You know it's the Internet. You're busy. Let's do this. Welcome to
the Game Mess Deicides podcast. This is the podcast where we decide everything about
the world of video games so you never have to think for yourself. I'm
your host Jeff Grubb and with me is Mike MANAUGHTI. In today's episode,
we have Astro Astro Astro and Game of the Year twenty twenty one. We'll
do that, stay to play round Up and all that stuff, but all
that really matters. It's astro. I'm gonna keep saying about that astro.
Yeah, I'm emphasizing the ass for some reason. I don't mean to do
that. I think it's just natural. My mom just does that. Yeah,
I'll feel good. I'm sick. I think it's more than just allergies
now, and so it's gonna be a short episode everybody, because I got
we just I just got to survive tonight. I think because of the big
thing, we got it. Everybody, don't worry. We're all looking for
what could have caused this. But yeah, I hope you feel better,
Jeff, Yeah, yeah, I'm sure you do. What do you you
gotta? Can you take easy day tomorrow? I'm gonna try. I'm gonna
I'm gonna look into it. I told Jan I would think about it.
He really wants me to, and I'll probably have to because you probably won't
let me do any of the other shows if I don't. So yeah,
well, yeah, we'll see. I'll probably take it easy tomorrow. We'll
get to sleep here in a little bit tonight. But plenty to talk about
and all that stuff. How are you feeling overall though? I'm good,
you know, I think we had our first little event today leading up to
all the summer stuff too. Did you watch the sound healthing and all I
did? Of course? Yeah? No, psychopath, yeah, crazy,
I don't know. But now we had the sunny thing. I mean,
look, oh, I ever really wanted from that was as show and we
got that. So I'm happy. I'm almost curious to run our own poll
because I don't know if our audience aligns more with us. We're one.
I can get it right now. They understand they have expectations for what a
state of play is versus the showcase, and maybe they are also happy about
Astro. But you know, maybe we're being blinded by our Astro love and
everything else was very no no, we're right. The children are on perhaps
perhaps, but yeah, yeah, I'm excited to talk about it there.
But do you want to just lead in with Astro and how exciting that is?
Because boy am I excited? Yeah, let's let's do it. You
can get more from Mike and me by joining the Patreon at patreon dot com
slash game mesk give us a good rating if you want to ask a question
to a super chat here on YouTube. We'll get to all those before before
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ad free. Uh. Thank you everybody for the support recently. It's meant
a lot. All right, Yeah, let's hop into it. Let's let's
start with Astro. That's what matters. State of play happened thirty minutes,
fourteen games. We were counting down because Astro was last like a little worried
because it was like they were running out of time there at the end,
they dropped it and I thought it looked astounding. I think it looks amazing.
How'd you feel about it? I was so happy. Right, there's
that little bit of a second there where he's was gliing on the PS five
couture for a while, think hey, yeah, this isn't the whole game,
is it, right? But it is a motion control like yeah,
like racist is a layer like yer, like yeah no, But then he
landed. It's a ride. Yeah, that's exactly what I wanted. It
is just Astro's playroom taken into a full game, and that's that's entirely what
they conveyed here. And you know, it's not like you have to do
any one big thing to change that up. But kind of like with the
best Mario games, there's clearly so many different things happening at any moment to
switch things up. Like all of a sudden you have frog boxing gloves and
like, oh now he has new abilities there crat this this is gonna give
you his acts. You know, there's like a dog on his backpack,
and we had new abilities there. So it just seems like there's gonna constantly
be interesting things to change things up. But just the core mechanics of astro
as a three platformer fewl so good in the game looks so pretty, and
the music is outstanding. The ascetics are a maculate. Astro himself is such
an appealing character. I love him, sack boy. I'm sorry you could
never This is immediately my most anticipated game for the rest of the year.
Now yeah, I mean, I'm right there with you that It's also true
for me. My most anticipated game for the rest of the year is Astrobot
without a question, And that was true before I even read some of these
details that we got on the on the blog post i'll read here. Shout
out to Oreo sixty four for collecting them here. Pre Orders begin June seventh.
It is not a free game, clearly based on what we saw.
It comes out to September sixth. It has six six galaxies spanning over eighty
levels, has unique planets. One of the things that it's not mentioned here.
You mentioned this though, it's like, oh, you know, a
ton of new ideas. They do explicitly say like every ten minutes, we
want to be giving you something new. And to me, when I hear
that, that sounds like, oh, here's a studio that understands what makes
a game good. If you have a bunch of ideas, throw them all
on there, give a player about ten minutes to play around with it,
and then introduce something new to like, put some variability in there. You
don't have to throw out the whole thing, but just make it shift in
a little bit, so it's something new every about ten to twelve minutes.
That's honestly the length of the average attention span for ideas. I think it's
really smart stuff, and it just sounds like this is chock full of it.
They have over seventy new enemy types, fifteen new abilities packed with die
and re try levels to test your reflexes for those looking for a challenge.
I feel like they wrote this specifically for me. That's a couple of PR
people. When I wrote, like Dian retry, I can't wait. Some
PR people that I know workers Sony were like liking the tweet, kind of
like waiting for me and we're so fucking back here, We're doing it.
It's it's absolutely happening. And then they're doubling down on the number of PlayStation
character cameos with a hint that they'll play a bigger role. It's very clear
to me that they're playing a huge role in the main story of this game,
which is the realm. I will say they might be like the equivalent
of like the Mario sixty four stars here, because we see that picture of
them all in the ship, like maybe maybe it's another rescue mission, but
this time we're literally saving PlayStation. Right. You collect these guys and then
they're on your ship or whatever, and they're kind of in your crew things
like that. Boy, am I down for that? Yep. I think
it's a really clever presentation for the story. And then I just the game
felt look so alive in terms of its animation. The boss were massive in
tons of them, tons of them, just as they sailer. It's like
they think they said like one at the end of every Galaxy, but there's
probably more than that. It's probably I feel like they showed me ouh,
Like, man, they showed a lot just in that trailer see me and
the Bird and the monkey sons of them, and it just looked fantastic.
So yeah, for me, when I see something like this, I'm like,
oh, I am relieved that we still get stuff like this, that
they fully are capable of making this. Did they know it's worth their time
and money? And I'm like, Okay, now it's up to people who
play games to live up to their end of the bargain and get excited and
buy this thing. But whatever I'm getting it, I'm happy and I know
I'm gonna love it. I just I'm so ecstatic, right because you kind
of hope, right, because you know, I just I like three D
platforms a lot, like my favorite games on the PlayStation five right now,
are you know Ashles, play Room in Ratching, Click, Rift the Part
whatever? I say, like Rift the Parts sales numbers like, that's not
bad, but to me, man, and that seems like a really special
game and it can only do that, I hope with Astro bought, especially
since literally everyone who has a PS five it's a one hundred attached rate,
right, doesn't mean everybody opened it. You sure hope a lot of people
played that game, and you hope that they're going to show up for this.
I don't know anyone who doesn't like Astro's playroom, so hopefully that kind
of just worked as like the greatest demo ever for this, and people do
show up for this in a way where you know, I don't want to
see it only sell two million copies. I want to see it sell three,
four or five million. And maybe that's like over ambitious on my end,
but I would feel so much better about gaming in general if that could
happen. Yeah, same, exact same. And I think people listening to
this, if Astro has not been your thing in the past, this and
what we're what we're talking about, might sound like, oh, they're just
really into this cute, you know game off to the side. That's not
what this is. The game included with the PS five was a Game of
the Year contender on its own as a demo, so my expectations for this
are even higher, and what I've seen so far has lived up to and
surpassed those expectations. So it's like, this is my most anticipated game because
I have there's a very strong chance it's going to be my game of the
year. That that's how much I'm looking forward to this so yeah, really
impressed. And again, like I said, it's that relief that this is
what we asked for. They're doing it exactly how we wanted. They're talking
about the dye in retry levels as of like that that's a major feature that
they're making a big deal out of, no, and they know they know
what they have and they're capitalized on it. And it's just so nice,
right I almost like I almost like sometimes as they just come across as nothing
but glow, glow, glow, But this is literally exactly what we wanted.
And it looks like we as soon as we played us those play rounds,
like just have them make a full game now, And it seems like
that's exactly what they did. Almost as soon as that came out. They
also recognized that it was special and it was great and they just let them
absolutely cook. And I am a hungry boy, Jeff, same here,
feed me more seventy dollars. I think, I hope it's seventy dollars.
It looks like it's a seventy dollar game to me. If people get mad,
people got mad at me whenever I say, like, you know,
like hif I rush it and have been thirty dollars. It's like, look,
I'm not trying to do some kind of like I don't know what you
would call it. Money is the thing. Yeah, but like, look,
I just I want game like the games need to be valued appropriately at
some point so that people don't, I don't know, undervalue them in a
way. I do think that that hurt Hyfi rush a bit. I'm looking
at a sixty bucks I'm a complete either, but I don't think I almost
would roll my eyes that this is a forty dollars game at a certain point.
Same here, Yes, I mean they anchored it, anchored a state
of play with this game. I think that there's no way it's like thirty
or forty. There's a world in which they're like, well, yeah,
you know, it's one of those, so it's only fifty. I hope
they don't do that. Personally, I think they need to tell gamers that
this game is important because it actually is, and to a certain extent,
people will believe them and then they'll complain no matter what, So what can
you do about that? But it also, I mean, like because of
just the way things are, this is their big kind of uh you know,
fourth quarter release now, yep, they don't have something else much just
you know, some other people's chagrins. But you know, we're not getting
Ghost of Shoshima too, We're not getting Wolverine this year. This is the
big game. So hey, even if maybe this isn't the thing that you
would necessarily always have kind of put all your money on, you kind of
have to now, so go for it. Creat it like a big deal.
It is one. It is. It absolutely is. That was easily
the game of the State to play for me, far and away. And
that's not to like denigrate the rest of the games. They're always the rest
of the games for me across the board are in that bucket. Oh well,
except for Monster Hunter, whiles I know, I know how we're gonna
have fun with that. But then beyond that, everything's like, Okay,
I'll try it, and if I like it, that's great, but I
need to play it before I know if I'm really excited about it, and
that's fine. That's how I feel about most games. In these state of
plays and directs and Xbox showcases and all that stuff. Did anything stand out
to you? I mean, I was excited seeing like real gameplay of Monster
Hunter Wilds. I'm glad that we are getting you know, the great thing
in Rise was having that dog mount. It made movement feel a up in
that game, and we're getting a new version of that. It's not a
dog necessarily, Its kind of a lizard, which kind of looks even cool.
They can fly also, sorry, he looks awesome. That's that's fantastic.
We're getting a bit of a like aesthetic vibe now with this one.
I think the Monster Hunter games have just been fantastic and getting better. I
am super excited for Wilds. That's next year, but when we get to
twenty twenty five, that'll be my one of my most anticipated games of that
year. What do we make of Concord, Jeff, what do we do
with Concord? What do we do about Concord? Yeah, I don't know.
We're real quick on wild So I'll just say for me, it was
the kind of thing where that's another team that knows what they have and knows
how to show it off and knows how to build from one game to the
next, and taking ideas from like you were mentioning Rise and World putting all
together in one. It's like, Okay, they this is going to be
a very competent game, and that excites me as well. Yeah, the
concord problem is uh yeah, it's a conundrum over there. I got The
concor problem is a pretty good phrase to say the game. Listen, we're
gonna be playing this game pretty soon, right, July is the beta.
So again, part of the biggest part of me is like, look,
you spent a lot of time and money on this game. It's your next
big live service release. You must believe in it. There must be something
to it. I'm willing to see for myself whether there's something to that.
Uh, when it's in this showcase though, and they start with a long
sort of antiquated feeling f MV sequence. You know, it's CGI sequence that
is that I feel nothing for, and I you know, I know that
we were all saying that. I don't know if everyone across the board feels
that way, but I imagine we're not mostly alone in like being like,
what does this have to do with an online competitive shooter game? Well,
what they wanted to be like Overwatch US for a CG trailer where you know,
we had those kids in that museum and then Tracer and Winston show up
and it was like this kind of big deal, but you're not blistered.
Those were really good characters. Yeah, I mean that's Blizzard, man,
you're yeah. And it's like I don't mean that to be like, well,
you know, you're just not up to snuff. This team feel seems
very talented. No one is Blizzard, and Blizzard can command that sort of
attention because they've proven it over and over again. And with this it's like,
why are you wasting my time with this? I don't even know if
the game is fun yet, I don't have any attachment to these characters.
And everyone had the same reaction that we did on that stream, which was
this looks like diet Guardians in the Galaxy. This looks bland because of that,
you know that, you know, to be fair, It's like I
would rather that than like trying to be exactly like Overwatch or a bunch of
other things. But even that's like it's not standing out. And then the
gameplay, it's like, Okay, it looks decent. I don't know,
it looks decent, and it looks very overwatching from what I can tell,
maybe it's a bit more valorate me. I don't know yet. It's another
Hero Shooter. I think it looks way more like the PvP in Destiny.
Like the movement, the way like she was thrying like grenades and stuff looks
very like the warlook in Destiny. Yeah, it guns me like huge and
like occupying like twenty twenty five percent of the screen. Is that's very very
Destiny. I think they're doing a Deny PvP type deal. There was like
there's a lot more talk about lanes and stuff like that, and there's some
of the abilities like that made me think, I don't know, Valerie,
you know what, like the game itself, that could be fun. I've
played games like this before that I have enjoyed, but you're also always a
little skeptical of them because there are always a lot of them. And it's
very hard in this moment to imagine this game becoming my hobby, which is
what I which And that's that Again, that might sound unfair, but a
part of me feels like that's what all of these live service games are asking
of us at a certain point, Like that is not like, oh,
you know, you can come play this game for a couple of sessions and
get your money's worth out of it. That's not what they're saying, here,
this needs to become something you spend a lot of time with and come
back to regularly, like Hell Divers two has and I just it's very difficult
to imagine that world where that happens with me and Concord. Do we know,
actually if this game is free to play. We made that assumption on
the BombCast stream. Since then, I've like seen people be like, we
don't know if that's the case, like pre orders might have There was talking
like maybe someone I saw someone say pre orders are going to happen at some
point in the next little bit, like pre orders, pre order, What
what are you talking about? Pre ordering? I mean, it's a season
past. It be weird if it's yeah, because I mean, I mean,
what what are the other components of this game? It seems like it
is just that five e five thing that's a hard selling people. People are
understanding that pre orders is a thing with this game. Well, look at
Hell Divers. Hildarius is also not free. Oh yeah, definitely this Yeah,
I think I think that it's a little bit different for Hell Divers though,
right, it's a little bit different. Yeah, it's a little bit
different. But man, for something like this where again, your main competition
is Overwatch, a five y five hero shooter, and it is free to
play now. I know it used to not be, but it is,
and that's what you're competing against. And I'm like other things like that,
you know, Marvel game that was also here, Marvel Rivals, that's definitely
that's the next one that's definitely going to be free to play. I feel
like this specific genre, especially once Overwatch two want free to play. That
genie is out of the bottle. Now that's kind of difficult to come in
as a premium thing. I did a little bit digging and people who had
accessor you know who, put out articles today. They did specifically mention that
there will be free post launch updates. And why would you note that post
launch updates are free unless the Yeah, so all right, then how much
this gonna cost? How much how much they charge you for this? Well?
Overwatch two was forty, I'm overwatched one was forty held for the starter
audition might have been twenty with the starter edition, I be's could be like
forty and they're going to try for a lot of skins and stuff. Look,
I liked that better with Overwatch that I just paid once and got sure
everything. Ever, still we still don't know what the business model is going
to be for this game. But assuming the best case scenario, yeah,
I just you know, I think it's just hard these days to make an
immediate splash like that, especially when you're not the new Blizzard game. Right.
That's the one reason why Overwatch was able to get away with it,
and there was a lot of hype because they did things like beta is where
everybody was just gushing, right, I don't you know, we don't know
that this is not in PlayStation plus that could have a you know, an
effect as well. But it's like when I look at it through the prism
of Steam. You know, the Finals is on Steam. There's a bunch
of stuff recently that kind of like like a bunch of shooters like that have
come out recently, been free to play, got an audience, and weren't
even able to maintain that. I think starting slower because you cost money.
I don't know, of course, it's behind the ball. This isn't some
great insight. Everyone understands this, but it's just, yeah, it's weird.
I just think the biggest problem is, you know, a hero shooter
that character design does mare so much. And I'm like, I'm like,
looking at like some of these like close up portraits, I straight up don't
like looking at some of these characters. They're like some of their like like
the facial features are oddly realistic. Then they're like kind of a lizard person
or something. And yeah, the lizard guy specifically is I was like not
vibing with like he had a ton of personality. It was too much exactly
what I was gonna say. He's a noxious and it's like not with with
no charm, like you know, they're like, oh, you know,
he's kind of a brute and he eats his cereal and he holds the spoon
with his whole fist instead of like you know, daintily like a robot dying
with honor, like literally like some drags or some kling on ship like wow,
yeah we get a big guy. Okay. It's so it's it's it's
strange, and you know, the part of me does believe that these kinds
of games ride and die on their characters and how much people you know,
want want to be making the art about them part of them of course,
and uh, you know, uh, a fan fiction and stuff like that,
and that could happen here, but it feels again pretty far away.
I like him so much. I get it now. It's like, actually
I like him. I think you should for enlighten me. Oh yeah,
I'm glad. I'm happy for you, you know, like I mean,
you don't need that necessarily, Like Hell Divers doesn't have anything like that,
and it's fine, but you need a little something, a little bit of
a sauce there. Uh okay, uh then I honestly, you know,
no offense the rest of these games, but it is a lot of much
for me. God Ratrock on PC. Yep, we get it. We
knew that was going to happen. Dynasty Warrior Warrior or Doynasty Warrior origins a
big surprise, but weird it's somebody who does not care about Dynasty Warriors.
I thought that they made that game look fun. It made it look kind
of They did present it in the best light possible. I agree with that.
Infinity Nicky, I can't remember. Yep, it's a it's a super
cutie one. There was like the remember what it is, but I just
don't know what it is. Okay, it looks like it is Princess Peach
show time for anime fans based on the extra tailor I saw on Earth,
so what everyone's been clamoring for. Of course, yeah, of course.
Then they did the the biggest whiplash I've ever seen in one of these showcases.
From that cute girls taking pictures and dressing up and Italy into bodyhorer and
Cathulian monsters. With Where Winds Meet, No, I think it was Ballot
of van Tara? Was that first ballein Taara? That's right, yes,
yeah, I can't keep these names straight. Balladvatar is what it looks very
out and ring like straight, even with like the pot head people not like
people spoke a lot. I mean they literally have pots on the right and
like, honestly it kind of it looks pretty slick for windows, but boy
is it very outer ring us get then Where Winds Beat is the one that's
much more like us. We're making our own sec row, yes, swordsman
another. You know you have to have at least two souls likes games in
these things. Of course. Then we'll get to VR here in a second.
There was Marvel Rivals until Dawn Remastered. Yeah, it's coming to PS
five and PC basically is what that actually is. Pata Exiles two looks really
promising. Silent Hell too, let's talk about that. I don't care,
and I know you weren't impressed by the visuals. I it's one of those
things where when it's the game is going and it's kind of zoomaba, it's
fine. The faces look rough, and this is a game where I think
you're going to be looking at people's faces as they talk to each other a
lot. I think they recently said they were like aware of this issue and
that they were going to make improvements. This has to be the improved faces,
and it still isn't much. So that's not promising. It's there.
They're in a rough spot because of course you are just competing with Resident Evil.
Everyone I've heard talked about it so far so far has compared it to
Resivil for and not favorably. I mean, good luck with that. It's
it's a very rough spot to be in. I get it, yeah,
all right. And then two PSVR games Behemoth, I got the Yonder,
Yes, you got the you won the under Bet. There the the walky
Dead Saints and centers people they made Behemoth and then Alien Rogue Incursion, an
Alien game, and VR. Yeah, these this does feel like leftover deals
that they made previously and now these games are just finally coming out. This
does not feel like a reinvigoration of the PSVR two platform. No, And
like, you know, I'm very happy that Tima Sobey is just making a
normal game. But if they really thought there was something with PSVR two,
they would be making a VR game or a mode, like at least I
even talk about that. And it's like, no, it's not even butler
with that. I get it. Yep, me too. Uh overall,
and you know what, let's I'll end the poll now as well. We
have two hundred and seventy five votes. Oh yeah, well you great it
So okay, our viewers are have like more of a C average. But
then b like when Kiley did it, D was the most popular answer,
which was the lowest one, which to me, it's like, okay,
that that seems I mean, I mean, that's that is people like praying
for the one game they care about, which is Ghost Ghost of Sushima two
or blood Borne and not getting it all freaking out right. Yeah. Well,
well god, if you were expecting Wolverine, you need to go get
your head. Yeah, come on, everybody. Yeah, yeah, So
I mean eight percent gave it an eight or give it an A. Seventeen
percent gave it a D, thirty three percent gave it to be in,
forty percent gave it to see Mike, what would you give it? It's
probably a generous be just because I'm so excited specifically about Astro, and I
get that, but like again, I thought, like some I thought other
stuff did look interesting as much shit as I'm giving Concord. I'm like,
yeah, that could be fun. Bob Muster and or Wild's looks fantastic.
The Souls Ice games did not look bad, and then yeah, even Dynasty
words like, oh okay, that's interesting. My expectations were pretty in check,
Jeff, where I kind of expect I was. I was like,
all right, Reskie scenario and what I'm really expecting is the Astro game and
then some other stuff. That's basically what I was expecting, and that's what
I got, right. I think my expectations were Astro and I'm like,
pretty sure Concord's going to be there. I have no idea what to expect
from that. In my head, it was like Concord could be completely bland
and I don't care about it at all. When I saw it, like
it actually did surpass my expectations, so that helps a little bit as well.
And I'm definitely comparing this to pass state of Place where uh, the
past, the previous state of place have had a lot of games where it's
like this just looks bad in this presentation, and there wasn't really much of
that. Everything was like sort of fit and felt like it was in the
right place. And we know what these state of plays are, this is
what they're like. So overall, I thought this was a good one of
those agreed all right, Uh, you know, we have some other news
for this week, but like I said, I'm not feeling too good,
so we'll just we're gonna talk about the state of play. We're gonna go
get do some super checks, and we'll do some stuff real quick. It
was that whole thing was Neil Druckman's comments and that one like sizzle reel,
Yeah, what do you think about messed well, because, like you guys
were talking about last week when I wasn't here, his quote which was basically
like I want to make video games respectable and like people care about it and
like TV blah blah blah, and we think we all wrote our eyes on
it, we all commented on it because we took PlayStations worth it. Yeah,
we came from the horse's mouth, yeah right for theys like, hey,
that's not really what I said. Here's what I actually said. And
it was way more nuanced and well put together than that. So I don't
know, like I feel kind of like a jerk because I was in my
head thinking like, oh, Neil Druckman like yeah, sure, yeah,
and it's like, no, that's not what he meant. He's right,
So I don't know. It's just wild to me because again, Press does
not have much access to these people anymore, so places is doing it internally
and they're just kind of making shit up. That was wild, And you
know, I talked about this on Game as Mornings. It's like, and
that's going to happen because the motivations and the sort of boundaries that that Press
are limited to very different than what a company that is trying to sell things
and get investors excited are bound to. They're trying they go to deal Druckman
to get a quote because they want to tell a story to get investors excited.
When we as press talk to Neil Truckman, we have to ethically like
reproduce what he's trying to say in a way that accurately represents what he's saying.
We have to. That's the guidelines by which we're bound. And these
companies are simply not. They are like, hey, first and foremost we
are trying to tell and a story here as marketing and so Yeah, of
course this was gonna happen. It's probably happened a lot before, and we
just haven't had a Neil Druckman with enough power to come out and stand against
it. All that said, I too, would like, if I had
a chance, I would apologize for No Druckman for uh like repeating that even
though it's Sony's fault, just straight up is feel bad. I'm sorry.
I'm not sorry like of course I did, and of course I assumed PlayStation
wasn't putting words in your mouth, but I still feel bad. Yep,
absolutely all right, We're gonna take a quick break when we get back.
We've got a lot of super chats to get to. We'll talk about whatever
you guys want to talk about right after this all right, we are back,
Mike. There's a bunch of super chats here. Let's read those,
gotcha, I'll do that right now. Zoomer says Concord wasted time. All
the rest was like, I mean, I think the CG tro was probably
a bit of a waste of time and money. Yeah, when they showed
gameplay, like yeah, you know, it's another team based hero shooter.
But I was like, okay, like, you know, it looks fine,
it could be interesting. That's fine. I am still a little surprised
that they went with the whole we got to you know, farm out a
CG trailer, it to one of these companies kind of things to really sell
this game. I don't know, I don't know what that accomplished. Yeah,
it feel said the kind of thing where like those trailers get made because
people in a boardroom or in a marketing team get excited about that, and
not because they really understand what people are looking for when they're deciding what games
they're gonna buy. Glitch says, when have you heard about a sunny showcase
in September? Jeff ding ding round two? Okay, the answer that should
be quoted is nothing. I've not heard anything about a showcase in September that
zaid, please don't quote this. There is a PlayStation five Pro still coming
this year, right, so they have to talk about that at some point,
And looking at what they did with PS four Pro, they talked about
that pretty close to the release. I think the PS four Pro, I
think they talked about in September and it came out in November. So if
you want to look at history and maybe say, hey, they're going to
repeat that, and they want to have a PS five Pro announced next to
some other stuff to get people excited. Because if you're trying to sell the
most hardcore of hardcore new hardware, which is what the PS five Pro is,
announce it in September and tell them about all the cool games you're going
to release in twenty twenty five. To me, a showcase in September makes
sense, but I've heard nothing. Well, Astro bought hit September sixth,
so they could do it right before then. It really emphasized that that keeps
coming out ever after then, because then, well, what's again to be
in a state where we don't know what's happening with PlayStation again? So yeah,
I wouldn't be surprised is what I would say. Simon Meckinley SD says,
Hey, Mike, between the game sent playing in New York City traffic
and Dakatana, how many years are taken from Jeff's lifespan? Dude, Dana
records antics. It's not look as Dan record to blame, sure, but
Jeff just lets them. I put my foot down. I from the very
beginning, was like, you are you guy sent me the game scent?
I am not bringing into my house. I am not plugging it in.
Look if I die, yes Andy, and then I'm gonna die. All
right. That's the most yes Andy, motherfucker I've ever met in my life.
It's it's fun. You know. It's killing me for sure, but
it's fun. Yeahtana, Mike's equally guilty for that. Honestly, I think
Mike might be more guilty with the day Kata. Yeah, Deely, my
idea. I have many ideas. He just kept asking me for them.
Then he wouldn't like my other one, so they like he liked that one.
So you know, I try to fight you. Dream Cast game,
Jeff was, I was I backs gaming too much in the last club bothers
other people way more than it bothers me, which is weird because I'm like,
uh, the thing about being ADHD is you might I think you know
this because I can tell your sins. Wouldn't like you're I want to bring
something up to me that you know I'm already gonna do. If you tell
some of the ADHD to do something they're already gonna do, it will always
make them mad of the time. It will piss them off. And I'm
playing the game and I'm about to do bunch stuff and Michael mentioned I'm like,
yeah, no, yeah, I get it. It's it's like a
little annoying, but not like in some huge way, and people are like
freaking out about it. I'm like, guys, we're way overreacting to this.
This is not a problem. Well I will I will keep my appor
shit a little bit more next time. I just, like I said,
I do not think it's a problem. Ali Miracle says, so when you
collect when you're collecting checks from AI gamersing giving you sinus issues, Yeah,
listen, I will take it as an annuity. So they could pay me
like twenty thousand dollars a week or something like that for the rest of my
life. You're like, how it was just going, oh, let's get
a lot of money. I was like that. I think that, like
all this recorded video, it probably won't up. It probably won't have yep,
mikey O'Leary says, already shifting my top ten of the year down a
slot because you know, Astro is going right to the top. I think
so it'd be like, look, how could the game be bad? Yeah?
Right now, Like how could they They can't possibly just make a bad
game again, Like it just looks like they know exactly what they have.
Special Nick says Astro. It is interesting because, like Ashow has definitely already
kind of been a little bit of a mascot. I wonder if now,
like the big, full fledged game, if that really becomes the thing where
yeah, Astro, that's our mascot. I mean, it's it's the right
call, especially especially the way they are like making it, like tying all
the other places stuff together with Astro. To me, that's like the kind
of thing you do when you're you're deciding once and for all to be like,
no, this is the mascot. Everyone from the PlayStation universe knows this
character. In fact, oh Grog says, sure, the new Astrobot game
looked good, but I didn't see a Superfly Johnson. Astrobot in Mescal Mike
is back to get canceled again. Probably yeah, probably again time I have
a coming, Jacob, I hate that super Fly Johnson. I'm sorry.
I just got to get it on the record. Motherfucker. We have two
AI companion friends now. Yes, I never had much Again, I've not
had much interaction with Makiko yet, but yeah, we'll see. I thought
it was incredible that you got transport to ancient Greece, and Dan was like,
it's D and D not just in tracks. I did like play for
like five seconds longer because I'm like, I just got to see what this
disc does. It's amazing. They give you the Diakatana and it's worthless and
you should be using that disc immediately. Im My understand if that changes.
But it's like, I just got this thing. It should rule and it
sucks. So you really talk that sort up you think it'd be cool.
It sucks, Jacob bench is Hi, have you caught up on caught up
in Fompa's fourteen Ready for Dancho? Not quite. I got a few more
story things to do actually, which I have to. The thing is Wordal
Warcraft has the special Mista Pandaria Remix event and I'm playing that right now,
which because that's a limited time of and that's fun. But yeah, Don
Treil is gonna be here soon, so I gotta gotta get on that.
Gonna when we have that. We've got Elden Ring DLC popping off soon,
so once we're back for Summer Gamefest, there will be some games that I
will be playing for sure. T Bucket twenty three says, can't be here
live. But is Keeley trembling right now that he doesn't have a Summer Game
Fest announcement as hype as Astrobot, Well he should be. Yeah, his
boots absolutely. I think he was gonna have a pretty good shot action.
Yeah, me too. It seems like he's got a lot of stuff ready
to go over there, so I'm hopeful. Our Truth says, Hey kidd
and Christo, what's up. I really enjoyed it. I really enjoy today's
Nintendo Direct. We got a brand new standalone Asteroids. That's right, our
truth Yep, very acting stuff. It's all right. Snarpg now game fire,
kerbeter Our Lincoln member says, our watch too, and Marvel Rivals would
beat Concord down anytime anywhere. We don't know yet. We don't know.
Oh yet, I want to play some Concord. Yeah, I mean I
watched, I watched people played the Marvel Rivals Alpha. It is hilarious just
how overwatched that game is down to, like the UI, the font choices
and like just like the smallest details are so just straight lifted from Overwatch,
and I mean at a certain point you then you can just tell it's like,
no, this is a business decision. That's the right move, and
it was probably more of a right move several years ago. But it's like,
look at that gun Doom game. It's very similar, although I think
Marvel Rivals is even more shameless. Mu Medic says, always wanted to play
a Nicki game, so I'm so high. Yeah, we could all use
a Nicki game. Sounds like, yes, it's finally upon us. Isaac
Clark says, howdy fellas, I'm currently watching through Seinfold for the first time,
and I'm loving every second of it. What are some of your guys'
favorite episodes? Yeah, yeah, all all the ones with George's father are
very good, Like the one with the Maestro where there they have the pool
table in the very small room. Yeah, they like uh he turns to
his son and some other guy into like telemarketers in his garage. Yeah that's
good. Yeah yeah Lloyd, Yeah with Lloyd. The TCB one taking Care
of Business where uh, where Kramer goes to work at a place but he's
not actually employed there, but he still shows up every day and they're just
like okay, and he doesn't. He's like turn reports like this is nonsense.
It's very good. Say, is probably still the best episode. I
know that's like not a very original one. But watched some of the band
ones too. I think that maybe there's one band one. The Puerto Rican
one is actually still very funny. Yeah. Yeah, there's the one where
the Chinese restaurant, the one where they're all in the subway, the woman
they're looking for their car in the parking garage. Those are good ones.
Oh, Marine biologists. He wasn't that they might in I Approached the Great
Fish whatever whatever, all right. Next one here is from Adam g C
says Monster Hunter looked next gen as hell. Yeah, I mean till you
saw all the character faces, but I think they know what they're prioritizing in
that case, the monster faces. Yeah, that's what the the monsters do.
You saw her the character faces. I was gonna say, I did
notice some reactions in the chat when they showed the the monster mommy or what
I think is what you guys are calling them about him. Yeah, there's
a monster mommy. Say who was reacting? I think the guilty might be
among us right now. There were several like of the Aluga text avery,
wolves and chat and stuff when she came on the screen. So some faces
big fans of tell me I'm wrong, Jeff, tell me I'm wrong,
You're got wrong, You're not wrong. I was also a fan. I
just googled monster mommy and I probably shouldn't have done that. All right,
Next one hears from B Diddy says, hope you feel better soon, grub
Yeah, man, it's getting worse. Actually, have you taken it out
of the room? No, I mean it's it's Do you really think it's
just sitting there's gonna be okay, I'll take it out of the room.
Fuck, yes, take out right, maybe wipe things down with like a
yeah. But it's an effectant thing or something. All right, yeah at
this point, like I'm also actually sick. I'm sure Phil my ass up
says dogs is our education system failing? Why did Jeff followers think May only
has twenty eight eighths in it? Also Astro finally a real first party game.
Mean's just that Jeff like told them what was happening, and they,
like, you know, children wanted it now now now now to the point
where when it didn't happen, now, well, I guess not happening.
There's other people who are just weird about Jeff and think that everything he says
is a lie, even though it's almost always true, or it's just something
got changed eternally. The one time he was wrong about something was the wind
Waker thing, which was my fault for getting confused and mixed up about something,
and then Jeff just didn't want to break my heart so he went along
with it. So Jeff's always right actually, like you know, like,
yeah, so one versus one hundred didn't happen like Jeff said, because they
canceled it because they're yes, exactly who they were Metroid Prime, you said
it was going to happen. Uh, you know that one year and then
happened the next year. Well, because they deleted internally. That's why those
kinds of things happen all the time. Of course, yep, it was.
It was. It was frustrating, mostly just because like I would be
like, hey, I'm sad that Bill Walton just died, and then the
responses would be where's the showcase? And I'm like, I would actually probably
fight you right now if you were here. It was kind of it was
getting pretty sick of it at that point. I was I did enjoy you
stunting on them though they announced it. H yeah, good and it's good.
I do you realize like Twitter like unlock setting me because I would never
like do that really on the podcast all that much because it's like that's not
really my personality. But on Twitter it's so easy just to like fire it
off. And it was. It was fun. I'm glad. It was
a good time. Most people appreciate it. Burrito says, You're is may
overtweet might be the new It's gonna be may It's I've been laughing at that
for days. You see the new banner for our gaming I didn't see that.
That was that was very funny. It's and it's that is where I
know there's a couple of people on on that. It's very few people.
So I recognize that more people enjoyed that tweet than did not by far.
But people are like, man, he was insulting fans, and I'm like,
you don't just know how many days are in May? Please? That's
all asking. Also, who care I'm insulting the fan? Yeah? Yeah,
yeah, come on, And it's like, just be talking about right
God, insulting the fans? Uh? Conno, Woods says released the Shadow
says fuck cut sega, did you see this? What? No? Apparently
there's like hours of footage of I guess the voice actor for a Shadow.
I didn't look at it too closely. I think I saw a clip,
but it's like all the blueber lines are just saying fuck a bunch. No,
no, no, no, no no. Jason had said in an
interview that apparently they were initially going for an M rating, and so they
didn't know if they were going in that direction or if they would go for
the E ten that got released. No, So they had him record dual
voice lines for where one was a hedgehog for the Hedgehog, where one would
be like, you know what actually got in the game in the era would
be dropping f bombs everything that's incredible, edible. Okay, No, fully
on board with the release of the fun cut. That's incredible. We're almost
halfway through the Year of Shadow. How are you feeling about it so far?
I mean, I feel like they could be doing more. Can you
see him Shadow? I don't think it's gonna be like the Fall of Shadow.
Maybe that's it. Yeah, Bander said, says I'd pay seventy dollars
for this Astra game, but do we think this is seven dollars? I
think it will look returnal with seven dollars. I know they got criticized for
it. We'll get criticized for it then, I guess. I don't know.
Yeah, I think it should be seventy dollars. I think it probably
will be seventy dollars. Next one is from Iceman three one one oh says
thoughts on starting a series out of order. I want to play on chart
four, but feel compelled to play one through three. First one's feeling a
bit long and dated so far. I mean, I like playing things in
order most of the time. Just because I usually pretty immune to like old
games feeling old, and I sometimes like the way they feel old. That's
bothering you with like Uncharted, Just play Uncharted four. I think it's just
play on Charted for what still will be a YouTube video with a story synopsis
that'll be good enough for you. Yeah, And honestly, it's like,
you play four and then you get all. They do a good job of
sort of like hooking you into what's happened so far to get these characters in
this position, and then if you are so compelled, you can still go
back and you just experience a slightly different order, but all the emotional beats
will still work, I promise. Uh. Tyrant says first five sects of
Astro, I freaked out thinking it was a so be doing a layer.
Concord is a way, so that sweetest logo. I'd rather have the Guardians
of the game. It's a good logo. Yeah, it's a good look.
Kind of a weird name for a sci fi game. We say Concord.
I actually think of something like bird ish. Yeah, we had this
conversation before because con yeah, the concord plane, and then there's condors the
bird Yes, I I same thing. I don't think of the grapes,
although that is there's the concord grapes, but I don't know. You're right,
it's a weird name. Logo's very good. I have no idea how
to feel about the game, although you said the Guardians of the Galaxy team.
Now I kind of want to play that game again. Very different game
though. Michael Kavanaugh gave a super chat dot common. Thank you so much
for the first propaganda. Panta says grub. When is the next state of
play? Yeah? Look, yes, o, yes, there it is.
There was a state of play in the past, and may is still
happening. How is that possible? JD. Camp says, well, will
you get a ride photo holding hands? But trying to think what rides?
Oh? If we do the cars ride together, we can hold hands on
that. When that one doesn't photo Tianna won't be open yet, I think,
and I'm not riding it. I'm afraid of that drop. How many
other rides in Disneyland even do photo ops? Really, it's not a ton
of them. Maybe cars, maybe cars will take over. Okay, that's
me, We'll make it happen. I haven't done that. Cars, right,
thank you for the twentieth Super Chepily JD Camp, JD Kyle Bart with
their fifth supers. That says, for Jeff, I can't are already have
an analog pocket. What's the next handheld you recommend? Okay, the one
I recommend based on experience would probably be the MEU Mini Plus. It is.
Keep in mind, it's going to be more limited in terms of like
some of them compared to some of the other handhelds, but it's very good
at what it does. I really enjoy playing Super Nintendo games and previous on
there. But the one I'm looking forward to, and the one I would
say keep an eye on is the SP from and Bernick. I can't remember.
It's got some other code name, but everyone just calls with the SP.
The SP is in the code name so that you'll be able to find
it that way. Mine should be getting here any day now, and I'm
so excited by all accounts. It's a really well done product and it looks
very cool. And that's another one where it's like you're probably going to be
playing the game Boy Advanced games on there. Mostly you can play some other
stuff if you want. One that is like Dreamcast and maybe PS two.
Even there's a few of those. There's that new Odin or the newer Iin
Odin Mini or whatever. I think Amberdick has kind of like a spherical looking
one that is apparently pretty powerful as well. I haven't used those. Some
of them are pretty expensive, so I would definitely like look at a bunch
of videos, and of course retro game Core and talk You'd on those are
good sources for that sort of thing. Ten Derek says, I was starting
to get worried about the state of play might being delayed, so it was
good to see the announcement, even better to see Jeff on Twitter afterwards to
do that more. Yeah, Jeff, were you did you ever like have
doubts because I know, for a bit we thought maybe it was gonna be
on the twenty eighth, and then when the twenty eighth then it happened.
You know, I'm not saying I lost the faith. I was getting a
little scared. Yeah, when this happens, typically what I do is it's
like, you know, twenty like I hear from multiple people and you hear
different things. So when the twenty eighth date is like it's kind of like
out there and it was. So that was one of those things where it's
like, I guess it could be the twenty eighth, but it's not.
I'm not hearing it from like these number one primary sources. But stay maybe
what I do is like I check in with everybody, and it's like,
what happens is what always happens. They're like, look, this thing's still
supposed to happen, and I'm like, Okay, well nothing's changed. It's
supposed to happen, so it's probably gonna happen. That doesn't mean I don't
feel nervous. It's like, man, it's gonna suck if it doesn't happen.
And what am I going to tell people? Like, you know,
I got wrong? So no, it's something must have changed because everyone that
knows what they're talking about is telling me something. And then if something changed
out from underneath them, that's possible, but that's weird. But it's like,
as far as I could tell, this thing is going to happen.
So yeah, that's kind of how I was looking at it, which is
why, like when people were still asking me about it, I wasn't going
to fully go out there and explain every little detail about how I'm feeling.
But I you know, I do the picture of uh I didn't hear no
bell from Rocky and it's like that's how I felt. It's like it's still
may It's still supposed to happen as far as I know that. Boy Jerry
says, should I get this new cheeseburger from Arby's? Usually only go for
beef and cheddars? Do I trust the burgers? They have good burgers.
The burgers are good now. Look like for me it was like, ah,
it was fun to get once and now I'm going back to get like
you know, my RB's stuff there. But I think it's I think you
should try it at least once. It's fun. Yeah, yeah, I
mean yeah, you might end up liking and go back there. I think
I've said it a couple of times, but yeah, so I coulda be
bad. You're going to like it? Is it going to become like the
thing you want to get instead of a beef cheddar? I don't know,
but try something new. Yeah, I still might go to still just a
classic gross beef. I do like the classes well rist beef. They they
they give me a lot of cupons every time I go there. Though,
so sometimes I use my beef and cheddar cupon and like, like, I
can't live like that all the time. Sure, boy, that beef and
cheddar Man. That cheese sauce that is like maybe the best cheese sauce.
Yeah, it's really riching good cheese sauce. Yeah. Kids really like though,
classic roaspe so that's their favorite thing from fast food. Right now,
Jeff, that's it for the super chests for now. Everybody, thank you
so much. If you want to send in more super chats, we will
read those before the end of the show. We already have hit one hundred
likes. I don't have to yell at anybody. Thank you so much.
Everyone, Thank you really appreciate it. Jeff. Back to you, sir.
Yep. All right, what we're gonna do is we're gonna take another
break. We're gonna get set up for our topic this week. This week,
which is gonna be a game of the year to twenty twenty one.
We'll talk about that right after this. All right, we are back.
Been a good show so far, but now it's time to determine once and
for all what is the best game of twenty twenty one. I'm so I'm
surprised no one's thought to do this yet. We are the first ones to
figure at the game of the Year of twenty twenty one. But we're going
to hop in there. What we do is me and Mike throw a bunch
of games to do a list. We cut it down to five yeah,
five right, all right, and then we rank them and we're gonna do
all that. We also get help from the podcast producers and the discord we'll
check in on them here as well here pretty soon. But Mike, where
do you want to start? I think I'm going to start with Ratchet and
Clink Rift up part. That's a good place to start. Yeah, I
mean talked about this earlier, and yeah, I like three D platformers.
I think that this game is super super neat and the things that was doing
with all of the portals, that's a fun trick, especially when it's doing
these moments where you're kind of going through them multiple times, You're going to
different areas. I remember there's a boss fight in the middle where the boss
is kind of sending you through these things, so the boss arena is just
constantly changing. But just you know, Ratch and Clink always feels good and
This one also feels really slick. You've got some fun new characters here.
Even some of the MIDI game things, like the little hacking thing you're doing
with that little robot shooter stuff, was a lot of fun. A gorgeous,
gorgeous game. I'm a big fan of Ratchet and Clink. Writ them
are probably still my favorite PS five game at the moment. Great stuff.
Yeah, you know, I feel the same way about Ratcheting the clank,
reretching Clink, Ratchet and the clank, Clink and the clank. Yeah it
is. I remember getting this for review, sitting down to play it and
just not stopping basically until I finished it because it's such a fun ride.
Really an ideal, I think, an ideal action platformer where you do want
it to feel like a roller coaster. There is some like exploring the levels,
but not so much because it's like, you know, that's not necessarily
the strength, but it's also very far from being a weakness. That's not
what I'm saying. It's just it knows what it does best and it gives
you a ton of that stuff, which is just like these great set pieces,
awesome animation, great looking weapons, great look enemies, and in like
really well detailed worlds. Yeah, just a big fan of Ratchet Clank.
All right, let's see here. I will go with Metroid Dread, which
is just a game I think about constantly. I think that this was such
a great job of recapturing what we want from two D Metroid games. Where
it is it is that expiration, It is this great escalation of abilities.
It moved so well, it felt so good. It also just nails characterization
for a game that doesn't It doesn't it doesn't overdo it, but barely does
it at all. It just is so strategic with deploying these character moments that
they hit really hard. And then it has one of the best sort of
like final acts of a game ever where just in at least final moments,
everything is solved, everything comes together. You're more powerful than ever for really
great reasons. It's just awesome. Yeah, the boss fights are just so
good, the abilities are so fun. This but even just like that slide
feels great. The Perry which comes back from from the Metroid two remake,
Yes, that was actually awesome. That little blinking move that you can do
the stuff with avoiding those evil robots. The Emmys like that's very offense,
and it feels great and a fantastic game to play through multiple times, like
I played through it four or five times, like in a row, just
unlocking all those different like end card sequences, because it was like, here's
the Super Metroid one and the you know the here's here's the Metrofusion one.
Such a fantastic game, Like my only nitpicky things like I wish the music
was a bit better because it's Metroid, but that's it. I love the
setting too. I love that it was very kind of choso ruined focus and
kind of like science lab focus. I thought that the vibe stood out.
It wasn't just more like kind of dark caves, which sometimes metroly can devolve
a little bit too much into. This game had a vibe all of its
own, fantastic stuff. Yep. Kind of just talking about it makes me
want to play it again, which I know is what makes it one of
my favorite games of all the time. That's what happens with those kinds of
games. All right, what else do Mike keep me up with my this?
I remember it's being a good year for three platformers, and I thought
Psychokouts too is a game that really delivered, and it could have been a
game that didn't. Right. Yeah, like long awaited sequel to a beloved
game with a bunch of Kickstarter money or fing or whatever. It was kind
of stick behind it right of course Microsoft at this point was involved. But
this game came out and really delivered. I think it's better than the first
in just about every way. The platform feels good, it's it's a very
unique looking game. They hit the psychic abilities all feel fun. The story
even rolls at a great pace. I think they over delivered with psych kouts
too, in a really satisfying way. Yeah, somehow I forgot that you
were a big psycond Nuts too, Mark, I didn't remember that. I'm
glad to hear it. Though. I also really like Psyconduts two. I
don't know, you know, I think I actually did go back and up
beating that game. I think I had a really bad problem where it was
causing my xboxes to crash in one scene. Fine and yeah, and like
no matter what I did, it kept crashing, So I sort of had
to think. I went to go then play it on PC and like get
past that area and that fixed it. But yeah, second, that's too
is just really well put together. It's like it's fun to play, and
then it has all of the great Tim Shaeffer stuff of excellent writing, great
characters, and that stitches the whole world together. I think next for me
would be hit Man three. Oh god, really, that's this year's shit.
Yes, I remember that launched in like January of that year. I
believe you double check on that. I think that's twenty twenty one. Yes,
we didn't do it for twenty twenty. I think you're right. It
has to be. Yeah, I think yeah, is this year. Yeah,
it is twenty twenty one for sure. January, so it was early,
right, it was early. I do remember it launching in January and
like being very excited about that, like having something awesome early in the year.
Hit Man three is you know, this is the hit Man game we're
still playing today because this is where they brought it all together. They eventually
made it all one big hit Man platform. But the levels in hit Man
three are fantastic. The the improvements they made to like you know, how
mirrors work and stuff like that. You know, it is like one continual
sort of improvement from Hitman hit Man two to hit Man three. But this
one is like there's a reason this is like, hey, we figured it
all out, we could bring everything into the hit Man three engine. Now
it's sort of let it live there, and now you can do that,
and it's this massive experience, this awesome playground. And yeah, honestly,
if I were to think about any game that I'm going to be playing for
the rest of my life out of these games from this year, it probably
will be hit Man three at Dartmouth level. Huh yeah, yes, yes,
the mansion sort of coming off and coming out of knives out and then
getting that level and realizing that they made some references to that movie in the
in the level where they're just that baseball sitting outside the window. That's very
fun. But just the level itself is so clever, so well designed,
such an awesome place, and that's you know, the joy of Hitman is
having this complicated, like you know, moving clock tower sort of thing experience
and then figuring out how it works and then completely decompiling it and figuring out
how you could mess around with it in some new and novel ways. And
that level was ideal for that. Yeah, it's man, I mean,
those those Hitman games are just so good that any you know, there's kind
of three of them, but also kind of one game, right, Yeah,
so something's a little like weird there. It's games like that final level
is a little weird, crazy thing, weird, little little weird. Probably
the kind of thing where I I get why that happens when they have gone
from you know, publisher to publisher and then we're kind of doing stuff on
their own. Probably had to like wrap things up in a way to say
budget the real final level, the one before that, that's the Argentinian level,
right, Christian Vineyard, Yes, yeah, Vinyard. Yeah, that
level is amazing, some really great like some great like story moments when you
play through that story campaign and then there's just so much happening in that stage.
It's it's incredible. A Loo Infinite was twenty twenty one. Yeah,
I was gonna mention if you didn't. I still really liked this game,
and I still understand that some people had some problems with like the season passes
and the cadence of content. I've still always confused. So that turned into
actually that's a bad game, because I thought that the campaign was a lot
of fun. I loved the open world stuff, they're doing. I thought
the grappling hook felt great. The shooting and all that was still fantastic.
The multiplayer was actually a ton of fun playing. You know. We got
some big groups together and we were running around some of those like really big
team fights. Yep. And we had a lot of silly blast every time.
Yeah. I don't know. It's like if people will soured on this
game for some reason or another, that's fine. But I have basically nothing
but good memories with this game, more than I have of any other Halo
game, to be honest, Yep. That's part of it for me is
like I am not a Halo guy, and this turned me into quite a
bit of one. I was not here for the story. I know for
a lot of people, the narrative of Halo is a huge part of it
for them. I can't speak to that. All I know is I really
enjoyed the campaign. I thought it did a good job of providing like a
fun little sandbox to have fun in, to mess around with the tools they
give you. I don't think it was like a Game of the Year experience
on its own, that campaign, but it was a strong four out of
five campaign for me. At the end of the day. The corridor sections
at the end were a little bit that's where like it really kind of fell
apart from me. But the multiplayer was just fun the end every time we
played it, and I played it as like a kind of a casual multiplayer
game where it's like we'll check in on it every couple of weeks and we'll
have a game night, and it was great. Yeah, love Halo Infinite.
I think the next one that I would do is it's tough. I
got a couple options here. I'm like, do I burn this here?
And it probably won't make the list because I don't know if you ever played
this, But The Forgotten City. I did play this. I love The
Forgotten City. It is that mystery game where you have to unravel like a
murderer and and you're like an ancient ROMs in a city in ancient Rome that
is at the bottom of this pit, and you're taken across this river by
this lady named Karen, and you don't really know what's going on, yes,
and you eventually kind of piece everything together in a way that is super
satisfying and super cool. And it's not like it does sound like a lot
of a lot of combat, but you like get like a bone arrow,
but it's usually used for solving puzzles as much as it is for anything else.
And it's just it's such a cool experience. It was actually started as
a Skyrim mod, I believe, and then they built it out to be
a standalone game and they just nailed it. It's like kind of the peak
of this sort of thing for me, this genre of first person puzzle solving,
mystery solving, narrative experience will break the Golden rule. I thought it
was a really creative game, and I love that kind of Skyrim influence because
it almost does feel like I'm playing the best Skyrim mission ever in some place.
That's exactly what it feels like. Yeah, yeah, I didn't.
I never beat it, and I kind of wish I did, but I
played a lot of it and I thought it was super impressive, really creative
stuff. Okay, oh, there's a few places I can go here.
I think I am going to bring up Monster Hunter Rise right now. We're
just talking about Monster Hunter and I liked Monster Hunter World. I did fall
off it eventually, I stuck around with Rise even more, I think just
because playing it on my switch. They feel very good. But just you
know, some of those changes to the movement stuff, right, having that
dog mount and the kind of grappling the stuff movement felt so good in this
game. I loved the kind of more like h Japan or Field Japan,
what you would call it aesthetics. It was a very pre game, very
good music. The presentation of it all was fantastic. This is probably my
favorite muster Hunter game so far. I only played a little bit of Rise.
I think I only played the demo actually, but I know people love
this game, so I'm glad you're ever to get it here. Okay,
there are two more I definitely want to mention, so let me start with
this one. I'll go with Return of the ober Den, which I think
is a miracle game. It was awesome that we got this and Forgotten City
in the same year. This was the year for Return of the ober Den,
right, I believe it was. Why do I feel like that was
brought up last? Yeah? It was that last year? Yeah? Maybe
maybe last year? Just twenty eighteen? Dude? Oh really? Okay,
okay, not even close. Okay, you know who could sit shock?
But do you we just going by your heart I'm like looking at a list
of games, but like this must have been like some console release or something.
Okay, Actually that helps because it's like that's like that would be hard
to like I would have to knock off some stuff for that, and it
would be a fight with you. Let's see here the good all right,
the Guardians of the Galaxy. There we go. That's where I thought you
were going. Yes, I was not gonna let the thing go by without
mentioning that Guardens of the Galaxy is one that surprised me. I think I
was. In fact, I just had dinner with Barrett Courtney other night and
we mentioned that, like when that game trailered. Him and I were both
like, this looks like shit, this looks terrible. I hate everything about
like that this game's trying to do. Why they waste their time on this?
And then I ended up playing it and it just won me over,
like slowly and steadily. I think that it's it is a strong characterization game
where the team building is really good, that there's this connection between all of
them. They're constantly fighting, but you could tell that they really care about
one another, and that stuff does usually get me. It's not like the
most mechanically interesting game, but it does what it needs to do to sort
of get you through that story in a way that you always feel like you're
engaged in it and there's always something fun to do. And it's also got
a lot of scenes where it's like you're this character. You're walking through a
space that they're familiar with, and there's a ton of stuff to look at
and sort of like build out like your understanding of these people. And I
appreciate that they did a really good job with that. Yeah, I think
it's this game's legacy kind of speaks for itself because this is a game that
feels like nobody should have cared about or everyone to talk about Passic coming out,
and now this is a game everybody looks back fondly on. I think
it's going to kind of stick around because of that for a long time.
There's going to be a legacy with this one. It's kind of impressive stuff
because there's everything going against this game, and it's always it did go against
it when it came to sales, kind of pay for the sins of the
Avengers game and a lot of unfair ways. Part of that was the fault
of its own marketing. For sure. There's a lot to like in this
game, especially, you know, the combat is good, but it's really
about that writing, that characterization that was super strong. It takes too.
It's kind of another one on this. Hey, this is a good year
for three D platformers training, because that's basically what it is. It is
a co op three D platformer, and it is really clever with that stuff,
with the mechanics and the level design. Like there's always sections like,
hey, the one character has like a nail gun, the other character has
a hammer. It just kind of things like that. Some of the writing
is a little bit obnoxious for sure, but the gameplay feels very good.
This is still one of the most fun co op experiences that I think you
can actually have. This is the one that won the Game Awards that year.
Yes, it is, by the way, and I wasn't that upset
about it. I was like, no, that's that is actually I know
you're a big fan of it. Tickets too, Yeah, I know you
really like that super fun. Some day we'll someday we'll do our play through
of it. Don't want Yeah, we'll do it. Yeah. Absolutely.
I still have not played it though personally do you want to take it to
the podcast producers now or do you have any others you want to make sure
we mentioned before we go. Before we go, I want to make sure
this year Super Mario three D World plus Bowser's Fury was the other. Uh
oh well, oh wow, that was this year that took a three D
World, which was a game that I liked find but I was like probably
in the bottom of my tier list for three D Mario platformers. It was
just a few changes, speeding up a little bit, adding like a move
or two from Odyssey in here, and I suddenly loved the three D World
campaign. It's like one of the most fun Mari experiences I ever had.
And then Bowser's Fury is a super fun just kind of kind of test of
like what more open world Mario would feel like a full game, a full
game. It's yeah, it's like, you know, like four hours instead
of like eight I guess, but it just is a full game. Man's
how long it took to be like an old two D Mario for sure?
Yeah, all this interesting level design, uh, just fantastic stuff. I
love three D World and bowsers Fury, even if it got me put into
I was about to ask, it's just this, this was the one,
wasn't Apparently I've been in Nintendo Joe for three years now or something on there
it is with no end in sight. You don't need to know how long
your sittence is going to be. Yeah, Nintendo Jail. All right,
So we have Ratchet, Clake, METROI, Dread, Psychoonouts two, hit
Man three, Halo, Infidite, The Forgotten City, Monster Hunter Rise,
Guardians of the Galaxy. It takes two in a Super Mario with three dy
World plus Spouser's fury. I will get over to the podcast thinking of I'm
going to see it the podcast exacting them up? Can you can you put
Final Fantasy fourteen end Walker? Just for me? Sure? Just for me?
I didn't bring it up. Ed Walker is another very good expansion,
quite as good as do you like it more than the Shadow Bringers? I
think a Shadow brings a better expansion, like as a game or all,
but I like more than Walker. I never know it, and Walker has
a very satisfying ending. There's a lot of fun stuff there. All right,
let's see almost ready there we go almost d alright, podcast producers,
Oh god, there's Doominal crossing with one of the best shots for Metroid Dread
God, this moment ruled very, very good game. I know we're not
really thinking about two D Metro right now because we're all wondering about the Metro
Primary Masters the Metro point four, But boy, I sure do hope that
we do just get a sequel to Dread from that since twenty twenty one amazing
Metro twenty four. Yeah, I mean Troit Sex, I need it.
It wouldn't be impossible that there's like a sequel ready to go, but I
would It's a kind of thing where it's like they would probably do that well
I don't know, Yeah, they would probably do that on the next switch
and just like let that happen in like twenty twenty five, twenty twenty six,
which would be fine with me. Jackie G says that Neo the World
ends with you, I believe. Yeah, I don't know why. I
love the original World ends with you and this one did nothing for me.
Yeah, I don't ever hear many people talking about it this one. I'm
not surprised that didn't take long. Freedom k Liberty Bell says Lady Dematresque or
specifically Resident Evil Village as Evil Village or Evil eight is very good. A
lot of fun stuff. Some of it. It feels like a lot of
really good parts that maybe don't super come together, and maybe that's what I
feel about it. Credible rememberable experience like Lady Demastrat's castle is great, and
maybe that should have been the whole game. There are some other kind of
neat areas, but yeah, it doesn't quite become top tier Resident Evil,
but still very good. This is definitely still capcom and it's kind of Swagger
era. Yep, the best Mammy of twenty twenty one best Yeah, I
mean we're people are still talking about this character, and yeah, we get
to a point where if I think they really knew what they had there,
again, she would just be the main villain in the whole game would have
been about her. Yep. Mister Buller says Psychonauts too. Doctor Ryan also
says Residentvial Village with a picture of Lady Dematresque. Tommy Pencil says the Forgotten
City right right there with you. Nick Turbo says Persona five Strikers. This
is one I did actually want to bring up because this game really surprised me
I thought it was just gonna be another kind of dumb Musso spinoff, and
on the fire Strikers is almost like Persona five. You've got a lot more
than that. It's not just a Muso yeah, and I mean it's even
that much of a Musa together. There are a lot of enemies. It's
really just more of an action RPG with a lot of enemies. There's a
little bit of that Musso stuff in it, but doesn't feel like like when
you're playing Higher Warriors that's like, oh well, this is the Zelda version
of Dynasty Warriors. This still feels mostly like Persona than anything else. It's
just a get real time action instead of turn based, and it's a sequel
story and all that stuff. I was surprised how much of a game this
was. I suppose that's very good. All right, let's see here Mex
says end Walker from Final fourteen. Yep, good poster there for end Walker.
We got Don Trail just a couple months or so. Now, gee,
not long at all, Low Rule says Metroid dread got those boss fights
with cutaway action sequences were so good. God, I want a Raven Beek,
right, I want him for Smash So Bad, Brother's character so happy.
Oh it was Inscription twenty twenty one. Joy mentioned that it is after
Mike came for Outer Wild or yeah, return of the over Deen Outer wilds
Oh yeah, okay, the backstab Zone for what is that? Fine?
That's Sean being shocked that I took out he said, single hands favorite games
of all time out the lists. I have not played Inscription. I don't
know how you feel about it, Jess. I like it a lot,
but if if anyone remembers, they probably don't mean you probably weren't listening.
Then. For our games B Game of the Year, I took Inscription off
our list and replaced it with Guardians in the Galaxy. I think I remember.
I like. I like Inscription a lot, I do, but it's
I did not. It did not become my everything the way I did with
some people. Look at how happy I am to murder these buddies keep piling
up. I love Jeff protecting that. Yeah, fine, that's good.
He tried, though he definitely tried. Alexa Gogo says hit Man three.
Yeah, got those games. I like that logo too. I hope we
hear about I hope we hear about that Double seven games soon. Yeah,
I'm looking forward to but also so that we can like, you know,
release that game and then maybe make another Hitman. Yeah. I mean,
if it has really been since twenty twenty one since their last game, I
know they didn't updates. Hit Man three has been that old now, because
like I could just play that now. Oh yeah, man, it's gonna
be timeless for me. Uh. Octo says incredible soundtrack. Favorite series.
It's the great Ace Attorney chronicles. Yeah, this kid. They just recently
had some kind of sales Mileston for this game. It's something like, you
know, it's millions, which is really impressive for this These are fantastic Ace
Attorney games that we finally got localized here. That was really exciting. I'm
so glad that they did this, and I'm so glad it found success.
I think it was the success of this that kind of really cemented Ace Attorney
as something of a forever for Capcom, Like, yeah, they're going to
always do stuff with Ace Attorney. I want to be shocked if Ace Attorney
seven gets announced before the end of the year. What a fantastic series and
that these are very good games. Bench JC also says Final Fantasy fourteen end
Walker the Bar Speckel says hit Man three Chaos Buckero says road In ninety six.
I don't know if I know what that is. I big remember,
but I didn't play it. Paper Mario Wolf five says Ratchet and Clink Rift
Apart Villain Mack says Halo Infinite God. Yeah, man, just great physics.
That's that's good. Yeah for sure. Good Grapple Hook, Yeah,
great when we client the Year of the Grapple Hook. Were there other games
of grapp there was? There were other years that were also Year of the
Grappling Hook as well, so but this was definitely a good year of that.
Big Tony the Final Fantasy Guy says Shin mcgammie Tense five not enough heart.
Yeah, I think it's my biggest complain about that game. Eh Alex
says Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart. Vision forty nine says Death's Door, which
me and Michael both guilty of not loving like others. Yeah, yeah,
we were kind of famous deaf doors haters. So I tried, I tried.
I just don't like it. I'm sorry, but I don't know what
it is. I don't know why he's like the thing I would like.
I was like the same, same, I don't get it. Uh Terioki
Blues says Age of Empires four, I should have spent more time with Age
of Empires kind of Yeah, I don't think I spent a second with it.
I'm somebody who used to like Age of Empires and then this came out
and it just kind of just sumissed me somehow. Pretty good people liked it.
Yeah, he's pretty good. I really like this one. I play
a little bit especially. That's pretty good. Does remind me of that this
is like not like some super teas because it's not a game anyone's gonna know.
But I saw something in a prett brief Mike around me after the show
to tell you because I'm just I'm excited about it. Looks really good.
Okay, Rid Racer, it's not Red Racer. I'm sorry, but uh
Screaming Madden says, I'm pretty sure this is a reference to Well there's mad,
but I think it's the reference to Chickery with the tur duck in the
end zone. Yeah, I think it's like just like coloring right as the
dog from Chickory. But it's a background. This was Giant Bombs Game of
the Year. Right, that's right. Chickery was Giant Bombs Game of the
Year because they did not want to give it to what were the games Christian,
we're arguing about something else. Yeah, yeah, I don't remember.
Yeah, I can't remember exactly what it was, ma'am. That was.
Hey, yeah, Chickery, good game. Shot shots to you. Maybe
it was mad and they didn't want to give it to uh, Resident Evil
Cririsis says end Walker Man. There's a lot of n Walker love in here.
Good on everyone, Daniels says, inscription with a very good gift.
Hosp says a Halo infinite Schiarmiro says Pokemon Unite. Oh, that's kind of
fair. I remember that, Yeah, the Moba. If I could,
if I had an infinite time on John Bomb, I would do a show
where it's like, I'm going to set up a game, not tell a
person what it is about what we're playing, and just play it and then
just have episode where it's all right, jam, we're playing Pokemon Unit Surprise,
here we go. Best of seven. Ali Miracle says, which one
is the Skelty Gear, Skilty Gear Strive And that's yeah, that's a Bridget,
Is that right? Yeah, that's Bridgid or Brisket as we sometimes call
her, love the Brisket two times. Champ beef Hammer says, couldn't decide
back then either between METROI Dread or Halo Infinite. Both are great games.
Good year for space armor. Yes, absolutely, you know, one day
they should put a woman in one of these suits. I don't know.
O Bear says, Inscription, which a lot of fun secrets in the earth.
What kind of game is Inscription? Obstensibly it's a card game. I
thought it was this card game, but nothing I'm seeing is like right,
that's right. That's the whole thing. Is like there's a table where you're
supposed to play cards with an old man, and then you could stand up
from that table and look around the little cabin that you're in and start messing
with stuff, and there's like, hey, a little locked door. I
wonder what I could do? I gotten there and then the game changes.
That sort of thing. People should play Inscription. I think it's all it's
been on some like services. I have gotten it off a sale like I
have it. I'm ready to try it eventually, but haven't gone there yet.
Weisman says The Artful Escape. I didn't play this, but I know
some people really like it. Yeah. I think I played it at like
a show somewhere, like a demo. I remember it was neat Lily Wu
Lee Wu, says end Walker. There's another one where your love Oh my
goodness. Matt in the Big City says his favorite game is Nintendo Jail.
It might be a reference to Bowser's Fury. Well, you can't just say
how many cats are there in the game like that? Yeah, wow,
right there, no one, says Guardians of the Galaxy. You can actually
think looks really good too. Yeah, it's a pretty game. It's a
pretty game. Willow Davis says what I believe is Endwalker. No, that's
Arise. Okay, look it listen. You know what I could see it
though if it yeah, that would be more of a storm blood thing.
But ye, okay, sure, uh, plumbers don't wear hint eyes,
says Bowser's Fury with the immature that says how many cat shines are there?
Apparently one hundred? I forgotten. I want this image, says it's from
Nintendo Wire. I wonder if this is like them like quoting you and like
you it wasna, I bet it was like it didn't help me. Nintendo
wire h Bopper Mario says, Forts the Horizon five. I'm surprised to take
someone this long to mention that I like Forts, Harass and five a lot.
Yeah it does. Oh god, yeah, that that's a real story.
But oh iMore dot com has it. Some lucky people have already gotten
to preview the game and have noted that there are a total of one hundred
cat shines to collect. Yeah, lucky people, lucky. They have no
idea how lucky. I have the luckiest son of a bitch there ever.
Was go ahead? Was that you asked me a question? I'm sorry,
I was trying about Forts Oresson five h Forts? Was that the last Sports
of the Horizon the Mexico one? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes,
I remember liking it and also being like a little bit o. It's like,
let's find something that juices up a little bit at this point. Yep,
yeah, you listen. It was no the Crew Motorfest. Of course,
Crew Motorfest is a very underrated game. I think I think Adam Sleep
says, Monster Hunter Rise Breadfish says, that's oh yeah, okay, okay,
yeah, chemc Gotty tens I five. There we go. Uh Lenny
cool controversy, Dick Den versus Bowser's fury. God, that is a good
game. Uh Tea money og sas and Walker Sledge. Why why aren't I
not playing Found Fantasy fourteen? Of all these people, I don't know,
Yeah, you gotta Vinco, they might all be in Venco. Yes,
I'm a Sledge. Reinhold says inscription. Vander Lyles says Sledge life another one
I know people like, but I've never touched. Jedi mus four says Halo
Infinite Symbiosis says guilty Gear. I believe guilty Gear correct warden Cliffs says Lost
Judgment. You guys ever play this? No? But I want to too,
because you know, I like Lawyer Ship me too, and I yeah,
and I like, yeah, this is the second one too, Right
Judgment and Lost Judgment. And they're both young. Never came out to PC,
don't they Because they have a weird scene, Yes, because of like
weird the weird control that some of those people have over those stars. In
Japan. Uh tosh or To Tassi Tashi says, forts the Horizon five,
specifically the Fast X crossover with the game. Boomer needs a cool new nickname,
says Unpacking. Do you ever play that? Not? But I'd like
it. Dan Fiasco says disco Elicium the final cut, right, that would
have been? That happened this year of a edition version of this. Yeah,
it had voice acting and off it came out on console, so I
bet a lot of people did finally play it that year. This is a
game I think about going back to a lot right now. I never finished
it. I enjoyed what I played of it. I kind of wish I
would have just beaten it and they played finally eventually. Right, I'm like,
we shouldn't find a reason, just like maybe it could be a game
of the month club or whatever. Nick says Psychoonauts two, Adam GC says
it takes two. Clink says Ratchet and Clink. So platform is this year,
man, I love it. Hamlet of Texas is Chivalry too. It's
a fun game. I think it's coming on sale. It's gonna have a
free weekend or something like that soon. We should do upf with showing yeah
people could people would like playing this game. It's a fun one. Always
be clothing slash Car, he says, Guardians of the Galaxy. Hell yeah,
laser wolfs has hit Man three long you give, says the Great Ace
Attorney Chronicles. JD. Camp says Death Stranding was that this year might have
been the version. Probably, Yeah, that's might have been that year.
Uh. Fluffy cloud Gamer says, Chickory the real game of the year,
you cowards. Uh. And then Turbo Sean says, I think this is
also Guilty Gear. That is Guilty Biking. Wow. Okay, well huh
and that's our intro. Jeff, that's so sick. Yeah, no,
that's fantastic, very enthralled. So man ookay, I don't mean you kind
of are mid on Returnal. I'm surprised that nobody brought up Returnal. I
thought people liked that game. They always told us how much they liked it.
It is a good game. It's just not a great game. It
really just isn't it is. If they do a Returnal too, I bet
I'm going to love the hell out of that game, because they know that
what they with the shortcomings of that game were they knew that that it like
does not match up to the best in the genre, like Hades, and
so the next time they will and it's going to be really really, really
really good. But what they had there was a strong foundation. But yeah,
there's a reason no one mentioned it. I think let's make sure we
consider inscription because a ton of people brought that one up. Yes, and
I like inscription a lot, a couple other ones with surprist nobody mentioned I
may not surprise. I just want to mention it or whatever. I thought
that Diabo two Resurrected was a very good remake of one of my favorite PC
games, So that was a ton of fun. At twenty twenty one,
I think it's like easy already forget that happened because Diabo four was not very
long after that. But Diabo two resurrected super good, and nobody brought up
Honey Pop to double date Honey Pop to double difficult. Yeah, yeah,
they're not going to It doesn't appreciate its core competencies. Did Cruising blask about
this year? Jesus Christ? I thought you were going to miss it.
Chrus Blast is a lot of fun. It is it's the best of that
kind of racer, which is it mostly plays itself, but it's a really
fun roller coaster ride. I would I would recommend that to any like family
looking for a racing game that everyone in the family can have a good time
with. Okay, we have five slots. We have a lot more games
than that. Once again, that's Ratchet and Clink, Metro Dread, Psycho
Nuts two, hit Man three, Halo Infinite, The Forgotten City, Monster
Hunter Rise, Guardians of the Galaxy. It takes to Super Mario three D
World Plus, Spouser Fury, Final, Fantasy fourteen, end Walker, Inscription,
Diabolo two, Resurrected, Honey Pop two, Double Date, and Cruising
Blast. Okay, I'll get rid of Cruise and Blast if you get rid
of Honey Pop deal. Okay, Fell then louis it all right? There
we go shout out Sololo though, of course, yes, who's also in
Cruising Blast? All right, Mike, do we have any like sure things?
There's a couple that I'm like, feel like, probably are, But
what do you think I think Metro Dread and Ratchet and Clink rifted apart and
you know you're going to put that subtitle on there for me. Yeah,
those are the two that are absolutely locks to me. Okay, I don't
know what order, honestly, Yeah, I'm I'm just throwing them up there
for now. I will adjust this. There we go. There's like,
I mean, there's a lot. I'm like, yeah, that could be
there, that could be there, that could be That's how I feel,
exactly. There's a lot. Okay, which one do you feel most strongly?
Honestly, most strongly is probably hit Man three. It's it's it's hit
Man three. And then it's like Bapsterisphary and Guardians of the Galaxy and yeah
in the Forgotten City after that, and Halo Inthony after that. I don't
know what are you thinking? I mean Hitman three, Sure, there's like
a party. It's like, oh wow, we love hit Man a gag.
It's like like sometimes there is one. It's like I feel like I'm
giving a trophy to the same game for the third time. Yeah, we
could listen. It doesn't like I said, I feel strong next wrong,
That's just how I feel. It's it's not just locked. It's not locked
though, That's what I'm saying. If we need to drop something to get
something else up there, we'll see. I mean, I do really like
Psychonauts too, and Bowser's fury, Like do I want to hold it against
Bowser? Fury that it is like mostly an enhanced version of a game,
but it does have that new campaign. Hard to say. I want to
ask you right now because like so many people felt strong about Scription. If
you feel strongly about Scription, then I think it should be there. I
just haven't played it, and I don't know it's it's it's not my top
five from this year now. Inscription's very good, but I would rather have
Guardians of the Galaxy and Bowsers Ferio for it, and look, I mean,
and Forgotten City and Halo open it. And I know a lot of
people said an Walker, and there's there's like a parts like I don't know
if I need to put end Walker in the top five this year. Yeah,
let's let's like just spare ourselves and not do that and leave a slot
open for something else, which you know we're leaning to words that for hit
Man three, let's also do that. Forde. I think it's a little
bit of that kind of saying yeah, sort of set up there. What
do you think You know, you don't play much. It takes too huh,
So you don't feel super strongly about that one, exactly. I have
nothing against it. It would be on my top five, but it would
be kind of lower in my top five. So it's like, oh,
I guess I care more about Psychoonots two than it takes two. To be
honest, all right, how about this, Let's move up Psychokouts to and
Guardians of the Galaxy. I was just gonna say, let's move up Psychonauts
too and guards of the Galaxy. Okay, if that's what we're both going
to say, then we can just do that, and then that feels right,
and then of course we can. We're going to rearrange things everything that's
up there, and now we can have the conversation. Do we want to
drop hit Man three for something else? Well, we would drop it for
Browserspy Browsers Fury. It takes two, probably not Halo Infinite, probably not
on City. Forgotten City would be right there for me, but I'm not
going to try to force it on here, like like I like hit Man
three more so, Yeah, I guess I'd rather have Bowsers theory than it,
but not really, I don't know. I could go either way,
you know what I I If I'm being honest, I'd like the way Boser
Sury looks on the list when we put it out on like Twitter and stuff.
I like, I wan't like like no that botis Suri deserves to be
in the top five. It's that good. Would that be okay? Swapping
out Bo Suri for Hitman three, Yeah, let's do that, okay,
because you know what I will say, that's why I love Hitman three and
I love how it brings it all together. There are some forgettable missions in
that one. For me, I think like over very high high and some
lower lowers. Yeah, I think overall it would be in terms of like
the levels, it might be the weakest of the three when it's all taken
into account, I could see that there's the ones. I mean, I
just really love the Argentinian level and I really love the mansion. Yeah.
Those are very thank you, Christian, we appreciate your service. Okay.
So then what we have in the top five now is Psychodout's two Ratching,
Clink, Grift Apart, metroy Dread, Super Mario three D, World,
Bounces of Sharing, Guardians of the Galaxy, anything from the list left behind
that you want to like just give a so long too? Are we going?
I mean I think they're I think they're all great. Monster Hunter Rise
and Walker is still a fantastic expansion that really kind of you know, delivered
a great experience. Four File Facy fourteen Fans Hit Me three is fantastic.
Now, these are all great games. I really want to play Inscription.
I guess a special shout to Forgotten City, which isn't making the list,
but for such a quote unquote small game that was something pretty it's really special.
I got it all play strong affinity for it. Wish listed right now,
pick that one up. Yeah, next day, I'll just pick it
up exactly when it's like there for five bucks. You should just get it,
all right, Mike, what's number one? Either Dread or Rift Apart?
For me, I think it's probably Dread, and then I'm great with
Ratching Clak Grift Apart at number two. I like that, Okay, great,
honestly, then I'm okay with Psycho at number three. By the way,
if that's what you want, if that's what you're feeling, if you
have someone else, let me know, No, I think that's right.
And then honestly, I do think Guards of the Galaxy is number five,
Like I said, like fo me, yep, I think we put it
like number ten on the game speed list for this reason. So yeah,
yeah, okay, this looks right to me. That's okay. So the
read the top five for everybody, if for good, the top five games
of the year twenty rounder one. And by the way, everybody, I
think the last year we are doing this, I think we're now caught up
to win games. The size was just doing this on a yearly basis.
So well, we'll find out what those other years were. We'll put this
all together. But top five. Number five is Guardians of the Galaxy.
Number four is Super Mario three D World plus Bowser's Fury. Number three it's
Psycho Nuts two. Number two is Ratchet and Clank rifted apart, and number
one is met Troid dread. Oh baby, Oh yeah, all right,
there we go. I'm gonna post this right now. Let everyone yell at
us. I feel like this one will get enough heat. I think there's
plenty that really been off here, but I get it at least like you
would think that the platform people can't get mad at us. Here. We
have a pretty good spread of Xbox, PlayStation and Nintendo. When you look
at it, the platformer people are having a good day. Mike. It's
a good day. For the platform or people, and we're doing our part
on that three D platform people I met my platform people I met like PlayStation
and next pot Okay, well, yeah, thirty platform people will be happy
for sure. You can define what kind of games we like. Do the
PlayStation platform people really take ownership of Rachord and Clink? I feel like they
did. That game would have sold better, but it's weird that they would.
And I don't know if the Xbox people take ownership of Second nuts two,
which I guess, but still are many other options. Yeah, so
I think Second two is the closest they came to winning a Game of the
Year award at any recent time. So that's right. They would have said
for Forts and Rice in five as well at that time. Christian, do
we need another break? Are we good to just talk about what we've been
playing? Give me one little break? Sounds good. We'll be right back.
Everybody. All right, we are back. We did our twenty twenty
one Game of the Year, We talked about the news, We did the
super chats. There are more super chats though, Mike. Should we just
do that and then we'll talk about what we've been playing. Yeah? Sure,
we read on some of these new super chests here. Chris Quintin says,
Jeff, you should go see Mike's dad for your trips. You survive,
Love you, buddy, but you are letty terrible. Hey, I
feel terrible. Mikey looking sexy as always. Thank you. Anyways, maybe
get your upcoming cout segments fueled by prep. I don't think you I could
have told a difference in your appears. Jeff, Yeah, I think I
feel even worse than I look, though, So I need to go there
the doctor. I've already decided set. I mean, that's happening. We
talked about my dad and if you want to you can. It's like an
eighty minute drive for him. So it's not like some fun I'm just gonna
go to Urchin Care tomorrow. I've got a really handy urchin Care that doesn't
cost me really anything, and there they've been nothing but really solid. I'm
just gonna go there tomorrow. I'll be fine. Everybody. I appreciate it,
though. Ninten Derek says, I'm saddened by your response to Road ninety
six, my favorite gage twenty twenty one and one of my favorite indies period.
You should give it a try. I'm gonna give it a try.
Yeah, it didn't mean to be like dismissive of it by just yeah,
differently, I had no idea. I don't actually remember hearing about it.
So I will go if I can play on a Steam deck, I'll definitely
play it right away. Otherwise, maybe I'll find a reason to play it
on the on the PC when I get a chance. All right. Next
one here is from Chris Quinn again Jeff, since it looks like grub Katana
might be the longest gameplay yet, and yeah it might be. Any chance
here, fellow bladers could door desh you good food for Proggy's It's any kind
of carrot at the end of a long and horrible stick. To help during
Delight Club, I was able to expense some uh, the what you might
call Popeye's chicken. I think that's good. Like when we have a delight
Club, a little reprieve, that's fine, But now it's what it's Blake
Club. It's down to business of being miserable. That's what that show is.
How are you feeling about segments though, Like, so you're you've beaten
one of four chapters. Do you think you're going to want to break up
the chapter two? Do you want to just push through right now? I
feel like if we make progress like we made on the last one, let's
just push through. Let's just get it over with. But that could change
if the second episode, which by all accounts is supposed to be better,
if that also is a miserable slog, then we'll have a different conversation here
in a couple of weeks. Most people made it sound like the game is
worse at the beginning, and we see like it really peaks at that more
crematorium level or whatever. That was rough. It was rough for everyone,
yes, but we'll see how we're feeling. I think if we make some
strong produce here in the next couple episodes, we will reassess. Well.
I don't think we're going to miss any episodes because the summer game fest,
because we leave on Thursday and we'll be back before the next Wednesday. So
the Dan's going to be traveling at some point here. Yeah, Dan's also
got his you know, his surgery coming up and stuff, and he's going
to be although you know, that's the kind of show where maybe since he
might like you know, dial in from bed or something, we'll see,
we'll see how it's gonna go. We have to do Delight club, no
complaints for me, that's all. We'll find ways to delight Jeff. Don't
worry. But Jeff, that is it with the super chats. If everyoneants
to squeeze one in, we will still read it before the end of show.
Thank you everybody. Excellent. All right, Mike, what have you
been playing? Oh? Mostly just four thousand Year Door, which just continues
to be great. But I mentioned that miss a Pandaria remix experience going on.
World of Warcraft's kind of this chance to go back to an older expansion
and play it while getting some new rewards, and it's kind of, you
know, a bit of a faster track, basically an excuse to level up
a new character before the real expansion, the war within comes out later in
the year, get some fun cosmetics. And for that. I've been enjoying
it, mister Pandora's expansion and plate the time. But I've gone back to
that area again when I'm leveling alts or whatever. It's a very pretty expansion,
right, so, like just the vibe all, like the Jade Forrest
and these temples. It's very pretty very good music. So for that,
I've been having fun with it. I did a dungeon today and the kind
of what the route like, You're just gonna be really overpowered and the dungeon's
gonna be trivial. So it's like, Okay, I guess I'm getting good
experience points, but it's not very interesting. You're just or stomping through it.
Kind of just like what would happen if I cut it for that dungeon
while playing the normal version of the game, I kind of want to be
like no, I kind of like I want this dungeon to be interesting and
like you know, I have to like like try and stuff and not just
have the tank run forward and collect everybody until we AOI storm them down,
which is like kind of what World of Warcraft dungeons do turn into. Sometimes
I think that's one that's a place where Fafacy Wars team works a lot better
is their dungeon design in general. But still mostly having a good time fun.
Distraction also been doing the Diablo four because they had a new season drop
and it's fun, but it you know, it's like, oh, this
big season thing for the Diablo nerds is this big deal because the loot changes
as somebody who played Diebo when it came out played do the campaign, didn't
do the loss. He's in content. I don't really know what the difference
is, but I'm still having fun playing Diablo, I guess yeah. I
mean that's kind of what I've heard from a lot of people. It's like,
man, sure is nice just to be playing Diablo. And that's like
the assessment of all this new stuff. So they didn't screw it up at
the very least right now. No, I think people are happy with it.
I don't know. People seem to be playing and you know that's what
That's what I get. Yeah, I'm getting plenty of experience points. So
if your main matrix is like, am I getting enough experience points? Sure,
yes, you are plenty of experience points. I also have been spending
a lot more time with a thousand year door really enjoying it. But everything
we talked about on nintindocks still stands. Then. I just did some dabbling
on a bunch of indie games that came out this week, some smaller stuff.
There's this one called Echostasis, which is, like I was explaining it
to Dan, It's not like that VHS aesthetic that's very popular. It's adjacent
to that, but it's more like the public access public cable access aesthetic where
someone has like a TriCaster in the background and they're putting up text. It's
all like big and blocky, and you're exploring this world where you are the
administrator and you have a terminal and you need to go up this computer and
put in these text commands. And you could always tell like what is a
command because you might see something in the world and any word that's in a
bracket is something that the computer will react to, and you need to like
figure out what's going on with this virus. And then there's like shooter levels.
It's very cool, very stylish. I'm not sure like what, like
how much more there is to the experience or the gameplay, but the presentation
is top notch, and at the very least it's like it's not it's interesting,
and I'm kind of hoping you can keep that up throughout the entire experience.
And then I tried Pode Definitive Edition from Night Dive. That's that old
shooter where you play as a chef and you start off with a frying pan
and then you get like, I'm so excited for Yeah, it's it's out
and now on Steam. I don't know if it's with how without me knowing
where's my code? Why is everyone talking about that was a three d oh
game? Damn it? It was? Yes, that's it starts off with
like three d oh or whatever when you turn it on or something or maybe
I also played Killing Time, which I think was also a three d O
game, which is on Steam. When we were talking about that the other
day, because that's singa Lord X game's been out for like two weeks.
It's been out for two weeks. It's been gone. I was gone.
Now that is did you get the email? Did you? Did you suit
your email for it? Because I'm like, okay, if not, Yeah,
they definitely should have reached out to you, because like, I think
they know nobody in this field cares more about BeO than they didn't reach out
to me. They fucked up, right, and I think they know.
There were also big fans of just all these weird, weird things that when
night Dive takes these very old games that no one really talks about, yeah,
we're the ones talking about it a lot of fun, very strange but
I what I appreciate about it. I appreciate about it is night Dive makes
these games feel so easy to play, because I did immediately try to go
play that Killing Time game and it's like, you know, arrows to move,
the keys are all over the place. So just honestly just making these
games Wadi and Mouse is such a huge improvement. It is it's like,
Okay, I can actually play this, and then now that's like okay,
it's still obtuc in a lot of ways, but now it's like fun to
figure out how it works instead of like struggling just to get the game to
work. But yeah, they did a good job. Like always, I
really enjoyed myself so far in po'd. But yeah, that's pretty much it
for me. It is going to be a thousand Year Door, which is
such a like a security blanket right now because there's so much going on with
getting ready for SGF and all these things, like the show's happening, and
it's like I don't want to play a game that's going to stress me out,
and the thousand Year Door is the furthest thing away from that. So
really happy to have that game right now. I just got the mob boss's
daughter back to him, and it was a very emotional experience. Yes,
buddy, Yeah, that's great, that's fun. You know, I tried
to do the most noble thing at all times. I'm like, I wonder
what I wonder what it would be like if I was like a little bit
more of a ship here. Exactly. Yeah, that's certain thing, you
know. It's the same outcome from probably exactly. But how's it different?
Man? Shortstream tonight, short show tonight? Yeah, listen, everybody.
I appreciate everyone's kind words. I do need to recover. I need to
go to sleep. Let's get our boy to bed. Maybe take tomorrow off
from work so we'll see. It's not a short show. It's still two
hours, that's what I was saying. Oh really, no, yeah,
it's still like honestly, the last time I looked at the clock, it
was like ten oh five, and it feels like it's been like five minutes
since then. But we have fun here. But let's get let's get Let's
take Jeff to bed, Let's tuck him in, give him a little kiss
on the forehead. It'll be all good. Get the vapor rub on his
chest. Maybe, well, that sounds like the good stuff. Mikey,
where can people find you on the internet? Uh, tolkoto everywhere, Twitch,
Twitter, those guys that that thing's called Yeah that place. Also,
yeah, follow me just like Twitch followed me on on Twitch today, So
that was funny. I was like, that's fun Twitch. Then they like
kind of talked in the chat for a while. I was like, oh,
Twitch is here. Everyone that does feel like the cops showing up a
little bit. That does a lottle weirds. Mister Twitch is here? Yeah,
Twitch, Yeah, who knows. Yeah, if if stuff happens a
Giant Bomb tomorrow, we'll have a upf. I'll probably do game mess work
games mornings regardless, because I was gonna do games mornings and then I was
going to like go right to the doctor. So we'll see. But there's
been plenty of fun stuff on Giant Bomb all week. I should go watch
that voicemail dom Truck today. Fun. Just feel better soon, Jeff,
thank you to Rogie. I appreciate that. Uh watch your talk over up
the PlayStation show guests. I thought we did a really good job. We
have a lot of fun stuff. It was great. Jeff, get that
get that game set somewhere else put it in your shed. I will,
I will put it into an exclusion zone. Yes, I will find a
place in the in the dead Lands to bury it. Yeah. I hope
you'll be Jeff. But I would just like to get on the record who
was right about the game set. I don't know. No one ever warned
me about it. I do think Mike was probably right. I do think
Mike was probably right. I love I came in on to a thing you
were recording and I said that first everybody thought that Dan just pushed the button
again, Yeah, exactly like it? Yeah, yeah, dand was like
specific, like I didn't press that. Who has that? Now? It's
like I thought it was you, And then you just started saying other stuff
and I got very confused seconds me. Everybody, good time. Well,
you know when we look up this road ninety six right now, I know
I was looking enough to. I think it's looking a kind of like an
adventure game. Yeah, they like it. I put it on my wish
list. Look at that? How about that? Do you remember it?
Did you review this one too? This one I did not know. Thankfully,
thanks for listening to everybody, will catch you next time I have a
would take care of yourself and goodbye? Has me review this game? Joke?
No, shut the funk up button? Oh ship, okay, incredible.
I'm so glad we have that break. I don't want I want joking.
I don't believe you. Yeah, speak for yourself, jeez, tend
it to Sean. All right, let's come back, all right, let's
let's get back into it. Cool cool break? All right? Do you
read the one? I thought you skipped one? The one on Well,
we'll check you. Go take a break, Michael. We'll let you know
when you get back, right, which one is it? Is it Christian?
The one about charton? Sorry? I stood up for a second.
I think he did, Yes he did. He did read the one about
uncharted. Thanks for hanging in with us everyone tonight. It's I really am
draggon ass at this point. I do not feel good at all. Yeah.
I just say that he was feeling well. I don't know what that
means. Did he wants to chatting? I'm feeling well? A j minotty.
Yes, I saw that. Yeah, I saw that earlier. I'm
like, oh, okay, I'm glad to hear that, Like that's that's
a relief. I was worried. Yeah, I know it in two is
three hundred dollars, is correct, Kevin, that's right, but by all
accounts, it's also kind of worth that much if if that's what you're trying
to do with it. M Ude, you hear about a win later?
Oh what is this? It is so okay? So have you done a
deep digging on like Steam Dex stuff. You know how people do the whole
bottles thing where you basically have like instanced Windows to run specific things that need
more from Windows. It's that but on Android. So you could just straight
up run Windows PC games on Android. Now that's okay, that's exciting.
Yeah, man, it's really impressive. You gotta go with older games to
start with, Like people are showing like Fallout four, but you know,
since Fallout four is I thing people are going back to right now, it
looks kind of impressive. Even if it is you know, and was I
eight year old game or whatever whatever it is, even that is impressive to
be running on like an Android handheld. Yeah. Have you guys like seen
this techut on mister stuff? Oh dude, I meant to ask you about
that there, And I'm so excited about this that is if all of this
happens the way that they claim it's going to happen, that is buck wild.
Yeah, people don't know. There's the Mister project, which uses Intel
subsidized FPGA boards. What is it, the cyclone three or something like that,
Yeah, an all Terra cyclone, yes, and it's those things are
very expensive, even when they're subsidized by Intel. Apparently Tech you down,
who is based in China is going directly to these manufacturers being able to source
these parts for a lot less money, and it's promising to do stuff like
a Mister equivalent a handheld Mistard, and then this other thing that is like
this premium console version that will be like a mister Ah, what is the
the thing you have the five the five x upscaler, Mike, what do
you have retro? It'll be a retro tink and it will be a cart
like an uploader as well, so you'll be able to get data off a
cart. So it all starts, Yeah, it all starts at this one
hundred dollars mister clone. So the same parts affect and Mister's like four hundred
dollars exactly right now, and it's the same parts but for like one hundred
bucks and then scales up from there. Apparently they're targeting for the handheld that's
even got a video out, so you know, switch like analog pocket like
one for Yeah, yeah, I'll do our thing, the mister handheld.
Did I miss anything? I missed the super chest you guys, it was
the uncharted one. Did we am what? What? What was the first
year where game mess decides? Did pick a game? The year? Is
this? The last one we're doing was twenty we do want to twenty twenty
two? I think we did. I think we did. I can't remember.
You gonna switch over because Jeff, it hits two years at gee,
it was twenty twenty two. Yeah, so be twenty twenty two. Yeah,
yep, thanks the last one this is it? Okay, cool,
but you put them all together. Later we canceled the fucking podcasting this we
get the scenes, Jeff, No, let me do that right now.
Sorry, we started talking about Yeah I got back. Jeff got going on
something like you see the way exciting to see the way his eyes laid up.
That's why I appreciated handholds getting a shield. That's why you need you
need to buy another halheld and then you're going to be like a hundred better
energized. She's slept here, so I could just have you go see my
dad and haven't give you antibiotxs and steroids. Yeah, that'd be nice.
Just come in kind I kind of do. Yes, everybody's getting sick.
The friends are getting sick too. I'm scar I'm not sick. Yeahs Allergies
are something we are going around here too. It's like a weird blue is.
Another one listen to is Electric Bugaloo Away found an unhingched game to talk
about for twenty twenty one. Oh good, I hear it. It's a
metri Brian. I'm going to maybe let the community bring it up first.
Now it's not much. I think there's one where I don't think the community
is broad yep yet, So I'm curious to say you guys even remember it?
Okay, Oh wow, this skame came out. By the way,
this annoys me. So Jeff will know what I'm talking about. On the
Wikipedia pay I always bring the Wikipedia page for blank Er and gaming. When
you guys do these things, they always refer to it as iOS and droid
say that's not cool. You can you can tell it's an iPhone user maintaining
that right. It's like that was motor rolla. What are you not a
going concern? No crazy, yeah, just baffling nuts. All right,
let's see, there we go. We're doing in two thousand and twenty one,
twenty one. I'm sorry it came out and Tony Tony never mind,
somebody posted a game. It confused me. Okay, I'm bringing it back
at you ready, this is I'm ready, sir. All right, we
could bring it right back in if you guys are good. Yeah, we're
good. Yeah, I'm good. It