Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to side Quest. My name is Dylan Muss,
and I'm joined by the haunted Taylor Field. I just
realized I forgot to play the intro music, so I'll
edit that in after. But Taylor, how are you doing tonight,
my friend?
Speaker 2: I am doing good. I'm doing good. Happy to be
here on the spooky Monday. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it is a spooky Monday. It's you know, October,
it's nearly Halloween, and so we have some topics to
fit the mood a little bit. We're talking about some
zombie games a little bit, which we did earlier this year,
but we're gonna revisit that in a different way. I
also talk about some of the games have been playing,
maybe a little chat about some Xbox stuff, and we're
gonna kick it off by talking about the draft, to
do a little draft checking, because a bunch of new
games have hit the draft since the last time we
did all of that, So how about we just kind
of get right into it today. Yeah, So, as I
mentioned the draft, if anyone forgets, we all the four
of us draft a bunch of games, a bunch of games,
and then we come back in August we draft even
more games if in case things have been delayed, and
then we kind of tally up the metacritics scores across
all these bad boys and then see you as the
highest number at the end of the year, and they
are the winner, the crowned winner. So yeah, let's check
in with this thing right now, Taylor. I hate to
break it to you, you're still in last place. You
had a couple of new games come out recently, Lego
Party with an eighty and Battlefield six within eighty three,
So good numbers to add on to your tally and
the things you have out now Wander Stop at eighty,
desk Randing two at eighty and nine, and Like a
Dragon at seventy nine for a total four hundred and eleven.
Jurassic World Evolution three actually comes out the day this
episode drops, so but the reviews aren't out yet. I
was checking that one, so you'll have some fresh points soon.
What do you what do you think that one's gonna
net you?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 1: That was your last pick. Okay, Wow, you're going eating
Yeah damn okay, So that would be tied for your
highest rated game of the year, up there with Tranting.
That'd be beautiful and then you have Anna one one
seven in November mid November, and then Metroid in December.
So I don't think you're having anything delayed. I think
you're pretty scott free at this point, which means if
anyone else has a thing delayed, you're probably beating them
at the very least. So even though you're in fourth
first place like maybe maybe we'll we'll see, there's definitely
some stiff competition. But in third place is Travis who
some recent additions. He had Hollid Nights Silksung at ninety one,
so juicy score there, Borderland's fourth and eighty one, and
Lego Voyagers at seventy nine, so you had a better
Lego game. You're your Lego Party at a eighty His
had seven.
Speaker 2: Fun of me for that too. This guy, sorry, what
did you say?
Speaker 1: Borderlands was Bordlands for eighty one actually feels kind of
higher than what I heard like reviews and things for it,
but he'll take that. He also had WWE two K
twenty five when it game eighty vou to eighty seven
screen shadows at eighty one, so that gives him a
total four hundred ninety two. He's still waiting on call.
Of Duty Black Ops seven and Kirby air Riders coming
out both mid November, so I think both of those
are coming out at this point, so I think he's
I think if me and Kirklan have anything delayed, which
is possible, I think you guys are kind of in
competition for number one. So I guess let's say you
did get an eighty for Jurassic Park, that would put
you guys pretty much tied, and then you're kind of
just battling out between Metroid and O and then Call
of Duty and Kirby, So that could go anyway. That's
gonna be a fun battle if it does come down
in that. I feel like that's extremely close. We could
see the first ever tie potentially and second Plazer right
now is me. I had a couple of nuke things
come up recently, which is Ghost of Yo tie eighty
six points and Ninja gid In four, which is out
like within minutes of us recording this. Maybe it's out
right now, but the reviews are out and that has
an eighty two currently, So that adds up with my
MLB the show for eighty three, South of Midnight, seventy seven,
Elderly Night Rain in seventy seven, which kind of hurts,
but then Monster a round of Whiles at ninety for
a total of four hundred and ninety five. I have
two things yet to come out. Outer World's two, which
is at the end of this month, I think next week,
so feeling good about that one. Previews have been good,
so I'm hoping for a nice, juicy score. But then
the ever elusive Marvel Cosmic Invasion, which I put for
the release date on our note, I just wrote, yikes,
because this mffort keeps sayings coming out this year. Gets
new trailers, they announced new characters, They've announced so many things.
They had a demo come out recently. They are assured,
oh yeah, it's coming out twenty twenty five. Very much
time left, guys. There's like two months and you're probably
not gonna release it like around Christmas times. Let's call
it a month and a half. So I don't know.
I hope it still comes out because it's one of
my most anticipated of the year if it does, but
I'm a little scared about just straight up the release
date of that one. But if that and Outer Worlds
do well, Outer Worlds is definitely coming out. Those both
do come out. I'm feeling pretty good because I think
both of them are gonna be decent scores. At the
very least Outer Worlds I think is gonna be like
eighty five plus. So feeling good with the exception of
freaking Marvel Cosmic Invasion, but hopefully that game does come
out pretty soon, and then sitting pretty ish in first
place as kirkla Patzer so he has five hundred and
sixty six points right now. He recently had Pokemon Legends
Za come out with seventy nine, Baby Steps come up
with a seventy seven that totals up with his MGS
Delta pick of eighty six, Mafia seventy four, Adam Fall
at seventy fours but Fiction at ninety one, and Doomed
Dark Ages eighty five. However, his last game on his
list is a Mina The Hollower, which was supposed to
come out Halloween Day but recently got delayed to an
unknown date, so it could still be this year, but
they haven't said. They haven't conferred what with's still coming
out this year. They have said nothing other than the
fact that yeah, we're delaying it, so there's a chance
it does come out this year. But I'm I think
Kirklea might have got screwed with this thing, because I
that would have been a good point one. But I
think it's maybe getting kicked to next year would be
my production. But even then early next year, there's so
many games coming out, so maybe they do just want
to stick it out in like December. I'm not sure,
but I'm I feel bad for him because he was
so damn close. They had the demo out, were previous
We're good coming out Halloween and then boom, just like that,
the rug pulled. So we'll see if he still gets
that one, because he obviously has a nice leader right now,
but he also just has the most amount of games
released and you know he's got he's got three games
that are in the seventies, so four. Even so, his
scores not so hot, you know. So I think if
Mina comes out, I think it still is pretty close
between the rest of us. Again, for me, it really
hinges on Marvel Cosmic Convision. That's everything right now. I
need I need that one to come together. So yeah,
that's that's kind of the state of things. And yeah,
we probably won't do another checking before the end of
the year, so next time we'll talk about this is
probably when we announced the winner next year and then
get into our draft for next one. We're already at
that point. Is that kind of crazy, because like mid
November is when they kind of chuck out the Game
Awards and alms to the people behind the scenes, and
then we're already into December, So that's coming up pretty
quick in terms of end of the year stuff, Game
of the Year, all those fun shows that happened, our podcast,
all that good stuff. So I know you excited for
this last not even quarter at this point, but I
guess we got like a little less than a quarter.
You excited.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the last hurrah, you know we'll get to.
I don't know, things get exciting in this in this
last little bit of the year, not just with the
drafts sake, but just things to look forward to coming
out next year, especially, that's what kind of gets me excited.
Speaker 1: So yeah, a good point because like with the just
insurmountable amount of things coming out next year, and even
like a lot of them early next year, as I mentioned,
the first three months of the year, I feel like
Game Awards is just lined up dominoes wise to just
knock it down and get like a killer show with
a bunch of great new trailers.
Speaker 2: But I don't know.
Speaker 1: At the same time, it could be like, oh, we've
seen these games. We already know they're coming out on A's
you know, new trailer for Double seven, but like, eh,
it's not that exciting me. Like the surprises kind of
get us more. If Keeley can land a GTA trailer,
then you know, obviously that'd blow up and be the
biggest because I think what the gt' six trailer, the
second one is like the biggest big game trailer of
all time on YouTube or something, So like, you know,
if he can line that up, I don't know what
it would cost him, but it would probably cost him
every freaking penny he's worth, I think. So I don't
know if he'll make it happen, but there's a bound
to be some exciting thing. So yeah, we will check
in with all of that. Okay, let's talk about the
games've been playing, Taylor, Why don't kick it off? What
have you been playing?
Speaker 2: So? I mean, I got I got two games, the
first one nothing new called Diddy, you know, the Halloween stuff.
Hold me back in that?
Speaker 1: Are you doing war Zone. You're doing just like multiplayer?
Speaker 2: What's going on doing the multiplayer? Unless you guys are
dropping on war Zone, then I would play war Zone,
but for now, I ain't.
Speaker 1: Got the hard drive space anymore.
Speaker 2: No hard drive space. Yeah, it's just the multiplayer is
good enough for me, unless unless you guys do bun
for war Zone. But I just wanted to try the
Halloween stuff they got instead of Nuke Town. It's Boo
Town and it's all like skeletons and ghosts and spiders
and all. That's super cool. It's fun. And they added
a the battle Pass is Predator themed, which is very
very sweet. So the Predator the ouches in there really
really stoked on playing as him. Then they added the
Predator bad Lands DLC pack. If you complete the battle
Pass you get the Predator from Prey. So if you
buy the battle Pass at the start, you get just
the generic Predator, and then if you complete the battle
Pass you then get the Prey Predator and there's a
bunch of other Predator stuff thrown in there.
Speaker 1: Wait, sorry, would you do you get? You can get
the Badline one? How do you get the bad Lands?
Speaker 2: That's a separate pack that you just buy out like
a character pack.
Speaker 1: Character Now does that come with l Fanning on the back?
Is that part of the costume?
Speaker 2: Not that I saw that would it would be sick.
You get a couple other cool things, but you don't
get to get her on the back. It's part of
the costume. You get him with a mask and without
a mask. Okay, else did they toss him? They just
they dropped also a character pack for Jason from Friday thirteenth,
so it was classic look. And then he's got like
a SWAT tactical outfit as well.
Speaker 1: So he's got from one of the movies.
Speaker 2: No, this is called Duty Exclusive like a movie. So
he's wearing like a heavy duty SWAT vest with like
grenades and like shotgun slugs on there, like clean looking,
and he's got his like hockey signature hockey mask also
looking clean. Like it's absolutely hilarious, how like polished he looks.
Just like to think of like this whole icon Jason
being on a SWAT recon level, just a one man army.
Speaker 1: Like going undercover or something, yeah, to be less suspicious,
but he's just so big and noticeable that it doesn't
work exactly.
Speaker 2: Just just crazy but it's cool. And then they dropped
their event which is Chucky theme, so you get if
you there's two versions of this event. It's an event
past that releases and there's like ten tiers and you
just have to play games to get x speed to
unlock the tiers. And so there's the free tier and
then there's the paid tier. The free tier. If you
complete that, you get guns, you get emblems, you get
all this cool stuff, and at the end you get
a character. He's a guy with like a pumpkin flaming
skull pumpkin head thing, which is very cool. And then
if you do the paid version, then you get Chucky
right off the hob and then you get all these
exclusive like Chucky rewards, and you get Tiffany, which is
the bride of Chucky, the doll character outfit that which
is cool, but the killing and it sorry.
Speaker 1: Chucky because he's not the size of a man. So
is it just Chucky looking like Chucky but scaled up
to regular character size? Yes, Oh god, that sounds like
is that more or less terrifying than regular Chucky.
Speaker 2: I faced a few Chuckies and it's freaky seeing them
run around, But it's the voice that really gets me,
Like as the Predator, when I'm doing things, you hear
the Predator roar, and then is Chucky doing things? You
hear Charles le Ray just shouting out obscenities and then
his killing animations are great because you can get you
can get the Chucky doll, like the life size like
version and he throws the doll at the enemy and
then the doll just starts like savving your character and
this is when you assassinate the guy from behind or whatnot.
There's some fun.
Speaker 1: Stuff that's cool. Are you interested or what's what's your
situation with Black Ops seven? Like, are you picking that?
Bad boy?
Speaker 2: I'm not like I needed to go on sale. I can't.
I thought it would be on games pass a Access
right away, but it wasn't. So I'm just gonna no.
Speaker 1: Sorry black Ops.
Speaker 2: Oh sorry, black Ops, black Ops. Battlefield Sorry Battlefield the Brain.
I'm not buying this game, and I don't have much
excitement for it. There's been nothing that's really pulling in.
The only thing that I'm gonna be hyped for is
just the multiplayer. There is a new war zone that's
gonna drop with it, so I will try that probably
but I don't really have anything really pulling me into
this campaign or anything along those lines. Really, just I'm
feeling drained when it comes to that.
Speaker 1: So the war Zone stuff that would be free with
the multiplayer, like, are you gonna like because are you
still subscribed to game Pass after these price increases and things.
Speaker 2: I'm still subscribed. Yeah. I was looking at it because
I thought it was it was based on I thought
the membership worked where you can pay to have game
Pass Ultimate, which is seamless transit transition between gaming on
PC and Xbox, and I thought below that it was
either just on Xbox or just on PC, and below
that was like a lesser tier. I'm completely wrong on
my insight, and maybe they alst have changed it over
the course of the past five years, because now.
Speaker 1: They changed it last year and then they changed it
again like two weeks ago.
Speaker 2: I don't like that. So yeah, with the change now,
and I looked at the tiers, say okay, well you
have this much for Ultimate, which gets you bunch of
titles on games Pass, and then you can switch to
the lower tier and then you just get you get
a few lesser things and you get a lot less
games it's like two hundred games stripped away off a
games pass right.
Speaker 1: Which and you wouldn't get the day one stuff, so
like you wouldn't get the new call of duty.
Speaker 2: For the stuff. No, so there's there's a few cons
in there. So right now, I'm just going to keep
riding this game pass thing, and if I feel like
I need to change it, I will change it. But
I'm not in any kind of rush right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So as far as I understand, the price increase,
like up to thirty five freaking Canadian dollars a month
isn't until November fourth, So I don't know when you
know when your thing renews, but you'll, you know, at
least you're fine for a little bit until you're kicked
over to that. And then even then, I think you
could go out of your way to like go get
physical cards from like a store.
Speaker 2: You should do just to you know, screw Xbox.
Speaker 1: Yeah I mean that, but it's so annoying if that's
what you have to do for like the next few
months just to keep that same price. But I think, yeah,
I'm just I still have what for a month, and
then I think my thing auto, the auto renew ends
like November first or something, So that's like right before
the price goes up, So then I'll just cancel it
that at that point, so I guess you'll still you'll
be playing Black Op seven just through game Pass, then
at least check it out for a little bit.
Speaker 2: That's exactly what it was six. I did not buy it.
It's one of the first call duties. I have not
bought a long long time. I don't have any need
for it. Like, if it's free on games Pass, that's great.
I'd rather put that money into a battle Pass or
something that I can actually thoroughly enjoy it on locked content.
Speaker 1: So mm hmm, yeah, Sorry, got off track there. And
what was the other game that you've been playing?
Speaker 2: Either game? Well, it went on sale and so I
hopped on it really really quickly on Steam. It is
a strong Old Crusader definitive addition nice I had to
get in there. I didn't. I didn't. I have not
like blown anything out of the water yet and just
kind of like done anything crazy crazy. I've spent a
little bit of time. I'm just trying to get back
into the groove of things, and it didn't take long
for me to just kind of start to put my
old play styles to the test again. I played against
a bunch of the new AI and they're They're interesting there,
it's fun. It's really cool just to see all of
this new content in this game. The graphical upscaling that
they've done is a little bit nicer too. They've got
a few other little minor improvements as well in terms
of just operating and like moving around the map and
zooming in, zooming out, so stuff I don't like. One
thing is just like the zoom out function I don't
really like, but it is what it is. That being said,
I've tried testing out some of the new units. Some
of them seem very very overpowered, but I do like it. Yeah,
I just I think that's from what I've played so far.
I am really really enjoying that this old game got
a bunch of actually new content. That just blows my
mind to actually witness this, because it's just I feel
like old games don't get new content like that. It's like,
I don't know, Mario sixty four release Singing with a
definitive edition and getting a whole bunch of new levels
or worlds or better than like Mario Sunshine or something
like that. It's like, what, like the companies don't do that,
but here we are. So I've been thoroughly enjoying it.
And I'm going to try the multiplayer online at some point.
I've just been reading that a lot of people say
it's just garbage and it's not the greatest connection wise,
it's not easy to get going. So hopefully that's something
that they do fix. But until then, I'm enjoying playing
the single player and just the scenarios I like to.
You can set up where human players start off the
game with like forty grand and in some scenarios, I
love to do that and just be able to establish
myself and then just not eve. I don't go and
wage war. I just established my defense and then I
let usually like four ais all on a team just
try to take me down and just see what happens.
I just just sit there and just watch a defense
take place.
Speaker 1: So that's super fun because that version, because I know
we had that discussion a couple of weeks ago, is
that the one that came out this year, that definitive edition? Okay,
so yeah, maybe they're working on that multiplayer stuff, but
I don't know like that feels like if you don't
have a launch like sometimes like servers got hit hard
at a launch day, but if it's like been a
few months, I don't know what they'll do to improve
it at this point, but hopefully they can find a way.
Because that's yeah, that's too bad.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Yeah, that's it cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's it's very exciting to hear that update on
that one. Let's see, how about we take our first
quick break here and then we'll get into I have
just one new game to share right here, but it's
a it's kind of a big, juicy one, so we
will come right back to chat about that in a moment. Okay,
we are back. So I've been playing Ballpit, which is
the kind of newest indie roguelike weirdo mash up game,
also on game Pass right now. So yeah, Ballpit, spelt
ball x pit, ball times pit, ball, cross Pit. I
don't even know how you're really supposed to pronounce it.
I think you just say ballpit, but I'm not exactly sure.
I actually, you know, funny thing about the naming convention
here is it's meant to be kind of a cross
between the two things. There's a giant pit and you're
flinging balls at things, right, So it's like pretty simple
on the nose. But I also kind of like that
naming convention just because I feel like that's kind of
what roguelikes are. Like every roguelike is, Okay, here's the
roguel like formula mixed with it appears to be there's no
limit on what the genre could be now. Or it
started with like Binding of Isaac back in the day,
which are like a roguelike mixed with Zelda dungeons, and
it was splunky of like roguelike mixed with two D
platform and then you had like Dead Cells which mixed
with like a Castlevania style or Slay the Spire, which
was like a deck building game, and then into like
FTL like a space sim mixed with roguelike, into The Breach,
a tactics game, and then I feel like last year
when we got Blotro was like, oh, Joker, sorry, Poker
Joker Pokers with the you know, the suiting and for
poker mixed with roguelike. And I feel like that already
there was a million different roguelegs and a million different genres,
but I feel like Blotro even blew the doors off
even more, and since then, just the amount of like
word games or other card games or plinko games, like
any little thing you could possibly think of, is like, Okay,
let's turn that into a roguelike now, because Blotro prove
that you can do it with something like poker, and
I think with like the one simple addition of Blotro,
you don't fight enemies. You just like are playing against
a high score, and so over a lot of things
genres that didn't really make sense as having enemies, people
are like, oh, yeah, I guess you don't need enemies,
like people like just watching numbers go up and scores,
and so it feels like kind of a simplified version,
but it still works all the same. And that's a
little bit how I feel about this game, in the
sense that, oh, yeah, here's another roguelike, and this one
is crossed with like a brick breaker or a breakout
style game. I don't know if you did you ever
play any of those back in the day. Taylor is
like a game where you have like a little paddle
at the bottom of the screen and a ball is
bouncing around the screen and you like kind of move
the paddle around to bounce the ball and then it
breaks a block and then comes back down, and then
like you try and get it on top of the blocks,
and then they like smash a bunch of the blocks
over and over. Maybe you can get inside the middle,
and then it like you know, quickly bounces up and
down and smashes a million blocks.
Speaker 2: It comes back Dad's old like handheld computer.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Yeah, so that's what this game is. It's mixing
like that style of gameplay with a rogue like structure
and a couple other things on top. And I think
you know, one thing that it immediately has going for
it is the esthetic. I am pretty sure it. I
don't can't find anywhere any proof that this is like
the same developer as Loopiro, but they at the very
least have like definitely the same artists. Like the art
looks identical in terms of the character designs and like
the color palette and all that kind of stuff. It
seems like almost a sequel to that way, which is
also another weird rogue leg game about I don't even
know what that genre is. I always struggle to describe
what loop Heiro is other than that it's weird and cool.
But yeah, this game has like a really nice aesthetic
as well. The music's really good even like going back
to the trailers, Like just the the style of this game,
I think is what makes it stand out. And this
is one that I don't like. There's a lot of these,
as I mentioned, a lot of these rogue legs that
came out of Bolotro. It's like, Okay, how can we
kind of get in on this gravy train right now?
This does not feel like that. This feels like it's
been in the worst for years, you know, before Blotro
even came out. And you know, Blotro is pretty novel concept,
but it's not like it was the creative of a genre.
Even it just kind of popularized repopularized this thing and
realized showed people that, you like, a lower budget thing
like this can be super duper successful. But yeah, I've
played quite a few hours of this now because it is,
like many other roguelegs, including Blotro, is like extremely addictive,
like the the feeling of you know, breaking blocks as
you know, like that's a simple game that everyone played
like on mini clip back in the day or whatever,
and it's like it is just like extremely satisfying and
when you mix that with a million upgrades and different
types of blocks and different enemy types and different characters
you can play as and like meta game stuff and
leveling up, like of course, that just makes it like
even more super duper satisfying. So yeah, like going back
to the gameplay a little bit, it's that structure. Instead
of having a paddle at the bottle on the screen,
you are a character. You're a guy, and you're flinging
balls out there, and like, so you have I don't
love this naming convention, but we're just gonna have to
go with it because that's what it's called in this game.
So you have like special balls and that could be
like a spiked ball or a fireball or a cannon ball.
Speaker 2: And then you have baby balls.
Speaker 1: I don't know why they chose to call them baby balls,
but you you know those, you have a lot more
of them. They're all a weaker, they don't have any
powers on them. But then the special balls are the
ones that like, oh yeah, this one is a fire one,
so once you hit an enemy with it a lights
on fire and they take damage over time or poison
which works as you'd expect, or ice, which you know
freezes the enemies that are coming down to you, and
rather than the blocks being just regular triangles, which this
genre usually has, these ones are like more squares, but
they can have different shapes as well, and they are
like little enemy units, like a little skeleton warrior or
whatever it is, and a lot of them just kind
of move slowly progressively towards you, and then some of them,
like are archers and they'll shoot at you or you know,
have different abilities. And then of course there's like mini
bosses and all that stuff. So you're a little guy,
you're shooting out these balls, you're breaking stuff, you're leveling up.
When you love Love you get chick pick like new
ball additions you want or like modifiers, passives, things like that,
and then each level kind of has like a three
act structure. You go through, you plow through a bunch
of enemies, you get like a mini boss, you go
through a bunch of more enemies, you get another mini boss,
and then after that you go through a bunch of
more enemies, and then you have like the final boss
at the level, and that's like a bespoke boss for
each of the different regions, and that each one of
those runs takes maybe between like ten and twenty minutes.
Like it's pretty short as far as roguelics go. You
can also like speed up the turn up up or
down the speed of the game, so you can slow
it down if you really want to be precise, or
you can just now that I've played like for a
bunch of hours, I'm like almost always on like the
highest speed, and it's just insane the amount of things
that are happening on the screen. It's like barely perceptible.
But it's not a roguelic where you need to pay
attention to every single hit you're doing, right, Like it
is more you just you just at some point you'll
get like thirty balls that are on screen at one time,
just destroying things from all these different angles, and there's
effects popping off and lightning strikes and fire andsions, and
it's just like you can't no human's brain could ever
keep up with that, even on the slowest speed. So
you kind of just roll with it and like get
along with what you're doing there, and then kind of
once you're done those levels, then there's like a bit
of a metagame progression system where you go back to
a little town area and This feels very much like Loupero.
You're building out of town. This part I struggle to
describe more. You're building out town. You're placing buildings in
different areas. You're putting like crops down, and then you're
putting like, oh, this building next to this building enhances
the two of them together. And so you put towns
down or little buildings down, and then you like shoot
out your units now, so rather than like shooting the balls,
you're shooting your units out. And to build buildings, your
units have to like walk into the building and like
they you know, put a hammer into it, they build it.
And so you're trying to find a weird configurations where
you can line up a bunch of different structures houses, buildings, casinos, upgrades,
farms so that your characters are bouncing and smashing into
as many of these as they possibly can. And that's
pretty quick. That usually only takes like thirty seconds. I
think it starts at like ten seconds when you you're
just first building. Then you get like more and more
time over and you're getting just like this huge town
and you're not really even paying attention to how all
these things are gonna work. It's For me, I'm usually
just like, oh, I'm trying to build these two or
three specific buildings, so I put them into like a
little orb together and just like let these units like
just golden circles and like smash all these things to
build them up. And yeah, all that stuff is like
increasing your stats for your characters, giving you like abilities
to help you in the game, giving you more options
to choose from when you're leveling up in like the
actual battles and whatnot. And I like that part enough.
Speaker 2: It's fine.
Speaker 1: I think it's pretty short, so it's like it's not
the most in depth and it's almost too much to
keep track of. But that's fine because you're not really
spending much time in there, and I don't find I
need to mid max that I don't need to plan
out okay, I need to make sure I'm hitting like
this many crops and this many buildings each time. It's
like a little bit more low key in terms of
the strategy of it, because it just becomes eventually there's
just so many things on the screen you just to
move it all around is kind of a total mess.
So we don't worry about that too much. But then
getting back to once again the name of the game,
ball x Pit, Cross times Pit, whatever you want to
call it. This game's kind of all about fusions. That's
like the central theming of it. And that's why I
kind of mentioned like just the concept of rogue Legs
being about theming. I think this game is almost like
a meta commentary on that in a way, even though
it doesn't really like going there's like no story in
this game. I don't think any character ever speaks. I
don't think I thought about that until right now, But yeah,
I don't think there's like a single spoken line of
dialogue in this game of and like explaining what an
ability does. But yeah, the Ano another kind of flash
game thing. Taylor, did you ever play this game? I
feel like to me, it was like high school era.
It wasn't even like a mini clip thing you would
just go on this website. It was like this game
where you'd like it was like a chemistry type of
game where you would take like two different objects and
you'd mix them together and then it would create a
new object. So it would start out like I don't know,
really basic things like you'd have like fire and sand
and you mix those together and then you get like glass, right,
and it's like little little things like that, But then
it would get crazy over time where you'd mix like
mix like rock and fire, and then it would create
like lava. And then you'd mix like lava and our
mountain and it would make a volcano. And then you'd
mix like a volcano and a lizard and it would
give you like a dragon or something. I don't remember
if these were exact ways, but it was essentially like
just I don't even know what this game was called,
but it was pretty much making these different like chemistry
concoctions to make all these things, and you would just
see how many crazy combinations you could come up with
over the course of messing around with it.
Speaker 2: There's a game that came out on I've used to
play it on my old iPod. It was called Doodle
God that sounds very similar to this. Okay, you get
three things to start. It could be like fire, tree,
or water, and you combine them and you get new elements.
You could get all the way up to like plasma,
and then you could get like lightning, and you can
get like water. Combine those and you could get then
you start creating life and you have to create all
the elements.
Speaker 1: Right, I'm looking at doodle I'm looking at Doodle God.
This is That's not the one I'm thinking of, But
it's like that exact same idea. You know that, in fact,
the game I'm thinking of might have ripped off Doodle
God or vice versa. I don't know which one game first,
but it's definitely that kind of idea. But that's pretty
much what like the upgrade system in this game is. Like,
so you know one of my you know, you'll get
basic ones like oh, if you take like wind and
you take lightning, you get a storm upgrade ball. And
now this one like has kind of the effects of
both of those things, but it has some evolution on
top of it. And there's like just a million of those.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 1: You can get like fire and ice. You mix those
together and you get it's called like frostburn or something,
and it doesn't work exactly as you'd think. It kind
of evolves it and turns it into some new thing.
But then also with any of these, you can also
just combine them into once, so you could instead of
turning fire and ice into frostburn, you can just turn
into fire plus ice and then it just is one
ball that has the effects of both fire and ice,
or you can go for that evolution version. So you
kind of have a lot of options there. And this is,
you know, a light spoiler. But one of my favorite
moments or culminations that I've had so far is I
had the cannonball and I had the fireball, mix those
together turned it into a bomb, which was like when
that first time, I was like, oh, that is such
an exciting, fun upgrade. And then at some point I
had I had the bomb and I combined that with
poison and that turned it into like an atomic bomb,
and so now it was this huge explosion and it
would cause radiation on like half the map and just
did like absurd amounts of damage, and it was huge
animation as this giant bomb goes off. And so when
you get to the point of the game, at that
part where you're combining evolutions together, and this doesn't it's
not like doodle God. It's not like you're mixing these
things one hundred times over. Usually it's only like two
or three levels that you're upgrading them. But man, those
combinations are so fun. And anytime I see a new one,
even if it's not the most optimal build because I
don't know what this new thing does yet. I'm always like, oh,
I just want to see what this combination does because
I'm so curious what it will do now. And then
it just like totally reframes how you've been thinking about
all these things, and there isn't just so like so
many so many roguelikes, like even Isaac, which I love,
just has so many things. Once you get all the
dlcson there, that's like, if you're trying to go for
a specific build, it's just not gonna happen because there's
hundreds of items. The odds of you finding the specific
ones you want, it's just not gonna happen. This game
is much more refined, or maybe it refines it maybe
not the right word, but it's it's at least lower
amounts of thing. You can also like banish and like
reroll and stuff, so you can kind of take things
out of the item pool, and so it feels like
you can go for those. And so at one point
it is like, I really want to go for the
atomic bomb this run, and I was able to by
weeding out certain things, picking certain things and just kind
of waiting for the right time. I was able to
kind of get that just by spending some time to
figure it out, and so it's not too overwhelming. But
then still I still have a bunch of things to
unlock at this point, so maybe it will get to
that point. We'll see. And then you also are picking
up like just passive upgrades like oh, your balls deal
more damage on the left side of units, or they
have to bounce off the backwall and now they deal
twice as much damage, or now your AoE attacks are
even bigger, you know, things like that fire rate, all
all sorts of many upgrades you could possibly think of.
But man, it is just super fun, all these combinations
of things, and I love that part of it. Each
one of the locations is also some weird fusion between
like two kind of disparate location ideas, like typical biomes
you'd see in a game, and so that's kind of fun.
The levels aren't like super in depth, it's that are
all pretty much the exact same, like a vertical line
pretty much with a bunch of squares coming towards you
and you're just kind of there at the bottom. And
then on top of all of this, you have specific
characters so it starts out pretty basic, like, oh, this
guy shoots fire and he's a bit of erradic, so
he shoots kind of quickly in his aim is worse,
you know, kind of things like that. But then eventually
one of the characters unlocked is this Knight who has
a giant shield that is pretty much the equivalent of
like those original Breakout kind of games where it's pretty
much pretty much is just like a giant paddle, and
so now the game does become that kind of classic
style of trying to bounce them off your paddle, and
then you get like increased damage and stuff like that.
Some of them are like, oh, this guy does lob
shots now, which like I don't even know this game
had like verticality to it. Now there's like lob shots
mixed in here, changing the gravity, or like this one
is like, oh, this one's really tricky.
Speaker 2: He is.
Speaker 1: One of them turns the game into like a turn
based game, which is insane. It takes this like extremely frenetic,
fast paced game and slows it down to a crawl, which,
you know, not my favorite character, but I love that
is just in there as an option that you can pick.
And then the craziest thing of all Taylor. At some
point you get the ability to fuse characters together. So
now once again that fusion concept and theming is used
once again, where now every time I'm going into a level,
I could pick two characters and now I'm combining their
abilities together, and that is just opens up the possibilities
even more. So. Yeah, this game is freaking awesome. It's
super duper fun, super satisfying. I've seen a fair amount
of criticism online from people of just saying like the
variety isn't quite there. Levels all kind of feel the same,
and at some extent I can see where people are
coming from. I don't think this is going to be
a roguelick that I spend one hundred hours in, like
I have many other ones or are like Blottro, which
I just accidentally put eighty hours into, pretty much because
it just had so much to it, Like I only
have two more biomes to go where actually I'm on
the second to last one now and I've already started
working through that, and I think I have most of
the upgrades unlocked at this point, even looking at the encyclopedia,
like I have maybe eighty percent of the things and
I'm maybe ten hours in or something, so I think,
you know, I'll probably get another five hours out of it,
maybe ten, and then I probably won't come back to
it after that. And that's totally fine because I think
that's kind of what I'm looking for it now. I
don't want to a rogue like that's gonna demand two
hundred hours unless it's Splunky three, and then I'll give
you six thousand million hours of my time. But otherwise,
I like a nice tight run time. And I think
it's like developers probably know that like this idea of
this concept, it's pretty niche, right, and so I feel
like they know that it only has a certain length
to its legs and so it's not trying to overrun it.
So yeah, I really really loving this game. I think
it's like maybe twenty thirty bucks. I definitely would recommend
as a switch game. It's a really good like like
I've definitely been on calls with friends while I'm playing
this game in the background or like watching the show
playing this, and so it'd be good to have in
that handheld format that yeah, definitely be a good way
to play it. But I'm just playing on game Pass
because you know, and I don't have to pay for
it separately. But yeah, super great game, Really really enjoying it.
It's I feel like, in terms of the recommendation, if
you like Lupero, you probably like this game. But I
think more aptly is if you're into Vampire Survivors. I
feel like this is kind of very equivalent to that
a lot of ways. But for me, it's a bit
simpler to get, like more crazy evolution combos. It's just
a bit easier to do that stuff, so I find
it a bit more satisfying. And the runs are a
bit shorter. I think Vampire Smibers you have to describe
for thirty minutes. As I said, ten to twenty twenty
is like the late ends of things. Usually it is
like ten to fifteen I would say. So, yeah, I
freaking love this game. I think it's a super duper
fun bullpit check it out. Any any questions Taylor about
this one.
Speaker 2: No, it's just the concept is just kind of like
mind boggling, which is the different mechanics and everything they've
incorporated into this kind of a game. I never in
a million years would have thought that games like that
could progress to this kind of stage with all these
different like all these different things and mechanics. It's just
it's kind of crazy, but it's pretty awesome. And that's
on games Pass, so it is you've kind of peaked
my interest.
Speaker 1: Should check it out. You should check it out. I
think my recommendation would be you might be playing at first,
and you're you're probably not gonna be understanding like what
all these things mean and how these things are working
and these fusions and whatnot, but just once it clicks,
it clicks hard and then you're like super involved in
And that didn't take that long for me, like maybe
half an hour, an hour or something like that, Whereas
like I don't know what any of these mechanics mean,
these fusions, I don't know what I should be doing,
what I shouldn't be. Well, once you start figuring that
out and then you can start like going for certain
fusions of things, it becomes just like extremely satisfying. So yeah,
I mean, I think even the simple change of like
a breakout type of game but with an actual character
where you walk around the screen is like that enough
is like an interesting idea and then rather than just
like you know, having to bounce everything off off your
one paddle and the fact that this game is like
so much more than that is is like extremely interesting.
And it still has that mechanic to it where like
if you catch a ball as it's coming back kind
of in that paddle like way, you can like chuck
it out quicker than if it just like falls off
the bottom of the screen and you miss it and
then you know, it just goes back in your inventory
like a couple seconds later. So there is like an
incentive to try and catch them as well. So it
makes it so you are having to move around or
you don't have to, but like if you're trying to optimize,
it's like I'm trying to catch as many of these
as possible because then I'll get like even more shots
per second out kind of thing. So yeah, really really
cool game, really creative, really fun and weird and funky.
So yeah, let's uh, let me tell you that's it's
a great game. To check it out. Absolutely, let me
let's let's reorganize. So we're gonna do this last, but
let's actually bring it in here. We already kind of
talked about it a bit, but I just wanted to
take your temperature a little bit on State of Xbox Taylor,
which I feel like is something we have to do
more and more frequently, becoming more and more dire. It
appears we already kind of talked about like game passing
the price increase there. I don't know, it's it sounds
like you're still subscribe. You're still staying subscribed for this time,
which I guess I maybe want to ask you about
that a little bit more because I feel like you
don't really play a lot of things on there, so like,
at what point do you feel like it's gonna be like,
oh wow, I really gotta unsubscribe from this thing, Because
to me, that price increase like it was last year,
I was like, man, I just this is so expensive.
I can't afford this anymore. Now it's like gonna be
thirty five dollars. It's it's it's kind of crazy. So
I don't know, how do you feel about that or
just like, I don't know that that change that was
like a couple of weeks ago now, But any any
thoughts on that since you weren't on that episode when
we broke it down Originally, the.
Speaker 2: Big kicker is, uh, it's losing the subscription to like
I think if I drop Ultimate, then I lose my
access to the EA.
Speaker 1: That's correct stuff.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so there are like EA titles that I
play in there, like there's some Star Wars games, and
then there's the NHL titles too that I usually dapple in.
So there are some stuff there that I feel like
I justified enough, but it's definitely not something I feel
like I'm really really attached to. And any given time,
I you know, probably in the foreseable future, I could
see myself dropping to a lower subscription because you're right,
there are the difference between this tier and the tier
right below it two hundred games and a subscription to
like EA and you'd be soft classics stuff like that.
Am I going to get into all of those two
in our games and those other subscription platforms?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 2: Probably not.
Speaker 1: So no one, No one has the time for that,
like you know, if you are even if you're like
negatively unemployed, like there's just no no one in the
world has enough time to play all these things. It's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, But at the end of the day, like if
I keep on playing Call of Duty, then there's that.
But if it comes push comes to shove, then I
need to just I want to play Call of Duty,
then maybe it is cheaper if I just dropped eighty
bucks on Call Duty instead of paying. I mean that's
three months pretty much of gameplay with games Pass instead
of just outright owning the game. So yeah, it's tough
to say. I just got to feel it out a
little bit more.
Speaker 1: So, Yeah, that's fair. Yeah, I guess, uh, because the
other two like additions they made to it is Fortnite,
which I know you don't particularly care about, but the
Ubisoft Classics, Like, is that something that because I guess
you subscribe to Ubisoft Plus every once in a while,
I suppose right just to. But that doesn't ma good
shadows or somethuff like shadow. It doesn't, It doesn't. But yeah,
I don't know, do you think you'll I don't know.
Did you even, like, have you gone on game Pass
to see the things that they did add to that service?
Was there any like good picks in there for you
that you're interested in?
Speaker 2: No? Not really, you kind of own most of the
games you want already, That's right, That's exactly it. I mean,
if they want me to, they want people to stick
around on games Pass, then let's get that Guitar Hero
coming in here, Let's get like a whole bunch of.
Speaker 1: All the old activity games. Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so that's that's what they need. They need to
just develop more stuff like that instead of just absorbing
studios and canceling projects and just I don't know, to
like four hundred games on games Pass. That's great, Well,
a lot of the games are like really really old
and there's not a lot of like really like great selection.
I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's an interesting I hadn't really thought about that
angle of like because I talked about this with I
think Kirklin on the episode of like, yeah, they're adding
this Fortnite stuff, but now they have to like pay
Epic some amount of that monthly subscription, right, so like
the price goes up, but they're not getting one hundred
percent of that price increase. I don't think unless Epic
is extremely stupid to just give up like oh yeah,
we're giving away free Fortnite every month, Like no that
they lose zone. I guess they wouldn't lose on too
much money, just because there isn't as many Xbox subscribers
that there are people buying a Fortnite subscription every month.
I assume I don't actually know that number, but I
have to imagine that's the case. And then like like
UBI Soft as well, like they have to pay Ubisoft
some amount to like have that as part of their catalog,
just like they do with EA. Right, I don't know
how those numbers work if they just here's just a
lump sum and they can justify in the long run
with the monthly stuff. But I feel like I wonder
how that could have gone if they instead decide to
pony up some money to reactivate some of those licenses.
For like, Activision has so many older games that really
just aren't available anymore because of the music that's involved
in them, like straight up like the licensing agreements with
like Marvel stuff some of those like Guitar Hero as
you mentioned, And I feel like there's a lot of
games that like fall into that category or even like
some old Tony Hawk things and whatnot, Right, And so
I wonder, like how much that would cost to just
renew some of those licensees. Maybe that's like ridiculously expensive,
but maybe you can get like a bundled deal or
something like that for some of these. I'm not sure
how that would work. But I feel like that would
be maybe a lot more enticing for a lot of people, like, oh, yeah,
we just added thirty new Marvel games to the service,
and we added the entire Guitar Hero catalog, and think
there's still so many Activision Blizzard things that just like
aren't on the service at all, which is which is
kind of crazy. So I feel like maybe they could
have pushed more within their own the things they own
already before having to go like what feels to me
like nuclear and going with the ubisaw Fortnite play and yeah,
it's like you can't really go back from it too much,
Like you're kind of locked in now that you have
to pay Fortnite, like as long as this contract lasts,
So we'll see. I mean, you know, it could also
be that they just wanted to do some crazy play
like this right before the new Call of Duty to
lose a bunch of subscribers so that more people will
just buy Called Due Duty, or that the people who
are just paying for the zip scrip for just have
Call Duty now have to pay fifty percent more than
they had to before, right, And so who knows, maybe
they're just trying to do that in the short term
in the new year, they'll be like, oh, yeah, we
fucked that. We're gonna change things and be like, okay, well,
I see what you're onto Xbox, but I don't know
if that's I don't know if that's their game plan.
We'll want have to find out. Yeah, the Xbox allies
out now. That came out last week. I think the
Xbox Handheld, which, right, it even feels like kind of
cheating to call an Xbox handel because they pretty much
just took another product that existed and like through an
Xbox logo and the buttons on it, I guess, but
that exists, and I think you know, we and you
are probably both in the same boat of this. Of
like i'd be down for it if it wasn't as
extremely expensive as it is. Like it just feels impossible,
and you're not really a handheld guy, right, so it's
like you just have very little interest in actually picking
that up.
Speaker 2: I don't need to play Call Duty and other titles
like that on a smaller screen. I need to play
that on the big screen because I'm getting old, my
eyes are as good as they used to be. I
can't do it on a little, little team screen.
Speaker 1: Actually question because I feel like I hear a lot
of parents on podcasts being like, oh, the switch or whatever.
Steam deck is great just because a lot of time
with kids, Like maybe you're just that is just more
convenient to be able to have like a little handheld
thing that you can hold like that way the TV
can be in use or I don't know where you're
just like chilling the kid's room trying to help them
like get to sleep, and you just need to be
in the room with them till I fall asleep, Like Okay,
I'll just play some switch or something. Is that not
a use case for you that hasn't like popped up yet?
Speaker 2: Ooh no, Okay, I mean it's definitely a tool that
you can use for like the pickup and put down.
But I still feel like it's no and dealing with
the kid. I just don't not at least yet. Maybe
the kid gets older and there will be a little
bit more flexibility, but it's still two hands on, uh
for me to be hands off the kid. That makes sense.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't make sense, And I like the way
word of that. Lastly, my last question for you is,
so there was some rumors a couple of weeks ago
that like Xbox is maybe not planning to do another console,
and you know that's obviously coming out like right after
this lax thing is out, it's like, okay, they just
released a new console, kind disorder, and then like Xbox
like the executives where I came out and said, oh no, no,
that don't listen to that, that's not the plan. We're
still doing consoles. But like the amount of lies they
just spew out on a weekly basis at this point
is ridiculous. So I don't really I don't really trust
anything they say. But also these rumors were kind of
maybe unfounded. Will have to see, But how do you
feel about that? Like, do you feel like the future
of Xbox is that they won't ever release actually another
console and they'll just straight up go third party, really
go deeper in the PC space, go deeper in this
henheld market, or do you think that they're gonna do like,
oh yeah, we're gonna do like the series X two
in like three years and like that, we're just you know,
not gonna do anything crazy. But it's just another console.
Speaker 2: I think that a company like them, they're going to
go where the money is and the money right now.
The way I see it, I think I was telling Travis.
Speaker 1: This was.
Speaker 2: They they spend so much money on R and D
and development of these consoles that they are losing a
lot of money at the same time because they've not
hit you know, their stride very well the past few
years with their Xbox consoles. They've definitely taken a loss,
I'm sure. So for them acquiring all of these studios,
it makes a much more profitable sense when this company
that owns all these different studios can own all these
different ips, make all these games, and then put those
games onto other consoles there you know, PlayStation and Nintendo
is going to want to get some of these on
their consoles. And so I think if you are axing
the cost for your R and D, your console production,
you're solely investing money into creating games, and not only that,
but selling games digitally, which I think that's another big
thing too, because most of these companies, like look at
the Nintendo already like going with the here's the key,
you know, the code, you can enter it for your game.
Speaker 1: And Xbox has been pulling back hard on physical versions
a lot of their game.
Speaker 2: They have, you know, you go into a lot of
game stores now, and you don't really see a lot
of physical Xbox games, even the ebe games here, the
Xbox section is so tiny. But there's still lots of
hard copy PlayStation games and a lot of Nintendo hard
copy games on the shelf, but Xbox not a lot.
So I think it comes down to, yes, there's a
high chance that they act the consoles and they move
into a world where we're just going to be selling
our games to other gaming companies, and they're going to
move that product for us, sell that product and then
pay us, you know, the the interest or whatever we
charge our games for. And it just it makes sense,
especially when you make a bigger push into digital streaming
your games, because then I mean, what, you're not paying
for any physical hardware as a company, So it's just
an absolute steal and just I don't know, to me,
that's what the money is. I don't see the money
in them making consoles anymore. So Yeah, I mean that's
that's a really good point. And that's like proven almost
directly with with the allies, Like they didn't put a
single dollar of R and D into that, right, or
maybe maybe they did a little bit to their little version.
But it's like, no, they just took this company, the
rog ally the ROG company, I don't know what they're
called exactly, but take that company and just like, oh, yeah,
we're just gonna They already had this thing on the market.
Speaker 1: It's doing well enough. It's no Steam deck, it's no switch,
but like it's doing well enough, and they yeah, just
like go over there and they can just slap their
logo on their you know, license and deal whatever it is.
And yeah. I mean, I don't know how much it
costs to like in the R and D department to
develop a new console, but I'm sure that number is
extremely high, and so it's a lot lower possibly to
do the licensing way. So I wonder if that could
be another route for like a home console in the
future for them too, if like some they get someone
else to make it. But I don't know, if I
don't know if people are gonna go that way, But
I don't know. Maybe maybe the route is like maybe
the next round of ROG consoles in the next couple
of years are almost like a switch type thing where
maybe there is a doc version too, where you can
stick that in and then it goes on the TV
and then maybe Xbox does their thing all with that too,
throws their logo on it, and now the Xbox has
like their own little switch and I'm sure Nintendo has
like patents out the ass on like all those features,
and so I'll have to find another way around it.
But maybe maybe that is the route, and that could
potentially save them a lot of money, but maybe also
would be a lesser product. We'll kind of wait and see,
because I've heard some mixed things on the ally. I mean,
most notably is of course the ridiculous price on it.
That's like the biggest turnoff, but other things as well,
with like the UI is kind of weird in the
Xbox os and some janky things going on there. But yeah,
I mean, the more and more they become PCs, the
more the less and less there is a reason I
actually have a console and just straight up make it
a PC instead or just obviously Microsoft is all over
already all over p seas and whatnot. So yeah, interesting time,
We'll see, Uh, we'll see what happens. But I hope
if they do have another like home console coming out,
I hope it's like a few years away. Like I
feel like I just bought this series X and that's
maybe not true. It's like five years old at this point, but.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I don't want to I don't want to upgrade. I'm fine,
let me let me use this thing. Hopefully I can
use it for elder scrolls six, but I don't know.
I don't know if that's gonna happen. At this point,
we'll see any other Xbox thoughts or shall we move along?
Speaker 2: No? I think I highlighted my concern so yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, cool, Okay, let's jump to our last ad break
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and we will come back for our last topic. We
will be right back, Okay, Taylor Field. A few months ago,
me and Kirklan Patzer did a side Quest episode doing
a ranking of the best zombie games of all time.
And when we did that, I felt a bit guilty.
I felt a little bit bad because I felt like,
that's your space. You should have been there for that episode.
But it was one of those things. It was side Quest.
It was Monday afternoon, we had to record in a
few hours, and I was like, there's not much on
the topic side, not much on the games've been playing.
Side We need a topic. I went into my magician's
hat aka my Google keep note sheet, and I picked
that one out and Kirkland said he liked it, and
so we just did it. And so yes, I wanted
you to be there, but you know you couldn't be there.
It was too short notice. So I want to kind of,
you know, revise a little bit. But also I kind
of want to just hear your take on this, because
I feel like your big zombie guy also into shows
and movies and whatnot, but definitely into some of the
games as well. So I sprung this on you last minute,
just like me and Kirkland did with that episode. So
maybe it'll be as perfectly kind of off the top
of your head as possible, which is a good thing here.
But I asked you to give me your your top
ten zombie game ranking. I don't know if you have ten,
but tell me about your process of kind of putting
your list together, how many you got, And I don't know,
what do you think about this, this idea of zombie
games in general.
Speaker 2: So I did get ten. Two might be up for debate,
but I think for the most kirk had.
Speaker 1: A few debatable ones too. It's it's comes with the territory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think this is a pretty uh sturdy list
I got. I got one shout out. Now they are billions.
I can't remember if you were talking to me about that,
or if it was.
Speaker 1: Kirkland or definitely come up on a podcast. Yeah, maybe
all three of us.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 1: I can't I can't remember the context, but I remember
it coming up.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's like a tower defense kind of civilization builder
zombie defense game. Okay, that's why I want to shout out.
I've not played it, but it's one that is on
my list and I want to try eventually because it
looks like fun. The other thing I just wanted to
shout out, I put an asterisk around this book that
wasn't sure Halo would you consider a zombie So.
Speaker 1: That's an interesting question because that came up a lot
on the episode with me and Kirkling where we even
had the conversation Taylor, like, is the last of us
a zombie game? Because it has zombies in it, but
like it doesn't feel like zombies are what it's about,
you know what I mean? Like it's it's about something else,
and like, so last one was Yeah, that one's a
bit more straightforward. But Halo, that is a trick one.
You're thinking like the Flood, like those are kind of
like zombie like creatures, right, So I mean, you know,
for this case, it's your list, and I'm not gonna
like me and Kirktlin had to debate things. You don't
got debate. Shit, this is your list. You do whatever
you want. What do you think if you're in your
heart of hearts? Are the flood zombies? Oh?
Speaker 2: They are parasitic.
Speaker 1: It's tricky because some games call them infected, like in
Days Gone they call them freakers, right, like they every
Some of these games have different names for them. They
don't necessarily call them zombies. So you can still be
in the clear even if they don't use the word
zombie in Halo, but maybe they do. Maybe I could
see Johnson being like zombies. I don't know what you
would say, but yeah, what do you think is that?
Is that? Is that a zombie game?
Speaker 2: Though?
Speaker 1: Even if there's like a couple levels that have zombie
like enemies in it.
Speaker 2: Oh, Like I kept it off the list because I
didn't want to just like take that cheap plug and
be like, oh, yeah, it's it's a zombie game because
I feel like they're not really zombies, but they have
all the qualities of zombies and so forth. So I'll
leave it off the list. I'll leave it off the list.
Speaker 1: Kirkland didn't love when I pitched Minecraft because zombies is
one of the most iconic enemy in that game, maybe
the most common and innumerable. But you wouldn't call Minecraft
a zombie game. It's a tricky it's a dicey, dicey territory.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I like that though. That's a that's a
good one.
Speaker 1: Do you have a numbered list or do you just
have ten favorites?
Speaker 2: I have a numbered list.
Speaker 1: Okay, uh take it away, give me your give me
your number ten.
Speaker 2: So number ten. This one is purely nostalgia. I did
not beat it, but I played the heck of it,
going over to my buddy's house, and I just remember
always having a good time, just trying to pick up
a heavy your weapon and just killing zombies. And my
hang up was that it was timed. But it's not.
It's not like it was a big cong because I
think this game is kind of a staple for everyone.
Dead Rising two thousand and six, the originally just the original.
I just remember running around the mall and just fighting zombies,
just seeing there were hordes and hordes of zombies in
this mall. It was a lot of fun just to
play with friends. So I really really enjoyed that. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think that one really builds up like the zaniness,
the goofiness that can happen around zombies, because it can
be a super stressful game, obviously with the time limit
and all that, but it's also a very silly game
where you can just get in like a golf cart
or whatever, like a security mall, mall cops like golf
cart and just like smash into zombies like endlessly. It's
very silly, right. We had Dead Rising two on our list,
hmm okay, which I kind of had to pass that
off to Kirkling because I've I've only really dabbled in
that series. But apparently Dead reis and two is also
in a mall, so they're both mall setting ones. Dead
Rising to us, and I think three is where they
went right to a different area.
Speaker 2: I remember Dead Rising too. I remember, gosh, because what
year was this twenty ten? Holy smoked years later? Okay, yeah, interesting, okay? Cool?
Speaker 1: Was the Rising one original Xbox or through sixty and
there was three sixty still.
Speaker 2: Three sixty yeah yeah, okay, yeah, yeah. It was like
a platinum hits one or something like that. I remember that. Yeah,
but yeah, so my number and nine I got Left
for Dead two. I played that first one, did all
the missions and whatnot, did all missions for the second one.
But I just give the second one the edge just
because it's, uh, you know, it's built up off that
first one, has a little bit more refinement and they added, uh,
they added the guns to that one, right, the guns
weren't in the first one.
Speaker 1: Or no, it was melee, male weapons, male web right, yeah,
guitars and all that stuff.
Speaker 2: That was a big, a big boost for me. I
really loved that that edition.
Speaker 1: That was that was number one on me and Kirkland's list.
Speaker 2: Oh really yeah, well this is interesting awkward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're already but interesting so far, all we have
the same series represented, and we did. We had Le
for Dead two as well. We had the sequel there
because like the sequel has all the levels from the
first game and all the characters I think potentially as well.
So it just has everything from the first game plus
like a bunch more things and kind of got supported
for us to come, so it's definitely the one you
got to pick out of the two. And it's like,
when we get in this freaking trilogy, give me a
new one, you know what I mean?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I agree, Number ten nine eight I have
and I actually like this counts plant versus zombies. I've
been playing a lot of that back on my phone now.
It's just such a good freaking time. I'm having a
blast with this game. I missed it. I missed it
a lot because I played the heck of it when
I was younger. But it's it's aged.
Speaker 1: Well, that was number three on our list, so you're
almost you almost have like the like you've turned the
hour glass over in terms of like where these things
are on the ranking. But uh yeah, PVZ is it's
the beasneys. It's the best. And that speaking of that,
that also just came out or is coming out like
this week, I think that that remastered version. And apparently
bad news here is that apparently they ported that iPhone
version to like consoles instead of pourting like the old
PC version, and apparently because of that, the UI is
all weird for consoles, and apparently it's chocked full of bugs.
So I'm gonna wait and see here's some more impressions
on that, cause that was that was for me like
an easy day one by. And then I just heard
that it's totally botched this remaster and it seems like
a bit of a cash grab, which uh, you know,
for EA the least shocking thing of all time. But yeah,
PVZ replanted is the new one. But yeah, that that
og games is so good and and I forget, did
you ever play the Garden Warfare games that they had?
Speaker 2: No, that's one that I got away. I really want
to though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've seen some chatter about those recently. The parents
of the actually good even though they aren't the original
gameplay style.
Speaker 2: But yeah, cool, let's see number seven. I got Dead Island.
This one I played on the first one a lot
with my my friend. Never played Rip Tide. I haven't
played the second one, but I remember I remember just
the jump scares playing this one with my friend, where
you open up like the bathroom stall door and the
a zombie like jumps out and grabs on to you.
And just a lot of fun with this this game,
going into all the places on this beach, this Remote Destination. Yeah,
it's just such a such a fun game, and it's
just lots of good high school memories with this one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the multiplayer angle of that super fun. We had
Dead Island two on our list, so again, just like
Dead Rising, we had the sequel and that was mostly
me and I freaking love the second one is so
fun and Taylor. It is on game Pass, so if
you're looking for a little zombie killing action for Halloween here,
you should definitely download that because I don't know how
long it'll be on there. I hope it's still in there.
But that game is so freaking fun. I love it.
It's it's they really amped up in the sequel with
like the crazy gore and like meat effects of the zombies.
It's so good. It's just so much fun.
Speaker 2: I like that number six is Dying Light. That's the
one you stuck to Caroclon the Belt back in the day. Target. I.
I just say, the ending of this game is fan freakingtastic.
It's still at some point I'm going to get around
to playing what is it Dying Light the Beasts that's
one of them. But there was a big expansion for
the first one. They added vehicles and stuff like that.
I can't remember the name of it, but yeah, it
was really really cool. And then they added Dying.
Speaker 1: The following I had never even heard of them with
a DLC, to be honest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it came out a little bit a little bit after.
I just love the crafting system though in Dying Light,
and I loved how you could be playing with your friends.
You're out late at night and all of a sudden
you get a warning that old the uh I can't
remember if they're like a prowler or whatever they're called,
but the big evil zombies, the acrobatic ones are running
a mock now at nighttime, and another player could join
your match as that zombie and hunch that's been more terrifying.
Speaker 1: I didn't know about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they just it was really really awesome. The mechanics
and this the story too. Again, that ending, I'll never
forget that ending, when you're at the top of this
watch tower and you know the government's going to blow
up the city and you have to like your guy
like connects and gets the signals saying there are survivors
in here, and it blurts out to the world and
you see the fighter jet in the distance about to
drop this nuke and it gets like super close, and
then right when you hit the go button to send
the signal, the jet gets the order and it veers
off and it doesn't make the attack. It's fucking that's
just brutal. It's brutal. So great game though, really really
great game, and eventually I will get around to playing
the other ones because it's it's it's such a good game.
Speaker 1: We had that as a number four on our list,
the original one. Obviously, that was I've not even played
that game. That was That was all Kirkling, really rising
that one on his own up to number four on
the list.
Speaker 2: Nice, right on, right on, I've got and I'd be
surprised if this one is on the list for you
guys got the Walking Dead the Telltale series.
Speaker 1: It was not on our list. I think we talked
about it, but we just talked about in the sense
that like, yeah, we haven't played it, but it's probably
good because yeah, I think that original one is like
people love that game, like.
Speaker 2: The love that original one. That original one is so good.
The story is fantastic, and it's one that I need
to I need to go back and replay it because
it's really really good. I never played I think season
two where focuses on the girl, but that first season
I played it, beat it, really really enjoyed it. So
I need to go back and try some more of that.
That game nice number.
Speaker 1: A bunch of those are on game Pass. I think
I've seen them all there when I believe they are
schooling around.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know I still have it. I own it
on my Steam account, so cool off to see if
it still has my progress saved, because that was a
The last time I played it was years and years ago.
But uh yeah my number four Red deb Redemption, Undead Nightmare.
Speaker 1: Oh good, shout out. Okay, nice not on your guys' list,
I imagine No. I think another one we talked about,
but yeah, it didn't quite make top ten for us,
but I love that you have that as as a
top fiver.
Speaker 2: I remember when they announced this back in high school.
It was so hype because the game already was fantastic.
I love playing with my friends doing a posse and
all that, and then when you could just go into
this world where they had Bigfoot for one thing, which
is really cool, but you just find like, oh, this
little town that you bump into is under siege and
you got all these zombies just rating it and it's
just zombies out all in the open wastelands and stuff
like that. It's just it's super super exhilarating and exciting
just for this overrunness. And just cool too because the
story was very simple, like a curse or whatever. And yeah,
that's one that I would love to go back and try.
It's cool too that they made it kind of like
a standalone. I think it was made like a standalone
game that you could buy, because I remember seeing the
game cases that he became so but I don't actually
know if it was a standalone. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I wonder if they just swapped out the art for
that cover, because I think I had that version. I
think I bought that one when I okay picked up
that game physical.
Speaker 2: Yeah, too bad they didn't do it for the second one.
I think that that was definitely a lot of potential there.
They should have done more with it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's uh. I wanted to bring this up that
Marvel Rivals, which is like the overwatchy Marvel game, announced
like a Marvel Zombies mode, like a PvE mode coming
to that game, which is really cool, and it just
made me think, like, man, I wish more games just
had like zombie DLCs for non zombie games because I
think that's like a very fun mash up type thing.
So I think I'm gonna jump, Like I don't know
if that's a free thing, if you can just play
that mode, it's a free to play game, but I
don't know if that mode is but like, I don't
I don't think we're ever gonna get like a Marvel
Zombies game. But to have a game like Marvel Rivals
which has like a ton of characters, some deep cuts,
all the big main ones and like they play well
and it's a cool game and a mix and like
have a Rival of Zombies mode in there, I think
is really cool. So I definitely want to check that out.
I don't know when it's coming out, probably soon because
it's Halloween October spooky season time. But yeah, very cool
And that'd be a fun other topic sometime, like just
pitching zombie DLCs for certain games. But yeah, I think
that I hope more games do that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Uh my number three State of Decay two Forever winning
on that third sequel Forever draw. But this game found
by complete accident because my my buddy and I back
in the day, he would just go on games past
he would check out games and we would look up
games that were multiplayers so we could play them together.
And this is one of them that he installed and
he got into it. He was playing it. I remember.
I came home, I installed it, and I worked the
next day, but we played until like three am together.
It was so much fun because I went to his
map where I was helping him build up his base
and everything, and then later on he came to my
map where he was helping me build up my base
and everything instead of my community. And you can move
your bases, pick different bases, just try to eliminate hoards,
to gather supplies, all these different things. Like. It was
a really really fun game, and I hope that that
third one eventually get gets made. It's so much fun
too when you can get all these different characters. You
could switch between different characters at your base, and then
you can each character has different different attributes and whatnot
that you can employ while you're out getting supplies, fighting zombies,
all that kind of stuff, and it is it's a
lot of fun. It's also a good whot when you die,
fortunately your character, one of your characters you're playing as,
will die, and then they rise back up as a
zombie and they just charge at your friends, and your
friends got to kill them. It's a it's a neat
little mechanic. Yeah, definitely stated the K two.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so you have you not gone back and played
the first one? Then?
Speaker 2: No, I know I have not. I thought I thought
it was just best just to stick with the second one.
Speaker 1: That's fair. I actually I did download the first one
and I've been playing a little bit of it recently. I've
played a couple hours of it, because yeah, it's always
been on my radar and just never got around to it.
But yeah, I was kind of surprised at how like
bright and cheery almost of it. Like it's a very colorful,
like Arcadie type of experience. And so the third one,
because I think the trailers the third one are not
matching that tone. And I don't know if the second
one is like that too, But yeah, that was kind
of surprising me, is just how how arcadie and kind
of silly it was. But some of those early mechanics
in there, I don't know how much like the building
base building parties in that one, like, at least so
far as I've gotten, like, had a couple of safe houses,
but not really much building going on. So maybe I
should just jump into the second one and check that
out a little bit. Probably will before the thur one
comes out, if it if it does ever come out,
But yeah, definitely it was fun to finally jump in
there and see what's going on with the state of decay.
Speaker 2: Mm hmm, that's freaking awesome. My number two and this
is where my number two my number one, I think
being my list, I see them as two separate games,
two separate versions. Okay, again bias, but my number two
Modern Warfare three is the Zombies open world aspect where
you drop into the map. You got forty minutes to
go around the map, do objectives, do missions with your
squad of three, and then you got to evac before
the smoke closes in. I have had so many damn
good sessions playing this. I wish that we all were
able to get on there and do the this Zombies
content together because it was so much fun. It's it's
one of the best zombies called duty experiences I've ever
had where you're just you're on the map running missions.
You see other squads run around to doing things, and
uh yeah, like you just you're having a damn good time.
It's so much fun. Yeah, this is one that I'm
gonna have to go back and try and play some
more because I think it still has a pretty active
community engaging on it. But it was just down Oh
it's so good. And then of course my number one
called duty World of War the Nazis Zombies. That okay,
Nazi Zombies is just oh my goodness, what a tree
just simple round based. Now would I love it if
they went back to that simple round based scenario. Yes,
but now it's just the maps. It's not open world
like one of our three zombies is. But the maps
are larger and a lot more open. They're not as
narrow and confined, and it's not like you're not even
boarding up windows, you're it's just it's very different. It's
so easy to get from round to round and to survive.
I want to go back to that old school round
based and not even limited just the World of War.
If they were to go ahead, a few games like
Black Ops one, Black Ops two, those round based zombies
like with Assension and mob but the Dead and all
those different things. There are all those different maps that
they did, so many good memories on there, doing all
the Easter eggs and whatnot. That's what call UD needs
to do this new stuff. I'm not all about the
bubble gums whatever.
Speaker 1: Like, it's just yeah, the new one did not do
much for me. Played like three or four rounds and
then I was done.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I and I usually am too. It's good for
leveling up your guns, I guess, but I'm just not
there mentally on wanting to just be a part of,
you know, part of that. I'd rather just get to
the simple round bas zombies like it was back day,
and so I just I remember going to my friend's
house and playing Knackdown Totin that first map and just
how scary it was and freaky, so good, so claustrophobic
it is, And that's what I miss It's it was
just such a staple, and I think that any fan
of zombies needs to at least try it, because you
can get World of War on games past. I'm pretty
sure you can go back. You can try that. Zombies
and the old Call Duty servers are they are live,
so you can definitely play online, which kind of crazy.
It is crazy.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I love that. I love that your top two
are our Call of Duty zombies because that is definitely
some of the best zombies content out there. Let me
throw our list at you mean, Kirklands, and you can
tell me if you think of it. So number ten
was controversial. We had Dead of Winter, which is a
board game actually, although technically you can play it through
like board game simulator I think. So that was how
I pitched it. But I pleaded with Kirka let me
put this on there because it was like, it's just
one of my favorite board games and it's a very
cool It does a great job of the zombie theming
and all that good stuff. So Dead of Winter number nine.
I didn't know if this would pop up on your list.
But we had World war Z Aftermath.
Speaker 2: Oh all right, what am I gonna switch out here?
Speaker 1: That would kick something off your list? Hey, so you
had Dead Rising at number ten, So would would that
be the lowest denominator?
Speaker 2: Then I'd kick Dead Rising. I put World war Z
okay uh in there for sure. That game I totally
forgot about that. I was playing it actually like two
months ago. I popped it. I've never installed. I've always
had it on my concert That's great, it's it's just
such an easy game just to turn on hop in
and yeah, you just get swamped by zombies. I'm a
big fan of the movie. I really liked it, and
this is where the scenarios were the game. Like, I
know it's it's based in that universe, and movie game
tie ins kind of have a bad rap, but this
just it stands up on its own and it is
a fucking impressive game. It's so much fun for a
zombie ginning.
Speaker 1: Well, I'm glad to see it makes it under your
top ten. Then that what I have not played that game,
and so that was definitely a Kirkland h Kirkland passion
passion pick to get that one on the on the
list there number So that was at number dne at
number eight we had Resident Evil two. I really struggled
with the Resident Evil. Which one do you pick? And
that was the one that I felt like it was
both a very good game but also really nailed the
zombie horror part of it. And so that's why that's
the one that floated up on the list for us.
Then at number ten at seven. We had Dead Island
two at number six. We had Dead Rising two at
number five, So we went actually with a Call of
Duty Black Ops. We went with the original Black Ops. So, Keno, Ascension,
what were the other ones in there? Was it the
say for dance, but definitely not for dance.
Speaker 2: No, not for dance. There was a Shangri La, there
was the roone, and they had I think it was
Call of the Dead where you had the director George
ra Merrill on the icy level. Yeah, I think I
think of Black Ops two with that.
Speaker 1: It wasn't there, like, wasn't that we didn't have like
a lab, a lab one, a science lab.
Speaker 2: That was the Pentagon I think was that in block
five that had the elevator here, let me look up
for me.
Speaker 1: It was definitely Keno and Ascension were like the two
that I just played endlessly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so there was yeah, she knew, Yeah, I forgot
de Rise knacked on Totin. So they had all those
original ones, Ascension five, Keno, the Moon called the head right.
Speaker 1: It's actually crazy how many they had.
Speaker 2: Like just then they added, uh, you have roctors in there,
she knew. Sorry, Shangri La that was in there, two
and uh, Cook Dead Ops Arcade. I forgot about that. Hmmm,
that was funny.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't even play all the maps, I realized.
I guess I didn't have all the deal C. I
think I really just had Ascension and uh then yeah
Quino before any of the delC stuff came out. But yeah,
great game, great mechanics there. For me, it was like
the perfect amount of evolution past what World at War
is like a little bit more depth but still kind
of has still is pretty refined, I mean essentially even
gets kind of crazy honestly with PhD Flopper and all
this dumb shit, but you know, it's it's still good.
And then at number four we had din Lite number three,
we had PVZ number two, no surprise, we had Project Zomboid,
which is obviously Kirkland's big passion pick as well one
of his favorite games ever. And I think at the
time we had done the episode, I don't think I
had played the game yet, but I have played it
now and I can confirm that it is super good,
although I have not put as many, nearly as many
hours as Kirkland, of course, but super good game. And
then left four Dead two at number one, So how
do you think I think our list is okay.
Speaker 2: I think that's a good list. It's acceptable. I come
over and play those games with you, guys.
Speaker 1: I forget if we made a hard and fast rule
that like only one game per series. I feel like
maybe there's a chance that, like if we had multiple
in the series, maybe we would have had another Call
of Duty Zombie. He's like in the top ten because
like Dead of Winter, you know, being a board game,
like barely snuck on there in the first place, and
then like Resident Evil two World War Z. I think,
you know, me and Kirkland had both only played that
game individually, not like both both of us, so maybe
we would have had another one in there. Like I
love World at War as well. That's a top dog
one for me. I've not played. I want to work
for three Zombies Open World one. But yeah, so many,
so many great zombies games in the mix there. But yeah,
it's not a not a bad list, right, got a
got different flavors strokes for different folks, that kind of thing.
I think that's I think that's all any final thoughts here, Taylor.
Speaker 2: Field, No, I don't reckon, so he.
Speaker 1: Doesn't reckon, So all right, Thank you Taylor so much
for joining me. This is a very fun halloweeny Haunted episode.
Thank you everyone for listening, and we will be back
next week of course, as we always are. Thank you
so much for listening, and have a great night.