
little bit of a world experience. I don't know if you like bring your
character in and start from where you are, or if you have to make
a new save together. I'm not sure how that element of it works.
Yeah, that that I found confusing. I just ended up making, like
I think it was, on my own server and just making my own solo
guy and whatnot. I would suggest we played together, but I don't know
if I I'm gonna play a lot more so I might not be the best
companion to go on this journey with you. I just wish there was a
little bit more clarity of information upon booting it up. Yeah, I feel
like the tutorial element of this game is pretty bad, and like there's pop
ups that go on and like very early on in the games, like go
to this page in the menu, and there's more info here, and in
that page there's like all these different tabs you can go down. But like
that's not a great engaging way for me to learn how to play this game.
So that's something I really hope that they refine over the course of this
early access period. And when the game finally goes one point zero, maybe
at that point that would be a better time for me to jump in,
because I genuinely don't play things in early access. I'd rather just wait,
even for things I'm excited for I'd rather just wait. I just had to
see what this one was like, because it's the talk of the town at
this point. But maybe that's the way to do it. Maybe I'll come
back and maybe we could play at that point if you haven't played enough at
this point in time, because uh yeah, just not really captivating me at
this point. I do like, you know, as much as the Palas
are very much ripping off Pokemon a lot of ways, I think they're really
creative and fun so far. Some of them, of course, feel a
lot more derived than others. But like as much as that guy does look
a lot like Diddo with that tuke, I think Diddo looks cool, and
I think tukes are cool, so you can mind the two. And it's
like I'm into the sky, Like this guy's my favorite one that I have
so far. I just got this wolf that's pretty cool. So I'm liking
the designs of them, and some of them, like there's this huge,
like elephant looking one. Have you seen that one? He's kind of like
a grassy sort of elephant. Yeah, and he's way too He's love like
forty, So there's no way I could catch him. I'd probably have a
one percent chance to catch him if I threw a ball at him. Uh
if he didn't one shot me, Like, I would love to have that
guy at my party. I think you can ride some of them, and
I'm sure you can ride like flyers and whatnot. And there's there's definitely like
I've seen one that looks exactly Garretto, So I'm sure there's water combat in
this game. There's little lake by my base, a little pond, even
there's no like water based pals in there, so I mean that part is
fun for me. It is like just straight up the collecting element of it,
and I guess I maybe wish the game was more about that instead of
building a huge base. I feel like that's maybe a bit of a disconnect
there. And once again, that is very much something that I think can
co op would not so much be an issue. But for me, it's
just I'm just finding like the base stuff to be really tedious and the building
collecting resources part to be really tedious, and I just wish I could more
quickly level up and go do combat. But then the combat is not super
fun because I don't have the guns yet, so I just feel like,
no matter what element I look at the game at, I'm a little unimpressed.
And that's, you know, once again, early access. But I
feel like, you know, one video that people kept posting when Scarlet and
Violet was coming out was just like how Pokemon in the background would be going
at like a ten frame rate or something right because they're like not part of
the focus, you know in those videos of like oh my god, chugging
that happens in this game. This is an Unbrell Engine five game. This
seems like this big hut next gen Pokemon game, but it's really not like
it's pretty. It chugs a lot, it's very glitchy, bad tutorials,
like, it seems like it has a lot of those same problems that Pokemon
has. So I, once again early access, you take it with a
grain salt, But yeah, that's definitely been top of mind for me too
when I'm playing this game, is is that it just doesn't feel very polished
or refined. It feels like it's a rush to market, you know,
to get a bunch of money, and you know if straight up they don't
have enough money to fund this game and they need to get it in early
access to make the money to keep developing that sure, go ahead, And
I don't know. Once again, that's just me not being an early access
game fan. I suppose are the worlds differently generated every time? I would
assume not. Okay, I started like up on this hill and I kind
of continually got gone down this hill. Like very early on there was like
a lake or you know, not a lake, a pond with like a
river going down and like a very flat area there seemed like this is where
your first bass should go. Does that kind of sound like similar to SZ,
Yeah, but I did. I also right off the start though,
I'm pretty sure you can like go up and exit through the mountain. Like
there's two different ways you can go, so probably right off the start you
could probably go a very different way. But it doesn't seem like the maps
are randomly generated. It seems like they are pre built, so not like
Minecraft in that way. If it was randomly generated, I'd be pretty impressed,
because it looks pretty well put together. In that way, I would
say, mm hmm. I found the character creator to be freaking hilarious in
this game. I mean, my character it looks like hot SUNI Miku or
something. He's got like bright teal hair, like purple skin. I just
felt like the customization you have is like you can change essentially the width of
like your arms, you're like, I think Torso, and then your legs
and mud MUDs was watching me play and I just like maxed out the bar
for the arms and the thighs, and you can have just like the most
monster thighs I've ever seen in the video game. It is hilarious. I
ended up tony it down. But my character, you know, like this
kind of like anime sort of white people looking girl, but then she just
has huge fucking arms, like she is jacked. But it works is I'm
like chopping down these rocks and trees and I'm just swoll out of my mind.
It's perfect. So yeah, my character is just a total monstrosity.
So even though you have very few options, I found it really, uh
really fun all the customization you had in there. I like that, that's
great. Yeah, what else is there? I mean, like I said,
I'm not maybe super into the base building stuff yet and maybe I just
have to unlock more. But I think for me, it really just comes
down to, like, man, getting these resources takes a long time getting
wood and rock, and like, I have that gravel pit thing now,
so I can send my pal over there to work in that gravel pit.
But I'll be gone like collecting things for like twenty minutes. I come back
and he's got like eight stone. I'm like, I can do that in
fifteen seconds. That like this is so slow, and that's where I'm sure
it scales up when you get more and more of them, but then you
probably need more and more resources to build the next things. I just feel
like it's always gonna be one of those sort of things. So yeah,
I don't It seems like you can build some really crazy stuff, and already
there's been some fun customization. I think you unlock things really quick in this
game, which also is pretty good, and you level up pretty fast as
well. Yeah, I just wish it maybe wasn't quite as tedious, but
it seems like there's and once again from some of these videos I've seen,
they all look very janky, but some of the structures you can build and
the huge, huge stuff you can do is pretty insane. Seems like they
aren't really limiting you in a way that like Fallowout four had like a build
limit that you would very quickly hit. It doesn't seem like this game really
has much of that, or maybe those are modern pictures I've seen. I
don't really know, but that stuff has been pretty cool. I just wish
it was, yeah, but maybe easier to engage with it. Mm hm.
Any other thoughts from you on this game? Hmmm, I don't think
so. I think that's pretty much all my minds on, all my my
thoughts on it. I always ask you this, but are you going to
keep playing this game? I would like to go back and try it with
friends. I think that would be That'd be the the only thing I would
really like to experiment with. And I would like to know where the guns
come into play. Yeah, I would like to try that. I mean,
I think that's what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna look up how soon
I'm going to get that based on where I am, and then I just
like to try it. But if not, I think I'll I'd come back
if it's when it's like one point zero, when it's fully released, if
it's still on game pass. I don't think i'd buy this game out right
based on what I've played here, But yeah, there's just so many like
crafting games that I've missed over the years. Even Lord of the Rings Returned
to Moria came out at the end of last year, which is just like
a Lord of the Rings crafting ga where he plays a bunch of dwarves and
a dwarf in minds, Like, that's a cold game as well. I
really want to play that game, Like, I'd rather go do that then
invest more time here. Which that's a game that me, you and Kirkland
should find time to all play together. That'd be super fun. Is more
than like two op to two up twas, I assume it's like four player.
Well that's awesome. Let me see, let me see if I can
find the answer to this. I did not know. I did not know
it was a crafting game. I don't know it was a co op game.
Sounds a way better than Oh no, kidding, that's really cool.
I don't know if the game's any good, but I just feel like,
because of the setting alone, I would I'm sure we'd have good enough time
to mess around with our silly dwarves and stuff. So yeah, that's that's
what I want to check out. Let's take a quick break when we'll be
right back. Okay, we are back. So, as I mentioned,
avowed was in the Xbox Developer Direct last week two weeks ago whenever that was.
And then they did a interview to those devs people you would see in
the Developer Direct. The I guess I think it was creative director and the
gameplay director or combat director, one of those two did an extended interview where
they talked about some more features of the game. We didn't really see any
much more. We did see a little bit more new footage. Actually it
was mostly that same sequence, that same like kind of sandy area with those
lizard creatures, but you saw like more of a five minute chunk of it
rather than like a bunch of cuts of different combat sequences. So you got
to see a little bit more there, got a little bit more info here.
So one thing that we didn't really know for sure, but we kind
of know now is that this game does have a three man party in the
way that the Outer Worlds did, So that makes sense, it's cool.
And then they talked about how the players and your party that aren't currently equipped
are equipped as the wrong word maybe makes them sound like objects, but the
people who are not currently, your party are gonna go wait at like a
player camp that you have, which I'm curious how that will be implemented in
to the game, because that was very much the thing in the Outer Worlds
right where you had your ship, the Unreliable, and that's where your crewmates
would wait if they weren't in your active party, and that was one of
my favorite parts about the Other Worlds. I love the companion system in that
game, and I love The Unreliable as this place that you just go and
you'd hear your companions talking, you'd see what they d up to, what
they're up to. A couple of them have like tasks, their jobs and
things that they're doing. And so I'm curious to this how this camp will
set up. I'm guessing just in each major loading zone, they'll be like
a camp set up with a campfire and some tents and whatnot, and in
there is where you can talk to your companions and and just have the do
some crafting and whatever you're gonna do at there, which is very much the
thing that balders Gate three has. With Baldersgate three, it's more like for
each kind of designed area, there'll be a sort of general a pre generated
player camp that you go to, and it's kind of more like a disconnected
from the actual world. But I'm assuming these ones are gonna be more integrated,
but I'm curious to see that. So so far, that stuff is
sounding pretty good. This might sound like a little thing, but we saw
in this extended gameplay. We saw it that you can swim in this game.
Swimming is confirmed. Oh, which, yeah, there wasn't really water
in any meaningful way in the outer worlds that I can remember. There's just
like maybe some rinky, dank little rivers that you couldn't swim in, and
it actually looked really nice. It looked like, especially in those just like
this shiny like shiny tail sort of water, all the kind of coral reefs
and whatnot underneath looked really nice. And I think that's perfect too, because
this game does have sort of an island setting, and so I think having
that as just will be good for exploration. But they went through some caves
just swimming underwater, doing some underground like splunk almost to get to these other
hidden areas, so it looked really cool. I'm into that. There was
also this thing that they talked about we didn't see where I guess some of
the spells, you know, in the gameplay thing, we saw that you
could freeze one of these lizards, you know, just pretty basic freeze spell
and you can go up and stab them. But you can also freeze like
chunks of water too, to make platforms like icy platforms that you can then
walk on and use to get to other areas. So that looks cool.
I hope all this, yeah, I hope all the spells have kind of
ways that they can interact with both enemies and like the world at large.
I think that'll be pretty fun. And then so all that stuff so far,
like that's all the positive stuff, but always with it's always like a
positive and then a negative for me. And one thing they talked about here
that it really bummed me out was them talking about the RPG systems in this
game. We talked about how that gameplay section like they didn't really talk about
that stuff at all, and that's something I was very curious about. And
they've talked about how this game is gonna have more of a Skyrim style RPG
system too. It there's no class. You don't make a player class in
this game. No thief warrior mage and instead you're gonna have like a Skyrim
style skill tree. So this really bums me out because one, I think
the RPG system in Outer World was really good and I was hoping they'd iterate
on it, and I'm sure they will in some ways, but this seems
to me like a bit of a step back. It seems like a bit
more casual fied. But also like I've been playing some of Pillars of Eternity
recently to try to just get into this world of Aura. You know,
their previous game set in this world, and that's very much like a balders
Gate like D and D style RPG stem really in depth. And the class
I picked in that game for my character was the Chanter, which is like
this musical based class that is like based on rhythm and you're doing like certain
chants that give you bonuses based on this thing. It's like a really really
cool stuff, And I was like, man, I can't wait to see
those class, all the classes they had in that game, tons of races
and classes brought into avowed here and see that interpretation. But it seems like
they're not really gonna get that. Like there's no there's no class whatsoever.
And it's gonna be more of a free form Skyrim system. So I understand
why they do that, and I was obviously very successful for Skyrim, but
I was hoping for more of an in depth RPG system similar to Pillars of
Eternity, and it kind of like makes me not really care as much to
play Pillars. Like I know, there's characters and it's the same world,
so there is relation there. But I was hoping that, okay, I'd
maybe learn about some of these RPG systems and would carry me into this,
but it seems like not so much. So anyway, that's a lot of
been further. I know through you lot at you at once, but any
of that interests you or I know, I know you love Skyrim, so
maybe that RPG system is intriguing for you. I'm not sure. I like
the simplicity of it. I do like how at least in Skyrim they have
certain really those totems that you could find that kind of emphasize what paths you
do, like stones or like melee or range or mage that kind of stuff.
Something like that is all I really need. I'm okay with. I
love the idea of magic actually having effects on the world around you and interacting
with your environments. I'm super aga into that kind of the thing. Uh
yeah, so that works. We talked about how there's like bramble like bramble
the overgrown areas too that you can like burn down with your fire spell to
access hidden areas, and showing this like I know it should have shown so
much of this info in here. It's it's insane to me that they didn't
even the swimming like that's that's it looks like it was some janky footage that
they were trying to hide, like it looked really nice. Yeah, and
I feel like that opens up a lot more exploration, a lot more of
the world to interact with. So it's just so peculiar that they didn't feature
these things. M yeah. So yeah, I don't know if there's much
more to say there, but of course I'm still I'm still excited for this
game. I just my hypher level. I feel like I've just set my
expectations really low, so hopefully that means that they'll get exceeded because I've done
so. But still a game I'm very intrigued in because I just love Obsidian's
games so much, so there you go, Taylor. What have you been
playing lately other than other than Powell World? Well? I have. You
know, it's a new year, and I've been taken upon myself to kind
of commit to some resolutions of playing games that have maybe even left behind.
So I've been sitting down. I've been really trying to commit with sanns cried
Mirage, really trying to get get to roll credits on that. That's been
my a huge part of my focus. It's dedicating to completing it and then
I'll probably move on to another game that's still that I haven't been Maybe there
could be like a cyber Skull and Bones coming out soon, man, so
you better ruin your calendar. Well that was the other thing that I was
going to bring up, because I am really getting pet like interested in Skull
and Bones, like really really interested, and it scares me because I'm very
much it scares me. I'm afraid that this is going to go the way
of Anthem, and I am I don't I don't know if I how do
I spend the money to buy this game? New when Avatar came out,
and Avatar has been on sale since it's like the week after its release like
twenty five percent off or something like that. So I'm very afraid and I'd
like to try it beforehand because everything I'm seeing, I'm looking at videos for
this game, and I saw that they drop their roadmap and there's just a
lot of really cool things going on. I'm gonna I mean, this is
a show that are but I'll send an email that us off so you can
get a code for you. That would be Maybe that would be the way
to do it if you need something like they're gonna want everyone in the world
reviewing this. They're gonna try and get that more yeah out there. So
who knows, maybe we can maybe we can swing for the fences on this
one. See if we can. I'll flaunt my Assassin's Creed page, like,
hey, I got all these followers on Facebook. That would be a
good thing to plug for sure. Yeah, but it's it's something. It's
something that's been on my radar for a prominent amount of time. Now the
more I see these videos, people talking about it, people saying that there
are some things that could be refined a little bit more, But other than
that, it's just people seem to have a lot of fun with the customization
and the way that you can build your fleets of ships and have support ships
deep yes ships, tank ships, like all these classes of ships just blows
my mind. And then you have all these sea creatures. I saw like
a Moses sword jump out of the ocean that they were firing on, Like
I was just so into this. Yeah. No, I mean I feel
like a lot of the dialogue of this game has been oh, it's getting
delayed again, like what is the chance that this really state sticks? It's
gonna get delayed, And that's kind of what we talk about. But really
you could look at that from the other lens that like, man, this
game has been in development for a long time, and that probably means that
this game is like be super polish or have a ton of features, like
I don't know, you could look at it that way too. So that's
pretty cool to hear that they're from what I've seen, like other than the
just absolutely atrocious amount of like icons and things on the screen, like,
it seems like they're fulfilling their vision here, or at least fulfilling a vision.
Maybe it's not what your game originally was supposed to be, perhaps,
but I think they've come a long way, and like it looks pretty solid,
so I know it is expensive, so I'm not going to force you
to get or anything, but I definitely would love to hear your opinions on
But it sounds like, you know, even if you don't get at launch,
you'll probably get it later this year. Because that's a great point,
man, with anything, you be soft, like I am at a point
now where they've conditioned me to like, I will never buy any of your
games at launch because it's gonna be within a year, like fifty or more
percent off, reliably consistently. So like even you know Mario Rabbids the sequel,
I was like, I remember I got that original one for like fifteen
dollars eventually, so I'll just wait and I'll play Mario Rabbits sequel. It
looks great, but I'll just play it a couple of years in the future
for fifteen dollars instead of playing it right now. So I don't blame you
for having that mentality, and I don't know you will already give you be
soft enough with your Assassin's Creed purchase day one every every time around, right,
It's true, Yeah, I do. And I'm also thinking there's a
chance that maybe it could just go on to that ub Plus on Xbox,
and maybe I just pick pay a month for that, and at some point
I'm going to hop on there for a month or two and just blast through
a bunch of bunch of things. Forward to doing that. The other thing
too. Just in my last note with you, be Soft is I don't
know if you saw this, that comment that they put out recently that really
really uh has really pissed off a lot of the gaming gamers out there,
consumers. I'm just trying to find the exact quote, so I'll paraphrase it
a little bit here, but essentially Ubsoft wants you to be comfortable not owning
your games. Oh right, I did see that. Yeah. Yeah,
And so everywhere I see Skull and Bones being advertised, everyone comments below like
I'm not buying this because I'm not gonna technically own it, Like it's just
flaming v soft. Yeah, it's It is a weird time we live in,
man, because I like, I play so many things on game Pass
or I've played through so many games on Nintendo Switch Online, and like,
at any point they could just take those things away from you, and it's
scary. Yeah, even like certain digital purchases, not just like online only
games, but things can just go at any moment, So I hate that
mentality that they have there. But at the same time, like I support
those those subscripts and services. I put a lot of money into them every
year. Game Pass isn't cheap, nintend Search online is pretty cheap. But
yeah, and like I'm whenever I get Plus five, I'm definitely gonna get
that for access to some of those older games. So I'm part of the
problem there, I suppose, But yeah, I definitely. I don't know.
I wish there was more option for some of these things, and I
think what Xbox does is pretty nice where hey, we've subscribed a game pass.
Any of these games that you see on here, you get a discounted
price on if you're a game Pass subscriber, So that way, if it's
leaving, you can pick it up and now you own that thing. But
in general, like you can just buy things for a cheaper way, and
that way you do own them, you at least own them for now.
That's just that's may downside with online is you're playing all these games for who
knows how long until they decide to stop supporting this app, and then you
don't own any of these things and they'll just be lost to obscurity again,
and then you'll be forced to pay for them again in a different way.
So yeah, I wish there was just better options, I think for some
of these particularly older games, like even for UH Sony. I'm not sure
how that works for some of that back catalog like PS one PS two emulation
stuff like I don't know if you you can buy those outright or if you
can only play therem through that subscription service, which there's obviously a lot of
issues with that kind of thing in terms of being limited there. So m
hmm, yeah, fuck you'd Besoft for having that point of view. I
don't like that at all. Well, but when I got it back to
thousand screed though, any any new uh developments or thoughts as you're as you're
playing through that based like I guess just different from the review, Still still
enjoying it, any like new mechanics or any new things that have popped up?
Has there any I'm guessing there hasn't been any new like content yet.
No, No, you know this game is getting like DLC. It might
just be kind of like a one done story situation. I'm not expecting.
I usually the do two DLC, but I'm not really expecting a roadmap or
anything. I feel like this game was set out to just be a homage
to the original and that's all it is. I feel like I've been seeing
a little bits of rumors here and there about a code name red with an
assassinate Japan that they're kind of like working on that a little bit more now,
So that's okay for me. With the game, I've seen more people's
feedback that they don't like how short it is, and it's people like Valhalla,
they like Odyssey more, and that's not really for me. Mirage is
definitely where I'm thriving, and so, I mean, they're still making those
kind of games, So I don't know why those people are what they're on
about. Like, it's not like you're you're still getting tons of Assassin's Cree
games. You're getting less than you used to, but you're still getting a
lot of them. They absolutely five or six different ones announced right at this
point. Absolutely. Yeah. So as for things that are they're new with
the game, there's not really anything else new that I've really uncovered. I'm
pretty sure I mentioned it, but they had like a fast assassination method,
kind of like red deb redemption, where you slow mo and highlight a bunch
of targets that it's like like quick fire off on them. I think I
mentioned that during the review. But aside from that, it's just discovering new
places, exploring the map, and just working away at the skill tree,
not not necessarily the skill tree, the I guess like the equipment tree and
walking new equipment stuff like that and and whatnot. So yeah, that's pretty
much it. You talked about how you're thinking about what what's next. Would
you think you know what you're gonna knock off the list next after you're done
with Mirage, assuming you don't get Skull and Bones and that doesn't consume your
time for Yeah, so I know i'd have to look at my shelf,
but I know I've wanted to at some point. Cyberpunk and Red Dead two
those are big ones on my list that are just very daunting for me.
Ah but good lord, Aliens, I think you're still playing through Dark thank
you. Yeah, that's another one that's that's a main one actually that I
really want to get back into and actually indulge in Oh that one that was
so good, and I did play a little bit more of it a couple
of weeks ago, and it's just it's it's just such a wonderful game.
That world, just from a top down perspective is just so beautiful, and
I just appreciate everything they did for that game. Oh, they did such
a good job. Cool. Uh Yeah for me, nothing too major,
Like I'm still just working my way through boulders Gate three. That's a very
time consuming game, and certain encounters I have to like reload my save and
try them over and over again. So I sometimes I feel like I'm doing
one encounter for an entire week. So it's slow, slow moving, but
I'm still playing through that a couple quick hits for me. So did you
hear about this game turn Up Boy Commits Tax Evasion? Do you ever see
that game? I think it was on game Pass at some point. I
haven't. It's a very silly, like I never played it, but it
was like a very silly kind of top down action hack and slasher sort of
game, and I feel like it's intentionally trying to grab you with like a
goofy over the top title and the kind of the way that like untitled Goose
game, like it's a whole shtick and like its whole marketing beat is like
being kind of silly and stupid, and I feel like that's what that first
game was doing. But they just had a new one come out, and
it's a game pass game, so I wanted to check it out. It's
now. This new one's called Turn a Boy Robs a Bank, and it's
very much the same thing. I don't know what the gameplay was like of
the first one, like I said, somewhere in that genre, but this
one's more of a roguelike, it seems like. But there's a million like
side quests you're doing. It's a funny game. It's making me laugh,
which not a lot of games tend to do because you just have all these
silly characters. I really like the pixel art. The music's nice. It's
it's kind of fun. It's a bit of a mindless hack and slashy sort
of game, but I like the setting of it. It's kind of been
fun to go through. So I don't know if I'll finish it by any
means, but kind of a funny thing there. Check it out. It's
on game Pass. And then the other one I checked out is this game
called Cameo Elements. I forget what the subtitle is, it's Elements something,
But this is like a game from like two thousand and five or six.
It's a rare developed game. And the reason I checked this out is I
some pomet went last year. I had downloaded the Rare Rare Replay Collection,
right, which is just all those old rare games. A couple of them
have like a new couple of new things added in. But I was going
through that and Cameo was one that seemed interesting to me. And so this
game just like Reeks of like two thousand and five, Like it's definitely feels
like the era it comes from in like good and bad ways, and that
it feels a little bit dated, but it also it's just like a fun,
rare three D kind of platforming collectithon some combat boss fights in there.
The main stick of it is that you are kind of transforming into these different
elemental sort of creatures. So you have like this like piranha plant type thing
who's like a boxer, or like this yetty type character. My favorite one
is you can transform into. It's just like pile of rocks, and they're
like the way they're like jostling around and rolling around is really satisfying. You
can like shoot the rocks out, but then if you like hold the triggers
down long enough, you kind of like explode and just the physics all these
rocks flying across the screen like a grenade, and then you're just like the
one rock left that's like the head bouncing around, and then all the rocks
slowly come back to you and you start piling up again. It's just really
really satisfying. So I just love Rare as a developer. I think they
make just such fun, playful games, and they're one of those developers that,
like, you know, you look at the N sixty four and they
just had so many games released in that era, and then I feel like
after that people kind of forgot about them a bit. That was like a
big Heyday there with like Banjo Kazoo, Don Kong sixty four, GoldenEye,
and then it's they kind of had this weird era there where they're still making
games, but like like this game for example, and like Banjo KAZOOI,
Nuts and Bolts and other weirder things. And then I feel like they didn't
really do much for a few years and then they got acquired by Microsoft.
Now they've been they made Seve Thieves, and like they're just very slowly kind
of releasing things now and rare replay at some point. But this was a
fun It's been a fun game to go back to, just because it feels
like an N sixty four game, but it's it is like I think,
I guess a three sixty era game, early three sixty era, so it's
a bit at higher fidelity, but it just it's just fun, silly,
kind of stupid. It feels very much like a DreamWorks movie in terms of
the tone. So yeah, I'm enjoying that. That's been a good time
checking that one out. So another another easy game pass recommend there. And
then last I just wanted to showed out Call of Duty that meet you and
Travis and Emily have been playing. I guess the new it's not even really
new anymore. The map's note for a couple of months at this point,
but I always forget the name. What's it called. Yeah, so I
had very I think my first impressions of the map were like, ah,
this is kind of boring, not that interesting. Not really liking this mode
necessarily, but the more we've played it, the more I've come to enjoy
it. It's very like the map. The matches are a lot shorter,
right because the starting zone is like so such a small chuck of the map,
and the games go by pretty quick. But we've got a ton of
wins on there now. We had one night, I think it was it
was not this previous weekend, but the weekend before two weekends ago, where
we got like three wins almost back to back, which was really sweet.
We kind of got slobbered on this week just destroyed this last weekend, but
still had a couple of decent games in there. But yeah, that's been
a lot of fun playing playing more of that, and excited because I think
the new mode's coming out somewhat soon, right or Rebirth Island going back to
the old map plan. Yeah, Rebirth Island will be coming out at some
point, I think later twenty twenty four. And I keep seeing rumblings over
Dance returning. I still think that's my favorite of all of the Warzone maps,
So hopefully that does come out again. That'd be fun. So some
revamps, some new features on there, or something M. Yeah, no,
it's been good. Yeah, no's that's pretty much it. I think
that will do it for here at Side Quest. And yeah, like I
said, maybe later this week we will have the Sony Say of play coverage.
If not, we're back with me and Travis next week for covering that
on the regular weekly episodes. So thank you everyone so much for listening and
we'll see you again next time. But bye.