Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to side Quest. This is our weekly
video game show here at Geek Versus. I am your host,
Dylan Muss. Night with me the full House of Geek. First,
right now, the Poblows I got the Predictor, Taylor Field,
how's it going, Oh, it's going good.
Speaker 2: The Pavlos, I totally forgot about that.
Speaker 1: Master Cheeks, Master Cheeks. And then I got the Survivor
over here at Kirkland patz Or, how's it going, my friend.
Speaker 3: I'm doing good. Good, Thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fun to have the three of us here.
We're gonna be doing some game Awards predictions. Of course
that's happening on December twelfth, So we're gonna make predictions
for all the categories, who the winners are, We're talking
about maybe a little bit of the announcements we hope
to see, and then we're gonna enlist our good friend
mister chat Gpt to give us some interesting game announcement predictions.
We'll see how wacky those end up being, if at all,
we'll see what we get. And then before that, we're
just talking about some of the games we have been playing.
So yeah, some good time, just a quick shows here Patreon, Yeah,
episodes early and ad free. It's the best place to
go to support the show's best place to go to
get the best version of the episodes because they don't
have to listen to advertisements. No one likes any of that.
You'd also still get a bonus episode of Side Quest
up there right now where I did a kind of
rerun of my twenty twenty three Game of the Year,
and then that's gonna go up on the main feeds
this Saturday, So if you want to listen to it
earlier you can. Also this episode, we're recording it a
day early, which means you get it a day early
on Patreon, So always good benefits to go there. Next
week is me and Taylor. We're gonna be talking about
Indiana Jones. Can you believe that comes out this week? Taylor?
It's kind of snuck up on me.
Speaker 3: No.
Speaker 4: I have a pre downloaded on my my library and
when I see it there, it just reminds me like,
oh my god, yeah, that's coming up already.
Speaker 1: I saw there's one hundred and thirty gigs, says Spicy Size.
Is that how much your space to your.
Speaker 2: Mine was like two hundred megabytes? So obviously.
Speaker 1: Oh, it's just one of those like placeholders. Yeah, I
hope it's more than two hundred megabytes. That would be.
Speaker 3: It's just called dude creep over into other games, like
other games.
Speaker 1: Like two times the size of potion problem pretty much.
That would help other things. You know, it's it's TV
show City. This month we got Creature, Commando, Skeleton Crew, Dexter.
Also maybe Secret Level. We might sneak something in there.
For that, I will very least talk about this Splunky episode.
That's my only guarantee. That's my only guarantee here. And
then next week I have a bunch of reviews, Lord
of the Rings, the movie War of Row, here them
and Craven And yeah, we did a newscast last week
that was fun. It was a fun, good time. Everyone
go back check that out. And after we were done
recording that, Kirkly you said that there's a potential game
that you and your buddies were gonna play the week
over the weekend. To do end up playing that game?
And if so, how did that go?
Speaker 3: I did end up playing that game, lost a few
of the buddies along the way. It ended up only
being me and Patreon Tyler Hdalgo himself, but he still
a good time. I feel like it was a good
like Session zero for any like D and D players
out there, they know, like session zero's usually like you're
setting up the rules and like setting up your character
and like get an idea of how everything's gonna go.
And that's kind of what the first session was for us,
because this game is like it's kind of like it's.
Speaker 1: Super I don't think we said the name of the game.
Speaker 3: I was trying to do a nice dramatic build up,
so yes, Project Zomboid. I think it's like probably like
just the most like hyper realistic type of like zombie
game you could do. But it's it's set up like
a sandbox. And with sandbox games, like sometimes they come
up with just like insane customizable options that you can have,
which is great because you can really just make it
as difficult or easy or whatever with the different sliders
and whatnot. And I had like a template that I
used for my own like single player experience. But it's
very different in online because there's just so much more
things to be doing with multiple people and like for example,
like to get skill increases and stuff like that, you'll
use like skill books a lot of the time, so
your character will be reading, but in like single player mode,
you can just fast forward, so you can like just
power through a book and it's like a whole day
obviously in game time, but like you're just fast forwarding it.
But you can't really do that in multiplayers. So I
learned that you can actually like change like the amount
of pages that are read like per hour, so you
can really tweak it in that sense to just make
it like that much more. And like there's there's great
like references that people have made online because this is
just a great like community supported game, Like I feel
like the community for product example, it is just so fantastic.
Everybody just has their own little tips and tricks and stories,
and yeah, like it's it's it's a really cool fan
base I think around that game.
Speaker 1: And sorry, quick question, is it like in talking about
speeding up the time there when you're reading a book,
is it just like certain actions that that happens or
is it kind of like Tycoon where you can like
smash the fast forward button at any point in single player?
Speaker 3: So yeah, there's no like time like like manipulation in multiplayer.
It's just simply like how long it takes your character
to read a page? Yeah, so yeah, like but yeah, no,
like that that's just one little minor thing. Like another
one was Product Zamboid. I feel like the whole point
of it is to like have one run, like one character,
and like it's a big deal obviously, like sort of
like surviving is really difficult, but it makes it that
much more rewarding because you only have one life and
you can die in so many different ways. So when
you make it a long time, like, it is really satisfying.
I will say, though, in multiplayer, I think it's kind
of a hinder, especially playing with like Tyler that was
his first time out time the game, like he had
never played Product Zamboid, so of course it led to
just some hilarious interactions where him and I were like
running away from zombies and then all of a sudden,
he just drops dead and he's like, oh, I'm dead.
I don't know what happened. He was just like bleeding
out the whole time, without realizing that he has like
there's these little moodles that basically showed like your status effects, right,
and he had no idea, but there was like seven
just flashing red because like you'll just bleed out unless
you actually like bandage yourself. And surely enough, that's what happened.
And it was just so funny because it was so abrupt.
He's like right behind you were running and then he's
just gone. It's like, oh man, what happens? Like, oh yeah, no,
I'm dead. And then he has to make a new
character and you have like, like the character creation is
kind of unique because you have to choose like negative
and positive traits, so it takes a while like that.
So like, you know, if you're doing an online service,
especially with just like a couple buddies, like I highly
recommend actually putting Respawn on. It kind of takes away
a little bit from like the realism factor, but just
for like pure enjoyment, because like there were just so
many times where he has to make a different character
and like customize everything. He's like, oh, I'm a repair
man now, like changes his his his occupation, whereas he's
just missing out on time while while I'm in their
adventuring and by the end of the session, him and
I both ended up dying. But there's just some really
great moments because in that game, if you get bitten
by a zombie, Like you won't transform it to a
zombie right away, but like that's just a death sentence,
Like there is no cure. You're gonna turn into a
zombie at some point. And when he first was bitten,
he's like, I don't know, I'm not changing and I'm
just like no, man like you Like it was almost
like a Walking Dead situation where he's like trying to
hide his trust the guy. I'm like, no, man like. Yeah,
So there was just some funny moments like that, can
you like delay it once you're bitten?
Speaker 1: Can you like take antidotes to like at least delay it?
Is that the point of not dying instantly?
Speaker 3: Maybe? Yeah, Like I I like in single players, yeah
you still play. If I get bitten, I'll just like
go back to my safe house, load up on all
my guns, and just like go on a shooting spree
just to just like go out with a bang. But like, technically,
if my character does die, I could just make a
new character and then go back in that world and
find my zombie character and take all my stuff, which
is cool, but like for me, I just make a
new world because I feel like the whole point is
just like I don't want to, you know, take over
someone else's base even though it's my own. So but yeah,
with multiplayer, like now that I haven't figured out I
I'm I like tweaked the world a little bit to
just make it, I think, just more enjoyable. And uh, yeah,
we're gonna have to book a session because my other
buddies that I was telling you about, like they did
get it, they just ended up getting busy, one of
them in the States, so he's got Thanksgiving plans over
the weekend. But no, I'm very much looking forward to
jumping in, especially now that we like kind of have
a bass idea. I'm hoping Tyler will be practicing a
little bit to get some of the I don't know.
There's just a lot of things that you just kind
of have to learn while you play, like just just
moving around zombies, like like in the game, your base
moving speed just walking is actually faster than the zombies,
so you don't actually have to sprint away from them.
You would think that's like, oh, that's kind of opie,
but like the zombies are so opie, like like do
not ever take on more than like one or two
at a time, and then of course Tyler thinks he's
a little bit cocky and takes two or three and
he's just getting mowed down. But no, it was really
really funny, and I feel like it's just a type
of game that when you're playing with friends, like just
comedic Gold will be just spawning multiple times in the session.
So I'm very much looking forward to jumping back in there.
But no, that was very much like a session zero,
and like we started at like midnight on Friday too,
like we're just exhausted, played for.
Speaker 1: An hour and a half.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh yeah, I kind of tired here, let's go.
But uh yeah, no, looking forward to to the next
next session for sure. And uh I see it's in
your wishless Dyllan.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean if you're because is it max four
players for like an online.
Speaker 3: Long Oh no, you could do like three two plus.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Let me know. I would definitely join you and
your your pals there, even though I don't know them.
I mean, yeah, I've met Tyler, I think, yeah, riding horseback. No,
I would definitely be down to join. I think it's
probably on sale right now because of like all the
that's why they picked Winter sales and stuff. So yeah,
I'm definitely down to check that game out. It looks great.
I love the art style, even though it's like kind
of old and janky, like it's actually I just love it.
Speaker 3: It reminds me of like old flash games or something
definitely new Grounds just that website in general. There's just
something about it. It reminds me. But uh no, that
that's and then like since that session, like even before
cast now, like I was playing a single player run
just because I'm like so much more motivated jump in there.
And it's been it's been really fun. I'm like basically
in the process of moving like my old base into
the country club. I'm like moving into this like big base.
There's just so many zombies there, so I just have
to like chip away at it. And it's just such
a great game. I like, oh, it's it's especially for
like the zombie genre. I just feel like it's perfect
having like the hyper really like you gotta like siphon
other cars to fill up your car with gas, and
like there's just so many customizable things that you can
do your bass and your character and vehicles and whatnot. It's, uh,
it's pretty it's pretty amazing.
Speaker 1: But it's funny what you're what you're saying about like
that reading the book, because I feel like that reminds
me of of Long Dark, which is also like a
survival game where finding books is like a very rare thing.
But it's like, oh, hell yeah, I want to read
this book about gun skills because that's like the only
way you can get better at that stat But yeah,
even though it's a single player game, it takes hours,
and like since you're always just getting hungry or cold
if you, you know, are just reading in that game, Yeah,
I'm always like finding like specific moments. I'm like, Okay,
I'm gonna throw a hunk of meat on the stove
with the fire I gotta heat up here, and then
I'm gonna like read a half an hour of this
book and like get just slowly chipped through it, and like,
I don't know, it's a fun thing too. It's weird
like reading a book can be such a fun mechanic
in a game, a game that's like so time dependent
like that, and you can't just be screwing around. It
actually feels like such a big strategy thing of like
when can I have downtime in this world.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's the thing though with like Project
Zamboid is there's kind of a time like a racing
against the clock in the first like week or two
because that's when the power and the water is still
turned on. But then once that stuff's cut off and
you kind of are able to like you got rain
collectors or you found like a well or something like
you you're kind of self sufficient, you know, you got
your cops growing. There is actually a lot of downtime,
and that that's where like some people kind of have
complaints with a game, where as of right now, like
once you kind of get into the late game and
you're settle, like it just kind of gets boring for
some people. So yeah, but you know, they're got billed
forty two forever on the horizon, So that'll apparently incorporate
a lot of different things apparently like NPCs and stuff too,
which will be really really interesting. But like there's so
many mods like in the game that people have just
made throughout the community. Like there's they already have NPC mods.
There's mods of like raiders and stuff. So it's kind
of like a like a Last of Us situation where
there's like bad humans, which that just sounds so stressful
for me. Like I'm playing on Vanilla base game like
I I, you know, I want to survive to at
least the winter, but before I start doing crazy stuff
like that. But yeah, I know there's kind of a
time rust like and time rush initially, but then once
the power and everything's off, like you just have time
to kill and you can find like generators and stuff
to kind of get some backup power. And then they
also have like skill VHS tapes that you can also find,
so you go rate like a VHS store and then
load up your vehicle bring it back to your house. Yeah,
it's it's it's so fantastic but nice.
Speaker 1: Anything else you've been playing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, really quickly, I'll shout out. Kashane and I were
going hard on Could the Lamb as you've heard, and
we kind of tapered off on it. We're like, oh, yeah,
let's just get like every trophy and there's just like
so much repetitive type of things that you have to do,
and we've gone really hard in that game, Like I
feel like we've beaten the game like three times over
because it's kind of like a new game plus sort
of thing like you still you just still keep growing
your cult, but you can just do like endless runs
to just get like more unlockables and stuff like that.
And I don't know, we'll probably go back to it,
but we're we're kind of burnt out on it. We
went really hard. I think the time on the PlayStation's
like fifty hours or something on the game. I think
we beat the game, like the main game at like
twenty or something. So like it's it's a nice game
that has, you know, endgame content for that reason, especially
if you enjoyed as much as we do. But no,
we were picking. We were looking for another game like that,
and we actually picked up Stardow Valley.
Speaker 1: Cool.
Speaker 3: So I had it on Steam like a long time ago.
Well I guess I still have it on Steam. But
early days of Shane and I dating, I got that
game for her and she just like played it on
her laptop and went like hard, like it's one of
my most played games on Steam just because her she
she I feel like she really loves those types of
games though, where it's like Animal Crossing or Starduo Valley
just What's the Harvest Moon That was an one that
she loved back in the day on the game cube,
and but now they have co op, which is fantastic
and started it's a future we always wanted. But they
got couch co op on there, so picked it up.
I think it was like twenty bucks on the play
Shape PlayStation store and yeah, we were pretty early in
on that, but that'll be the next like on the
Go game or not on the go just I guess yeah,
on the Go game that we just always are jumping
back to. And yeah, it's nice. It's peaceful, it's it's
just chill, like the animation like a little eight bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, beautile art and music's amazing too, yea, yeah, yeah,
and it's nice. It's nice that it's co op because
it's split screen, so like I could be in the
city doing stuff and then she could be on the farm,
whereas you know some titles, Wow, you're putting her to
work while you get to go shopping in going drinking
with all the local farmers.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, definitely not. It's funny my character. I
kind of styled her like Jinks and then Shade kind
of made her like VI because we're hot Arcane hype
Train and.
Speaker 1: Finally watched the first episode of that finally.
Speaker 3: Started Our Farms titled is the Last Drop as the
Old Tavern, and right, okay, yeah, but I know it's
going good.
Speaker 1: So it's we got a couple of games on the
go and nice though cool Taylor, you've been playing anything lately?
Speaker 4: Well, you know, I have been trying to do the
Black Ops six multiplayer grind, trying to get in there.
Speaker 2: But while my my mum has.
Speaker 4: Been staying with me. Uh the other day she was like, Oh,
where's that Halo? Just play that Halo.
Speaker 2: I was like, you know, maybe there's something to that.
Speaker 4: So I popped on the master Chief Collection because I
always have it installed, and I was just going through.
And it's weird because I when I got the Master
Chief Collection back in the day and I had beaten it.
At that time, it was Halo one Anniversary, two, Anniversary
three four.
Speaker 2: And I think that was it.
Speaker 4: ODSD came later, and then Halo Reach came much much
so even though I've beaten those other Halo games and
I have the achievements on my profile, I go back
and it's weird because it says that I've not completed
any missions in the actual game itself, which is kind
of annoying, but I've got the achievements to prove it.
So in retrospect, like, did you play that on Xbox
One or something you're saving, Yes, oh I did. But
it's just it's very very weird. I mean, it's I'm
not pissed off about it. You can select missions, you
can play whatever you want, and I'm an achievement hunter
and I have the achievements, so that's that.
Speaker 1: But that being said, I.
Speaker 4: Went back in and learned the breach and playing through
those missions the campaign, and it's just I'm really having
a good time playing through it. It's such an amazing game,
amazing story, and it's kind of tempting me because that's
the first one in this whole storyline. I'm kind of thinking, Ah,
you know what, once I complete Reach, I'm probably gonna
go through combat of all the Anniversary and just slowly
progress through all of them because theyre's such great games
and I've been kind of like itching to get back
into that world after that show just sucked. So yeah,
but Reaches so much fun. I'm not really gonna be
touching the multiplayer, I don't think as much, but uh yeah,
just the campaign is great and always do Legendary.
Speaker 2: I always gotta do these campaign.
Speaker 1: I was gonna ask, like, since you don't have to
go for the achievements, is that I feel like if
you're just going back to like for a little nostalgia hit,
play the greatest hits. But I don't think I would
do that on Legendary. I feel like that would be frustrating.
I think I always have heroic or normal.
Speaker 4: Just to I always always have to ever since I
did it, like because yeah, I've been them on Legendary
a few times and it's just it's once you kind
of like once you do it, do you kind of
just know to play it safe and know like, okay,
just shill and if I really want, like there are
some skulls like a turn on to make it a
little bit more of a fun dynamic and maybe a
little bit easier.
Speaker 2: But I don't know, I don't really use the skulls
too too much.
Speaker 3: But I forgot about the skull mechanic in those Halo games.
What did that start? Was that Halo three?
Speaker 4: Halo three, I'm pretty sure is when you could find
them throughout the.
Speaker 1: Did they add them in the anniversary collections of one
and two, like the later versions as.
Speaker 4: Far as I'm aware, Yeah, you can toggle them on.
Oh okay, yeah, and they're fun ones too, like some
of them like you shoot grunts and like confetti blasts.
Speaker 1: Oh the birthday party one whatever.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I.
Speaker 1: Feel like that was the only one I would put on.
I wouldn't want the ones that like change the game
at all, like take your radar or whatever it was.
But like, yeah, I would always just use the confetti one.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's kind of an older like game
type of thing. Like I noticed the previous ratcheting Clank
had that where you could turn on like big Head
or little Head mode or like the same thing, like
you could turn like confetti goes off when he kills
off enemies, and I don't know, it's a like old
games had that as like a cheat, like you would
input like a couple of things and then you would
have I don't know, little heads.
Speaker 1: Yeah, now you gotta pay five dollars to get each
skull to.
Speaker 3: Get a little head. I'll keep the regular size head.
Speaker 1: I miss big head mode. That it was the good
old days, the good old days. Nice. And then else, Taylor,
just just your halo grinding, just the Hit Grind.
Speaker 4: Pardon, I'm still going through uh Pokemon and Pocket on
the Great Mobile, so still trying to I've actually been
I've been building my decks and I've actually been doing
a lot more of the battling and it's a lot
of fun I'm actually having. I'm finding it actually be
a little bit too addicting actually building my decks, encountering
what other people are are doing, and just like evolving
your Pokemon and just setting up your plays. Uh some Pokemon.
Like back in the day, I thought like, oh okay,
I got moultrust in here. This is great, but he
sucks ass because you have to put you have to
put I think it's three or four energy on him,
and then you have to flip a coin and if
it lands on heads, you deal the damage. If it
lands on tails, you deal no damage. And I'm never land.
Speaker 1: That sounds horrible, It's fucking terrible.
Speaker 2: It's terrible.
Speaker 4: So but there's so many fun little combos and dynamics
you can work out in that game.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 4: And just ripping the packs. I opened up ten packs today.
Speaker 1: I was just like, oh, yeah, oh Char's already.
Speaker 4: X let's go just yeah, crazy.
Speaker 1: Have you heard of that game, Kirkland, have you seen
anything about that yet? No, it's like the Marvel Snap
Pokemon version from same same situation. Nice, So yeah, I
can definitely understand that addictive nature.
Speaker 3: Definitely.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I was.
Speaker 3: I was actually just like looking through my like collection
of cards and like, man, there's just some there's some
nice content in there. I'm just so proud of my
my collection that I've had. I feel like I'm still
so far behind, like you know, some of the big
head haunchos and our our our Marvel Snap discord chat there,
but still like I just I've come a long way
from from my early days of my Marvel Snap career.
And I jumped in late, so I don't regret jumping
in late, Like I feel like it's especially just when
I've been grinding as much as I have, Like I've
really got some some nice tasty cards in there, and yeah.
Speaker 1: Nice good stuff. Uh yeah. As for me, just a
couple couple of games to show out here, Taylor. I
don't think you listen last week's episode, but I mentioned
that Kirklin and I bought a PS five over the
Black Friday Deals. So I've been just playing a shit
ton of PS five, you.
Speaker 2: Know, disc version or digital.
Speaker 1: I went I went digital digital. I went digital because
it was one hundred dollars cheaper and justifies it. Yeah,
so I don't know, maybe you can't get the add on,
you can plug it in the side there, but yeah,
for now, for now, I'm all digital, So we'll see
how that goes. But yeah, just I've been playing a
lot more Hitman kirkl and I just I'm addicted again
to hit Man. I'm playing so much and I'm so
bad at it, but then sometimes I just have moments
of brilliance. It's just like, even though I've played it
for so long, it's still just and and you can
always get better at it or always learn new things.
So that's been good. I talked about last week Astrobot.
I have now a platinumed Astrobot. I went through beat
the whole game. And after I beat all the levels,
and I was being pretty thorough like if I was
getting all the collectibles in each level, all the bots,
and all the puzzle pieces, it was restarting. So once
I had got through the whole game, it only took
me like an maybe half an hour forty minutes to
pop out. The last few trophies, which were a lot
of them, were just like around the base, like doing
funny little like at some point in your base, you know,
you're covering all these bots from all these different IP
and they just go in your home base there and
like a couple of them are like Ken and Rio
from Street Fighter and you just have to go punch
them and then they'll punch you back and that gives
you a trophy. So it's just a bunch of dumb
little things like that. So yeah, it was it was
just a great time. I could not put the game down.
I absolutely loved it. And yeah, there was even near
the end you unlock some like harder challenge like kind
of platform platform challenge levels which were really great. But
I think my favorite levels were the ones that were
like distinctly themed after a certain IP, Like you know,
in one levels you get a Sam Porter Bridges bought
and he's in like a snowy level, but it's not
really death Stranding themed level. Then there's certain ones that
are like, oh this is a it's called Bot of War,
so it's just a God of War themed level where
you get Krados's axe and it has the same mechanics
as God of War and God of War Ragnarok, which
is really fun for the puzzles and stuff, and some
other the other big ones like Uncharted, there's a Horizon one,
so those levels were super super good. And yeah, it's
just fun collecting all these crazy little bots. And for
all of them, you can, like once you collect them,
you can go and you spend coins to get upgrades
for them, and they get like a different not really upgrades,
more just like a little prop that they get with it.
So like you know a lot of people have like
a sword that they'll get or things like that. Kirkland,
I got the what's her name, Eve is the Stellar
Blade character. Yeah, she's one of the bots, and her
prop is like the vending machine and then you like
interact with her and like a bunch of cans pop
out and she like fumbles the ground and stuff. So
it was just after I got all of them, I
just like walked around the home base and interacted with
all of them because it was just funny to seeing
all the like all these little besmoke animations they made
for what it has no gameplay purpose, but it's just
a fun little thing to find at the base. So
just has such a joyful game. Can't can't recommend it enough.
It's super duper good. And then yeah, the other the
other game I went to talk about I hinted at
this last week is Pacific Drive. I picked this up
when I got the PS five and I've finally been
playing it. For anyone who forgets what this game as
it came out earlier this year, it's like a first
person driving horror game. It feels weird to call it
a straight up horror game. It's symore. It's like first
person driving scary game because it doesn't it doesn't. It's
not framed like a horror game, but it's very mechanics focused,
and I feel like horror games are usually more simple
on the mechanics. Uh, So it does feel like a
little bit of a distinction there. But yeah, the way
this game is kind of set up, there's kind of
two phases to it. You're either back at your home
base upgrading doing things like that, or you're out driving around,
which is like the main gameplay loop. And so for
that part of it, it's first of all, like very
it's a very simulatory and the way it comes across,
which I is don't think I don't think it's something
I really understood when I was watching trailers about the game.
But for example, as I'm doing like kind of the
intro teaching to the basic controls, I'm driving through and
then Kirkling very similar to Zomboid there, I had to
siphon some gas out of a car because I was
running low. So I go stop my car right near
this other car, get out, go siphon the gas, go
to put it in my car, turn and because I
didn't put the brake on in my car, my car
rolled all the way down the hill. So it's that
level of like simulatorness to it, Like every time you
get in your car, you have to turn it on
with the you know, turn the key, turn on the engine,
put it into drive. You know the lights you have
to manually do that, the windshield wipers if it's raining out,
you have to manually do all that stuff, which I
really like that, like there's so many people getting in
the car looking over, turning the key, put it into drive.
And then even sometimes if you want to be quicker,
it's like I'm just gonna leave the car on and
maybe go do this thing. So it's quicker to get
in and do it if you know you're on like
a flat surface, you don't even have to put it
in park. But it's always a risk because if there's
any hill, as I mentioned, it'll just like fly down
the hill and be long gone. You don't want that
to happen because if you lose your car, you are
f't in this game. But yeah, you're you're driving around,
you're looting buildings, You're trying to find maybe specific resources,
like for example, my recent play session, I needed a
bunch of rubber to like build some new tires at
my home base, and so pretty much like I was
ignoring a lot of the houses and things, and I
was just looking for cars on the side of the
road so I could chop up their tires get some rubber.
And so it's kind of that sort of thing. You're
looking for specific ingredients. You're going around doing not even
really quest it's very simple. Sometimes you just have to
like activate a tower or something like that, and then
meanwhile you're kind of just dodging all of the threats
that are being thrown. Yet there are some enemies, but
I'd say most of the threats are actually like the
environmental stuff, like for example, you might get like a
dark level where it's just extra extra dark, and you
gotta really be careful with like how much battery usage
you're doing with your head lands, and like try and
keep them off as much as possible and just turn
them on when you need them, or levels with like
heavy fog, or levels with like electrical storms, or you know,
there's all this game's all about. Like this, You're in
this weird zone where things are constantly changing and shifting
and so like thing things are just popping out of
the earth like huge platforms. Things are moving around, and
there's of course tons of debris all over the road,
so you always have to like drive around things or
drive over things, which is very risky because a couple
of times I got my car stuck by going on
for ramp and having not enough speed, so I just
like get stuck in the crevice, which just totally screws
you over. So that's kind of part of it. And
then I think the really really intense scary part about
all this is you're going through these areas, maybe you
have to go like through multiple areas out of time
kind of more distinct levels, and then to leave, you
have to grab these kind of orbs I forget what
they're called energy orbs, and they are the thing that's
like keeping the zone intact. So as soon as you
grab it, the place is already starting to deteriorate around you.
It's like almost like a battle ral, Like there's smoke
coming in from around the edges of the map. Things
are going crazy, more enemies are spawning, your controls are
f like your car might just be veering hard left
and you're kind of like having to battle that while
you have to escape. So once you grab that orb,
like a big light on the map, like if you
look at the box art for the game and how
it's like this big light kind of in the rise
in the mountains, that's kind of what it looks like.
It's like this huge light and you're like, Okay, I
just got to get there as quick as possible. So
it's usually like planning out your route a little bit
before you grab that orb, of like is it safe
for maybe I should leave my car over here and
then I can run up to get to it, that
kind of thing, And it's just super fun and man,
those moments at the end of the level when you
grab that orb are so intense all the time. Even
if I'm on like the most basic easy part of
the map, easy level, it's still like my heart is racing.
The music gets intense. It's just always scary because there's
so much unpredictable stuff that's gonna happen. So that core
gameplay with the car stuff driving around is super engaging.
It's just I just love driving games and so having
again that's like all about the driving and like no
combat really is. It's just really fun.
Speaker 3: I love it that. I mean, you're convincing me. I
feel like I was already so on the fence, and
then I think I was mentioning to you last time
I was on it. I was like watching some more
gameplay and I'm like, I don't know, I don't know
if I'm still so hot on this game. But after
hearing all that, I feel like it's right up my alley.
I was gonna ask though, like, since the game is
basically just you driving, like how does it feel like?
I feel like there's different levels of driving games where yeah,
you know, like GTA driving, it's like it just is
so smooth, it feels so good. And then sometimes other
racing games, Like it's really blocky and like sometimes it's
not always like the most responsive, like is it does
it feel good? Like especially when it's chaotic and you're
trying to escape these these areas you get the orbs
like I I've seen gameplay and you're I'm assuming it
is those moments, like it seems pretty crazy and every
little uh split decision kind of matters when you're going,
you know, buck twenty down the highway.
Speaker 1: It does, Yeah, I mean it, it does. Like the
controls by default are really good. The weirdest thing about
it is like how many first person driving games does
anyone play? You know, unless you're like in an arcade
and you have like the stick, you know, like the
whole setup, Like in that situation, you might play as
a first person perspective, but for the most part, like
most driving games even GTA like have the first person mode.
You can do it, but like I don't know a
single person who actually uses that, right, So it is weird.
It's weird to feel like, oh, I can't see anything,
and like if I want to look behind me, I
can't just click. You know, mostion games, like you can
click in the stick and you can see the back
vision right any racing game, but unless you have like
turn your head around and then who knows what you're
driving into, or you have your rearview mirror, but like
it's kind of hard to see in it. It's a
little and it also runs it like a lower frame rate.
I noticed, like the render in the rear view is
kind of JANKI So that's like the most disorienting part
about it. That you're driving through trees, tight gaps sometimes,
but since you don't have that like full sense of
how big your body is, it kind of throws you off.
Especially once again, you're in a car right, so you're
in the left side of it, so it's like, okay,
there's a bit I'm a bit chunkier on the right
side of my vision, you know, So like that part
of it kind of throws you off a little bit.
The controls, though, are great. I think a big part
of it is that you're upgrading you can change your
car in specific ways. But then also part of it
is that you're like, you know, part it's it's kind
of a roguelike game. I don't actually know how it's
working or how much these levels are predesigned. Or if
there's random generation to them. I can't really tell that
so far, but there are things like there are quirks
that happen to your car. So as I mentioned, sometimes
when it just these crazy electrical storms and your controls
are getting messed up. So that's a part of it.
But then you'll have other things like a funny thing
that's happened in my car, every time I close the trunk,
my horn honks, which doesn't seem like a big deal,
and it's not that one's just like a visual one.
But then another thing is every time I reverse, my
hood like flies up out of my car until i'm
driving forward again, which I'm driving backwards. I don't normally
need to see forward at that point. But those are
like things on top of it that I feel like
your car gets these weird little abilities or disabilities to
it that kind of throws off your ability to control
it as well. So yeah, but I think in terms
of the actual driving, it feels really good. But then
in part of it too is I'm still I feel
like I'm fairly early on. I don't have a ton
of upgrades, and a big thing is like you have
all these different tires, you know where you start with
like spare tires, then you can get summer tires. I
just unlock like all seasons or I just unlocked off roads,
but then there is all season tires as well, and
so so far right now, when I'm like on a
dirt road, the controls are like pretty rough. It's hard
to control intentionally so right, but it's because I still
have a bunch of summer tires in my car and
it's not really designed for that kind of thing. So
there's also that part of it. You can customize it
that experience as you're going along, and you know you
can choose because there's a downside or pro pro or
con summer tires are better on the road than these
off roads that I have, Right, So it's kind of
like what do I want to prioritize And you won't
always know like what the map is going to look
like that you're gonna have to go to I guess
Kirk before you just straight up go to the store
and buy it. I think a big part of this game,
and like it's even more than I expected, is the
customization and like the maintenance of your vehicle. This game
is like a very much like a resource gathering, building
crafting sort of game at the same time, where usually
it's like after every level you go back to your garage, which,
first of all, I love the garage. Every time I
get there, I go over, I turn on the radio system,
I check my fax machine to see if I got
any messages, which are like weird messages. They don't make sense.
I'm trying to figure them out. Right now. I go around.
There's this mysterious dumpster that shoots freeing resources, so I
still grab my resources, and then I, okay, I go check.
I go check my car status. I look around. Okay,
we got red on the head lamps, we got read
on the right back door. Okay, let me decide do
I want to destroy this door and build a new
one or do I want to repair this one? And
I feel like that balance of it. I love it.
I love that moment, that downtime, especially after the stress
of like the scary parts. Yeah, but just hanging out
in the garage, like I'm spending a lot of time there,
upgrading my vehicle, seeing what I can upgrade, what kind
of skill tree thing can I go down, deciding with
the resources I have. Okay, I'm not gonna be able
to build this thing. Maybe I'll just repair it here,
or actually I want to save this resource for the
repairing stuff, so I'm actually gonna just build it from scratch.
Or maybe I just want to risk it and say,
you know what, I'm not even gonna put a hood
on my car for this mission. My engine's gonna be
more vulnerable. But like, maybe I just want to save
some resources at this point in time, or maybe I
want to take my right door off and put it
on my driver door so I'm more protected there because
I only have one at a time. So I really
like that part, But I feel like some people might
not if they just want to drive around. I think
you would like that kind of thing.
Speaker 3: I feel like that's I mean, it sounds like zomboid.
Speaker 1: It actually does a lot of things you're saying. Sounded
very similar to Pacific Drive in that way, but there
is a lot of that, and I feel like it's
gonna get more and more tears and layers and levels
to it as it goes along, and then like the
strategy and when you get to scarier areas that require
more precise kind of building of your vehicle. On top
of all that, there's all sorts of cosmetics you can
do right for your car, getting bobble heads, things hanging
from the rearview mirror, putting decals and stickers on, and
that stuff's really fun as well. But yeah, there's a
lot of like mechanical stuff of like how your car
is operating at this point in time. So yeah, I
don't know, if you're into that, then I think you'll
If you like the driving and you like that building part,
then that's that's pretty much what the game is. It's
really just those two havels.
Speaker 3: I mean, I was very impressed, Like the first time
we even saw the game, it just seemed really unique
and to have a survival game wrapped around or like
just focused on driving a vehicle, especially first person, it's
just really unique concept and so you to hear that
you're really loving it, So yeah, I'm definitely it's gonna
be more of my focus.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, a couple couple last points on it, Like,
as I said, to like the cars mechanics very in depth.
I really really like that. Like even sometimes midway through
the level, in your trunk you have of course a
big storage box and then you also have a crafting
bench there, so a lot of times, like mid level,
you'll have to like, Okay, I gotta get out and
I gotta fix my car, and you like that. There's
a time crunch of that too, of like sometimes this
place is the instability, here is growing, this place is
gonna did hear second? But I really need to get
a new tire on because I have a flat, So
like the decisions like that are really fun too, and
even like yeah, like just to keeping making sure you're
not burning your battery and leaving your lights on too much.
But sometimes these levels are so dark and I don't
have like a flashlight yet, so I'm like angling my car,
so the headlights are like aiming at this thing that
I'm gonna go scrap. But then it's like, okay, I'm
risking the battery here. But it's like I don't know,
a lot of really fun little decisions, but then also
bigger decisions mixed in there. And then, Kirklin, if you
weren't already sold, here's one more thing that I absolutely
love is like, as I said, you can like rip
off maybe like the pane off the side of your
car or a hood or attire, and you can go
put it in this thing that is exactly like the
recycler from Prey where you stick it in and gobbles
it up and then it shoots out things all over
the ground that make fun little clinking noises that they
bop around on your on your garage floor there. It
also has a bit of a like death Loop Dark
Messiah kick in it, which is very weird because there's
no animation, like there's no visual for your foot. It's
just like it is a mechanic thing. And at first
I was like, I don't even know what to do
with this, Like there's not really enemies that you're kicking.
And then eventually I accidentally kicked my car and it
like moved it a substantial amount, and I was like, oh,
if I get my car stuck, I'm supposed to like
boot it out, and I'm sure I'm like denting it
and stuff as I'm doing that. But yeah, it's it's
it's very satisfying when that happens. But yeah, then like
all the like the scrapping features, like you have like
this big chainsaw type thing, and that's when you're going around,
you're ripping up a car, so you're like this is
drilling through like the tires to get the resources out,
and then like yeah, all the little ingredients as they
pop out, because very much like Prey in that way.
And then you also have like a shop shop shop
like vacuum whatever those are called, and that's really trying
to like yeah shop back to like suck up all
the like ingredients off the ground too. It's just it's
just very like very satisfying. I think this game as well,
Like visually, it's not blowing me away necessarily, Like it's
good vibes, good atmosphere, and there's a lot of like
pop into So it's not. No, don't expect like a
Triple A level experience. I kind of maybe expected it
to be that because it's not on PS four. It's
only on PS so I maybe expected a bit more.
I don't know. Maybe it's a very complicated game and
it couldn't run on the PS four. We're not sure,
but yeah, I guess maybe set your expectations there. It's
definitely not a Triple A like millions of dollar budget game.
But I'm like eight hours in so far loving it,
and I feel like I've really only scratched the surface.
There's like tiers of difficulty the areas you're going to,
and I haven't even gotten to like the second area yet,
so yeah, it's it seems like there's a lot to it,
and even like my skill trees and stuff, there are
so many things I need to get on there still,
So yeah, it's it's a really great game. Really loving it.
It's just weird and unique and different. Like I just
love the mix of genres that it has here. It's
kind of feels like something I've never played before, and
that's cool. In the year twenty twenty four, whenever that happens,
I feel like.
Speaker 3: That's another thing I was curious about was just the
overall length of it, just because it's it is like
a more indie game, so sometimes those games are usually
a little bit shorter, but sounds like, yea, all lots
of content there.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I don't know how long. I'm gonna guess,
like maybe twenty hours if you're playing at the rate
I am, mm hmm. And I'm also on like maybe
not the lowest. I think I'm on like the second
difficulty and there's like seven like there's like a lot
of them, and so I wondered if, like I thought
it would maybe it was going to be maybe a
shorter game, and then the idea is that you beat
it and then okay, I'm gonna pump up the difficulty
now and try it again on a higher difficulty. I
definitely want to try that at some point, but I
feel like it's already giving me a solid amount of
challenge at just this one right here, So I don't
know what will happen when I when I get there.
But yeah, really really good game. Pacific Drive. It's on
sale right now, go pick it up.
Speaker 3: Hell YEA curious how like speed runners are gonna tackle
that type.
Speaker 1: Of Oh yeah, I definitely. Uh it's funny. As soon
as I beat Astrobot, I'm like, well, I want to
see some like speed run stress. I want to see
people have blasted these levels because it is kind of
a speed runner friendly game. But yeah, I definitely want
to see what people do with Pacific Drive, because I'm
sure if you take huge risks, you could pump through
that story. Because right now, it's like I maybe having
a main quest, but it's kind of further away, and
I'm like, I'm just gonna go to a safer, closer area,
maybe get a new road unlocked, and I'm just going
to go for some resources right now. And I kind
of like that decision of like I'm gonna go for
a harder main quest or just like an easier one
to get some get some resources right now. So yeah,
I think I think you could bust through it a
lot quicker than I am. But yeah, there you go.
There is a Pacific Drive. Let's take a quick ad break.
We'll be We'll be right back and talk about the
Game Awards. Okay, we are back. The Game Awards is
coming up on December twelfth. These things have been going
on for a while. The Jeff Keeley Awards, I feel
like the last few years they've really been growing and growing.
They're kind of the biggest award show for games that
happens every year. We're gonna start out with some predictions
here of the awards, and then afterwards we'll do some
predictions or maybe talk about some announcements that we would
like to see. Can one of you pull up the
do maybe a screen share and pull up the website
and go through the categories. I'll write down the predictions,
but if one of you could do that, that would be great,
thank you, And I think we'll go with a reverse
order reverse order. Rather, we'll start with most anticipated and
then we'll go all the way up to game. Game
of the Year will be the last one that we do.
I'll remind you, guys, how this works for the Game Awards.
How this jury, like, how these things get picked, is
that the Game Awards has selected a jury of like
I don't know, it's like one hundred or one hundred
and fifty something like that. Outlets, which are things like
IGNA Game Spot. There are things like video game podcasts
and random news sites. So those are the jury members.
And for each category here, so game of the Year,
best Sports, best sim for each category, all these outlets
they individually pick five games that they want to submit
for each category. It is not ranked, so it's not
like they pick, our game of the Year is Astrobot
and our fifth Game of the Year is Eldon Ring DLC. Like,
they just pick five and they throw them all in
the hat there, okay, and then all of those things
get tabulated up. That's equal to ninety percent of the vote.
And then the other ten percent of the vote is
the fan vote. So anyone including you the listener or
US three on this podcas here we can go on
the website, make an account, and then we pick one.
So this is a bit different here where you can
only pick, of course, one of these nominees, whereas the
people on the jury can pick whatever games they want.
But yeah, everyone can go on do that. You pick
one game from the list for each category, and that
overall gets added together and that's ten percent of the vote.
So I think it's I like to bring that up
because I feel like it is a bit different than
what maybe people expect. And and then in the case that,
like you know, there's sixth Game of the year nominees,
maybe out that it didn't even pick any of those games,
you know, like it's possible that it happens. It kind
of becomes a popularity contest. But also it can mean
that it doesn't necessarily matter what people pick as their
individual game of the year. It's more of like what
is the game that ends up in most people's top five?
So I don't know, that's just kind of how it goes. Yeah.
Another thing too, is like the jury is, I'm sure
there's most or if not a lot of them are
like American companies, but it is worldwide. There are outlets
and stuff from all over the world that vote on this.
So I think that's maybe there's a couple of games
in here that you might be like what I feel like,
I haven't heard people talk about this, but maybe it's
just like huge in China or huge in Japan or
huge in South America, something like that, right, So that
can be part of it. Are you guys ready to
go some predictions here? Let's do it.
Speaker 3: I'll pull it up here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, do a little screen share. Yeah, let's start with
We're gonna skip the esports categories because we don't know
anything about that. We're gonna spick skip Content Creator because
I don't know who these people are. Every year they
pick people, I'm like, I've never heard of them. I'm
sure they're doing great, not sure who they are. Let's
start with most Anticipated and then we'll go backwards. So
the nominees you're good for most Anticipated game are Death
Stranding two. Uh oh, yeah, I forgot the subtitle on
the Beach, Death Stranding two on the Beach, of course,
Ghost of Yotai, Grand Theft, Auto six, Metroid Prime four Beyond,
and Monster Hunter Wilds. Is this if this is not
the most obvious category? I don't know what is.
Speaker 3: I would put my chips on GTA six for this vote.
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, I would as well.
Speaker 2: I would third that as well.
Speaker 3: What do you guys think? I think it's an interesting
I was gonna say, I feel like it's an interesting
discussion for the second game. Perhapsah, you know, a couple
of those are like PlayStation exclusive, so obviously that like
cuts out a lot of the audience.
Speaker 1: But potentially, yeah, I think I would say maybe that's
I don't even KNOWE.
Speaker 3: Like two as well, but I'm just not sure how
big that popular.
Speaker 1: I might say number two is Metroid Actually that would
be my my potential guess, but I don't know.
Speaker 3: I like Monster Hunter anything anything, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: I feel like that would be the number five on
this list.
Speaker 3: I feel like Monster Hunter could be like a surprise
like Eastern Pick though that's just like a million people
are playing that game.
Speaker 1: Potential.
Speaker 3: That's really where those rookiere numbers come in.
Speaker 1: But yeah, true, true, Okay, cool, we can move on
to the next week. You can hit previous at the time.
Speaker 3: Just take you at first, I was just pulling up
all categories.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that's that's a mess. All right, best adaptation
recognizing outstanding crative work that faithfully and authentically adapts a
video game. Of course, Knuckles. We have Arcane, Fallout like
a Dragon, Yakuza, and tomb Raider the Legend of lore Croft,
which showed out to my friend David from the Switchheads podcast.
He's works on tomb Raider, so shows too. Shows. Yeah, Knuckles.
I feel like this is a category always where it's like, well,
there aren't that many adaptations. But it's funny that like
Knuckles beat out border Lands for example, Like that's what
kind of comes to my mind when I see that.
Speaker 4: I think it, Yeah, Knuckles beating Borlins.
Speaker 2: This makes sense.
Speaker 1: It makes sense, really, Taylor, you don't like either of those,
I guess, but you'd still put Knuckles above Borderlines.
Speaker 4: I'd put Knuckles over Borderlines for Sureorlans. I just yeah,
I mean it's not here for a reason, but at all.
I'd put my money on Fallow all of these. But
I haven't seen Arcane. I haven't seen or tomb Raiders,
so I'm very limited.
Speaker 1: Arcane is so fresh right because I it's like mid
November when the cutoff happens. M I feel like, when
did Arcane come out like it came out like mid November, right,
Like I'm sure some of these outlets would have had
access maybe, but even then, like I don't know, is
Netflix give early access to people for things.
Speaker 3: I don't think so, I wouldn't imagine.
Speaker 1: So I think I'm gonna follow and Taylor footeps here.
I think I'm gonna go Followed as well, just because
I feel like that might be a bit bit against Arcane.
I feel like Followed is still talked about, Like it's
not like a show that came out and people forgot about.
I think people are still pretty hot on it. And yeah,
people loved it across the board.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna put all my chips on Arcane for this one.
I respect that bias pic and I don't know, I
just feel like it's a it's a nice juicer right
on the Netflix. I feel like that's the biggest, the
biggest streamer out of all these guys.
Speaker 1: But uh yeah, yeah, yeah. For me, I think it's
it's really just down to the release date of that one,
and then I think maybe screws it a bit. Okay,
next category is best multiplayer. We have Call of Duty six,
Call of Duty Black Ops six rather Hell Divers two,
Super Mario Party, Jamburee tech and eight and Warhammer forty K,
Space Marine two. Any anything jumping out at you guys
on this.
Speaker 3: I feel like for me, it's between Tecan and Call
of Duty. Call of Duty is just like always a
nice relevant one. I Tecan's like the more relevant of
the Arcade Fighters, I would imagine, But I don't know.
I feel like Call of Duty's just everybody's playing Call
of Duty and they didn't they release the whole game
on Game Pass as well, Like that's a lot more
audience exposure. Sure, a lot less people are gonna be
playing something like Techan, but again, like I don't know
if that really affects the overall numbers if people just
are judging it on.
Speaker 1: I mean, yeah, I think about like that would be
relevant to me for like the ten percent fan vote
of it, but like the ninety jury vote, like I
would imagine most of those. Oh, let's have like someone
on the team was a tecing fan or a fighting
game fan, you know. Yeah, yeah, I feel like it's funny.
I find it funny that Mario Party is in here.
So this is this is normally the category for like
first person shooters, just like I have Mario Party in there,
although it did you know, come up with some new
multiplayer mechanics for a Mario Party game this time around,
with the kind of battle reality sort of element or
that that game mode to it. I'm gonna sorry, curtain,
did you pick.
Speaker 3: Your I'll go, Taytor. How is that multiplayer? Are you
enjoying it?
Speaker 1: A buggy?
Speaker 3: I haven't had any movements the city.
Speaker 1: The omni movement is fucking annoying.
Speaker 2: I hate it.
Speaker 4: By the time I'm turning around a corner, the guys
already like gliding.
Speaker 2: Through the air, popping me. I can't move that fast.
Speaker 3: Glide and popper, glide and popper. I think I'm gonna
side with the Gliden popper though, I'm gonna go call you.
Speaker 1: I am gonna go with uh. I'm gonna go with
hell Divers too.
Speaker 2: Here.
Speaker 1: I feel like this game it's just loved by everyone,
like it really just it was huge, and I feel
like people talk about the multiplayer part, whereas I feel
like Call of Duty. You know a lot of people
were like in the single player, or maybe they were
kind of if you on the multiplayer, they like the multiplayer.
But I feel like Hell Divers is just like that's
a multiplayer game and people love and I think beyond
just like the actual four player co op, just like
the overall community part of it and like, oh guys,
we got to send people to like these freaking robots
on the Western map. I don't play the game, but
you know something like that. I just feel like it
was a big community multiplayer aspect to it as well.
So I'm gonna go with Hell Divers on this one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm going Hell Divers as well. I just I
that was dominating my feeds when it came out, and
just seeing beyondgoing support for that game.
Speaker 2: I think like the rallying and the.
Speaker 4: World events just conquered it. Especially when I compare it
to all these even Call of Duty. I think it's
just got that that stamp. Although yeah it's not on
Xbox is PC? Was it PC first and then PlayStation
very same time?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: And okay PC.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but then there was that debacle right where held
I on PC. Eventually they were like, oh, you gotta
have like a Sony account now to like log in,
and people were really mad about that and like review
bombed the game on Steam, and then I think they
undid it, right, Kirk rolled it back. Yeah. Yeah. So
I don't know if how that makes people feel about
it overall. I don't know if they're still salty or
if they're like, yeah, I guess you undid the annoying thing.
Uh But a lot of people were pretty salty about
that at the time. Let's move on. Next category is
best sports slash Racing. We got F one twenty four,
EA sports FC twenty five, NBA two K twenty five,
Top Spin two K twenty five, and w w E
two K twenty four. So of course all of us
here play a little WWE on the twenty four hour stream.
Uh Man, top Spin, I feel like that's not one
you hear about.
Speaker 3: There's a reason it was really good this year.
Speaker 1: Man, I'm really out of my depth on this one.
I I don't know what to say. I think I
might just do eya sports FC.
Speaker 2: That's a safe pick.
Speaker 4: It's a shot between racing and soccer. I mean, it's
got down to those two.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna I'm gonna go with the Spinner. I'm
gonna go top Spin two K twenty five. I feel
like I keep like FIFA for me peaked in like
twenty thirteen, and I feel like, now I just get
videos of just like the ball going right through a
defender or something, and it's just like the same glitchy
game that I like, I remember, and uh, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, it's just a strikers you're thinking of the.
Speaker 3: Both fuck both of those games. Give me Fifa Street,
give me a modern Pifa Street. And then I love fun,
but I feel like it's just a niche audience. But
I don't know, maybe not maybe maybe more more numerous
than I think. And then two K has just got
It's like it's a weird one where like the game's great,
but it's just like mungery whoa which developed THEA? Sorry?
Speaker 1: Or the top?
Speaker 2: Which?
Speaker 1: Two K?
Speaker 2: Yeah there's three two ks?
Speaker 3: Oh sorry, I forgot you guys, aren't two K fans.
I feel like two K is just what's known as
NBA two K. So there you go, NBA two K
twenty five. That's what I'm saying for.
Speaker 1: Not costly Kirkland. I recently learned about just how savage
the monetization is in NBA two K.
Speaker 3: It's insane, and I was.
Speaker 1: So mad, even though I don't play or care about it.
I was like, this is just I people are just
getting juiced and squeezed for all their worth on this
every year.
Speaker 3: Every year they get juiced. Yeah, I know, Like I
I love that game, Like I I think I have
like over one hundred plus hours on like two K
twenty one. I think it was like the first one
on the next gen, just because it looked so good
on like the new consoles and like I just really
really got into that one. But like, I don't understand
how people can just buy these games every year and
then like buy the virtual currency because you start at
like a base level and that's like your character for everything,
and the only way to get higher is by the
virtual currency, which is just yeah, it's it's atrocious.
Speaker 1: All right. Is the college football game that you've been
playing with that? Did that come out this year? It did.
Speaker 3: I'm actually surprised that it's not on here.
Speaker 1: I thought I was expecting to hear like maybe over
did you actually hear stuff about top soon or are
you meming on that?
Speaker 3: I know it's meaning I'm still I'm picking it. I'm
going with Topspin. I like the two people on the
front there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh but yeah, I was kind of surprised not
to see yell like even maybe over W tow B
as much as we had fun with GM mode there, Like,
I feel like I heard kind of mixed things about
the actual game itself, Like I don't know, I feel
like they just WB games in general, people have a
lower bar. The GM mode is sick.
Speaker 3: I love it mode is sick. I know, I completely agree,
because I feel like college football was like the one
where a lot of reviewers were saying, like, like EA
Sports actually made like a good football game for the
first time in forever, which is funny because they came
out with that game and then like shortly after they
came out with just the Madden game that comes out
of this year, and like the reviews were terrible on it,
like it's like it's barely improved from last year. So
it seemed like a lot of the focus was on
the college football game, which feels a lot different from
the other Maddens. It's actually fun to play, not super frustrating.
Speaker 1: But I saw you were playing some more of that
the other night.
Speaker 3: Oh you're still still Travis message he said he's been
playing more Madden, so like.
Speaker 1: Oh, I gotta keep training up for next year.
Speaker 3: Joy Sticks Cooking. Yeah, exactly, joy Sticks Cooking.
Speaker 1: I love that, Taylor Resard. Did you pick EA sports
as well? Yeah, I'm picking any A sports. People love soccer.
People love soccer. It's true. They also love football. And
we're moving on to best sim and strategy game. All right,
So we have Age of Mythol Retold aka the game
that doesn't work on Kirkland's Unfortunately, we got Frost Punk two, Kanitsagami,
Path of the Goddess, Manner Lords, and Unicorn Overlord. This
is a This is a tricky one because I feel
like we're even though these are all kind of in
the sim strategy sphere, I feel like they are all
quite different in terms of what they're going for in
different scale, in different style. So this is a This
is a tricky one. Anything jumping note at you guys.
Speaker 3: Here M Yeah, Asian mythology hurts me because obviously I've
never been able to play that new version. I actually
had to refund the game, which is awful. Yeah, especially
because I just got so excited for I was looking
forward to it, and I feel like because it's just
betrayed me in my system, and it probably is my system,
just something on my on my computer's end. But I'm
not going to vote for it, even though I think
it is a likely contender, because they've actually brought in
like a lot more of a kind of competitive online scene.
So I kind of was lurking on the subreddit for it.
It seems like it is fairly active, like people just
talking different strategies. Centaurs are incredibly overpowered apparently. I don't
know if they've since.
Speaker 1: They deserve to be. Many years of oppression for the Centaurs,
you know, is a fight back.
Speaker 3: Yeah, go watch Harry Potter, and they're hard people. I
think this game came out in console as well one Xbox.
Speaker 1: Is that true? It just so yeah, because with all
the Age of Empire stuff, they've been making the console versions,
so I think they're pretty good with it making it
having the console parody there.
Speaker 3: These days, so again, like that's more, that's more audience
I guess that could be playing it. That might affect
the votes. I don't know. I'm gonna I'm gonna go
with Kanitsu Gami though, pafter the Goddess because I love
that name. It looks really cute and I like the
art style. I don't really know anything about that game, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you would be potentially into it. It's
on game Pass as well. I actually played it recently
and didn't really play it long enough to feel like
I should bring it up on side Quest. The controls
were just a little wonky to me, but like it
also is more of a strategy game. But I think
you'd like it because it's kind of like an action
and I don't want to call it tower defense, but
it's kind of tower defense that you have homies coming
through these portals and you got to set up your
villagers and different spots, and you can move them on
the fly, So that's where it's a little bit different
than a standard tower defense. But then also you are
like an action guy and you can run in there
and slice guys up too, and there's other ways that
it gets evolved on. So it's it's a really interesting,
cool game. I just found the controls the little stiff
for my liking. I don't know. I also know the game,
Like I just an article today it was like didn't
sell very well or didn't hit their sales target at
very least. I also I remember hearing some stuff about
Frostbunk too, some like negative stuff. I don't know if
that like happened because of the delay, so I don't
know if it's in a good spot now. Unicorn Overlord
heard really really good things about and I actually played
the demo for it and really enjoyed it. But I
just feel like it's pretty niche. People loved Manor Lords.
But it also is like an indie pick in here,
so it's kind of risky. I think I'm between Frostpunk
and Manor Lords, and I'm just gonna go with the
indie pick here and go with Manor Lords somewhere a little,
a little little left field nice. It's also on game
Pass PC. I want to download this one and check
it out at some point. Looks looks really cool. How
about you, Taylor?
Speaker 2: What do you?
Speaker 1: What do you think it for this?
Speaker 4: I'm putting my chips on Manor Lords. I feel like
I've out of all these games. I mean again, I
have don't have the experience of playing them, but Mannor
Lords is the one that's been popping up on my feeds,
so I feel like that's got some of the.
Speaker 2: Attention right now.
Speaker 1: Right Taylor, I think me and you maybe have picked
everything the same so far, so we'll see if that
you can.
Speaker 4: Let me go first on the next one in case
I feel like I'm no, I stole one from you,
you stole one from me.
Speaker 1: All Right. We got Best Family for the best game
appropriate for family play, irrespective of genre or platform. We
have astro Bought, Princess Peach, Showtime, Super Mario Party Jamboree,
The Legend of Zelda, Echoes of Wisdom, and the Plucky Squire. Yeah,
why don't you take away first year Taylor? What do
you think about this this cropa games?
Speaker 2: I feel like.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna say, Mario Party Jamboree, you switch it up,
but I feel like ultimately it's probably gonna be Astrobot.
Speaker 1: Okay, I've actually played all of these games a little bit.
I mean, Princess Peach, I just played the demo for
like a half an hour, so maybe it doesn't count.
But the rest of these I've play. I've beat Astrobot,
Zelda and Plucky Squire and Mario Party have played quite
a lot of as well. And yeah, interesting, this is
It's funny. This this category, we jokingly say, is like
best Family might as well just be called the best
Nintendo game category because it's almost always a Nintendo game
that sweeps it. But I think this is the first
year where that's not gonna be the case. And I
think actually Sony is swooping in here with Astrobot. I
mean so many I feel like every review for this
game was like, this is the best Mario game, or
this is Sony, you know, Sony did Mario better than Nintendo,
all these kind of things, And I know Plucky Squire
didn't quite reach the heights that I think a lot
of people wanted from it. Zelda is great, but I
also don't really think of it as much of a
family game, even if even it has a cute aesthetic.
And Mario Party I think is a great pick and
it is maybe the best thing to play with your family.
But I'm gonna go with Astrobot here just because I
know there's a tendency if like a game is in
Game of the Year contender category and then it's in
other categories, it usually just wins that category, and I
feel like I'm gonna go with that rule here for Astrobot,
which is of course one of the six Game of
the Year contenders. So and I just finished it and
love it as well, so it deserves it.
Speaker 3: Nice. Yeah, I think I'm just gonna go Astrobot here
just to I don't know, switch it up from a
Nintendo pick in this category. I was thinking Pete Showtime
because it was a really cute, fun game, but there
was just certain levels and stuff that I didn't like
as much as others, kind of brought down some of
the enjoyment, like some of the tempo killers. I feel
like those missions were for me.
Speaker 1: But no, I think reviews were kind of middling ish
on the game too, so it might not hype you risky.
All right, cool, Let's move on to the next category,
which is best fighting Game. We have Dragon Ball, Sparking Zero,
Grand Blue, Fantasy Versus Rising, Marvel Verus, Capcom Collection, Arcade Classics,
a lot of mouthfold titles here, and then Too Easy Ones, Multiverses,
and tech In eight. So I wanted to bring this
up because I mentioned this on our episode a couple
weeks ago. Taylor when the nominees got announced that this
is really weird for me because Multiverses was nominated in
one when it came out two years ago originally and
it you know, went offline and then relaunched this year,
and here it is again.
Speaker 3: Which just collecting best fighting game away.
Speaker 1: I just it's just so dirty. I don't like that
at all. But it's like, I don't know, do I
just go with it because it won before, It's won
the game word for this exact category, Like, who am
I to say it's not gonna do what you goes?
I think it was two years ago, so twenty twenty two, Yeah,
that sounds correct now. I don't know if any other
big fighting games come out that year. I can't remember
what the competition was off the top of my head
because I know last year. Last year was Mortal Kombat
and Street Fighter, right, So I'm trying.
Speaker 4: To dnf dual JoJo's bizarre adventure All Star Battle are
King of Fighters actually multiverses and Seafo looks.
Speaker 1: Like yeah, so, I mean that's like kind of an
easy win for multiverses in my opinion, Whereas I feel
like this year actually has some more competition. People like
dragon Ball, people like the Marvel Capcom collection. But I'm
gonna go with techn eight here. I think it is
just the legacy fighting game in here, and I've heard
really great things about it. It is a bit more
of a niche fighting game in my opinion, maybe more
niche than Multiverses. But I also think Multiverses came out
and not flopped, But it didn't have the splash that
it did originally when it came out because it came
out for the second time. You know, it's less less
less fun when it has already released once before. And
I also don't think it like the new features are
added were like amazing compared to where it was at
when it went offline. So I'm gonna go with Tech
and eight here for myself.
Speaker 3: I think for me, I'm gonna stick. Yeah, definitely not Multiverses.
I feel like it's grimy for that to even be
in there. I didn't want to go Dragon Ball here.
It's gonna go with the heart pick. It could be
Teching Marvel versus Capcom. I feel like there's just some terrible, terrible,
terrible like quality of life features in that can yeah,
like just you have to make a quick save just
to like go back to the menu.
Speaker 1: That would hold me back from voting for it for sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah and then yeah, no, I looked up Grand Blue Fantasy.
It didn't seem like the reviews were the best for
that one. So dang dragon Ball Sparking zero is my pick?
Speaker 1: Very nice? Have you Taylor?
Speaker 3: Oh?
Speaker 2: Techn eight for sure?
Speaker 3: Okay, Tiken eight.
Speaker 1: Lock it in, take an eight and we can move
on to I believe best RPG is Next. We have
Dragons Dogma two showed up for the first time, Eldon Ring,
Shadow of the Tree, Final Fantasy seven Rebirth Like a Dragon,
Infinite Wealth, and Metaphor ree Fantasia. I guess, Kirkle, I
don't think we've talked about this yet, but how do
you how do you feel about the whole Elden Ring
DLC being eligible in every category?
Speaker 3: Technically, if you would have asked me at the end,
you would know that I'm not going to be voting
for any of these titles that are re released. So yeah,
I don't like it at all. I think it's I
think it's stupid. Honestly, it should be like if you
want to have a category best like add on for
the Year or like best Deal, that is a category.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that ongoing game.
Speaker 3: I mean, I like, I get it, it's well received,
but it's it's not It's not a game. It's like
Miles Morales. Yes, that's a game that you could put
in this category if you, if you will, not really
an RPG game. But you know, it's not just a
deal a skill train, it's an RPG game. It's yeah, no,
I I don't like the idea that the deal season there.
Speaker 1: So are you Are you gonna not vote for it
out of Spike.
Speaker 3: Out of Smite? Yes, exactly, out of Smite, out of
a cool game. I'm gonna smite my vote.
Speaker 1: I'd this is actually a really strong category here. I
mean you have elden Ring, Final Fantasy, and Metaphor are
all games that are in Game of the Year nominee
category as well, so obviously all very strong. Like a Dragon,
I feel like it maybe came out a little bit
less hyped than the last game in the entry, but
still people really love that game. And then Dragon's Dogma
is more like action heavy of the RPG games of
the of the pack here. I guess elden Ring is
a pretty action heavy game as well. But yeah, I
think that that makes it a difficult, difficult decision. I
think I do have to side with my rule once again,
of like it's gonna be one of the things that
are in the Game of the Year I'm pretty split
between Final Fantasy and Metaphor to be honest. So I'm
gonna think about it a little bit while you guys.
How are you guys feeling about this?
Speaker 3: It's interesting how it brings up like for the best
game design with rich player character customization. Well, like some
of these titles, you're playing as like a character that
I imagine you're not changing, You're not customizing the care much.
I guess maybe like the skill tree. That's where it
kind of comes down to, Yeah, I think that's I'm
gonna go. I'm gonna go Metaphor here.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 3: May or may not spoil where I'm thinking game of
the Game of the Year stuff is, but uh yeah,
I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go Metaphor here, and like
a dragon, I don't know, it's a wildcard to me,
Like I just feel like I never really knew about
this universe and these games just keep coming out and
they just keep doing well. But like I still it's
just such a blind spot for me. I'm like, is
this like a G G T A game? You know,
like like what.
Speaker 1: Kind of is a little bit and then some of
them have turn based comback some of them have real
time combat, so that's always hard to follow. Yeah, yeah,
I think I'm gonna copy you here, And I think
the reason for me is like from what I've heard
of a Final Fantasy, you know, another great entry here,
but some people were a little let down with some
of the story elements of it, Whereas I feel like metaphor,
I haven't heard a single issue anyone has, and I
feel like RPG is the category for it specifically, so
I'm gonna go with metaphor as well here.
Speaker 4: Oh, I feel like I'm gonna say Dragon's Dogma two.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, why are you going for that one over
some of these other Game of the Year contender ones.
Speaker 4: That was one of my go tos for my video
game draft, and I had good feelings about it. Did
not do too bad score wise, so I think maybe
it's gotta.
Speaker 1: Potentially it's earned some goodwill for you.
Speaker 2: Yes, respect respect that.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting way to predict what's gonna win an award,
but I like it alright. Next category is Best Action Adventure.
So for the best action adventure game combining combat with
traversal and puzzle solving, we have Astrobot Prince of Persia,
The Lost Crown, Silent Hill two, Star Wars Outlaws, and
the Legend of Zelda Echoes of Wisdom. Uh, interesting category
like Silent Hill in Action eventually, like there is no
best Horror game category, but that does seem like an
odd spot for it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I also feel like Star Wars Outlaws being in here
is funny to me, just because I feel like from
when I heard not I was, I was like the
most positive person I know about that game, and I
was not expecting that from myself. Heard great things about
Prince of Persia. But is it to Niche I'm not sure.
Always heard to go against Zelda and then Astrobot. I
don't know. I guess Action Adventure just feels like a
weird category name for this game, but I guess it
does technically have all of these things that are in
the category description, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm gonna go with the big goliath Astrobot here.
I just feel like it's it's a nice ripe, juicy fruit.
That's just it's probably the movie you pick for like
almost any category that it's a part of, So I
don't really know too much about these other ones. I
don't know, So yeah, I'm gonna go Astrobot Team Sony.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna copy you here once again. My rule, if
it's in the game of your category, it's got the
sauce and uh yeah, it's a great game.
Speaker 2: Mag it hat.
Speaker 3: Trick Hatrick.
Speaker 1: Patrick Patrick all right, next category is just best action
game for the best game in the action genre.
Speaker 3: Focus best action slash adventure, wasn't it? And that we're
just best action.
Speaker 1: You're not wrong. Why do they have these two categories?
Not sure, but I guess the difference being that these
games don't have traversal or puzzles. That's the difference. I
don't know, it's very it's kind of weird to me.
That also, none of the games crossed over actually in
both genre. That's very odd. But that is very odd.
Speaker 3: Actually.
Speaker 1: Anyway, our contenders here are Blackmith, Wukong, Call of Duty,
Blops six, Helldivers two, Stellar Blade Rikland's Favorite, and Warhammer
forty K Space Marine two. So games primarily focused on combat.
That's an interesting, interesting description, and I don't know, I
don't know how close the jury members read that verbatim
before they pick these. I'm I think I'm gonna go
with Hell Divers again here and I think it's maybe
a bit of a risk. I'm kind of between that
and Black Myth. I feel like those are the kind
of the two front runners here, very different kinds of games.
But I heard with Blackmith is that it's kind of
more of a boss rush game rather than like fighting
a bunch of little guys and then fighting and then
making it to a boss and fighting a boss, and
maybe that could turn some people off, whereas Hell Divers,
it's just what else do you do in that game
other than fight? I feel like nothing right like here,
just you're fighting bugs, you're fighting bots, or or the
games off, you know. So I'm gonna go with Hell
Divers on this.
Speaker 3: One interesting interesting category for me. I think it's between
Black Myth and Stellar Blade, just because they're the most
like hand to hand combat focused ones, and in my mind,
I just feel like it fits the category a little
bit more Stellar Blade, as I would imagine, And I've
only played Stellar Blade versus Black Myth Wukong, but I've
seen a lot more just dedicated combat gameplay from Black
Myth Wukong, whereas Stellar Blade you got the fan service
aspect to it, which could be a positive or negative
to the voters. Who knows.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's no best Fan Service category unfortunately, stellar game.
Speaker 3: I think I'm just gonna go with my heart pick
here though. I'm gonna go Stellar Blade just because I
don't know, hopefully, because if if I went elsewhere and
it won, I feel like that would hurt a lot
that I just lost faith in my mind.
Speaker 1: It's not in a lot of categories, so this is
one of your few chances to vote for it. Yeah,
I respect that.
Speaker 3: Support, my my my baby there, so Stellar Blade even
gets my vote.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, and how about you, Taylor, I'm going hell
Divers too.
Speaker 4: I just think that you said it fighting the bugs
and the like the bots and stuff like that, and just.
Speaker 2: The combat where people like their teammates drop.
Speaker 1: In, like just it's combat everywhere combat, Taylor. Can that
game run on your PC?
Speaker 3: Do you think?
Speaker 2: I think it probably could?
Speaker 1: Actually, yeah, we should. We should be booted up. What
are we doing? Why did we wait until? Well, I'm
waiting because I didn't have a p S five until
weeks ago. But but we should definitely do that. It's
on sale right now. I might pick it up.
Speaker 3: Hell, yes, I'm well downloaded. I'm getting in right in there.
We even got Hidalgo if we need a fourth if.
Speaker 1: Travis, yeah, so absolutely cool.
Speaker 3: It's basically just later Starship Troopers the game, like it's
that great and even just like all the marketing or
not the market just the in game I guess, yeah,
in game advertisements for what they're doing. It's very much
just feels like it's rip right of Starship Troopers.
Speaker 1: Very nice. Okay, we got best VR ar game here.
We have Arizona Sunshine Remake. I read this game a
few weeks ago when I was reading the nominees. This
is a I swear I've never heard of this game before.
Right now, it looks like a zombie game though, as
Guards Wrath two, Batman, Arkham, Shadow Metal, Helsinger VR and
Metro Awakening, which, yeah, it really surprised me when that
game came out or when that game was here, because
I was like, man, I did not hear anything about that.
It's not a good sign. I feel like it kind
of came and came out and no one talked about it.
This is tricky. I think Askard's Wrath one, like the
first game won the award years ago when it came out,
and it's one of those like Herald the best VR games.
But then I also heard really good things about Batman.
And then obviously I've never heard anything about Arizona, so
I'm not gonna be voting for that one. Interesting Vertigo games.
So Metro Awakening and Arizona Sunshine were both made for
the same developer here, I didn't realize that. And then
Metal Heal Singer didn't even know that had a VR
version that came out this year. That game originally came
out a couple years ago. I'm gonna go with Batman here.
I'm gonna go with the Dark Knight himself because yeah,
I heard people just really really enjoyed this game, and
I think it's a good popular one, right, because really
that's what the game wards is. It's like, whatever the
most popular game is, that's gonna win. And I feel
like that just naturally is gonna pull people in who
aren't normally VR players or like who haven't whipped their
headset out in a couple of years, but they'll come
check out this Batman game, and so maybe they like
just vote for one game and it's just Batman, and
that just climbs to the top here. So that'll be
my reasoning for that pick.
Speaker 3: Here, Yeah, I think I'm gonna go with Batsy as well.
Here a big Batman from Arkham Shadow. It's funny. I
just randomly get like on my feeds, just like VR gameplay,
and this was one where I got. It was just
like it's usually just people doing like the most ridiculous
kills and just like really excessive violence through their VR headset,
and Batman was on there and just seeing with the
Batman gauntlets just piercing people seven things and areas you
don't want to have shoved. So I'm gonna go Batman
for those reasons.
Speaker 1: Great reason, great reason.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I will put my vote down on Batman as well.
Speaker 4: But I will say I have played a little bit
of Arizona Sunshine. Oh yeah, of the VR rooms the
v arcades here in town, and so me and my
dad we go there a few times and play a
few games, and Arizona Sunshine was one of the ones.
Speaker 2: We played a little bit of. And holy shit is
that fun.
Speaker 4: Just like me and him in the world, like moving
around and just like the zombies coming, I'm like goll
throwing grenades, just like coordinating in this in this like
with our with our guns and stuff.
Speaker 1: That was.
Speaker 4: That's my favorite father son gaming times. Just playing Arizona Sunshine.
Speaker 3: Is it kind of like or the original one?
Speaker 4: I was playing the original one? Okay, yes, I'm assuming
this is this is just a remake of that.
Speaker 1: Is it kind of like a Dead Island style game?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like you have objectives. You gotta get from point
A to point B, and you have little objectives that
you're doing it between, and so you just you're not actually, like,
if I remember it correctly, your character isn't walking and
moving like you see where you have to you see
where you want to go, and you click like a
button in your remote and your character just like appears
there within range. So you got to like keep doing
that to move, and the zombies just keep like slowly
walking towards you. It's it's a lot easier than it sounds.
It sounds a little bit complex, but once you get
into that groove, if you're you're moving pretty good and
it's fun, just like pulling the pins.
Speaker 1: On your nade, throwing your knades, reloading your.
Speaker 4: Guns and shooting like it's it's so freaking awesome.
Speaker 1: Awesome either way, though, what is the Batman hat trick? Here?
So we'll move on to the next category after our
next break. We'll be right back. Oh look, okay, we
are back for best mobile game. For the best game
playable on a mobile device, we have AFK Journey, the
Latro Pokemon trading card game, Pocket Wathering Waves, and Zenless
Zone Zero. This is a uh, this is a tricky
category because you have Pokemon which just came out recently.
You got a lot of Pokemon heads. Ten million downloads,
that's not a small amount of downloads. People love it too.
I haven't heard a single negative thing about it. People
feel like it's pretty generous for a mobile game, which
is always a good thing. Blatro, you know, kind of
got ported to the mobile stuff later and is one
of the Game of the Year contenders. And then I
feel like Zendless Zones Zero just we're like factoring in
this being like a world worldwide pick. I feel like
that game is really huge, like in China and other places.
I don't know how many outlets are specifically from those
countries where the game is big, but I feel like
that's a really big one. And I don't know much
about the other two games in here, so I think
I'm really down to Bloch from Pokemon. But what do
you go, Taylor're going to vote for your baby? Your
baby here, I'm voting for it.
Speaker 4: I think it's that's a million downloads, ten million downloads.
Speaker 1: Look at the numbers.
Speaker 3: How about you, Kirkland, I annoy did Bloto was released
on mobile? That's interesting?
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it was like a like maybe five
or six months afterwards that in the summer.
Speaker 3: I think you introduced me this game. You did a
review on on side Quest one of these days amazing games. Yeah,
and it's just been popping up all over the place,
like like tons of different friends on like Steam or
places or whatever like that. I just see them on Bolato.
It's also Game of the Year, which is actually crazy
for a potential mobile game. Well, it's not a potential
mobile game, it is a mobile game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's actually a good point. I don't know if
that has happened ever before. Maybe, like would Gains an
Impact have been a Game of the Year. No, I
don't think so. I don't know. I can't think of
another time where a Game of the Year contender was
a mobile game.
Speaker 3: You do bring up some hesitations for me when you
bring up like again, like the like the Asian countries
and like China specifically, Like how how much mobile gaming
is like a thing in in like some of those
Eastern countries just blows my mind.
Speaker 1: But Balacho's game of the Year, Yeah, I I'll say
that I'm gonna go for Blatro once again. My rule here,
But I also do think that that game, like it
got a second win when it came to mobile. People
were popping off about that, and uh, I mean it's
just a it's probably just the best game on this list,
you know, outside of it being a mobile game and
the fact that it's also just casually a MOI mobile
game as well, Like, I don't know, I feel like
that's insane. Yeah, I'm going for that one for sure,
And it's true and I love it. I have like
seventy hours in it. It's fantastic, so cool. Speaking of
indie games, let's talk about some best debut indie games.
We have Animal, Well, Balatro, Manner, Lord's Pacific Drive, and
the Plucky Squire. So really strong list of like debut
indie games from this being new studios making these games.
Hell yeah, congratulations to all these all these developers. Uh
played all these except for Manner, lords. As I talked
about earlier, Animal Well is a really really great, interesting
weird game. I think Pacific Drive has a bit too niche.
I don't think that one's gonna make it unfortunately, even
though I clearly love it. Pluck the Squire I talked
about that earlier, how it's iffy for me. It's really
between Animal Well and Blatro, And I'm boring, but I'm
just gonna go Belotro again here. And I don't really
think next to maybe most senttis paid it of GTA,
this might be like the next most slam dunk in
my opinion.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm getting Balatro.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna take your word for it and go Blatro.
Speaker 1: Okay, I convinced you, And then we have best Indie
game we once again here at animal Wel Blatro, Loreli
in the Laser Eyes Never and UFO fifty my baby,
so happy to see it in here for this category,
but it stands no chance against Blotro and is gonna
wipe the floor. When I go on the website and
I log in and pick my votes, UFO fifty is
getting my vote, but my vote is only worth like
zero point zero zero one percent, so it's not gonna
not gonna move the needle. I'm going Blottro here again.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Palatro, make it a trick nice?
Speaker 1: Oh okay, yeah. Best Community Support recognizing a game for
outstanding community support, transparency and responsiveness, inclusive of social media activity,
and game updates slash patches. So here we have Buldersgate three,
Final Fantasy fourteen, Fortnite, Helldivers two, and No Man's Sky,
which is funny to see that one still here after
all these years. I don't know. Did they have a
new big update this year? Probably, I don't remember what
it was, but.
Speaker 3: They're always tweeting. Good for tweeting to their fans. I
think I'm gonna go balders Gate three here just because
they're bringing cross like cross play to the game finally,
which is just amazing. So now I can I could
play with friends that aren't on the same console as me.
You know. Me and Hidalgo are already potentially scheduling a
campaign start over the Christmas holidays, so very nice. I'm
very much excited by that. And I feel like they've
also been pretty well. They're nominating this category, so they
must be. But I feel like they're pretty good at
communicating with the community on like moud support as well,
Like that's the thing that was brought tooles, which usually
takes a long time, and I'm mostly just pulling that
knowledge from like Bethesda Games, so and like unlike Bethesda
mods where you have to pay for them like that,
you don't have to do that at all for Bulgerskate three,
which is fantastic and obviously.
Speaker 1: They added a lot of content to it as well,
just random little things or some even bigger things. This year, Uh,
some of that might bleed over. And it's kind of tricky,
right because also the game came out an Xbox like
in December, so that was like after the voting period
of last year for game warts, so it's kind of tricky.
But in that sense too, it also came to a
new platform this year, so maybe that's a well this
year quote unquote, So yeah, a lot of a lot
of points for Buldersgate for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Is that your vote?
Speaker 3: That's my vote?
Speaker 2: Yes, Cal, I'm gonna slap mine dead on Fortnite.
Speaker 4: I think it's just they just got the Godzilla update
now and it gets on everyone's minds, so I think
it's and they had a snoop Dogg Concert in there too.
Speaker 1: Like was the Lego update this year and the Rocket
League thing this year?
Speaker 3: I'm not sure, Yes it was.
Speaker 2: I believe it was this year.
Speaker 3: I all I know about that game is they're bringing
back like o G Fortnite, which whenever they do that,
people seem to get pretty frothy around the mouth area,
So I think that's gonna.
Speaker 1: Be leg update came out in December, so tricky, but
once again after the last year's voting period. Yeah, I
hope Evers. I think is a tricky one where it's like, Okay,
they had that PlayStation thing on PC, but then they
took it away, but it's still like, okay, are you responsive?
But also you did this thing that no one wanted
in the first community. Yeah. Yeah, it's tricky. Yeah, I
I also I didn't really even acknowledge that Final Fantasy
had a new thing come up this year. I feel
like that update didn't have the same Wait, moved the needle,
like the last deal se was in multiple categories, that's
how big it was, where this one didn't even know
what occurred or wait fourteen that's the art. That's the
MMO one, right, my crazy Yeah, yeah it is to
remember these numbers sometimes. I think you guys make both
make very good points. I'm gonna go with Fortnite here
in a copy tailor. I don't really have a good
reason why. I just feel kind of iffy and like
wind doubt Fortnite. You know, there you go, best ongoing
or worded to a game for outstanding development of ongoing
content that evolves the player experience over time. We have
Destiny two, Diablo four, Final Fantasy fourteen, Fortnite, Hell Divers two,
and I find this hilarious Kirkland that in this category
the Elden ring DLC is not here. The category that
is or should be fo DLC Olden Ringing is not
in this one. So just just weird the way that goes.
I do feel like I guess Hell Divers had updates
and like things constantly changing in the world map and
like new attack zones and things that were coming out.
But I don't know if I really think of that
as an ongoing game at this point in time in
that same way that these other games do be able
Ford DLC, Destiney two had its I think Final DLC,
Fortnite had some stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think.
Speaker 1: I might just copy my own vote from last round
and go Fortnite again. Uh yeah, sign Uh.
Speaker 3: If air Tree was in here, I would have voted
for it, but.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna vote. I know me too, Just weird the
way that works. Yeah all right. Next category is Games
for Impact for a thought provoking game with a pro
social meaning or message. We have closer closer the distance Indica,
Never Life is Strange, Double Exposure, Send you a Saga,
Helpblad two and Tales of Canzarazau. Always a tricky category
in my opinion, I would always Games Indica. I was
surprised to see you because I thought it was like
a horror game. I didn't realize it had eat some
Games for Impact element to it, So I'm curious to
see what that is. I do want to check that
game out. It's on I'm my wishless waiting for the
right time to pick it up. Uh, this is a
tricky one for me. I might Neva's is it too niche?
Send to Saga. I'm gonna go nev here. Just kind
of a shot in the dark, to be honest. But
people really like that game and it seems to fit
the category, so I'm gonna go with that one.
Speaker 3: You played Send to a Saga.
Speaker 1: I did. Yeah, I didn't like it that much. It
does some of the stuff it does for like psychosis,
in terms of turning that into gameplay mechanics and treating
that very thoughtfully, I think is really well done. I
didn't really love the story of the game, but I
think that element of it, like the games for Impact
part of it, I think is well done. I just
I don't really love the game that much. Go check
out our review if you want, people, But yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go. I'm gonna go never as well. Oh
kind of it looks really cute. And unfortunately I haven't
played any of these titles, so I can't really pull
from that knowledge.
Speaker 4: Right, I have no pile of knowledge to source rum
for the year. But I'm gonna say life is strange.
Speaker 2: Double exposure.
Speaker 1: I think that's a great pick, great pick, well done.
Innovation inaccessibility recognizing software and or hardware that is pushing
the medium forward by adding features, technology, and contact to
help games be played and enjoyed by an either wider audience.
Interesting recognizing software and or hardware. I don't think I've
ever seen hardware in this category like I think of
even like it was like last year the year before
where PlayStation released their innovation or accessibility controller, the kind
of circular controller that's better for people who maybe have,
you know, difficulty with their hands or missing fingers, things
like that. So I'm kind of surprised that didn't shop
in this category. I wonder if that's like a change
where people just don't think about that kind of thing,
or maybe that's just super niche that the people are
gonna use. That is such a small amount of people
where these other games are more popular. Yeah, I guess
the category of the games here. We got Battle called Doom.
I don't know where that came from. Call of Duty
Black Op six? Do you have the four Dragon Age,
the Veilguard, Prince of Persia, Lost Crown, Star Wars Outlaws.
So interesting, this is the first time at Dragon Age
is making an appearance. You would think it maybe would
have been in Best RPG or something like that, but
it is not. I I have no freaking clue. I
feel like usually I vote for like a PlayStation game,
but there aren't any in this category this year, So
I don't know.
Speaker 3: You feel like the big at like the big like
studio games usually have the best options for this. That's
why I'm like kind of just getting pulled towards Call
of Duty just because they always have air pup line
modes and just like just audio things that you can change,
like they're usually pretty good for that. I feel like
Diablo would probably be pretty similar. I've never played that game,
so I never got a glimpse of what the set.
Speaker 1: That's social a weird one too, Like the DLC came
out this year, but the game didn't come up this year.
Is like, did the DLC add a ton of accessibility
options or something. It seems really odd to me accessibility
DLC or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but like this could be a category that they
just I don't know, a little bit of a smaller
one might just sneak in here and win it. I'm
gonna go with just Prince of Persia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it on it, Okay, I'm gonna go cod
for no reason in particular.
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go Star Wars art Laws because I remember
doing a review. We're talking about how they had a
lot of different menu things you could interchange with you
even the size of the screening and stuff. There's lots
of cool point after our features. I'm not going cod
because the omni movement's fucking horrible.
Speaker 3: You can't turn it off. You can't.
Speaker 2: You can't do it.
Speaker 1: No omni movement servers. People probably have a PC. All right,
moving along, we have best Performance or to do an
individual for voice over, acting, motion and or performance capture.
We got Brianna White from Final Fantasy seven Rebirth, who
plays a character that I'm not sure of. We have
Hannah tel from Life a Strange Double Explosure playing a
character I'm not too sure of. Humberly Gonzales Star Wars Outlaws.
I'm guessing that's the main character. Whose name? Oh God, Taylor,
what's the prote his name in that game?
Speaker 2: Like Kai or something like that.
Speaker 1: Yes, Kai, thank you for that. We got Luke Roberts
from Silent Hill too, were playing mister Silent. I don't
know what that characters name is. Got Milina Jurgan's playing Selena.
Selena send you Asaga helpt to. My words are fumbling here.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 1: This is a tricky one because I haven't played most
of these games, but I'm gonna go with Malina. She
won the award last time when Helblad one came out,
and I feel like there's just so much that goes
into the mo cap of that, and like in their advertising,
they advertise the mo cap and things like this, So
I just feel like it's more top of mind for people.
So I'm just gonna go with I'm gonna go with
that one. It's probably a boring pick, but I also
think it deserves it. Like she her performance is amazing.
That's not my issue with that game.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna I'm gonna ride that train with you, Melina.
Speaker 2: Let me get a hat trick.
Speaker 1: The hat trick over here? Cool? Do you think it'd
be fun if we did this as like a competition
and like if whoever goes first like picks the game,
then you can't pick that and it was like a
draft and a way.
Speaker 2: Oh that brutal.
Speaker 3: That is like the most fraud interesting I've ever.
Speaker 1: One year one. We will try it.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: We got best Audio Design here, recognizing the best in
game audio and sound design, Astrobot called you Black Op six,
Final Fantasy seven Rebirth send you a saga, hel Blade
two and Silent Hill two. Uh boy, I think I'm
gonna go with Wow, this is actually tricky. I don't
know anything about Silent Hills sound call Duty. It's called Duty.
You know they record gun sounds. Cool. We've seen that before. Uh,
Final Fantasy. I don't know why that's in here. I'm
sure it has people like the music, but I don't
know does that good sound Design'm not sure. Hell Blade's
interesting one way because they another thing and they put
in the marketing is so much of a focus on
like the three D audio and like wear headphones with
this game because the sound is crazy and like it is.
Then I also like Astrobot, like with the sounds for
coming from the controller and like the sound of different
movements and things like that kind of goes both ways.
I think I'm gonna go with Astrobot heres because it's
I'm between held Blade and Ashbot, and Ashrobot's a more
popular games. So yeah, that's why I'm going here.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna go send you a saga. Every time I
see this in the first game on my steam list,
it says like we recommend with headphones, We recommend with
you know, like the surround audio. It's like, okay, hopefully
it wins the audio category if it's going all out
on on those aspects.
Speaker 1: But yeah, good point, good point.
Speaker 2: I always see videos of Call of Duty.
Speaker 4: Them like flying jets and shooting guns and holding the
microphone next to it, and they're like flaunting their sound design,
but they never win this category. I feel like, so
I'm gonna go with sendu a saga with you, Kirkland.
Speaker 1: Nice, nice, Kirkling. You want to read off the next one?
Give my vocal cords the rest.
Speaker 3: Here, Yes, I'd love to. We got Best Score and Music.
This category is for outstanding music, inclusive of score, original song,
and or licensed soundtrack. We got Astrobot, Final Fantasy, Sei Rebirth, Metaphor, Refantazio,
Silent Hill Too, and Stellar Blade My beautiful yeah, Stellar Blade.
I'm going Stellar Blade here. I'm not wasting any time
the music in this. You know, if you listen to
her last week's side quest, I went off on the
soundtrack here, very reminiscent of Near AUTOMAA, which I don't
know if it wanted that year, even if Near was nominated,
but I feel like it must have win, Like it's
just such a beautiful soundtrack. I've been listening to it
throughout the week and uh, yeah, no, it's beautiful sounding game.
I'm sure a lot of you know, the other ones
on here are worthy of that as well. But uh yeah,
just pulling from my own memory.
Speaker 1: Bank, near did win in twenty seven nights. Yeah, awesome,
So that that gives me home hell Blade one best
audio design that year.
Speaker 3: There you go, I'm winning both. These last two categories
could be.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we talked about this last week, as Kirkla mentioned,
because well because you were playing Stellar Blade. But then yeah,
I went on Spotify, I listened to all these soundtracks
and then while Astrobot I've been listening to in the
last week here. Uh, Stellar Blade is my pick in
terms of the best music of the pack here, but
since it's popularity contest, I'm gonna go with Final Fantasy
because Final Fantasy is just one of those series that
is known for having the best music of all time.
And I'm sure Rebirth soundtrack was absolutely killer and it's
a Final Fantasy game, so hard to beat that. So
that's my vote there.
Speaker 4: Hmm, let's go astro Oh okay, copyright music in Astrobot
at all?
Speaker 1: No, I don't think so. I'm trying to even think
that there's like.
Speaker 3: Brooklyn or something comes on. We need to hear the classics.
Speaker 1: No, no, no, I'm wondering. I couldn't tell if like, oh,
this is like a God of War theme they're playing
in the God of four level. I didn't really like.
I think they everything is its own individual song, even
if it's maybe got some vibes of that. But you
can read the next few categories.
Speaker 3: Yeah, next week got best art Direction for Outstanding creative
and or technical achievement in Artistic design and Animation. We
got Astrobot, Black Myth, Wukong, elden Ring, Shadow of Air
treea DLC metaphor, Refantasio, and.
Speaker 1: Never Who Tricky category here very different art styles for Yeah, Well,
I guess Blackmith and Eldering similar, but I think I'm
gonna go with Black Myth. I just feel like that game,
I don't know, at least from the trailers, it just
looks unreal. I didn't even think it. I literally did
not think it was a real game. The first couple
of times I saw it. I'm like, this can't. This
has to be like Pixar Animation making this crazy thing.
It just looked way too good. So even if it's
not like as stylized as a neva or a metaphor,
I'm gonna go with Black myth on this one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, it's it's like movie quality. I think I'm
gonna go Metaphor though, just for the really uniqueness style
of it. I guess it's kind of similar to something
like Persona, but even then it's.
Speaker 1: Well it is. But I mean, I think people like,
I'm sure the UI looks really cool and interesting screenshots
and it looks just yeah, amazing, So that's something that
really stands out to people. I feel like when you're
voting on this kind of stuff. So I'm sure, I'm
sure it's a top contender, no doubt. I mean, obviously
it's top five. Taylor, what do you think?
Speaker 4: Oh my goodness, gracious, best our direction.
Speaker 2: Let's go, let's go Neva. That just looks so nice.
Speaker 3: Pick Oh it was me again. So we got best
Narrative category. Next this is for the h oh yeah,
for outstanding storytelling and narrative development in a game. We
got Final Fantasy Vin Rebirth Like a Dragon, Infinite Wealth Metaphor,
and Tazio Uh send you as Saga Hill Blade too,
and Silent Hill Too.
Speaker 1: Interesting to see. Silent Hill, I feel like, I don't
I don't know why. That just seemed surprising in this category.
Speaker 3: I feel like I always see Silent Hill games as
like a movie that you're going through it.
Speaker 1: I guess it's that's a good point. I yeah, I
guess I always see the mores like atmosphere and I
think a but less of like the actual story more
but just the general vibes of it. But I guess
that's something you could factory.
Speaker 3: It just seems like every Silent Hill game you're like
going to the town to find someone and then and
then like as you're doing the journey, you're like unraveling
the tale of kind of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, your memories are coming back. Yeah, yeah, what do
you think, Taylor, where are you going on this one?
Speaker 4: I'm feeling like how Blade Too has the best narrative.
I just remember seeing the cinematic trailers and thinking, oh
my god, this is just seeping story right now.
Speaker 1: Seeping seeping story, a lot of sleeping occurring in that game.
Speaker 3: For myself, I'm thinking Final Fantasy here. I think I'm
thinking Final Fantasy because I don't think Final Fantasy is
gonna win Game of the Year, even though when we're
coming into here, I was thinking pretty strongly that was
gonna be my game of the Year. Pick, but as
we're going along, I feel like I've kind of wavered
and seeing that it's well, actually Metaphors in here as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that could be a juicy Game of the.
Speaker 3: Year as well. Yeah. No, I'm gonna go Final Fantasy
because I feel like out of my top three, Final
Fantasy might be in there for Game of the Year,
but it would probably be the third slot, and I'm
gonna put it here for that reason.
Speaker 1: Alrighty, I'm gonna I'm gonna walk in Metaphor. I feel
like it's kind of got this category on lock. You know,
for all the praise Final Fantasy like a Dragon Get,
I feel like criticisms if any of her for those
games is like I didn't love the ending, or like
this story beat thing didn't work for me and Senuel.
I don't know if everyone feels the way I do,
but I feel like generally people were kind of middling
on the game. I'm kind of even surprised it made
it in the top five, which is maybe a sign
that it is the winner. Silent Hill, as I mentioned,
kind of seems like an odd ball in the mix here.
But I think Metaphor is just a game that Firmy thing.
I've heard about it like it's I don't know, it's
it's tackling society and politics in all these different ways,
which feel very prescient right now, especially post election. I
feel like it's, uh, I don't know. It just feels
like a game that makes people think and rethink things
and talk about philosophy and famous writers and all these things.
I feel like it's one of those things that just
inspires so much because of it's a narrative, and I
don't know, I've heard maybe some people talk about the
combat or other systems, but I feel like people just
praise that narrative of that thing. So I'm gonna go
with metaphor. And hey, it's from the persona developers and
people love those stories as well, So locking in metaphor
on that one nice. And yeah, Taylor went for help lade.
Speaker 3: Okay. Next, we got the Best Game Direction Order for
Outstanding Creative Vision and Innovation in Game Direction and Design.
We got Astrobot, Part of Me, Bilatro Black Myth, Wokon,
Eldon Ring, Shadow of the Air Tree, DLC, Final Fantasy seven, Rebirth,
Subtle Dig. We got six six in this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so I guess I didn't mention this at the top,
but for any category, if there's ever a tie for
I guess, any spot, then yeah, I guess for any spot,
then they will add a sixth game in Me and
Taylor were talking this a couple of weeks ago actually
that that is technically what they say, But I think
Game of the Year every year has always had six games,
and that just seems a little weird to me that
it's like there's a tie every single year. Really, that
seems kind of whack. So, I mean, it might not
necessarily be a tie for any particular If there would
be a tie for first, for example, then obviously the
fan vote would break that tie. But in this case, yeah,
as a tie for fifth, I guess, and then there
was two games that sneaking in there. So I don't know.
It does seem odd to me, but that's just what
happens sometimes. Also note here that these are the exact
same games in Game of the Year. I don't think
it's ever happened before where game direction end Game of
the Year have the exact same Usually there's like one
or two swaps that happen, but yeah, in this case,
it's the exact same game. So game direction Boy, really
really tricky one because who knows how the jury is
gonna be picking things for this. In this case, it
looks like they just picked the same thing things that
they felt for Game of the Year. So I kind
of feel like whatever game of the Year is gonna
be is gonna be the winner for Direction maybe mhmm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a tricky one because I don't think
I'm gonna pick like the same for these next two categories,
Like I don't think I'm gonna double down on game
to respect that Game of the Year. So it's kind
of a matter of what my Game of the Year
is right now. And as I said, coming into this,
I thought I had my my my might pick done,
but I don't know the way I look at these
because I feel like Astrobot, from everything I've seen, is
incredibly creative and just like innovative in the sense of
using the hardware of the PlayStation. Like you and I
were talking to discussing that last week, still haven't done
in Astro's playroom.
Speaker 1: Time going anywhere, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Exactly, But I think I'm gonna go Astrobot here actually
as not my game of the Year, So a little
bit of a spoiler there, But yeah, no, I think
it's just.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: I guess you could make an argument for pretty much
all of these in this category, but I'm gonna just
stick to the big goliath, Astrobot himself. Team Sony. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I find this category really tricky this time around, because
I don't really think of any of these games as
terribly innovative, except for maybe Blotro. Like, Astrobot is just
like a really great three D platformer. You know, it
has transformations, but so many three D platform have that.
Black Myth is like a Soul's like kind of game.
Elton the Ring is, Yeah, why would that be in
game direction? It's just like there's some new boss fights, okay,
but it doesn't really change the core formula anyway. Final Fantasy,
I don't know. It's a remake and it's part two,
so it's like, what else, Why is that innovative? And
then Metaphor, I don't know. I feel like maybe that
one is for what it's doing narratively, perhaps, but it
also seems very similar to its other contemporaries, So I
don't know. Blatro is like the one that actually genuinely
feels innovative, even if it's like, okay, deck builders have
existed before and poker exists before, but that kind of
is the one that comes up to me as like
most creative. But I also think it might be more
niche than some of these other games. Really really tricky.
Once again, always comes down to the popularity contest element
of it, and I'm just gonna go with my heart here. Actually,
I'm gonna go with Blatro, which would be so cool
if Local Thunk the developer won this because it's a
solo developed game. It's him and then like the guy
who the music, so it's a two man team overall.
Speaker 3: That's crazy.
Speaker 1: It's like super duper impressive, and I don't know, it's
also very innovative on like the visuals, like the the
effects and things like that as well. Like I just
feel like it's a really really genius game. I'd love
to see him win, and I don't know everything else,
I feel kind of weird giving it. Not that this
is my pick personally, just none of them really stand
out to me for this particular category. So I don't know.
I might be regarding this later because because of the
popularity element, but I'm gonna go with Blotro for today.
Speaker 4: H just to keep things different, I think I'm gonna
go elden Ring.
Speaker 1: Oh, you dirty little best to Spike Kirkling. Yeah, we
can scoot into Game of the Year now, which, as
I mentioned, is the exact same games so Astrobot, Blotro,
Black Myth, elden Ring, Final Fantasy in metaphor. Again, I
don't know, Taylor, are you picked elder Ring last time?
Do you think that's gonna be the same case for
Game of the Year? Do you think things are gonna
change up?
Speaker 4: I think it's gonna be the same. I'm gonna stick
with that as my vote.
Speaker 1: Wow, why do you think that?
Speaker 3: Do you say elder Ring?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I think that.
Speaker 4: I think people are just hyped on it. And again,
I have not played any of these titles, but I
just feel like alden Ring just has it. Lock Stock
and Barrel.
Speaker 1: So Lockstock and Barrel.
Speaker 3: Sorry, Kirk, I fucking hope that's not the case. I'm
going to scream they better rush the stage. If that happens, I.
Speaker 1: Think it would be I think it'd be a bit
of a farce if that wins. I think that would
not be a good look. Even if I've personally come
around on it a bit. I think it's fine that
it's in here. Personally, it's not that good for me, Like,
it's good, but it's not Game of the Year good.
It's not not on that caliber. But I can definitely
see the frustration. I think it would be really goofy
if it won a gain the Game of the Year war. Uh, Kirkland,
you picked Astro for direction, do you? But you said
you're gonna pick differently? So where are you gonna go
for your game? To your pick?
Speaker 3: I am gonna pick differently. I feel like since we've
started this cast, I've changed my mind on every game
that's that's come up on my initial I'm gonna throw
it in the Fantasio zone. I'm gonna go metaphor for
my Game of the Year.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: It's just, uh, I feel like I just heard about
this game, like not that long ago, and it's just
kind of been everywhere in my in my heads up
display of my life. It's just it's it's popping up
in different yeah, PlayStation Steam. So it's a lot of
a lot of positive talk around it. And I know
how popular Persona five is or not. Persona five like
just Persona series in general, I feel like that one
is like globally like a lot of like thought compared
to all of these. I feel like globally it's it's
a really big one. I mean Final Fantasy Japan as well. Yeah, yeah,
yeah for sure, but yeah no, I'm I'm gonna throw
that one into the mix.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, this is really tricky for me. I do
wonder how many outlets would have had an internal rule
ish of being like, ah, Eldon Ring is DLC, We're
not gonna put it in here. Clearly, it got enough
love from enough outlets to even be a nominee, which
means it has a chance at the win overall. But
I'm gonna say that that's going to be a detractor
a little bit for it, where it's just gonna have
some outlets not even have it at all in their list,
and Final Fantasy maybe metaphor maybe. I feel like those
two are gonna split votes a little bit in terms
of category, But once again, splitting votes doesn't necessarily matter
for the jury who are submitting five picks, So we'll see.
I don't think Blackmith has it. I was kind of
surprised to see it in here at all. Honestly, I
thought Hell Divers was gonna be a Game of Year contender.
I'm kind of surprised Blackmith beat it out, But then
I kind of remember the global out factor of this,
and I feel like Blackmith is much bigger in other
places in the world that we're not necessarily provy to.
But loutro I would love to see it when I
think that'd be so cool, but I don't think. I
think just the popularity. Once again, game wards is popularity contest,
and for that reason, I'm gonna go with Astrobot because
I just feel like it's a game that even if
it's no Outlets Game of the Year, it's gonna be
in every Outlet's top five just because it is such
a fun, joyous game. Name a single person who plays
that game who doesn't just have a fun time like
it is just it is.
Speaker 3: Just a fight that review, just that one individual.
Speaker 1: I can't think of a single negative thing to say
about it. Like my only negative would be like, I
want more harder levels, but I think that's just me
wanting more content in general, because I didn't want to
put it down. You know, It's not even like, oh,
the game was too easy, it's just that I just
want more to do in it, even though I just
plattened admit, So I feel like a lot of people
are gonna feel that way. It's just such a freaking
fun ass video game. And like people have platformers, they
don't we don't think of them as like Game of
the Year winners anymore, but people love platformers and this
is like one of the best. And I also find
this funny because like I remember, at the start of
the year, like late last year, Sony was like, Yeah,
we don't really have any games coming out next year,
so you know, we'll see you the year after, and
what they meant was like first party games, but like
you know, they didn't mention Astrobot wasn't announced at the time.
But I find it funny that game can kind of
be like place and can just say, oh, we don't
have anything coming out, and then they just have this
game come out, which turns out to game of the
best games of the year and like one of my
favorite games and maybe the game of the Year winner overall.
And I think it has a good shot at it
and I would love to see it. I mean, Blatro
would be my preferred pick. I think that'd be so
cool if that one. And it's personally I prefer Balatro
over Astrobot, but they're both great, and I would I
would not like a Feldon Ring one. I'm in your
I'm in your camp, I think for any different reasons.
I just yeah, I would not like to see that.
But uh yeah, kind of an interesting, weird crop of
games and not an obvious front runner like we've had
for some other years. So m hmm. There you go.
There are the nominees. Now what we're gonna do is
we're gonna take one last break and then we'll do
just talk about some little predictions on some of these announcements.
We'll be right back. Whoa, you guys are so big
on the camera. We are back. You know, I was
thinking about ash. We all picked like multiple predictions of
what we think announcements are going to be, but I
think kind of sided against that. Is there anything you
guys are really hoping to see in terms of announcements
at the game boards, because of course that's kind of
what it's more about. It's more about showing off things
than an awards unfortunately name and it's just kind of
the way it goes. But anything. You guys are really
really hoping to see here a new trailer for something,
or or a developer on stage to tell us about
a cool game.
Speaker 3: I don't know if it counts as like an announcement
more so just like a follow up like something.
Speaker 1: It doesn't have to be a new trailer a new game.
It could be a follow up for a previous name.
Speaker 3: I think I think the big one for me would
be something on the Wonder Woman title.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's been rumored. I really hope we see that, like.
Speaker 3: Or GTA trailer that's coming in before that, right, like
they're they're kind of doing their own thing.
Speaker 1: Did they announce that.
Speaker 3: I maybe he was a rumor. I saw like a
random tweet where it's like this day, g TA trailer's coming.
I also just kind of assume Rockstar like they just
kind of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think they're gonna put a trailer at
the Game Awards. They like they don't need to, you know,
like that costs a lot of money to get a
trailer there, and if anything, I would think Keeley would
want to pay them to get a trailer. I don't
think he's real to do that. Maybe he'd have to
show out a lot of money. I just think they
don't they don't need him. They can post on YouTube.
I mean, what the GTA five trailer they put out
or six, I should say, yeah, is like what the
biggest video game trailer of all time or something in
terms of numbers on YouTube. So they don't need the
game awards. So yeah, I don't. I don't think we'll
see that there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think it would be so yeah, wonder Woman's title.
I would say, I'm not gonna not even gonna think
about an Elder Scrolls thing at all. Maybe another Witcher
announcement or something like that could be really exciting. I
don't know.
Speaker 1: I think we get something about the remake of One
Before four at this rate, maybe.
Speaker 3: M okay, I don't know how credible it is. I
just feel like I've been seeing some like murmurs and
rumors about them like starting or working on then it's okay,
there you go, So like that could be fun little
I don't know, hint to just get people really getting
hooting and hollering. But the big one for me would
be that one rooman title. I just think the idea
of what it is and when it first announced and
just thinking of how they're going to introduce like that
was it the Nemesis system from the Shadow of War games,
So that one would really get my juices full. And
I feel like if we had like some nice combat
gameplay of like seeing one room and just popping off,
that would be really really exciting. So yeah, that would
be the big one for me. And in terms of
like any other wild announcements, I feel like everything that's
kind of already been announced is like the most exciting
stuff for me, Like Destoining too. Obviously, that's exciting that
we're getting close to that, And then.
Speaker 1: That seems likely right because of Kajima and Jack Keely
being best buddies.
Speaker 3: Oh, I could definitely be in the gameplay trailer, you know,
because he was in the first one, right he was he.
Speaker 1: Was he was in there. Yeah, I think that one's
very likely, especially that game is supposed to come out
this year. We haven't got a trailer for it super recently.
It's been like a bit cool on that front, so
I think the time for that is is ready to go.
And I do think Sony, who don't have a ton
of like first party games announced right now, like we
don't really know what a lot of the big studios
are working on. I think they want a couple of
things here, and at the very least that death Stranding trailer.
I think we'll definitely be here and I'm looking forward
to that. Yeah, and then I would like to see
like more ghosts of Yo Tie Max game Player or.
Speaker 3: Something, so it would be cool, exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I wonder if it's too soon for that. I
don't really know what they're aiming for because I don't
think it's coming out next year.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 1: They didn't announce that, they just dropped the name, right.
Speaker 3: Oh, I'm not sure. I think I was just under
the assumption it was because of the timing of that
that little to me. But I didn't really look too
much further into it. So maybe like we get a
date here, that would.
Speaker 1: Be cool, that'd be cool. Yeah, Yeah, I think I'm
in the same boat. I really just want to see
a big Sony things. I feel like they've been holding
back on a couple of studios and what they've been
working on, and so I want to see something like that,
or like maybe an update for like Star Wars Eclipse,
for example. It's been a long time that's just been
waiting in the wings like that could be another big
Sony thing there. Nintendo wise, I don't think they're gonna
do much because I think they want to save all
their big announcements for the switch to announcement, and I
think they're just gonna do that on their own time
with a Nintendo Direct in like January or February or something.
So I don't really think Ntendo's gonna have a big
presence Sony. I think should Xbox. I don't really know
Taylor's anything that just kind of like goes on the
tip of our tongue for Xbox.
Speaker 4: Like I guess they the K three just fucking drops
something for that.
Speaker 2: I know it's not a big game, but maybe.
Speaker 4: Gears six or actually know its Gears E day Emergence
Day at that.
Speaker 1: Day, Doom Doom Doom Dark Ages might be ready for
a new trailer too.
Speaker 2: That's right.
Speaker 4: So there's a few things there on the plate that
they could they could drop and give us a little
bit more information on.
Speaker 1: I expect to see at least one big juicy Xbox
trailer there. Of course, game pass logo everywhere that kind
of thing. But yeah, I think I'm in the same
boat as you. Kirkland, I really want to see that
Wonder Woman trailer. I'm just so curious about that game,
and I hope it it's been so long in the oven,
and I hope when it comes out it's looking nice
and nice and crisp. So that's that's I think maybe
top pocket for me. Any anything that you're hoping to see, Taylor.
Speaker 4: I mean, I know it's not gonna happen, but I'd
love to see Halo Wars three. That would just be like,
that would be so great, so great. Yeah, I already said.
Speaker 2: Stated to k three.
Speaker 4: I would also take yeah, you said eclips and I
think that's a great, great pick.
Speaker 2: I would take a Fallen.
Speaker 4: Oord, like a Jedi fallen order, a three something on there,
because we know there's a third one in the works.
Speaker 1: Oh is that announce Actually I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I believe it was announce. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Sweet, good for them. I wasn't sure how well done
big the sales were second one, but that's good for them.
Speaker 4: They announced it back in February.
Speaker 1: Twel Okay, that seems primetime. Then to get it like
a maybe like a not necessarily a gameplay, but maybe
like a little story sizzler of like here's the setup,
show off a villain or something like that. Maybe, yeah,
that's gouna be good something Star Wars nice? Uh? Okay. Well,
as I mentioned at the top of the episode, we
enlisted our friend mister GPT to give us some some predictions.
How did you do this tailor do is it like
a trailer format? Is it just a game description? How
did how did ho was this working out?
Speaker 2: Here?
Speaker 4: So?
Speaker 1: I did?
Speaker 4: Uh?
Speaker 2: I did five predictions.
Speaker 4: I did four game announcements, and it's listed what the
prediction is and then how they're going to announce it
and okay, and then I asked it to actually give
me what it thinks is going to win Game of
the Years if it's interesting.
Speaker 1: That's someone I've aways wonder about because I feel like
I always hear people say, oh, Chad GPT's info is
like four years old or something, but like that's not true, right,
like it's pulling current information or it can.
Speaker 4: Well I try and check it too, so like I
usually to see if I can get it to be current.
My first question was do you know the annual Video
Game of War Show?
Speaker 2: And it's like, yes, the.
Speaker 4: End of the game awards show not a major event
with Jeff Keeley, so it I do that to kind
of set the tone. And then after that, I'm like, okay,
give me like your predictions for like four possible games
that could be released during this time.
Speaker 1: Okay, gotcha, gotcha. I did say mainline games like big titles.
I didn't do anything small scale. No, no, all right,
Taylor take it away. However you want to do this.
Speaker 2: Go ahead.
Speaker 4: Uh So the announced I'll start with the announcement before
the predictions. So the announcement Xbox exclusive. Jeff Keeley is
on stage and suddenly the lights go dim. A massive
holographic Halo ring and circles the stage. Cortana's voice echoes
through the venue, saying, this isn't the end, It's just
the beginning. A pelican drops from the ceiling via drone tech,
and the trailer plays, revealing master Chief in a sleek,
upgraded armor design. Okay, this is Halo Ascendants. New Halo
game designs is spiritual success sor to Halo three, focusing
on a darker galaxy, why conflict with heavy RPG and
exploration elements showcasing master Chief.
Speaker 1: You're talking to me there, Yeah, Halo three has my favorite, Like,
let's forget the other stuff, let's just go straight to three.
Speaker 3: Already being in the crowd, it's like Jeff's standing there,
you know, it's it's amazing. They have like the hologram,
like Pelican just starts coming like Dafoe looking up, you
know the Yeah.
Speaker 1: Okay, so we got some RPG elements too. I'm into
that because Halo Infinite Campaign like, well, you're getting to equipment,
but there's no like skilture anything.
Speaker 2: Right ta there No, not that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so that would be new for the series.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so number two Nintendo Switched exclusive. Jeff Keeley starts
talking about gaming legends, and then a giant warp pipe
rises from the floor. Chris Pratt's Mario voice emergers, and.
Speaker 1: You uh sorry.
Speaker 4: Chris Pratt emerges in a Mario hat to introduce a
live orchestral performance of the game's new theme. A three
D animated Kappi zips around the venue in real time,
ar projecting the games trailer onto the ceiling.
Speaker 1: So sorry. The pipe, though, is a legit pipe. It's
an actual pipe, so it's not it's not a hologram.
The capy is okay, cap and I like that, Chris Pratt.
He's not wearing the suit, he's not wearing the overalls,
just a hat, just going.
Speaker 3: Bare minimum, just that I didn't pay theim enough.
Speaker 1: Maybe doesn't even have a mustache, just like clean shaven, like,
come on, buddy.
Speaker 4: So this is Super Mario odysty two, the long awaited
sequel that takes Mario and Kappy to brand brand new kingdoms,
including a fully explorable Bowserland. This time, Luigi joins as
a playable character with his own set of cap related powers.
It leans into throwbacks to Super Mario sixty four.
Speaker 1: Well now you're talking to me again, Halo Free Mario
sixty four. Were talking about my top ten favorite games
of all time. Here is speaking to me. Okay, I'm
into that. I like Luigi. I think that would be
a good addition to that sequel. That would makes sense too.
In the title, you finally get two characters in there.
I like it. Bowserland cool Bowserland.
Speaker 2: Yes.
Speaker 4: So Number three PlayStation exclusive Jeff Keeley is casually chatting
on stage when a sandstorm effect fills the venue.
Speaker 1: Sorry, casually chatting on stage, chatting on stage, like to
the microphone or like he's just having a conversation with
someone on the side that's so weird.
Speaker 2: I'm not sure we'll never know.
Speaker 4: The cat rezooms in on a mysterious desert setting, with
the audience hearing Credos say.
Speaker 2: The gods have spoken, but so will I.
Speaker 4: Suddenly Christopher Judge appears on stage in a full Credos cosplay.
Speaker 2: Shutting Boy is the trailer.
Speaker 1: My God.
Speaker 4: God of War Twilight's veil, a new chapter in the
God of War franchise, picking up with the Treyis exploring
his destiny the new realms of mythological creatures while Credos
wrestles with us past. This time it's Egyptian mythology taking
center stage, with the Nubis as the main anti.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm into that. I love the snow setting, but like, okay,
we did our two games there. Let's go somewhere new
and see that sand I feel like the snow Tech
could very easily be converted to sand Tech and they
had Tray his part. That makes a lot of sense
that from, especially where Regnarroc leaves off. I feel like
that makes sense. But once again, like the Cause play,
I don would not I can't imagine Christopher Judge doing
that it's a pretty hefty costplay for.
Speaker 3: That man painted white. Yeah, I guess that's kind of
old Crados. I don't know how he looks in the
newer titles.
Speaker 1: He's Yeah, he's a little.
Speaker 3: Like the Ghost of Sparta and the old ones where
he's like literally painted white.
Speaker 1: So well, isn't it it's like the ashes of his
daughter or something, right, because.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's probably more than just paint, But yeah, I
don't see the ashes of his daughter on that.
Speaker 1: He's a little more gray this time around. I feel
like that's just classic classic Sony. It's dark and gritty,
you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: Prediction number four Nintendo Switch Exclusive.
Speaker 2: So Jeff begins.
Speaker 4: He begins a segment with what seems like a generic
underwater theme. Water starts pouring onto the stage, pooling at
Jeff's feet. Jeff says, weight, this wasn't in the script.
He says, as a glowing try for symbol appears under
the water, uh, a diver emerges from a real pool
that's appeared in the middle of the stage, holding a
glowing Master Sword trailer.
Speaker 1: There's no water until now, and then there's also a
diver in the diver.
Speaker 3: The diver was there all the time. He was just
waiting for the water.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: The Legend of Zelda Dreams of the Depths a follow
up to Tears of the Kingdom. This game explores underwater
realms and the mysteries of high Roll seas. Link gains
new powers tied to the ancient marine technology, and the
game introduces dynamic weather and underwater physics.
Speaker 1: Okay, I don't love that. I mean, as I like,
water levels are always people's least favorites. Like, I don't
know if we want a whole game of that for Zelda.
That sounds a bit much that, you know, it's funny
hearing that description. The first thing that came to my mind,
Kirkland is just like, oh, that just sounds like something
that would be set up and hit Man, where there's
a guy on stage he has to give a presentation
where water comes down. But then forty seven has somehow
electrified the water or he puts some in scuba diver
he's the scuba diver. Yeah, and he goes up steps.
Speaker 3: Again in the back of one of the endings.
Speaker 1: For sure, Oh my god, that would be so so funny. Yep,
but yeah, there you have it.
Speaker 4: Those are the four games are gonna be unveiled for sure,
Big Cheepchi.
Speaker 3: Like Spiders to the most. I think Halo was my favorite.
It was my performance.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was good.
Speaker 4: So I asked chat cheept what will win Game of
the Year? Based on these following choices, Astrobot, Blatro blackmth
Alton Ring found fantasy and metaphor, and so chat cheepy
t was like, this is a stacked line up of contenders,
each representing excellence and different genres and experiences, and then
it gave at like brief analysis for each one of them.
But it's pret I'll say Its runner.
Speaker 2: Up was Final Fantasy Rebirth.
Speaker 4: It said Rebirth could pull off a win if and
nails its ambitious goals and resonates deeply with fans and
critics alike.
Speaker 1: But its number one pick was elden.
Speaker 2: Rings shut.
Speaker 1: Swear.
Speaker 4: It says elden Ring remains a cultural juggernaut and if
the expansion hits the high bar set by the Bass game,
it's most likely Game of the year winner.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Interesting, that's what the robot thinks.
Speaker 2: What the robot thinks, Kirkln, what do you have it?
Speaker 1: I would describe. I'm curious if you still have that up.
Speaker 4: Why it could win as an indie Darling BLATERO might
bring fresh, innovative mechanics or unique narrative twist that captivates critics.
Indie success stories like haities have proven Game of Your
voters love creative risk taking.
Speaker 2: Why it might not win.
Speaker 4: It's going against some massive Triple A titles, and smaller
scale games often struggle to outshine them in the main category.
Speaker 1: Honestly, well said, I can't deny that very good. H
I love that. That was very fun, man, is it
gonna be right? That would be crazy if Eldon Ring
truly took it off.
Speaker 3: I'm gonna be I think that would be the worst one. Like,
you know, we do these every year and they're fun
to you know, just having some bragging rights between you
guys and whatnot. But like never really been like hurt
by picks or like overjoyed by picks. I don't know.
I just feel like I don't have too much skin
in the game. But yeah, eld Ring, gilc come on, Jeff,
we gotta have a talk. This isn't this isn't okay.
Speaker 1: Shut Usually I don't have too much, Like it doesn't
really matter to me what ends up winning. I really
really wanted Death Loop to win against it takes two
in that year because it's like, ah, this is kind
of a weaker year, Like if Death Loop or our
kids ever gonna win it, this might be their chance
and they couldn't quite pull it out. But yeah for
the most part, so yeah, whatever, whatever wins wins. But cool.
Any other thoughts on the game boards? Boys, is coming out?
Like I said, the twelfth, we're gonna be covering it
that I presume them after on Side Quest because I
think we're all pretty busy that night. That's when like
both those movies come out, Lord of the Rings and Craven,
So we're gonna be busy that weekend, so we'll probably
cover on the regular Monday. But any any final thoughts?
Are we all done here? Cool? Thank you guys for
joining me. This is a nice spicy three man cast,
long one here. Thank you everyon for listening. Let us
know what you think is gonna win in these variety
of categories, and what you think about the Elden Ring
inclusion in there, what announcements you want to see, all
that good stuff, And we'll see you again next week
for some Indiana Jones in the Great Circle, have a
good one. Bye bye
Speaker 3: Bye,