Welcome everyone to the first episode of Game Spot after Dark of twenty twenty four.
Is that correct? Or do I just lie there? I have no
idea. How was out last? No, you think we did one two
weeks ago. Welcome everyone to the second episode of Game Spot after Dark of
twenty twenty four. Potentially, I am your host tomorrow, saying, joined
as always by the Podfather Jake Decker. We're going to read your email on
inail oh ship. My email is visible. I should probably not have that.
It's not live though it doesn't. Yeah, it's only visible to my
colleagues, who definitely should not be able to see this stuff. And what's
going by Lucy James? Hi? Can I can I have a cool name
like Podfather? I'm going to regret asking. I don't have a cool name
for you. I just call you Jams, which is a cool name.
I mean Jen and Greg my old roommates called me horse legs. Horse Legs
is not a good I know that I need something better. Where did that
name come from? My niece legs? My knees been backwards, Jake,
Sorry, it's good. I believe you. No, No, I don't
need to see I'll never get I'll never get used to seeing that. That's
not that weird. I expected more. Oh yeah, no, I mean
I'm in my thirties now I'm an old woman. Yeah. Uh. We
have been doing not a lot, so this is going to be an interesting
podcast. Stuff has happened, thankfully. I hate to be and I'll talk
about it yet. But I've been poopsuck in again. Yeah, I mean
it's same. I've been poopsucking games that we can't talk about right now,
but we will be able to talk about hopefully soon. But in the meantime,
there are games that have come out and things that we've done that we
can talk about. We can also briefly touch on the Xbox stuff, which
just happened for us in particular. I just kind of want to focus on
Indiana Jones because we've finally seen it. What do you guys think about it?
I have a lot of mixed feelings. Well, i'd say general fandom
level of Indiana Jones. I love Indiana Jones. Indiana Jones is Raiges The
Lost Ark, I think is the best movie ever made. I was very
excited for this project, mostly because of Machine games, and I'm still excited
for this project. Because it's machine games. I have high hopes for this
story because it's machine game. Because it's machine games, gameplay seems more like
an immersive sim that I expected, which is kind of cool. I think
that's a good way to play it for Niana Jones, because you can't really
make like a Wolf and Stein, like with Indiana Jones, that'd be too
much, so I'm super curious. I think visually it looked a little strange.
I don't know, it just looked off, And then hearing Troy Baker's
Indiana Jones also felt a little off. There were times when like, Troy
is clearly very talented, but I don't know if it's us because we're so
familiar with his voice. I Troy Baker, but I could also hear the
Harrison Ford in it, and I was like, Okay, I can't tell
if there's me that I just know his voice that well. I think Normans
won't know it. No, it's it's Harrison Ford. I bet people will.
Yeah, they won't hear Troy Baker, though Norman's probably won't hear Tree
Baker. That's the thing. I mean. I've I remember spoiling a twist
in a game. Yeah, because I recognized Troy's voice and that is not
on him. That is because I just play a lot of games that he
is in, and I just I just recognize him. But I will say
one thing I'm really glad about is with all the shit about AI voices,
I'm really glad that they just didn't Yeah, garble, yeah, garble Harrison.
Because I also, I mean, this is my broader bugbear is that
I hate the Hollywood de aging trend. Oh yeah, yeah, And I
and I kind of long for a time when you would just get a younger
person who kind of looked like Harrison Ford, say Olden Aaron Reich who literally
played him in a whole movie. But now Disney you'll just dage him in
the Indian Jones whatever. And so I don't mind sounderlikes Hey, it's how
Tom Hanks's brother gets a ton of work. He's his voice standing for wood
and everything. Yeah. Yeah, my favorite thing. Do you ever see
that Graham Norton clip where Tom Hanks is talking about it and he's just like,
yeah, I don't know what projects he's on. He could be on
cameo. So yeah. And also, as someone who is not particularly married
to Indiana Jones watched the Wish I was but like that whip anyway, as
someone who's not particularly married to Indiana Joe's like, I watched them when I
was a kid, and I do want to go back and rewatch them.
I still think you can skip some. I know, I want to watch
the three. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you know. One and three
very good. Two. It has its defenders. I guess which one is
to again Temple of Doom. Which one? Oh is that short round?
That's short round? That's the highly problematic one. Yeah, that's the thing
I couldn't even tell you. I know. The one is is Raiders of
the Last Ark, the one with the little cup, No, that's uh
Jones and the little last Crusade that makes way most they drink. Is that
is that the Nazis that one? I mean all of them? Well,
the second one not really. I guess this is why I get Which one
is a monkey Shila buff? That one's the crystal Skulls. I watched that
one was not Yeah, I don't see that one schla buff in this game.
No, So I'm not particularly a huge Indiana Jones fan, unlike our
colleague Adam Mason, who has had an Indiana Jones phone cover phone cover since
maybe twenty fourteen, but it's like printed on like Zazzl's God Bless Him.
I imagine that it wasn't printed like properly, so it just says Indian Jones,
Indian Joan and the a's on like the edge of it, see Indian
like Indian Jones. So I don't, Yeah, I think to Jake's point,
the thing I'm most excited about is machine games. I loved Wolfenstein the
remix, did not really care for the co Op one new Blood young Blood
new Blood Blood. I didn't play it. But that is the other part
of this conversation where I'm still waiting for Wolfenstein three, waiting a long time,
I know, and I don't think it's gonna happen now, But man,
the way two ended, oh god, that was so good. It
could have been more, And like I still think that, man Wolfenstein like
machine games. Wolfenstein games are immac They're great, they're fantastic, and not
getting a third one bums me out. But I guess it's for Indiana Jones,
which I'm happy with because I love Indiana Jones. But at the same
time, I'm just like I could have done. I could have done one
more wolf AND's done. Maybe maybe that'll be their next thing. Visually,
it did look like because you mentioned that it looked a bit rough at times,
it very much seemed like, Hey, we're gonna be putting your game
in this showcase, whether you like it or not, So give us a
bit that looks okay. Yeah, And if I don't, I am confident
in that it's gonna look considerably better than that when it comes out. As
far as I know, it's like it should be looking better considering it's out
this year, but who knows what passed the visual past or on or whatever
it maybe, but even then, it looks okay. Like the I like
the way the villain looked, I think like Harrison's Harrison's Ford. Harrison Ford's
face was a bit weird where I was like, is this what's going on?
I think it's Kenny val No. I think I looked at it and
I was like, he looks looks like his face isn't textured properly or or
whatever it may be. Maybe just I'm used to like super high details,
but the villain looked really good by comparison, I was like, okay,
cool. So they clearly have some work left to do visually, but I'm
excited for where it could be. I don't care about Indiana Jones one bit,
but if they're gonna make a kind of immersive sim with their IP,
I'm definitely interested in that. And like you said, it's machine games,
and they just make great games, so I'm sure they'll figure out a way
to make it interesting and fun for people who don't really care about Indiana Jones
as well. I think the thing that I'm most excited about is the puzzle
solving aspect of it. They're my favorite parts of tomb Raider of Uncharted.
I, as a child, really wanted to be I watched The Mummy Man.
I wanted to make a Mummy game. I would kill Why I would.
I would rather wipe Indiana Jones out of existence and get the Mummy for
them. I would do that. Rick O'Connell is better. I haven't played
that one that came up, but I would love a third person action game.
They've made one years ago. No, was it based on the Mummy
animated series? Because that I think it was based on the second movie maybe,
and it was not good. I played it a friend's house once,
and we even at that age, we were both like, yeah, this
sucks, but no, I love the puzzle solving aspect of it tickles my
brain in a very particular way because I love history, love learning about Dude,
if you don't listen to the Fall of Civilizations podcast, I'm missing out.
If you want to learn the real history of Emo TEP, you listen
to that podcast. They haven't put out an episode since like April last year,
but it's because every episode is like three hours long with custom voice acting
and music and everything, and I'm yeah, they also put them on YouTube.
They're great. Yeah, anyway, that's what I'm most excited about.
The whip stuff looks cool, but you know, I will There was that
one bit where they showed the like the wire frame of the whips so funny,
look like he was like throwing a snake at wa. I yeah.
And whoever edited that trailer and timed the punches, great job, great job.
It looks it looks cool. I'm a little more excited about it than
I was. Yeah, I'm surprised it's coming out this year, supposedly said,
I mean, I think this is going to don't make me eat my
words, Phil Spencer. But this could be a really great year for Xbox.
You know, there have been so many years of Xbox new games you
bought. All those studios need to do anything with every game they should out
this year, right, Yeah, yeah, that's pretty cool, very exciting
time to be an Xbox fan or PC gamer like me gamer. Yeah,
I liked a lot of what I saw there. There were some other games
in the showcase as well, or the Dev Dev Showcase. I guess we've
got a nice look at hell Blade, which is also out this year.
Lonely Digit only interesting fifty is the last one. Yeah, I mean like
everyone got hyper mad at a remedy for that and it's like, how do
you like their maples? Like, but I'm very very excited for that game.
Ninja Theory is one of my favorite studios, slightly biased because they are
British, you know, hanging out in Cambridge, and you know they made
some of my favorite games of all time. Also shout out to x Games
for employee Bill Potter. Billot appeared in that video. Yeah he was there
hanging around here. But yeah, that that game looks really interesting, like
they they the original hell Blade is still something that no one else has tried
to emulate. It's it's entirely its own the things that it goes for.
Obviously they have Norse mythology and kind of character action combat, but they're one
of the few studios that I've taken a lot of those familiar ideas and made
it completely their own in a way that no one else is even trying or
can do it in that way. So it's very very exciting that they took
a and that game was obviously the story of that game was like they built
that on a shoe string budget and they very much like maguivered equipment together to
do it, and they come up with like very cost effective mole cap techniques
that were like cameras, taped poles and that kind of stuff that was the
whole like market. They were like, look, how we have no money.
This is how we're doing this. Looks awesome. And now they're a
Microsoft owned studio with a presumably an endless amount of money to do it,
and they've got a brand new studio. This is very exciting, But it
seems like the sensibilities that gave way to what they were trying to achieve with
that game, especially exploring a mental health and using presentation and actual design to
further that. It looks like it's there in spades again with the whole change
of like how binormal audio works and kind of like the shift in how Senua
is dealing with her internal conflicts and external conflicts versus that. So I'm very
very excited to see that. I think the one question I have was the
combat in the original Health Blade was kind of hit and miss for various reasons.
Are you try and hit and sometimes you miss? I'm interested to see
how they evolved that. If they evolved that and what they did mention they
had a bit of an overhaul. I really want to go back and because
I mean twenty seventeen a long time ago. Yeah, it still looks nice
and it plays. I think it plays. It's interesting enough to carry you
through it, even if it's not as satisfying and intuitive as it could be.
Ye. Yeah, it's intense, though I remember I played it a
little bit for it fairly recently. I remember thinking, this is intense.
This is a lot. Mate. I bought that wireless xbox headset for us
when we got really into Halo for that month. It was a great one.
The headset and Halo. Yeah, Halo. So I'm really looking forward
to actually getting in there and listen to it as as an Inju Theory intended.
Yeah, I'm excited. This feels like the series X's first big cinematic,
sort of narrative driven game, at least that comes to mind right now.
I know we've had like Starfield and Hi Fi Rush High Fi Rush,
but like this is sort of that that Prestige triple A game that Sony usually
does so well with their with their franchises that I feel like Xbox fans maybe
haven't quite had that itch scratch, so so I'm excited to see what they
do. But also to everyone's point, like Ninja Theory usually do some really
interesting stuff with their characters. They're there, the stories they tell, the
way they design audio, like, it's all seems exciting, and I'm happy
we got to release date because I swear to god, we've been showed that
game so many times and it's like cool, but when can we play it?
I'm so surprised I didn't do Want a Game Awards, but then they
were obviously holding it for this. But yeah, when they did the Game
Awards, New Look at game play and the musical number. I was like,
all right, guys, this is it we've got now, But I
mean it had already leaked. We a scene that May twenty first date bandied
around a bunch. All the lights just went off outside our studio and it
looks pretty haunting. Yeah, are we on camera? By the way?
Oh and then I'm gonna move. I feel really weird because I'm like half
facing the camera that's not on. Yeah, no cameras today, Thank god.
Good a couple of other games that we can quickly rattle through. It
was. It was a very tight and focused forty minutes. The other surprise
was they didn't talk about this ahead of time like they did with the other
games, but screens popped up with visions of Mana. I don't think we
have any major You like Mana? Don't You never played them? Actually?
Cool? So I always forget like you're into like some jrpeach. It's always
catch me off god, which is like anime. Yeah, it's like you
don't play a lot, but you're like, oh yeah, I played every
single Dreagon Quest or some shit like that. I'm like, okay, weird.
But the Mana series obviously A historically a beloved OPG franchise. First time
is coming to Xbox. Looks cool, very kind of stylized, and love
air juggling happening in that game for some reason. But I don't have a
particularly strong affiliation for Mana. I played a bunch of Secrets Mana and it's
fantastic, But since then, it's not one of those franchises that I'm desperate
for it to come back. But I'm glad that it's there. It's a
pretty big deal for Microsoft as well, just to kind of like they're continuing
to court the Japanese devs and it, I mean, we saw it was
some game first last year when they had a bunch of you know, the
Persona three reload and Yakaza in the Summer event, and then strengthening their relationship
with Square and Capcom. It's pretty easy. Yeah, it's pretty cool to
see because you know, yeah, I don't I don't think I've felt this
kind of commitment or like presence on Xbox since they did the the Sakaguchi stuff
back in the day, where it was like we've got a bunch of these
the mist Walker games, you know, Blue Dragon and Lost that kind of
stuff, but it's it's good to see that they are still playing in that
region and trying to ensure that the people worldwide that love games from Japan feel
represented and catered to on the Xbox platform, which is great. The other
games were Avowed, which looks interesting. Obsidian's been doing some really core stuff.
Jake's gonna sit this one out as a former employee of Obsidian. I
mean, I have things to say that I'm not. Yeah, sure wisely,
which is a smart thing to do. Yeah. So, like Obsidian,
they make excellent RPGs and narrative driven games, choice driven games, and
that's exactly what Avowed looks like. It looks like they're trying to adhere,
not adhere to, but like building off the tameplay that they kind of established
without all worlds. They're kind of like hub but not Hubase, but like
small area based thing and then kind of layering on a Skyrim esque RPG on
top of it. Yeah, I will I will say I'm really interested in
the combat, like it kind of looks like it'll scratch. I know,
the comparison of oh no, the score Room. But you know, I
mean, you're going to be if you want to be reductive. Yes,
one of the biggest compliments that you could potentially pay, like, oh,
it's another one of those games that sold a billion dollars. So I mean,
I'm really intrigued by that. I will say I don't think it was
the best showing for the narrative stuff. I think that felt just despite them.
You know, they've only got a certain amount of time trying to give
context for the decisions that the characters were making, the players are making,
and then just kind of having these one off lines. I was like,
I could have just this could have just been a combat showcase for me,
and you could have just told me that you've got the obsidian narrative stuff in
there, and I would have believed you. Yeah, I feel like in
this scenario, you don't want to show off narrative. What you want to
show off is characters. And that's the thing that I hope that like big
rpgu developers start to think about more, like, people don't really want to
see a small slice of a story anymore, and you risk kind of falling
on your face when you do that stuff. But what you can do is
in the same way that every RPG tries to be like look at the cute
character. We got the cute pet. I think you can do that in
a in a RPG with like this is a cool character. Like imagine if
the only thing that we had seen of Balder's Gate during one of their showcas
was Karlac, Like, people are going to spend ages talking about that character
or you know, any number of a starry On or whoever it may be.
I feel like, if there's an opportunity to showcase, if you want
to showcase a narrative, focus on the character and who they are instead,
which is way cool. I feel like you get made more way more mile
age out of that. But I'm interested in seeing more of a vowed.
The sickest key art of any game looks insane, like so good, whoever
did that, Kia or whoever it may be, good job that is only
that is a tattoo waiting to be made. Other game a history. I'm
told seem excited for this game. It's not my kind of good people good,
very excited. Well I'm in it is not really, but there was
that there was a character who looks like there's a white woman with short hair
means look at you. Yeah, I wish I wish there could be my
kind of game. I remember when SEV what was the last Save six Yeah,
came out and Chris, who used to work with was obsessed with it,
Yeah, like an absolute demon for SIEV. And I tried it and
I just went, this is a bit of yeah, without sounding reductive.
It is very much we have SIVE at home, but not like to the
degree where it's like we've got a crap version of it. This is like
the Foraxis team, former Faraxis members set up a new studio and now they're
making what is essentially a Save style game, and I think the big deal,
the kind of big hook for them this time around is this living world
where a lot of the stuff in the SIVE staff is like you have a
fairly static game space and then your movement around there and like how you interact
with certain thing dictates her, whereas this is more like a world that is
alive. So that one of the things that they talked about was like animals
that could become aggressive, Like was it coyotes or something like that. We're
getting annoying or stuff like that. Cougars so because everyone hates cougars, and
I was like, I don't think you'd say that to their face. No,
no, but yeah, that's I mean not for me. I played
a decent amount of Sieve in my time, like especially like Sieve Rev,
I played a crazy amount of But I think I'm just not at the stage
where this is the kind of thing that excites me. But I know there's
a huge audience for this, and even bigger one or as bigger one that
is it will be interested on it because of the pedigree of the developer being
a former for access people. What eight years since Sive six DLC, Yeah,
it came out in twenty sixteen, twenty seventeen, I don't know.
And I also think like this is a very potentially smart move from Microsoft.
SIV is like a very Sive as corner a market on grand strategy on that
scale to that production level. There's obviously like Paradox makes one billions grand strategy.
The Macaurys did a monster factory on it, remember it was a goddamn
it and probably like Europa Universality, yeah, something like that, but they
had that. Yeah, so I feel like that, Yeah, Sylvia is
kind of like Macael Roy's grand deception probably is that Yeah, no, no,
this is a this is a Catholic report different macas In reality, what
macro is advocating for in the Synodality is a kind of crypto Vatican three.
No is this one of those is a weird My family got radicalized by one
of those Catholic websites. They're already Catholic. But yeah, so there's very
few developers or properties out there that does like that kind of SIEV style game,
and obviously Civilizations owned by does It Take two two K that kind of
thing. For if Microsoft can make this one pop off, they will be
one of two major players in that genre, which is a huge deal because
you know, I think of it in the same way that Flights Him is
no one's making flights Him except Microsoft right now, not any competing ones anyway,
So they could potentially corner another part of the market and having this as
kind of like a jewel in their crown is particularly smart. I think if
it paid, if it works as intended and it pays off and it develops
an audience, especially if they're like can continue the kind of like have a
presence in the same way that SIEV does on something like game Pass on PC
and console. Bringing these one out every couple of years. Well that's the
thing as well. Game Pass is pretty much reached saturation on console and PC
is the new market they want to hit, and you've seen them really go
to turn on Age of Empires and other yea they have a Empires yeah,
other PC forward properties. So it's a smart shrewd move, smart move Microsoft
weird mood and that kind of covers everything that was at the Xbox. They
just call it a direct. I love that they were just like, we're
going to develop a direct, but yeah, they but they put an underscore
in between, so it's edgy. I like the whole like on a computer,
typing out, start on the mirror, see everyone's cursor flying around.
And also so I think it was as a show quite tight. I really
like that the baked in subtitles is something that you called out on Twitter.
That was very cool, very I like that a lot really helps with accessibility.
But yeah, overall, I really enjoyed it. I love that they
set the expectations from the outset and they had one small surprise that was great,
didn't let people speculate too much. The one thing there were people on
into it being like why if the Olden Ring showed up. No, I
didn't. I didn't say I think Eldon y. I tweeted a picture of
Karli and I said, I'm leaving milk and cookies out in case. But
my my one complained about this showcase. Then I tweeted this out. I
feel I felt it was a bit sanitized. It's I mean, there are
so many marketing beads to hit, but I think if you compare the not
to say that the devs were passionate, but they are obviously working from a
script, and I think that energy versus Dinger Bacaba on stage at Game Awards
doing kicks yeah, or a boo on stage at Game Awards crying and like,
you know, having this big, big moment where it's emotional. I
feel a passion behind those projects. And not to say that the passion's not
hearing this. I'm just just saying it's two different ways of presenting the same
staged it feels stage. And I think the one, the one out of
all of the five that were shown where there was a little bit more dynamic
interaction was the hell Blade section where that was clearly interviewing yeah, rather than
here's your here's your script. And I think having the sections of them in
the mocap and performance capture, I thought added a little bit more that is
merely me as a producer, that is producer brain. It's true. I
also feel like there is space for it because they did it a little bit.
I think with the thing where that guy walks in in the background,
that's the thing. You get more moments like that when you kind of go
off the cuff a little bit, and they are fun. They are things
that will be memed. Xbox, as a brand on social really loves leading
into their memes shout out to Josh Stein over there. But they they know
one's going to connect with their audience, and I wish they would just loosen
the reins on these directs a little bit to allow for more of those.
Yeah, or just check in some outtakes, like you had a bit of
that at the end, but like a little bit more of that. It
will be funny. But yeah, overall, good job, good ship.
Let's move on to what we've actually been playing. I know that we,
like we said, we are bound not to speak about some of the games
we're playing, but one thing that we can talk about that is out now
is Prince of Persia The Lost Crown. JKB played it. Do you have
any interest in playing it? I didn't, and then people said it was
really good, it's so good. Yeah, I've been playing it. I
finished it. I'm half yeah, so I moved on to the other thing
because time is taken. But yeah, it's a it's a game that I
kind of We played it at was it games Com? Game Game Fest?
Was that? Yeah, it was off it was off site. Yeah,
it was off site, and like it was like a couple of stations as
the new Prince of Persia game in thirty minutes, just play the game.
And I remember coming out of that and being like, oh, this is
really interesting. This is potentially could be big. My only concern was like
it felt like it didn't it wasn't recognizable as a Prince of Persia game.
And I feel like now that now that I've played it, that's also kind
of one of its strengths. There are definitely nods to Prince of Persia there
that he does. He does the war run, when you do the air
dash, Yeah, and it's like there's also set up for you know,
you're not playing as the Prince, you're effectively playing as one of the Prince's
bodyguards and like the one of the the kind of the immortals who are like
pledging to to look after and protect Persia, and you play like the newest
recruit who's who's clearly got very capable, but he's got ego issues. Oh
yeah, he's got I mean, like he's what's to prove himself. Yeah.
They also kind of like turned him into a kind of we need to
make him quite likable, so he becomes the archetype. He's a little I
think I said this when we were recording BombCast or whatever it was, but
there's a little Zagrias in there in the writings, and that's not a bad
thing, but it's very much Oh they saw hates like, yeah, we
need to make SAGD a little bit more stoic and a little bit more Yeah,
it is, but like it is a metro Vaneer style game. I
know people hate that term now, but it's the most appropriate way to talk
about it. But it's kind of like it takes it, puts his own
spin on it in introducing a few features that are really really valuable. I
cannot imagine playing a metric. Yeah, there's something out the picture the picture
once, so have you seen this thing so at any point or like there's
like a currency that you play, but it's like very easy. You could
basically use them fourteen times and then once you get to the max, I
think you have to like start removing him. But what you can do is
you press down on a dpad and it takes a snapshot of those screen and
you're in and then depends that to where you are on the map. So
let's say you run into a room and there's a door there and you can't
get through it, and then like you're when you're like circling the map and
you're like, oh, what's this dead end? Instead of being like,
oh, that's probably where I have to go, running all the way there
and being like oh, this was that one room that I forgot about that's
got the key, you just hover all around. You're like, oh,
okay, here's this thing. I know what I need to do there.
I think that is very very cool. Some of the other stuff I don't
remember now what really good accessibility options. Accessibility options are very good to skip
particularly difficult platforming sections. You open like a little portal and just zipsy to
the top. Changes on parry window timing, you can adjust how much damage
your enemies give and take Sargon's health. You can buy hints. It's it's
great. It's so approachable. But all the big metro Vineo fans that I
know and time obviously among them just singing its praises. It's it's the combat
is surprisingly in depth, Like it's got a lot going on for it,
and you start working in things like traversal mechanics and like other things, and
it becomes a very very cool kind of like combat system that's got enough room
for you to figure things out. One of the cool things that I did,
and I didn't realize until basically the end of the game when I went
to the one character who teaches you how to do stuff, and it's a
move that he also teaches you, but I figured it out on my own.
It's like, so there's an ability which is effectively recall, Like you
press a button and it puts a kind of crystallized version of Sargon there.
You carry on going. When you hit the button, he kind of like
phases back to the original one. So what I started doing was like he
has a charge move where like he pulls his sword back and when you let
go, he sends this massive, really powerful wave. So I was like,
okay, I'm just gonna do this, So I charge it, put
down one of those like recall crystals let go, so the Sargon that I'm
actually controlling would do his like charged wave move, then I'd hit the recall
button. He'd go back in time and then do another one of those.
So it's like you do that, it's really cool, and then like you
build juggles into that and it's like very very interesting the things that you can
do with it. And then you've got like he's got a necklace which you
can put like charms on that allow him to do different things. There's some
absolutely incredible boss battles towards the end where it's like it's super high execution and
it requires a lot of like very specific They feel like Dark Soul's bosses at
terms, where it's like if you get hit by this move, it's all
done, Like you are done. Recovery is going to be very difficult,
but you can also like work your way around that stuff by some charms.
It will give you amulet sorry, it'll give you a second like if you
die, you get one more chance, or Yeah, there's another currency that
feeds into this meter that gives you more powerful abilities, and so one of
them can actually like give regen health. If you stand in a certain spot,
there's an amulate charm you can put on that every time you get hit
that channels your damage into that. So you can do a nice little risk
award thing with you where and you can build. You can set up a
build that just works for you, and it's very customizable in a really fun
way. So my build was like basically a seculor bloodborne build where whenever I
parried, it would firstly it was parry focus, which was which I love
doing. When I parried, it would create this like severe sphere around me
where anything in there would slow down like verious. And also when I parried,
I would recover some health. So my focus was entirely on parrying.
It does the thing where it's like red move which you can't parry, yellow
move which you can parry, and the yellow move. If you imagine if
you in like Securo, if every time you parried it it did this really
cool, powered up cinematic like execution move. It has that so enemies will
attack you normally you can parry that. But if they do like the yellow
attack and you parry that, you get like a big damage anime style like
kicks them into the air, flies up there, there's loads of slashes,
hit them back down, that kind of thing, and it's really really satisfying.
The other thing I I was like, the story isn't great. It's
it's nice, it's doing enough to yeah, push me alt. I feel
like it ends way stronger than it is the entire way through. So like
once the final sequence, like the final stretch is happening, you're like,
oh, that's what's happening here, and it's kind of a cool Conceit involves
like a character that you barely deal with, and then it kind of like
a bunch of these threads come together and you're like, oh, I understand
the setup for this. I think like along the way it's like not particularly
strong, but once it gets to the end, you're like, Okay,
that's kind of like a solid story that perhaps it wasn't super engaging on the
lead up to it, that is eventually like it becomes good. The other
kind of tricky part is that I think the voice of was not great.
It's okay, I mean there's one character that they forgot to replace the voice
on it, and it's like it's a text to speech character. Oh really,
yeah, be patched almost. But I think they said it's the little
kid voice from TikTok and it's and like I remember being I was like,
I've heard this voice on those Minecraft jumping videos that are reading out Reddit,
like what's the worst thing you've ever seen? Like that kind of stuff,
and you're like I was like, what the what is this? And for
a minute I was like, Oh, they found the TikTok the like TTS
voice person. Oh she's on TikTok. Yeah. Yeah, And it's like
I was like, okay, cool. But otherwise it's kind of like hit
and miss the voice over stuff. But in terms of playing it really really
cool. Some very very satisfying and tricky, like platforming challenges, which,
as Lucy said, you can skip if you want to. There are I
feel like it goes on a bit too long. How long did it take
you twenty four hours or something? But I spent a lot of time just
running around and I texted you about this. It does that thing where it's
like the bad guy you beat him, and it feels like, all right,
this is the final battle, and then he's like hah, my planet
needs me and flies away. I will see you next time, and you're
like, oh, for fox sake, and then you get like four or
five hours more game. Thankfully, the four or five hours are like oh,
the three to four hours whatever it may be, is like a new
power and a new area, and it's like, okay, this is good,
but you just baited me with that kind of like it almost is done,
but I highly recommend it. I feel like that's what I needed to
hear, because I know people are pretty positive when like people were doing previews
and I was like, okay, cool, but I don't know if really
it's my thing. And then I saw the reviews and I'm like, okay,
it's a good metrod Veinium. But you know, usually I just play
Metroid and that's it, you know, like I don't have I get tired
of Metroid Venus quickly these days. But I think hearing that with all the
intricacies with combat, customization, platforming, other stuff, sounds pretty cool.
When's it out? Is that tomorrow? Right? So I don't know,
I think I guess, yeah, today's there's an enemy in there where it's
like a jailer, which if he captures you, you're teleploid into a jail,
which is like, oh, you've played Dark Cells, have you?
You played Bloodborne? Have you? Is basically it's basically the kidnapper enemy from
Bloodborne, and you're like, Okay, cool, great, well done.
But yeah, I highly recommend it. I think like Dan on Giant Bomb
said, like he thinks that it's one of the best games in this genre,
and I think I agree now at the very least, it does things
that now feel like you cannot make these kind of games without this thing,
unless you're just trying to be obnoxious about it, like I want that snapshot
featuring every metrod Vianeer game now, So good job to Ubisoft. Is it
Montpellier? Yeah, the ray Man team and Steve What's reviewed it for us
and he said like, this feels like they found a new place for Princeville
Polia to exist, And I completely agree with that, like that this is
the this is their new genre for that franchise. Still waiting on that Sounds
of Time remake, yep, yep. I wouldn't be surprised if suddenly Ubisoft
Montpellier are making a Assassin's Creed metrod Veneer at some point soon. So yeah,
because they had those two of five D one a while ago. But
the Russia one and the yeah, the China one. Yeah, I think
there was a Japan one as well before the one that they're currently making.
Yeah. Oh it was Russia. Oh yeah, there was. I thought
there was Russia in Russia, China and Japan. Maybe I'm imagining it.
Yeah, Jake, you've been playing The Loss of US Part two update.
Yes, I haven't touched the story because I played the story and I wasn't
in the mood to re experience that. Not that I didn't like it,
I just didn't. Yeah, you know, it's not a January, you
know, the night so long. Yeah, but I've been playing a lot
of No Return. I like that. I think it's pretty good. I
think it all hinges on the fact that The Last of US combat is really
good. At least I think Last of Us Part two is combat is really
good. I know it's not for everyone, but I think if you're really
into the combat, then No Return is the perfect playground for it. Just
these small missions that you can get loaded in that have a bunch of random
uh, parameters that kind of get played around with, and when it feels
good, it feels great defeating whatever factions you're up against. It just feels
really tight. I think like the rogue Light elements aren't the best. They
feel a little unnecessary. Some of it feels short too, like you can
finish a run in like thirty minutes or so. But I do like that.
There's like a good progression system where you can unlock new characters. You
can get Joel, can play who is I was I was looking. You
can play with Joel No, no, no, so Joel. There's there's
like how many seven or something characters you can do ten? Who is that
last guy? Manny? I think is what it is? Who is that?
He's he's someone from Joel at Home? Yeah, he's someone from uh
uh uh Abby? But why is he the last character to unlock? I
was trying to figure that out too. I have no idea because I thoughts
with Abby and then you get Lev and then yeah, it should have been
Leve. I think Joel normal Joel? Or is it like my head's caved
in Joel? Uh, there's no head caved in, jur That's where it
should have been However, what about is there a costume for that? Because
there you can get Joel from like Last of Us one, I did like
that you can get Eli in Astronaut. Yeah yeah, but I think,
like I said, it really boils down to, like, if you're into
the combat, if you like Last of Us Part two is combat, then
it is definitely for you because it is the perfect place to really use a
lot of mechanics and items that you could use in this story, but you
kind of didn't, just because the story kind of pushes you along so fast.
You kill like four or five enemies at a time and move on.
But this just throws a lot at you and you're really able to kind of
stretch your I don't know, combat muscles, because I think the combat in
that game is pretty creative if you if you want to play it that way.
But yeah, I think for folks who didn't like The Last of Us
too, not necessarily because the story, but weren't wild about combat. I
know some people don't like the combat in those games, it's probably not for
you. But yeah, there's some neat ideas with the Rogue Light mode,
but I don't it's not as good as some lot of people say God of
War is better. I didn't play the God of War one. You should
have really really good. And it's also the way that it narratively ties in
and it yeah, it makes for very cool. I have to finish Ragnarok
first, Yeah, oh yes you do. Yeah, it takes place.
Yeah. I started playing last weeks as well, a little bit over the
break, and I really liked the game. I liked the combat. Going
back into that mode after playing Valhalla was it. Yeah, it didn't gel
with me and I did drop off very quickly. I do want to go
in and do and see the kind of unfinished level stuff, and the that
stuff is really cool. Yeah, the levels of themselves, they're very short,
they're not they're not like super compelling or even fun necessarily, but I
think it's just cool that Naughty Dog included those and give people the option to
check out work in progress levels and there's a level of transparency that I just
would not expect from Sony, Naughty Dog anything like that. Yeah, so
seeing that's cool, and I hope that is a trend because I would love
to see a lot of these working work in progress levels, maybe as bonus
things, because I think, you know, players can understand why they're not
there. It helps that Neil Druckman gives like a little before you play a
level, there's a little video where he explains why it was cut, what
the thinking was behind it, like what was the original intent? And you
know, a lot of it's like kind of gray boxed out. Not everything
is there, a lot of voiceovers missing, But it's cool seeing that,
and yeah, I would love to see more of that. Just yeah,
it's cool. I think it's worth checking out. I don't know if you
need to do all of them, but no, I feel like gaming is
definitely missing. It's DVD extra. Yeah, it really feels like that.
There's so many extras in this, Like there's the guitar free play mode,
which I was like that seems kind of ridiculous, but it's actually pretty in
depth. People are doing it like regardless of it become probably, but you
can change your instrument. You use an electric guitar, you can change your
model. You can be a Gustavo I don't know his last Yeah, you
can. You can place him with his banjo thing that he's got. Yeah,
you play a bunch of cords. I'm sure people are going to do
some creative things with that, which is kind of cool. Ten dollars to
whoever does through the Fire in the Flames. Yeah, I just can't do
him rock Bound Floor anymore. P R. Yeah, it's good. I
think if you really like The Last of Us too, it's worth a ten
dollars upgrade or whatever it is. I don't know exactly how much it is.
Well you have it. That's everything from this. You want to add
anything? Are you good? Watched Poor Things? Good movie? Great movie.
I don't want to delve into the discourse around it. Time watching it
is a discourse around it. I mean, like you understand understandable why I
think I know what the discourses I just don't installed. I just I'm not
on Twitter anymore. So it's like understandable discourse. Yeah, it's just it's
just really a lot. It's a lot. But I had also The Trader
Is season two UK version is unbelievable. Oh yeah, I gotta I gotta
catch up. I mean, I've had it spoiled for me because you know,
I'm not even mad because I'm on British Twitter as well, and so
I think what happened in the episode yesterday was so iconic and even just enjoying
it from the memes and stuff. If you are watching The Traders, don't
watch the American version where they've used a bunch of B list celebs, C
lists celebs. Come on, let's be real, they're all like housewives from
a lan term whatever. Watch the UK version, regular people who aren't famous.
There's one man in there, Paul, who I am genuinely afraid of.
Paul is worrying man Paul when he was being interviewed on the show,
to be like, do you want to be a traitor or a faithful?
So it's basically among us in a Scottish castle. They have the faithful and
they have traitors, and every night the Traders have to pick off and kill
one person. But also every night there's a big round table where everyone accusers.
It is phenomenal. It's just drama pure. Season one, there was
a magician. Season two, we've got a clairvoyant, but we've got Paul.
Paul, Paul, he was he was getting interviewed because Claudia or the
produces pick who the Traders is going to be, and I think they start
with two and then the Traders picked a third one or yeah, there's three.
They start with three. When Paul was being interviewed and asked if you
wanted to be a trader or a faithful he was like, I want to
be a traitor. And Claudia says, what words would you use to describe
yourself and he said cruel watching this man feign ignorance as to who the traitor
could be. And then at one point he gets voted most popular or something,
and it is insane. There was one point where he basically starts fake
crying and he brings his infant son into it. I'm ready ready to go
home and see my boy. Yeah. So Tim and I watching it with
a couple of friends of ours and we just have a text chain where we're
just it's basically every single message is I'm afraid of Paul. In the first
season, though, it's hilarious because you get there was one guy who was
like, I am an expert on reading body language. He was like,
trust me, I know how to read people. He would just constantly say
I know how to read people, and then he would make these like this
is happening. I know it's this person, and he would be wrong every
single time. But meanwhile, there's this other girl who's like she just like
I would say the most nonsensical stuff, and it would stuff like I think
it's Angela because her shoelaces are always untired, and you're like, what's that
got to do with anything, and like she would accidentally kept keep being right,
Yeah, it will be the right person, but the reason is completely
wrong. So it's like really weird. If you want to know how unhinged.
The first season of The Traders was, there was a moment, this
is awful. They voted out a woman because she didn't raise her glass to
cheers with everyone else, and it was because she literally did not have an
arm. They didn't her because they accused her because of that, and she
just went, literally, I don't have this. But that's the thing.
It's like, it's the smallest things get stuck in people's minds. And because
she didn't like toast her glass with everyone else, they just were like you
anyway, This show is believable. People are their most unhinged, so unhinged,
and the memes have been fantastic. There's a woman in it called Diane
an icon' I old people in that show are just like or like middle aged
to elderly people just seem to be doing the most unhinged fixing as well.
They also have these trials in the middle where they'll work together to earn money
to the ghost towards boring. So shit boring, don't even skip back.
The only good part of it, I phone the whole time. The only
good part of those eyes. Like during each of these trials, there's an
opportunity to like get a shield that will protect you from being killed. But
to do that you kind of have to do something that would like disadvantage your
team every now and so, like if it's like carry this log up this
hill, they might be like, if you go down this part off,
you can quickly grab one of these, So like you might be like,
you, guys, I'm gonna go quick. We're gonna get this. And
then people will be like, you left us, We're voting you out.
You're a traitor. Oh yeah, because if you have a shield, you
can't get murdered by the traders, but you can still get what's this is
on BBC I Player, yeahs a VP VPN. So it's the one thing
that finally got me a sign up for a VP after all these years.
Phenomenal TV it's great. If you end up watching Traders, please let us
know what you think about it. In the meantime, you can find us
all of the internet. Lucy, where can be pointing you? I'm on
I'm on Twitter, James Games, I'm at to more height and everything.
Jake can't find me. Oh you can't, but I just don't. We
will see you back here next week. Please remember to rate and review and
subscribe and all that kind of stuff. The games by Discord. Hit us
one of us up and we'll get you an invite. It's closed, I
think, and I think so, I don't know. It's it's a very
nice community. Yeah, I know there talks for a while, but open
it message one of those. My dms are open, which is all right.
We'll see you next week. Yeah,