Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome back to the Game Informer Show, a
weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every
Friday for a discussion with the latest gaming news, reviews,
and exclusive reveals, alongside Game and Former staff and special
guests from around the industry. I'm one of your hosts
this week, Alex van Aiken, and today I'm joined by
Marcus Stewart Heyding Marcus.
Speaker 2: What's up, Alex? Green Shirt Gang? Rise up?
Speaker 1: Yes, sir, Green Shirt Gang, let's go take it over.
Different different shades, but still cut from the same cloth.
Speaker 2: Well, you know, sometimes the grass is greener on other sides.
And I guess it's the debate of what show of
our shirts is technically greener.
Speaker 1: I think me. I think I'm greener. You've got a
little righter blue in your shirt? Yeah blue, Yeah, trust me.
I do a lot of color grading. I I've learned
to see a lot of different colors inside of other colors.
We're also joined by Charles Hart. How you doing, Charles,
I'm good. I guess I'm like Mauve Shirt Gang. I mean,
what color this is?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you'd say that, Okay, I think.
Speaker 2: We call you the Mauve Avenger. The mauv Avenger. I liked.
Anyone get that.
Speaker 1: Red Avenger Red Avenger right?
Speaker 2: Uh, you know it's a millennial that are hay Arnald
fans are losing your mind right now, and that's all
you need to know.
Speaker 1: I watched, but not as much as anybody else.
Speaker 3: I should have just assumed it was a hay Arnold thing.
I think with Marcus from.
Speaker 2: Noah, that's all. Yeah, that's all I say.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, it's gonna be a good episode. It's us three.
Everyone else is busy either working on game reviews or
on trips for work, so it's us three hold it down.
This week. We're gonna be talking about our Raiders Dispatch,
Mortal Kombat Legacy collection, and maybe our Game of the
Year cram sessions. We're trying to fit in before the
year ends, before we have to lock in our selections
for the best games of the year, because that's we
We are having those talks here a Game Informer. Just
because of our magazine schedule, we have to have them
a little earlier than usual this year. So it's it's
the knis is on, knives out, and the pressure.
Speaker 2: Is on the mud has been slug a little bit
a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, relationships have been tested, you know, tears have
been shed.
Speaker 2: I won't say who. I just dried my eyes, but.
Speaker 1: Yes, of course, of course. Uh well, guys, I guess
before we get into it, I do want to just
give our listeners a heads up that the best way
they can support us is by going to Gaminformer dot
com slash subscribe to pick up a Game Informer magazine subscription.
You can get it either in print or digital.
Speaker 2: Is it weird to sniff it?
Speaker 1: Is that help people like sniffing paper?
Speaker 4: I I don't mind sniffing it. I think it's something
about doing it on camera feels wrong. You smell the
book in the privacy.
Speaker 3: Of your own home.
Speaker 1: Wrong or right? Yeah, Marcus, I don't like that eyebrow raise.
Speaker 3: I don't even know.
Speaker 1: Well, I want to get into our creators. I've been
playing the hell out of it. I'm reviewing the game
for Game Informer, so it's it's been all I've been
playing lately. That's not true, but a lot of what
I've been playing lately, and I really really love it.
For those who don't know, if you haven't been paying
attention to the conversation or on twitch or YouTube. It
is a extraction shooter, and if you don't know what
that is, that is a sub genre of the first
person shoot. Well up first person shooter. This is a
third person shooter, but it's a subgenre of of the
shooter genre. It is PVPVE. You might have heard it
called player verse, player versus environment. So there's a mixture
of real players that you are and in this case,
cooperating with. In a lot of senses, the community for
our Greaters is very welcoming and you and pretty like
helpful for other players. There are there are proments where
you're going to be fighting people.
Speaker 2: But I'm really glad you said that, because I did
have questions about how I should be interacting with people
in this game.
Speaker 1: You know, it's interesting. It reminds me a little bit
of Sorry, I get distracted of how pale I am
in the camera.
Speaker 3: Jesus, you're like that one that newswoman.
Speaker 1: There's a newsman.
Speaker 4: There's like a clip of a newswoman who's just like
zoning out looking at the monitors. She's like, I'm so pale,
and then he cons like we're live right now, and
she's like that you did that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, that while I was talking, which is wild,
but yeah, yeah, this game kind of reminds me a
bit of Hell Divers too, in the sense that there
is a sort of people are buying into the the
sort of fantasy of humans versus machine and inherently and
the the robots in this game are ARC, which is
you know, the namesake enemies the ARC, and you are
the raiders who are kind of going up. Everyone lives
underground in this subterranean city called Speranza that is full
of you know, vendors, and you're navigating these vendors and
stuff through a series of menus. You aren't like walking
around or anything while you're down under, but when you
are down under, you are you know, picking up quests,
you're increasing your base, like you have a series of
like I think it's like eight stations like you two
station refiner station where like and all of us ties
into the big crafting system that is at the heart
of the game, where you know, you are going out
on these these top side excursions to get loot that
you need to build new parts of your base or
new weapons or complete quests, and and you are wanting
to bring that valuable loop back and you do that
by by extracting via elevators or raider hatches, but a
lot of those make noise when they go off, and
so it's kind of like that's where the tension of
the PvP comes into play, because people can kind of
be camping those exits and try to take you out,
and that does happen there. You definitely have to be vigilant.
I will say this game, what I was getting at
with the hell Divers two reference is that the player base,
it feels like there are a lot of really helpful
people and a lot of people who you know, are
friendly and just they want to do their quests. They
want to get their stuff and get out, you know.
But there's like always this tension, like are they telling
the truth? Sometimes they aren't, Sometimes they are telling the truth.
But in the case of my team, I was playing
with Jacob Geller and Jesse Vittelli the other night and
Jesse was trying to ping the enemy squad to let
us know that they were down there, and he accidentally
missed fire. He accidentally shot his gun not meaning too
and so it turned into this whole thing where like,
hey man, we are friendly, our buddy accidentally pressed the
trigger button, We're really sorry. And then in a watch chat, yeah, yeah,
proximity chat with other players, so like you're kind of
doing like negotiating, like hey, we need to go past
where you're at, you need to come up here. Let's
be friendly, like I'm I'm pressing the button to stow
my weapon away where it's it's it's a game of
politics sort of, you know, and like and then it's
funny because you'll have those moments, you'll have those negotiations,
and sometimes they aren't don't even feel like negotiations. It's
just like, oh, hey, what's up, guys, how are you?
You know, let's you guys need help with any quests,
you know, and and they're like, yeah, let's let's do
it together. And then I've done that where I did,
I mean it did. It happened to me yesterday where
Jesse and I teamed up with a team in a
pretty one of the maps that is like known for PvP.
But we all needed this certain quest done we had
to get We were looking for this this room in
this spaceport area, and and another squad came in and
started attacking us. But because because like there aren't name
plates above anyone that's not in your party. They accidentally
confused me for the enemy team, and so there's a
bunch of miscommunication. Things went haywire and there's just chaos,
and I died by the team that I had kind
of allied with because they they didn't realize that I
wasn't an enemy. So there's a lot of like really
fun social moments in the game. I've seen tiktoks of
people uh downing, downing enemies in the game, down in
other players. And the thing is, if you bring in
a certain item, you can get people up, so you
can get you can you can always revive your own teammates,
but in order to get up an enemy uh teammate,
you have to use a defibrillator. But people will carry those,
and I've seen people do you're on the Sing or
Die game show, you better sing for your life, And
so they they make they make the person they down
like sing a song and if they're impressed by it
and they let them live, oh and if not, they
kill them.
Speaker 2: Have some sociopathic behavior right there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's a lot of that kind of stuff going on,
but all feels like very playful. But outside of like
the the social and like the kind of crafting core loop.
The gunplay is just excellent. You know, you're the enemies
when you when you crack somebody's shield, it's almost like
a firework goes off. It's like when the Gower Rangers
get hit, yes, and the sparks yeah yeah, And it's
there's something so satisfying about like breaking somebody's shield. It
reminds me of like the satisfaction I used to get
in Gears of War when you'd land a headshot and
the game it was satisfying, like crunch and like it
was like, oh man, I got to do more of that.
I get that feeling from Art Raiders, just like not
even killing people but cracking shields. But it has like
this retro futuristic art style that I love. This is
the second release from Embark. There they also made The Finals,
which is a game that I love, and that game
and this game just have like really strong art direction.
The lighting in this game is by This is by
far the the prettiest extraction shooter I've played, for sure,
but like it even pushes past that genre, and I
think it's just one of the prettiest games I've played period.
Certainly certainly the prettiest third person shooter I think I've played,
like just in general in general, Yeah, I think so.
Speaker 2: Okay, it is nice. What I like about it is
that if the vibe like or like like the robot
sort of aesthetic kind of reminds me a lot of
Tales from the Loop, if it's familiar with the book
or the I think the Amazon show, but just sort
of like just seeing these giant robots like bipedle or
I guess in some cases like spider like robots just
in these big open fields, like It's it's very Tails
from the Loop Coded's And yeah, it is a fun
game to just kind of stare at and awe at.
I have a very different experience from you, Alex, because one,
I haven't played nearly as much as you, and I've
only played solo so far, which I think it's worth noting.
You can play this game alone.
Speaker 1: I play solo a lot.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, okay, well that's good because yeah, I've intentionally
just played alone just to kind of get my feet
wet before I get this anxiety when multiplayer games. If
I'm not playing with friends, where are like I don't
want to learn alongside other people that already know what
they're doing a little bit. I kind of want to
like let me kind of figure some stuff out and
then I'll have like a little bit more confidence to
maybe not drag an entire squad down. So it's actually
it's like a I can't speak to the co op experience,
but it's kind of like a nice loneliness when you're
playing alone, like like it kind of like feeds instead
of sort of like post apocalyptic like Survivor fantasy of
like it's just on my own here. I don't know
what really happened here. I could just tell robots came
and ruined everything. And then every now and then I'll
see another player. And this goes back to what I
was going to ask you, like what the sort of
like player etiquette is, because I've yet to engage another
person so far, and no one has fought me yet,
which I've been surprised by because I I just assumed
that like everyone was out for everyone, and I was like, well,
I'm I'm by myself, so I'm like a prime target.
And every time I've come across someone like I've I've
like locked eyes with them where I know that they've
seen me, and then instead of them like immediately firing,
they just kind of like like I had one in
since where I saw someone. We paused for a second,
looked at each other, and then he just kind of
went the other way, and I was like, oh, I
was like ready to go, and then I kind of hesitant,
like and I was like, should I be trying to
kill him? Like should I be trying to kill people
to get there? Like loot? Is that the PvP or
is it like on a team, Like is there any
like formal like are we working together or is it
just whatever you sort of decide.
Speaker 1: It's all social contracts, right, It's right, It's it's up
to you. And that's what I think is fascinating about
the game is that every round can be different based
on the players that are inside and like their behavior
and what they want to do. Right, So you and
that guy were like, it's not really worth getting into
this fight right now. We both have loot we want
to get out with. Maybe you were like one, it
sounds like you had a little bit of blood luss,
you were ready to go, but.
Speaker 2: You like less but more like kind of like self defensive,
Like I just expect people to be aggressive. So I'm
just like, yeah, I guess I gotta be ready to send.
I don't want to, but he's probbing them at me.
Speaker 1: And then I was like, I think it's fascinating about
about this game because the extraction Every extraction shooter I
have ever played besides this one, it is like shoot
on site, usually very rarely. I mean I played a
fair amount of Escape from Tarkov, which is probably the
most notable extraction.
Speaker 2: Shooter to date coming out of one Point.
Speaker 1: So yeah, yeah, absolutely, and on Steam, and that game
was always very hostile. It's it feels just so oppressive. Yeah,
And part of that is also the the setting and
the tone. It's very militaristic, very like you know, it's even,
it's even it's much more punishing than than I think
Arc Raiders is in terms of just the mechanics and
the the obstruction of information to new players. It's it's
just really kind of brutal. And I would never recommend
that for any of you in this call. You would
absolutely hate it. But Arc Raiders there is like this
weird like thing happening where people are being friendly, they're
being passive, they are waiting to shoot granted. You know,
one of the most fascinating things I think about this
game is people punish bullies. And so if you're the
last night actually it was. It was wild. Jesse and
I had probably some of the best we had found
in the game, like pink rarity items, which is the
highest rarity I found, and and we had like specifically
been going out out of where to be nice to people,
and like we had been friendly with people, and we
were running to the extraction elevator and we just get
sniped out of nowhere, like almost like we're wide open
to we're surrounded by arc. We're like kind of sprinting.
We hear the elevator going off. I'm shouting friendly, Friendly, Friendly,
cause we're just like bolting it to try to make
it because otherwise we're gonna die. I get clipped by
this guy. I go down and I'm like, oh my god,
I'm so mad, like I'm gonna lose all of this
great loot. Jesse is like scrambling because like they have
us in this really bad position, and out of nowhere
we hear I've got a d fib and it's this
squad of three that just roll in and they one
of them revives me. Jesse at this one is down
as well, so we're both it's hopeless and it's like
on your left, it's like that moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like this yes, yeah, this.
Speaker 1: Totally different squad comes in. We got dee fibbs. So
one guy starts shooting the guy who was killing us,
and then they're like getting us up. I get up,
I get revived, then I get Jesse up, while the
other squad is like firing at the guy who is
downing Jesse and I and then all five of us
storm forward and like take out this this guy. But
from all of the noise, we attracted one of the
biggest arc and that we had attracted a rocketeer who
if you get hit by rocketeer, it takes like two
shots that get killed, Like he just shoots these massive
rockets at you, and he's airborne as well, so he
has this huge line of sight. And the game ended up.
It was this huge conclusion. Also, there's a minute left
on the clock at this point before all of us
die from you have like there's a timer in every match,
and if you don't extract by the time the match ends,
you all die. Because like a big arc comes in
and since there's like a big meteor comes but it's
a big robot and kills whoever's still on the map
and you lose everything. So we're also going against that clock.
And we managed to get the elevator open, there's still
it's I mean, it is the most chaos I've ever
had in this game. There's so much happening, and I'm
screaming to Jesse, we gotta go, we gotta go. And
I'm like also trying to get the helpful people because
they have now been downed by the rocketeer. At least
one of their guys is down, and I'm like, you
guys have to come. There's nineteen seconds left. This is
the last elevator out and you're gonna lose your stuff.
And they're like, I can't leave my buddy, and I'm
like they've already activated the return sequence. You have to
get in. And Jesse and I watched from the elevator
as the doors to the elevator rise and we see
like the people who had just helped us they get
stranded and they get left behind. Oh yeah, sacrifice, and
they lost all their stuff, and I was just Jesse
and I were like speechless for like twer or three minutes.
He was like, I'm just still processing what just happened
and that that that ending, And.
Speaker 2: I was like, yeah, I feel humanity moment.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel terrible because those guys got us up
and then they died, and I was like trying my
best to get that. I was like, come on, like
we're like waiting as long as possible, but then eventually
the doors automatically close on their own.
Speaker 2: It sounds like I've been playing with voice chat off,
just because instinctively when I play multipler games, it's the
first thing I toggle. It sounds should I have it on?
Is that party? Just hearing people? Okay, you have it?
I just didn't think. I didn't think it'd be like
Emerson stories like that. I thought I just hear a
bunch of like nonsense, as you do, and like person.
Speaker 1: Not heard any nonsense whatsoever yet. Well, I mean I've
heard like very small stuff like I knock a guy
out and he's like fu, and I'm like I get.
Speaker 2: G you know, I mean, that's that's that's fair.
Speaker 1: I mean, but nothing like you would hear in like
a call of duty, lobby or anything like that. Also
it's like disadvance. It's like not advantageous to be constantly
yapping over your mic because it's proximity chat and you'll
give away your location, right, I will say like for
people who are like nervous about like engaging in the
voice chat, and this kind of gets into a weird
gray area for me. There's some parts about this game
that I don't love in terms of like how it
was made. And I had a similar critique with the
finals and that, like they use AI text to speech,
so it is not AI generated voices, right. They have
contracted voice actors and paid voice actors to record lines
and then also use their voice in the future via
text to speech, And so there's a lot of debate
online and I think that's totally fair. Like if you
want to skip this game because of that, because it
does use AI in some form, that is totally fair.
It is definitely like a I wish that they had
done it differently. But with that comes some accessibility options
in that you can in the menus, you can mask
your voice and you will use one of the pre
selected like voice actors that they have contracted. You can
speak and it will mask your voice to sound like
an in game character. So if you're a person, like
I mean, if you're let's just be blunt about it,
Like if you're a woman playing this game and you
know you have a lot of you're facing a lot
of toxicity in online games or somebody else, you know,
and anybody can use this. But and you want to
mask your voice to sound not like you, but you
still want to engage with that that that aspect of
the game, you can and you can have you can
have your voice be a dude. You can have your
voice be one of the more feminine sounding voice actors
and it'll it'll it'll mask your voice in real time.
And I've seen a lot of people use that for
like privacy and security, so that's also a feature you
can use. So yeah, interesting tech. I definitely like have
some conflicting feelings about it. Obviously, we don't know what
those contracts look like with those voice actors. Are they
getting paid whenever whenever arc Radar, whenever Embark creates a
new a new voice Bark in the game. Are they
getting royalties for that? We don't know, But it is
like consensual. You know, people have agreed to a contract.
Whether you agree if that's ethical or not. It's a
totally different thing. But I do want to like that
as part of the conversation with this game. So I
do want to I know some people that's like a
complete no go. And I think if I was not
reviewing this game and I didn't get a free code
of definitely playing in my decision on like if I'm
gonna purchase this game or not, you know. But yeah,
it's something that I'm still like thinking through as I
play the game. And there's like definitely some benefits to like, oh,
privacy and safety and online games. That's kind of an
interesting way to use the tech. But then there's also
like this other part that I feel like, I don't
know if I love this. So that is part of
the conversation though, so I wanted to bring that up.
But yeah, in terms of like the actual gameplay though,
and like the world, I think I'm really impressed by
the level design and and the the gadget design. There
are so many interesting gadgets in this game that are
so fun to use, whether it's like a you know,
a zip line or grappling hook you can eventually get.
There are lowre grenade lore grenades, I'm sorry my southern accent.
I'm trying to l u r E lure grenades.
Speaker 2: Oh. I like the idea of a lore. It just
explodes with exposition.
Speaker 1: Lure grenade is maybe I gotta I gotta break through
that and that'll like, you know, distract arcs. And I've
used that to help my team escape several times. We're like,
there is a rocketeer, honest, but I'm gonna and it
is firing on us, but I'm gonna throw a lwre
grenade and he's gonna think that we're over there. Now.
There's a lot of really fun systems that interplay together,
and I'm just having a blast. I've played it every
day for the last week, and you know, I'll probably
play it tonight as well. But yeah, I really am
loving it. Is it is. It has impressed me and
kind of blow me away and some of the things
that some of the things that it's doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, Is it is in Bark your favorite studio now,
because between this and the finals, they're like two and
O for you.
Speaker 1: It seems like they are my favorite studio. But I
do like the games they make. I I think I
think some of the things that would hold me back
from it being my favorite. Are the the tech they
choose to use I don't love And I critiqued it
in the finals with like the voice to techt stuff
I don't I don't love that, and it's like kind
of actively like hinders my my max enjoyment of it
because I'm like, uh, this is like a weird gray
area that I don't like to think about as I'm
like trying to enjoy this game, And like, if you
had just like maybe done it the more traditional way,
I would maybe have a fully voiced endorsement of that
studio a.
Speaker 2: Texas speech voice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I think my my my favorite
studio is still it's probably Arcane, Arcane or Blizzard. I mean,
wow's my favorite game. And it'll take a lot to
kind of dethrone that, but.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's kind of a favorite developer.
Speaker 2: Do I have a favorite developer?
Speaker 3: You just asked Alex.
Speaker 4: Alex his like, I don't know if that's the thing
everyone had, and I was like, oh, I don't think
I've ever thought about it.
Speaker 2: I mean I don't. Yeah, I don't know. If I
have a singular favorite, I definitely have. I mean we're
gonna talk about one of them later on within gay
Legxy colection because nether realm was into conversation. Sure, but yeah,
I don't know that's that could that could be a
podcast topic in itself. I don't know I've ever given
a true thought of like a singular favorite.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think Arcane would be in the running for me,
for sure. I love their worlds. But but yeah, so
that's arc Raiders. I'm I'm still pondering on my review.
It's gonna score pretty high for me, probably.
Speaker 2: Right now.
Speaker 1: If I had to give it a score, it would
be at least a nine. That's kind of where I'm
at there. It would probably be higher. But some of
those other considerations I've mentioned that kind of do what
weigh in on my my score. So I don't know.
I'm still figuring it out and what I want to
give it. But you know, on paper, the game is
is is fantastic. It's it's really something. And yeah, not.
Speaker 2: To influence your review, but I think you should include
some sort of like in memoriam for the Brave Squad,
they gave their lives for you and Jess.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will, I will have them in the video review.
I think, Yeah, I've got a lot of.
Speaker 2: Clips moment of silence maybe like a ten second moment
of silence for yeah, yeah, black.
Speaker 1: Screen, Yeah, like horn orchestral music playing somber.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it is all thing of like I always like
it when a game has like enough emergent stuff like
that that you have like war stories about it. That's
just like a general thing. But I feel like that
was even more. I feel like this game has been
maybe the most intense war.
Speaker 3: Story generated game I've seen before.
Speaker 4: It online, I saw a one minute clip of a
game of a lot of other games like, oh that
was funny, Oh that was interesting, And I feel like
all the art greator's clips I see are.
Speaker 3: Like the end of a movie, like how do we
get to this point?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think I'm try not to read other people's reviews,
especially when I'm when I'm writing interview. I did see
people share little bits and pieces of Mark Delaney's review
over a game spot. I think he called it like
a story generator or a story machine, and that that
feels like a very accurate descriptor. And I'm jealous. I
didn't come up with that that term, but yeah, it's
it's it's really great, So stay tuned in the coming
days for my review. But I really do love it
and I think it's doing some really special things. So yeah,
but Marcus, you mentioned Mortal Kombat Legacy Collection. Why don't
we go ahead and jump into that and then we'll
get a dispatch after that.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I admittedly I wish I had more time to play,
to play more of it, or than I have, just
because I've been busy with my own review game that
I can't talk about until next week. But yeah, Mortal
kmbatle Likesy Collection is the next. It's like unofficially a
gold Master game by Digital Eclipse, who is probably best
known now for like they're like interactive documentaries like Atari
fifty and the Making of Karatica. I think the I'll
last one before this was the Lamas off the Jeff
Mencher story. Like I really enjoy all of those games,
Like I'm a I love documentaries in general, and I
think they've carved like a cool niche for themselves with
sort of the like interactive timeline stuff and then having
like just accompanying that with the collection of classic games
to sort of fill out the subject's history, whether it's
a developer or an individual creator, and so when they
announced this, I was like through the roof because Mortal
Kombat is my favorite fighting game franchise ever and it's
in It's in my top five favorite franchises. Like I've
been a huge MK fan since the very beginning. And
it's interesting because I've read so much about just the
making of MK through like various books and other smaller
sort of like documentary style features, like they've done like
they used to do those kind of clips in the
in the three D Fighters of the two thousands, like
Deadly Alliance and in Deception, they've done like sit downs
like ed Boone and whatnot. But this might be I
even't finished the documentary yet, but from what I've seen
of it's so far, this might be the definitive version
at least, you know, we'll see. I still have a
ways to go. I probably shouldn't even say that, but
it's been very good so far. It's like what I
love about it. I mean, one, it's cool to see
Ed Boone and John Tobias like side by side again
to the two co creators Mortal Kombat. You know, John
Tobias left nether Realm around the time of like m
K four, So I think a lot of people forget
and I usually take issue whenever Ed Boone is kind
of credited as the sole creator of Mortal Kombat, and
a lot of like news stories like I've had times
where I've edited story like no Go created it, like
there was another guy kind of like saying like stan
Lee is the sole creator of Spider Man. It's like yeah,
you know, but yeah, seeing them side by side and
just chatting again, it's like a really cool treat just
seeing to bounce stories about the not only just like
the the history of the series, but sort of their
pre MK history because the first chapter gets into like,
you know, their their childhoods and how they got into
the the Arctic KDE industry and like early midway and
like Ed Boone, you know, working on pinball machines and
John Tobias as a young comic book artists, you know,
starting with like like working with Eugene Jarvis and illustrating
like some like robotron or like and like smashing and
other stuff and kind of like how they you know,
they were the two of them were working in the
same building and then kind of converged at a point
and said like, hey, we have this idea for like
you know, these these kind of like digitized acts. Like
this technology is kind of starting to take off with
games like Pit Fighter and and like Narc, everyone's favorite
arcade game, Narc. What if we, you know, what if
we use that technology to make like this a fighting
game based on our love of like Kung Fu movies
at the time during like the height of like kung
Fu and like ninja media being everywhere, So you get
a lot of really good sort of like sit downs
with like Saladavida and Dan Forden, who is like he
himself is pretty timely because he just retired from Nether
Realm after being there from pretty much almost the beginning.
So it's kind of it's kind of interesting watching him
now knowing that his his his journey has come to
an end. For those that don't know, Dan Forden was
like the long time sound designer and like the composer
any but he's most famously known as the Toasty guy
in in the m K three and two of like
you know, the Toasty the little guy that Poppa outside
that that yeah, yeah, that's that's him. But what's really
neat about it is all of the footage like just
candid behind the scenes footage of them as like these
kids in these like tiny offices just discussing what would
become Mortal Kombat, and like like seeing these sort of
like rehearsal sessions with the digitized actors of like you
just see the like, oh, here's the guy that's dressed
up as Scorpion and MK one and also some zero
because they just did the palette swap for the colors,
and just watching them go through the motions of what
would become these iconic finishing moves of like like the coolest,
the coolest thing I've seen so far, and it's got
its own chapter in the timeline, is just raw footage
of Ed Boone and John Savah's walking the Scorpion actor
through what would become the rope spear for the first time,
which is like the most definitely the most iconic move
in world combat and arguably the most iconic move in
fighting games, maybe second only to the Hoduken. Yeah, but
it's very like that one in particular really got me
because it's have you guys seen Have you guys seen
Get Back the Beatles documentary that Disney plus out a
few years.
Speaker 1: Ago, I've definitely heard about it though.
Speaker 2: Okay, great documentary and I'm a big Beatles fan, but
there's a point in that four hour or whatever long
thing where you see Paul McCartney like in real time
kind of come up with the song get Back. Like
he's just like strumming on a guitar to himself, and
you can tell he's like he's feeling in his head
and you just start to hear those like that recognizable
notes kind of like come to be and he's kind
of like like just like humming to himself, finding it,
and it's like and they like make a point of
move to highlight like this is when get Back was made. Guys,
you're watching it and you're like, wow, that's crazy. That's
one of their most iconic songs. It's like that like
I'm not even it sounds like hyperbole, but for like
an MK fan to watch them just like piece together, like, Okay,
what should the rope spear look like? Like if you
throw your arm like this, and you see like he's
doing multiple takes of like maybe swing your arm this way,
and then John Tobias in the back kind of because
he's the one cutting out the frames and animating and
kind of going like, yeah, I might be able to
work with that. I can probably cut out some frames here.
And then there's a point where like he's doing it.
He's done it like five times, and then ed Boone's like, wait, actually,
instead of like just kind of like dropping your arm,
what if you like yanked, like do like a little
yank's like really add some like you know, make it
more dynamics. So you just see him do the yank,
and then you're like, oh, that's it. That's the that's
the rope spear. Now you just need to say you
get over here and there it is. But yeah, it's
it is there get back moment for.
Speaker 1: Me, that's so cool.
Speaker 4: That's like the kind of thing they like try to
emulate in like prequels to stuff of like what do
we showed the moment that what's like an example, I
don't know, it's just to do it artificially is so cheesy,
but to see it in real life, it's like that's
why people are trying to do it all the time,
because it is so cool to see it in real time.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 4: This is also to be clear of people that aren't
familiar with this. This also has Mortal Kombat games in it.
Speaker 3: You can play. It's not just a documentary, no, no, no,
it's yeah.
Speaker 2: It's so it's a collection of Mortal Kombat primarily one
through four, okay, and like, but like multiple versions of each.
So it's like, oh, the various arcade versions, the various
home console versions. They have the like super rare like
wave version of MK three that I think this is
the first time it's ever been playable outside of just
the original cabinet. I think m K four, I believe
is the only one that I think it's just the
arcade version. But it's not like there's only one version
of MK four compared to the multile versions of one
in three. But it's also got the less talked about
handheld entries of Mortal Kombat, Deadly Alliance and which is
kind of how far as far as it goes in
like the time, like like it doesn't include the actual
like console versions of Deadly Alliance or Deception, but it's
got like those game Boy and GBA games in there.
And then for me, it's it's it's funny because these
these games are terrible. But it also includes the the
adventure games like Mortal Kombat Mythology. Sub Zero and Mortal
Kombat Special Forces, two infamously terrible games. Probably it's still
like legitimately two of the worst games ever made. I've
but it's it's cool to have them available on modern
platforms just for preservation sake. Like I have a physical
copy of Special Forces, which is the game that stars
Jackson was on PS one and I beat that game
in college. It is an awful, awful video game. I
playing it, but I I have well, speaking of which
I I do have a I do want to play
sub Zero because I never I never owned sub Zero.
I remember when a friend of mine got it when
it came out, and I went to his house and
we were both super exciting. We were both really into
moral combat and we're like, oh man, it's gonna be great.
Is this a side scroller with sub Zero? And then
it's just the epitome of garbage. But now at least
it's a little easier because it has those games have
safe states and a rewindability in this package, so it's
and I think they also they've modernized the controls as well.
I have not fired up sub Zero yet. I've just
kind of been jumping around to traditional Fighters, But yeah,
I have thought about like, is this a super replay?
Is fine, he's getting through the entirety of Sub Zero.
We have it was one of the earliest regular replays
was Mythologies, So you know, who knows we'll stay too,
no promises there, but you know it's it's cool to
dive in there and just said just throw hands. It's
got my favorite to d entry, which is more Combat Trilogy.
I think that's the best of the old school game.
So being able to have that to fire up at will,
I don't have to keep dusting off the physical copy
I own anymore. I know there's been some issues, particularly
on PlayStation. It sounds like, well like online play that
I know Digital Clips has been kind of working on.
I have not tried to play online. Well scratch that,
I've not tried to play online since release. There was
an issue where so Brian Shaye reviewed this game and
he wanted the testing online kind of pre launched because
we were underneed to understand it that the service will
be open. So we tried to play together and then
realize that there's no option to create private lobbies, like
you can't just play that's another friend online at will.
You have to just kind of hop into a public
lobby and then hope that you meet each other. Yeah,
and we couldn't do it, even though you know, this
is pre launch and no one's playing it, and we're
playing like a very specific version of K three, and
it's like, okay, we have to be the only two
in here, and neither of us could match up with
each other or anyone else. But I believe they've said
that that, like expanded online options are coming via a
patch like later on. Uh, so you know, if you're
looking to play online with friends, you might want to
wait for that before diving in.
Speaker 1: Does this have rollback?
Speaker 2: I believe so. Don't quote me on ned.
Speaker 3: I believe so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, correct, and I believe it's I don't know if
it's for every single game, but I think it's supposed
to be for most of them. But I mean that
in itself is wild, like the idea of playing m
k onet code.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they do talt roll back. I typed in MK
Legacy Collection rollback net code and our review comes up.
It's the first first search result, which you love to see.
Speaker 3: You love to see.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so apparently it does taut rollback net code
despite being able to really play together.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Alex, Also did you when you type that in?
Did you? How did you spell collection with a k? Okay?
Just making sure you know, just love to call it.
Put the phone down and I have to call the
police on you.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, please please add to all of your searches
minus AI so that it just shows search results and
not Google's AI.
Speaker 2: B Oh Is that the way around that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just type in minus AI at the end.
Also get because like people are like, well, just don't
use Chrome, and I'm like, I wish I could. There's
a lot of things I have to use that for
my job.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's a little too much of a scors to
Earth solution.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, so do minus AI and the search results
or I have now installed on my laptop at least
a Google Chrome extension that disables all AI search results.
Speaker 2: I guess you could say that's the fatality code for AI.
Speaker 1: Yes, I love that.
Speaker 3: It's good spell fatality without a and I is that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's true, that's true.
Speaker 2: That is true. But what am I.
Speaker 1: Saying with that equals fatality?
Speaker 2: Also your spine out of your body.
Speaker 3: You can also go in and in my Chrome settings,
I have it.
Speaker 4: So when I search in the bar, there's a bunch
of different tabs of Google, and there's like the all
tab that it defaults to, and then there's like images
and videos and stuff. One of the tabs just Web
and it doesn't have any like auto populating stuff, and
so that's my mind defaults to the web tab and
I just get websites.
Speaker 2: This is awesome good. Also on the subject fatalities, what's
cool about this collection is they have a feature where
you can have unlimited fatality time. At the end of matches.
You can turn off the like just to the second. Yeah,
Like it just gives you like unlimited time to practice
them so that when you do play against other people,
you can just bust them out and I'll be like, well,
this guy so good he burned me alive a scorpion.
Who would have thought. But yeah, I'm having a really
good time with it. Like I said, this is like
a dream for me. I even had it in mind
when I did a big feature on Digital Clips a
couple of years ago for the magazine where I was
interviewing Chris Cohler, who was one of the heads of
the gold Mash collection.
Speaker 1: Chris Khler for sharing the recommendation of the Beep Store
in Achihabra. Ever since I learned he I think I
think I might have stumbled upon it, like a couple
months before on a trip before he went on Kelsey
Lewin's show. But at one point in time they were
discussing like their favorite retro game shops, and he said
Beep and I was like, oh, that's the one in
the basement I went to, and I kind of solidified
it as Okay, I'm it's good to know that this
is like a known banger of a place. I know
bangers and uh, and so that is like every time
I go, I go to that store because of Chris
Kohler's a shout out.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, when I did the feature about Bad Weight,
like in my head I was just talking about because
he was talking about dream projects that he has, like
you know, his dream project is Miyamoto Mario for like
a gold Master thing, which of course, of course it
would be, and in my mind is like combat would
be pretty cool too. So I'm glad that happened. And
I know most people, For most people, the main event
is going to be the collection of games, which you know,
that's great and absolutely but if you're a gold Master fan,
like this is this is what you expect, Like it
doesn't really shake up what they've done before in terms
of the interactive documentary, but it's still as well done
and thankfully nether realm is a good topic in terms
of the sheer amount of footage and like materials that
they have saved over the years. Like there's a lot
of like you know, old arcade like advertisements and like
design dogs like John Tobias has his notebook where you
see the earliest drafts of the Mortal Kombat story, and
like the characters with their old names and he's just
writing them down his archetypes of like Raydon mentor question
Mark and just like like Michael Grimm, which was Johnny
Cage's old name, like seeing him referred to in his
old name for a while. So yeah, there's a lot
of really cool just like physical material that I've spent
like minutes just like zooming in and just reading his
like thankfully well written notes in terms of like he's
got good handwriting, which is nice just being like, man,
it's wild to see such an iconic cash as you know,
just someone scribbles on a notebook just being like, I
don't know what, if what do we call lu Kang.
We had this like overly long Japanese name before we
shortened it down to lu Kang, And Striker was in
the game before Sonya Blade and Jacks were a thing,
and it's like weird little fun nuggets like that. So yeah,
I'm enjoying it. I'm excited to get through the rest
of it.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of getting through the rest of it, the
episodic release of Dispatch continues Charles. I know you had
plans to play episode five and six, right I did?
Speaker 2: What happened?
Speaker 4: Yeah, my safe data got messed up, which was annoying.
I'm still not sure exactly what the issue is. I
haven't like reached out to support or anything yet, so
it could be fine.
Speaker 1: But yeah, from what I've.
Speaker 4: Seen, it's if you are playing on a save, if
you try to make a new save, or you just
open up a new save file, which I must have done,
but I don't really remember doing it. And it's when
you exit the game on that new save that it
apparently is like messing up people's save data. Because I'll
load the game in and it don't think you haven't
done anything. Even if you switch to the older save file,
and it looks like for a lot of people to
fix is you play the first episode up until it
does the first save point, then you can exit that
second save and reload your first save. But for mine,
it has seemingly only remembers my episode one. Progress has
erased episodes two through four, which is frustrating. So eventually,
either I'll get support to help me out, or I'll
just have to replay episodes two through four, which isn't
the end of the world. But have not played the
newest episodes. But I still like the game obviously, and Alex,
you finally got a chance to play.
Speaker 1: It where I did.
Speaker 2: Where are we all at real quick? By the way,
because I'm I still have only played the first two
episodes just because I've been busy.
Speaker 1: I finished the second episode last night, so I've started
this week playing it for the first time, and every
most not every evening, because I've only done too but
two of my nights this week. Since Monday, I have
sat down and played a Dispatch episode right before bed,
and it's kind of like a It's a lot better
of a thing to like slow down and like still
get to enjoy like a story, yeah, without having to
play Arc Creators right before I go to bed, because
like that's the game I've been playing, and I'm like,
I should like do something more chill before, right.
Speaker 2: Before you could wind down when you've played something a
little bit.
Speaker 1: More yeah, and dispatches like that. The frequency that that's
operating on is is much more chill, and it's been
It's been a nice way to in my evenings before
headed to bed, and I I really love it. I
know there's some some discourse it having bad writing on Yeah.
Speaker 3: I just missed those claims.
Speaker 2: I've enjoyed the writing quite quite a lot, at least
in the episodes I've.
Speaker 1: Seen, so I agree. I think the writing is just fine.
I really dig the characters in some of their their motivations,
and like, I really like one of the best parts
about superhero media is, you know, seeing the creative ways
in which heroes use their powers. Right obviously, and last night,
at the end of episode two, this is not a spoiler,
but just like they reveal how there's like a water
guy and he kind of waterman or whatever. Yeah, and
like he he kind of gets featured in episode two
and I don't know what I was I was thinking.
But at the end he used his power to like
clean off. He's like doing janitorial work, and I don't know,
I was just thinking he like spawn water or something,
but he starts coughing up water and I'm like, that's
your power is you have to just spits its? Yeah,
so funny.
Speaker 2: Also he's played by Joel Haver, who was a very
funny YouTuber I've always been a fan of. He does
some really good like I've never watched the SNA.
Speaker 3: You might have seen it, Alex or I don't. Okay,
he's very very distinctive.
Speaker 4: Animation style, but there's a lot of like video game
adjacent stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's very funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and yeah, I'm I'm I'm just really enjoying the game.
You know, the the kind of tactical many games are.
Speaker 2: I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't really love the hacking many games, although there
was a moment last night where I beat one of
the hacking mini games, just Under the Wire is one
of the timed ones, and that was cool. That felt like, really,
I do feel like a hacker, but when there's no
timer on them, it just feels like busy work. There's
something like that. The timer to it.
Speaker 4: There are not bad, they're just like there there are
later ones that do like raise the stakes a little bit,
and like episodes three and four, because there's like enemy
guys that.
Speaker 3: Will be in there.
Speaker 1: It's like if I fail, I'm gonna let down my well,
it's like happen.
Speaker 3: You're like, there's like the anti virus software.
Speaker 1: Is basically like in the minigame.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and it'll be stuff of like you can activate
this bridge to this next area, but the enemy's over there,
so you'll feel like time it right to like try
to isolate him or to get around them and stuff.
So yeah, I under I don't think it's like the
best mini game in the world, but I think in
the grand spe of things, I'm just like, yeah, it
comes and goes and it's fine.
Speaker 2: It's not like but I do like how like the
actual dispatch gameplay, like working as a dispatcher is like
really good and like really fun. Like I was sucked
into it. I was almost like semi dreading it initially
just because I was really enjoying sort of like the
story and like making choices and stuff. And then it's
like almost literally feeling like, oh, I gotta go to
work now. Yeah, and then realizing like after the first
kind of like tutorial and then once you really start
doing it's like, oh, this is actually this is like
really like I'm into this, Like I'm like really like
like involved with like considering like who is the best
superhero to send out, like I'm reading all their like
little bios and like okay, like and then also like
I like synergizing them of like maybe yeah, like whis
two go to go together to most and some of
it is just like like kind of getting to know
the personalities enough to kind of go. I think you
would actually be a bad public speaker for this, like yeah,
this like community event, just because I've had interactions with you.
It's like, uh, like I didn't like talking to you,
so I doubt you're going to be like a good
spokespotion for us, So maybe I'll hang you back. But yeah,
it gets like intense in a way that I maybe
wasn't completely expecting.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I remember when we first started talking about this
game Charles on the podcast a couple of weeks ago,
and you had mentioned in the dispatch minigame stuff. It's
really not a mini game. It's like a it's a
fully fledged part of the game. The hacking is a minigame,
whereas this is like a pretty well fleshed out system
that you're interacting with. But you know, I remember you
had mentioned like, oh, I'm kind of like taking a
guess based on character design and like behavior about like
who I should send, because it's not always clear where
you should send people, Like sometimes it's like you're gonna
need to punch stuff. It's like, okay, we I'm gonna
obviously some of the guy.
Speaker 2: Who we need a smart person for this, Yeah.
Speaker 4: And to be okay, you can see everyone's stats also,
so I'm going like, yeah, it'll say we need someone
to punch this, and I'm like, well, this guy's got
really high, you know, offense stats, so I'm gonna say that.
Speaker 1: However, some of them are more ambiguous, and that's when
you're like, I'm kind of going off of vibesh and
like I feel like this person, I'm I feel like
they would be well suited to this, and then seeing
that either go horribly wrong or seeing it actually pay
up and be like oh I was right is really satisfying.
Speaker 2: I had one where the girl's like, oh, there's a
cat and a trading, but you know, we need to
get it down, but also we don't want to scare
this child, and.
Speaker 1: Like none of the ugly ones, none of I thought
about Sonar.
Speaker 2: Like Sonar is like the Batman, Like he's literally he's
literally just man bat from Batman but in a suit,
and he's like really smart. And I was like, well,
he can fly, so he'd be able to get the
cat down pretty quick. But also he's a bat creature child,
So like which one? What am I? Which one is
the what matters more here?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's the like stuff I wasn't mentioning because I
think the game hadn't come out yet. Now there's a
little bit more, so I can talk about the mechanics
a little bit more. As you play the game, you'll
like get to like level up your heroes basically, and
they each have like a passive ability and you get
like a.
Speaker 3: Second one for a lot of thumb. You get to
choose what it is.
Speaker 4: You can kind of like spec them into certain areas
of like oh I really want this guy to do
this or that guy to do one. I don't know
if it's an unlocked thing or later thing, but there's
like a big rocky guy whose name I can't remember. Yeah, yeah,
voiced by Yeah he's not raised the way Wait really yeah,
rap Gravy.
Speaker 1: You don't know who young Gravy is.
Speaker 2: Marcus should I you don't need to, you don't need to.
Speaker 3: Butfluencer he's a rapper.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like he's but he is known for for
dating older women. That's like part of his persona. That
random U that's like he was he's dating somebody very prominent.
Speaker 4: It was like Addison Ray's mom or something like that.
Speaker 3: It was like a TikTok.
Speaker 1: Yeah he's like thirty maybe, yeah, thirty.
Speaker 2: I think that's if you're thirty. I think at that
point you're like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, anyway, Google who has younger?
Speaker 2: I hope that's part of his character that only dates
older superheroes.
Speaker 4: He has a thing where if he's the only one
in the party, he fills up all the other slots
and his stats like increase proportionally, which I think is
like a really cool ability that I like using with him.
Speaker 2: Because he's like a tanky guy. Because there was like, oh,
we need a guy that can kind of take some day.
Speaker 4: It's a thing of like his stats will increase by
I'm making this number up because I don't remember if
it's like twenty five percent per empty slot. So you
can drop them in a lot of stuff sold and
will do really well. But yeah, and then yeah, yeah,
I really like how there's ways that like your roster
can change, and like the your hero powers can change
and stuff that like keeps it interesting from chapter chapter
I think it's easy to play. Not that you guys
are saying this, but I think someone could play the
first half and be like all right, I get it
and not understand like it is going to get more
interesting as you level up and get more items.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like even in the second episode, they start introducing
more of the like like team synergies of like oh
if you put this person with this person, then they
can do this this really specific ability or their stats
go up in a weird way, or like oh okay cool. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I did try to find out who Young Gravy
is dating. Then I couldn't sit through it. It was a
really long it was like a four minute doc.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was.
Speaker 2: It was it's its own Wikipedia.
Speaker 1: The only one I saw Amaranth, who's a streamer. Okay,
and I didn't get through the rest I was, I'm sorry,
I let you guys down.
Speaker 3: It's okay.
Speaker 2: Sorry.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I went to singles on his Wikipedia and
it's his songs, not the singles he's dated.
Speaker 3: That's really funny we have that. Yeah, No, I was
gonna say.
Speaker 4: Also, the thing we mentioned before, I don't know if
it's like super clear if you haven't played Dispatch, not familiar,
very much an adult game. There is like a good
bit fame, not a family game. Lots of swearing, Yeah,
multiple penises, multiple I won't I don't want to spoil.
I don't even spoil what episode it is. But one
of episodes in three or four has like a much
more extended, uh sexual scene that you.
Speaker 3: Don't don't play that in the living room with your
family around. Yeah, I've been playing it on the TV
in like my living room.
Speaker 2: Uh.
Speaker 4: And just the way I've been playing games really is
I'm on the couch my fiancee X and her mom's
just also in the room doing something else.
Speaker 3: And this is one where like her mom was out
of the room and I was.
Speaker 4: Like, oh, thank goodness she was not in the room
for that, because that would be very awkward.
Speaker 1: There's a reason I only played in my room at
night in the dark.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it would it be more awkward if your
family did walk in on this? And is it more
awkward if they were like horrified the way you would expect,
or they get engaged and they start offering like, oh,
you should make this decision. Actually they started giving their
their two cents and how you should navigate this scene.
Speaker 3: I don't know, it's all bad.
Speaker 1: Do those scenes have interact like choices?
Speaker 4: The one I'm thinking of does not, and there might
be more of them later on. Just the one that
occurred to me, I was like, oh wow, that was
a lot.
Speaker 2: Okay, that's good. They're like to, no, you should hit X.
Speaker 4: You should know that was like that was like an
old god of war thing, right, there's like quick time
sex events. Yeah, the Greek got wars yet Yeah, qut
sex scenes? Yeah, not like it wasn't like that at least,
or maybe it was.
Speaker 3: I don't know. I don't know it. You'll you'll know
it when it happens, that I will say.
Speaker 1: When I first started this game, speaking of QTEs, I
put it on cinematic mode. Oh, was like, oh, I
don't really know if I want to do the QTEs
like I kind of just in the mood to like
watch this thing and then play the Dispatch gameplay. But
then I but then in the scenes where you have
to make choice, there's just like really long awkward pauses
or like the action just slows down but there's nothing
on screen. I was like, all right, I'm turning the
QTS on because this is not yeah, not good.
Speaker 2: I looked those on just because I wasn't sure what
I thought. I was afraid cinematic mode would be no engagement,
like you just want to watch this as a TV
show spices, Okay, it doesn't make that clear into description,
So I just like, I'm just gonna go QT.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would just recommend go qt s. It's there's
like a weird like awkwardness to the scenes if you
have it in cinematic mode, in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Plus you can speed by item faster in case a
family member walks in on a questionable one exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, but yeah, I'm really enjoying Dispatch. It's
it's probably gonna be in my top ten, I think
almost for sure, as long as like I know this
thing's still coming out and like we don't know how
it ends. But as long as things don't take a
wild left turn and and the quality just goes downhill,
Like I'm I'm really enjoying it. It's it's it's breezy,
you know, it's it's not the deepest thing, but there
is there's some you know, I think I got a
little jaded or tired of like the adult superhero thing
with like Invincible and The Boys. I was kind of like, Okay,
I get it, superheroes can be bad, and this is
kind of doing a similar thing, but not to not
nearly to that extent.
Speaker 4: The Boys and Invincible both have like an element of
like almost like misery, like reveling in the misery of
the character nihilism. Yeah, yeah, of just being like what
if you were hear but your life was terrible and
it was so violent. Everyone's bad and there's like, oh know,
there's enjoyable things about both those shows, for sure. But
Dispatch is a lot more adult, just in like it's
an adult comedy, and I personally don't feel the superheo
fatigue as much with it because it's so much more
focused on like the characters and their relationships than it
is Agree as heroes.
Speaker 1: One hundred percent agree Yeah, it's really working for me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's cool.
Speaker 1: Well cool, Well, before we round out the rest of
the show and get out of here, I do want
to kind of open it up, Charles, you had mentioned like,
and this is very true for all of us. We're
kind of in like goady cram sessions.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I mentioned at the top of the show that we
are actively having our Game of the Year talks a
Game Informer right now, and you know, we've kind of
got like a list of the nominees as they are
for like our top ten, and we're all kind of
playing catch up, even though we still have a lot
more time for our personal lists. But we are definitely
that point where it's like it's kinda go time. And
so a lot of us are doing like cram sessions
because we want to, like you know, for making big
decisions about like what gets removed, what gets added, You
want to be informed and make sure like you are
being fair, so all the games there, and so yeah,
a lot of us are playing other games and kind
of catching up. Charles, what games are you are you
catching up on any if any?
Speaker 3: Yeah, the main one I've been playing is finally playing.
Speaker 4: Clare obscure, which Alex and I were bonding about before
the podcast of neither of us really got that far
in it because we had like the first big major
twist spoiled for us.
Speaker 1: Both of us.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I definitely think the wins out of my sales.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was exactly the phrase I'm gonna use. And
now I'm finally getting around to it, and I'm like, oh, yeah.
Speaker 3: This game rocks.
Speaker 4: And it's always It's always a nice.
Speaker 3: Thing when you go into a game for one.
Speaker 4: Thing, Like I think Dispatch is a good example of
Like I went into that for the story and was supposedly surprised, like, oh,
I also think it's fun. I also like the dispatching stuff.
Speaker 2: This is one I was.
Speaker 4: Going into four the music and the story and the
aesthetics and the like acting performances. And I'm at a
point now where I'm like, oh, I love this combat.
I'm like having a lot more fun with it, like
eight hours in than I was at like two hours in, obviously,
because it's I'm just getting a lot more stuff in. Yeah,
but yeah, I don't need to like spend a long
time explaining why this is a.
Speaker 3: Good game, but it is a good game this year.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And then the other thing I've been doing is
we we each have our games that we're like arguing
for Game of the Year.
Speaker 3: We have stuff that's up there.
Speaker 4: The one I was like, I want to make sure
I'm like fully informed, know what I'm talking about. So
my fiance Listen and I we started a new save
in Blueprints. We got to the credits the first time,
but my understanding of the game is that there's so
much more past that, and I just never had time
to do it. But instead of us just jumping back
in that one save, we kept our notes from that save,
so we know all the things we've used to know.
Speaker 1: We just started information change, like numbers and that kind
of stuff.
Speaker 3: Uh, I don't think so.
Speaker 4: I think it's pretty much a game that like if
you know the stuff, because some of it's pretty specific
when it's like a date or something.
Speaker 1: Some of them are like safes and that kind of thing.
And I wasn't scrambled those or not those are.
Speaker 4: The same because well, and I can't even explain why
without spoiling it.
Speaker 3: But though those are all the story stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I we we did a run on day
five yesterday and almost got to credits, but there was
like one part of the game we like we just.
Speaker 3: Didn't have it yet. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it was like a room that we hadn't found
yet that if we had gotten it, we would have
gotten to the end. And so now I was like,
I was like kind of bummed by that. But it's
obviously still like it's still like the game wanted wanting
to get more into like the deeper stuff to kind
of defend it the Game of Year thing, because one
of those games that like you can spend I know,
people are like, oh, I spend one hundred hours and
I just feel like I'm understanding this game where I
just got to the true, true ending or whatever.
Speaker 3: I'm like, what does that mean?
Speaker 4: Versus there's some people I don't want to name names
or fingers, but some people on but also just some
people in general that like played a few hours of
it and they're like, yeah, it's not for me. And I
understand when a game is not for you, but it's
hard with Blueprints because there's like so many layers of
it that to get a little bit into layer one
and say this isn't a game for me is like
I feel like you don't even understand.
Speaker 3: What the game is yet if you're stopping at that point.
Speaker 4: So I'm hoping to be able to come into the
talks and be like, if you haven't played it, this
is like trying to do so without spoiling necessarily. But like,
this is why it's such a big deal and why
we can't just kind of write this off as like another.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it's gonna rank pretty high for us.
Speaker 2: I don't think so. Yeah, it's in my it's pretty
high up on my personal.
Speaker 1: Ten, Like it's in my top five.
Speaker 2: Still. I rode credits on it after putting in like
forty plus hours.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I rode credits. I just looked on Steam. Mine
is thirty three hours.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like I found a lot of stuff, yeah, like
like non critical stuff.
Speaker 1: Same.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I did it after twenty seven hours I think.
But the catch was that I I did it. I
did it essentially co op because I was playing the
game and Alyssa was next to me, like writing notes.
We have like a whole color coordinated journal and stuff,
so some some puzzles were a lot easier when you
have like two.
Speaker 3: Heads doing at the same time.
Speaker 4: It is great ideal, good, good, relationship building, but yeah,
Blueprints is I'm revisiting it, but I already really like it.
But that's the other one where I'm like, I'm pulling
for it.
Speaker 1: That's cool.
Speaker 2: I dig that, I know I've got like I'm actually
I'm also still finishing Clay up Skier like I'm I
was told by Wesley who did finish it when I
asked them like just a progress report, like here's where
I'm at. How long? And He's like, you had brought
up probably like a solid eight hours, like you're not
far from the end, like if you just mainlined it.
And then Kyle also mentioned, like I guess one of
his frustrations with the game was like you know you can,
you can just kind of mainline it because a lot
of these sort of like the big in game stuff
doesn't really unlock until like the last act or like
right when you're at the end of the game. I
think it's just three.
Speaker 3: Okay, I mean I just started.
Speaker 2: At least it feels like it's three because if I'm
if that's the correct estimation from where I'm at, then
there's no room for more than three. Yeah, because yeah,
I'm pretty things are happening where I'm at but yeah,
like you know the kind of like when you're when
you're going around the world, do you find like those
those optional fights that are like they tell you like, hey,
you're gonna die. Yeah. I was just like He's like, yeah,
that doesn't really change until like the very end. So
don't like because I kept checking back every time I
like hit a milestone of like surely I'm ready now,
like I can mess up some things pretty good, and
it still gets me the like you will get stomped
into the dirt and yeah, he's just him telling me,
like stop going back, just literally don't wait until you're
at the last boss fight too. And it's like, okay,
that's great, I'm gonna ignore those. Then you know, there's
other stuff you can do. But in terms of those
big ones, it's like, okay, I can just pretend they
don't exist. So I'm trying to blow past that. I've
start I've like gotten into Ghost of Yota, like in
Earnest now because I only play like the first couple
hours for the stream we did, and then I just
fell back into review games and just so many other stuff. Yeah,
but I've picked it back up. I've put like probably
like eightish hours into it, I still have not killed
any of the ota six years.
Speaker 3: Yeah, my first one takes a while, And.
Speaker 2: I guess I don't know if we're going because they
kind of leave it up to you of who to
target when it seems like so at least the one
I'm going towards, I'm like at their doorstep, but there's
like more steps involved.
Speaker 3: Is it the.
Speaker 2: I've chosen to ony?
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I would be surprised. I don't actually know
what it looks like to do the other ones.
Speaker 2: But I'm curious too, because there's it's very like, I
think what you say, like the narrative kind of feels
like that should be the first one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you'd have to only to do the other one second,
but maybe it's yeah, yeah, I won't look that up.
Speaker 2: Actually, I literally only chose it because it was like
the closest one to where I was standing at the
time that they gave me the option. But I would imagine,
like since I would imagine you can do them in
any order, because otherwise why I even have the other
ones open and available? Because then that kind of speedy
illusion of choice. Yeah, it's like if you're if you're
if you're telling a directed narrative, then just just do that.
But yeah, I'm kind of glad a little bit that
I chose that one first, just because of some some
big things that happen where it's like, oh, I wonder
how this would hit if I'd done this even second.
But it does make me wonder what the other stuff,
like what happens there, and maybe I'll change my mind.
I'm like, oh, maybe that would have been better than
come first. But I'm enjoying it. I've a you know,
gorgeous game. Believe it or not. It's very pretty gamned
if you hasn't heard about this, but it's a game
I don't get tired of looking at, and I'm having
fun with it so far. I'm enjoying out too as
a character so far. Yeah, there's like a bunch of
you know in terms of like there's the big stuff
and then there's like little things that I kind of
squeeze in that aren't going to make our top ten.
But there's stuff I would still like to, you know,
just get done. Because there's like shorter like I've been
playing a lot of of is the Seat Taken? Like
I'm at the end of it.
Speaker 3: Yes, I love that game. I was like debating.
Speaker 4: I was like, I don't think enough people have played it,
and it's not like a it's not like a huge
budget like intense experience, but I'm just like, I just
love everything that game does.
Speaker 1: It's such a nice.
Speaker 2: And it's a nice game to just play when I'm
like listening to a podcast or I've had wrestling on
in another monitor, and it's just like it's perfect for that,
Like I'm just gonna move these little guys around and
then have something that was happening by me, and it's
like really fun. So I've played it just in chunks
of like when I want to consume other content, I
will put is the Seat Taken on and I'm literally
like two worlds away from the finale. So I finished
that soon A keeper the Double Fine game like that.
That's another short thing, but I'm enamored with the presentation
of that game. Like I think that game, when we
get to it, is like a best art contender. It
was a beautiful game. If you guys have started it yet,
but it is like.
Speaker 1: I've watched I was watching Janet Garcia stream it for
nax a little bit. I was lurking.
Speaker 2: Okay, looks gorgeous. Yeah, I think it's their best looking
game double fines. I mean, and they put out some
like really cool, like just visually interesting looking game, but
yeah A Keeper is like it's like their art sensibilities.
But like also they've been injected with a ton of
money from Microsoft. Yeah, so it's like the best of
both worlds. Uh yeah, yeah, there's God. It's like I
don't want to go down my full ecause I think
we're all just hopping around touching things. I will say, Alex,
You're gonna be really proud of me. I haven't started dyet,
but for the first time in many, many, many years,
I have a new Pokemon game because I got a
cho and I'm like, I'm going to play a Pokemon
game for the first time in forever. This is gonna
be interesting.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I haven't put enough time into it as I
want to. I'm only like rank why so I'm like
very early. Yeah, I think it's it's yeah, maybe maybe
I'm X. I don't know, I'm very early. I don't
like how slow the intro is to that game. It
takes forever.
Speaker 4: Every every Pokemon game is a slow intro, but this
one feels particularly.
Speaker 2: Like I'm in tar Yeah, compared to like the intro
to Twilight Princess and Skywards Sword infamously slow star those
Twilet Princess, but at least tilet Princess earlier, it's more
intriguing like Pokemon game, I know exactly what I'm going
to be doing, where I feel like Twilet Princesses, there's
more mystery in the beginning. Sure, this one.
Speaker 1: It's like, I know what I'm going to be doing
in this entire game, let.
Speaker 2: Me just do it. You know, I got to catch
them all. I get it. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So granted, it's a game that's meant for young
people that adults can also enjoy, So I get.
Speaker 2: Like ourselves, we are young people.
Speaker 1: We are young people. At least two of us on
the call are.
Speaker 2: But I'll let you guess who I don't know.
Speaker 1: Maybe the guy who I know who Young Gravy was.
Maybe that's a giveaway. Yeah, yeah, it's just.
Speaker 2: Old Gravy, Old Country Gravy.
Speaker 1: I have a couple of games that are on my
my kind of quick hit list that have been meaning
to go back to. I wanna I installed Kingdom, Come
Deliverance to full full disclosure. I boycotted the first game
because of some really dumb comments from I think it
was a creative director at the time, and I was like,
I don't need to get this thing my money, and
that's kind of what my energy was to the second one.
But I've kind of had that battle on my head
where I'm like, am I going to write off an
entire game because one guy at the studio said some
dumb stuff, Whereas like a bunch of people worked really
hard on this game, and I hear excellent things about it.
So I'm like, I think they I don't know, but
I think they backtracked on like the first game was like,
you know, no, no people of color in this game.
I'm like, and there are people because of history, and
people were like, no, actually, if you look into history,
there are plenty of people of color in this era.
H And they kind of they kind of admitted I
think they were wrong and changed that in the second
one from what I hear, So like, I kind of
want to get I want to give it a shot.
I've heard great things from Wes on staff about it,
so I want to I want to play that a
bit because I think it's definitely going to be a talker.
Speaker 2: I think that's all of our secret shame game is
Kingdom Come.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think it's also like, uh not, this is not
shade to Kingcome deliverancey specifically, but it's also a thing.
Speaker 2: It's like it's when.
Speaker 4: A game is that long, it's and your job is
to play a lot of games, it's always easier to
not play the game than it is to play it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I think it's a.
Speaker 4: Thing of like, uh, it's it's just hard to be like, oh,
all of us got to play that game, because that's
like five or six other games worth of game in
this one time frame. Wes is the one that reviewed
it for us, so he like had to play it.
But that is one one thing about like, as like
game critics, like a big weakness we have is like
when we're playing a lot of games, it's really hard
for people to make time to play they're really really
big games. Like I don't know if I don't know
if anyone else on staff finished Balder Skate three other
than me. Still I was far yeah, but like I
at the time finished it because I was only part
time working at Game Informers, so I had a lot
more free time than everyone else to actually finish that game,
and that's the only reason I did.
Speaker 2: And you're like, what did He's idiots, they can't make
time to finish.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was also like, you know, feverishly obsessed with that game,
but you know, just just the it is one of
the things that like there's not much we can do
unless we have like a much bigger staff where people
could like pick more games. We didn't have to worry
about covering it all out. But that I think that's
the thing that I feel bad about. But also like
if I had played that, then like there's a lot
of other games I wouldn't have had time for earlier
this year that I'm glad I got to check out.
Speaker 2: So it's hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the two I've I've besides Kingdom Come the other
two that I've gone back to, and I've I've been
reinstalling and stuff. One as like the multiplayer guy on staff,
I feel like I kind of feel like a responsibility
to like, oh, I should keep up with like the
big ones that came out this year. And I and
I really enjoyed super Vibe in the beta period late
last year, and it hit one point zero this year
in July, so I've been going back to that one,
and that one's like a really interesting, uh really interesting
multiplayer game, a lot of like mobile elements, but also
I remember early on they were talking about like Smash Bros.
Kind of like what those standoffs kind of look like.
But that one, that one, I'm I'm replaying right now,
and then I installed a biotic factor on my Steam
deck so I could. I'm doing a fresh save on
that so I can. I was playing with co op
with people and they all dropped off, and it's hard
to go back to a co op save file when
it's just you. So I'm like, Okay, I'm going to
do a solo run because they've continued to add expansions
to that game, Like one just came out this past
week and it's one of those games like overwhelmingly positive
on Steam and it's like, Okay, I want to make
sure that this is like cover present. Yeah, yeah, whether
it's on just my list or even maybe i'd maybe
I decide not to include it, but like I want
to give it a better a better shake than I did,
because I really enjoyed what I was playing, maybe more
so than the other people I was playing with. But
but yeah, those are those are two that I've been
kind of going back.
Speaker 2: To in a hypothetical scenario where let's say you had
unlimited time to play one game in your backlog for
twenty twenty five, which would.
Speaker 1: It be, hmm, like with the rest of the year,
I can't only pick one of these games.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like you're just like, I need, I need unlimited
time for this one game that I really want to.
I know it's important or I think is important that
I just want to. I would not have time to
play otherwise.
Speaker 1: Honestly, it might be about abiotic factor, like I could say,
clear up Scire, But I feel like we have plenty
of representation on staff, people who are like vying for
that game that I'm like, I trust y'all. If y'all
you know when it comes down, it's gonna rank pretty
high on our list. It's probably in consideration for like
our number one. You know, we're still having all those talks,
but I'm like, I've played it. I see why everyone
would enjoy it. And granted we said I had it
spoiled for me in several ways, and it kind of
again took the wind out of my sales. So I'm like,
you know, even though I don't want to sink time
into it, I can recognize based on what I've played
that it is such a high caliber game and the
performances from where I even the ones I had seen
were incredible. So it's like, okay, I'll take your word that,
like this is something that's worth you know, celebrating, whereas
I'd rather focus on something that's a little less. You know,
I don't think I might be the only one on
staff who is. I think Eric might have played a
little bit of abiotic factor because he was one of
the original people that was in my co Ops save
and he left. But you know, I would rather like
put my time into a game that to like make
sure our bases are covered, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I would probably do Kingdom Come Deliverance too,
just because.
Speaker 1: I, oh, actually, yeah, that's the right choice. I don't
know that's the right choice.
Speaker 4: Just it's just a game that, like Wes is so
passionate about, and nobody else even has like an educated
experience with, and it's a thing that I would like
to be able to say that it's good or that
it's not good or whatever, just like doing that. I
think the other one maybe is Ghost of Yote because
I have played like fifteen hours of it and I'm
kind of in it, but like I decided to pause
it and go play other stuff just because I was, like,
I know, I like this, Maybe it'll fall off at
the end, but there's other things I need to get to.
But I think I think the most impactful for like
Game Informer's sake would probably be Kingdom Come Deliverance too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, mine, mine pretty much probably came to Come Overance too.
If I a number two will probably be dest training
to Actually, like, I still have not despite playing thirty
hours of that game for the preview trip that I
took this year to Conjunter Productions, I still have not
gotten back to that point just because I've been so
busy with other games. Like I've gotten maybe a third
of the way to where I left off in Japan,
So I mean I have I still have like thirty
hours worth of like thoughts about it. But I keep
hearing that game ends real strong, Like everyone says it's
got a great finale, uh, and it's like, oh, I
want to see that, and I know I'm gonna I'm
gonna beat it. I just don't know if I'll be
able to get to that point all right. Actually definitely
want people get to that point by the time we
need to like lock in our top ten and stuff.
So that would be the other one. I guess. Put
me back in Kajima's like weird repurposed cafeteria in front
of the computer for thirty hours.
Speaker 1: Fair well, guys, I think that brings us to the
end of the show. It's been an amazing, amazing time
with you all. Thank you listeners for carving some time
out of your week. You know it means a lot.
I do want to I want to give a shout
out to a listener that, uh, you know, went very
much out of their way to send a handwritten note
to me. Pisa v Leo Vader a person named Josh
Hannanan who I believe is a Minnesota local and went
very much out of his way and wrote a very
kind note and gave me a a a gift card
for my wife and I to go on a date night.
Speaker 3: Randomly, Oh wow.
Speaker 1: Which I want to say, Josh, you should not give
me money. But the I I've literally tried to find
you on social media and I can't find you. Uh so,
I do want to just say, and I know Josh
said he was a big listener, So thank you, Josh.
It was very sweet of you. Do not give me
any any any any more money please.
Speaker 3: You know, but you know where you can give you money.
Speaker 4: Yeah, game dot com slash Subscribe exactly.
Speaker 1: That's where you can get a print and digital magazine subscription.
It's the best way to support us. It means a lot.
But uh yeah, guys, I think that's gonna that's gonna
be it this week. Follow Charles at Chuck Tuck three, six, five,
follow Marcus at Marcus Stewart seven, and you can follow
me at It's Van Aiken. Don't forget tune into our
live streams every week Wednesdays and Fridays, Twitch dot tv
Slash Game Informer. Watch our videos at YouTube dot com
Slash Game Informer. All right, that'll be it. Enjoy your week.
I hope everybody had a great Halloween and your November
is off to a great start. It's my birthday month.
Speaker 2: I just want to say my birthday this weekend.
Speaker 3: Oh dude, birthday.
Speaker 1: It's how old?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Thirty eight thirty eight? I think that nice. You're
like a young one on staff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, young Gravy, you gotta look it up for your birthday.
You're gonna love it.
Speaker 3: Are you guys the same star sign?
Speaker 1: No, he's a scorpio. He's a SCORPIONO, I'm.
Speaker 3: A Santarius later, okay, okay.
Speaker 1: Whenever I tell people A'm Sagittarius, they're always like, oh,
and I'm like, what does that mean?
Speaker 2: That the slowly back away from it?
Speaker 3: I don't even know what either of those are. I
just like, I was just curious.
Speaker 1: Scorpio is a scorpion, water sign, Sagittarius.
Speaker 4: Scorpios talk a lot more about astrology than I feel
like other signs.
Speaker 1: I think I'm an air sign.
Speaker 3: Well you don't.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying that, Like I hear things about scorpios
more than I hear things about Sagittarius. Is.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm a fire sign. Apparently hired. My wife just
poked her head in the room and says that it's fire.
Speaker 2: Like what a strology?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, already got guys. Everybody, enjoy your week. We'll
see you next week, next Friday. Bye,