Speaker 1: Welcome back, everybody to the Game Informer Show, a weekly
podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every week
for a discussion of the latest gaming news, reviews, and
exclusive reveals, alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from
around the industry. I'm one of your hosts today, Alex
van Aiken, joined by Marcus Stewart. Hey you knowing, Marcus,
I'm doing well. You can insert a witty remark here.
I don't have one yet, but I assume them, so
just put on yeah. Yeah, Well we'll get Yeah, I've
got a ton of AI tools that can implement witty remarks. Well,
it'll sound totally natural and only burn two bottles of
water for for one three word sentence, but.
Speaker 2: It'll be good if.
Speaker 1: We can. We got that tool too. Don't worry about it, man,
you will. You will sound and look like Woody, but
also you will have your own own corporeal form. Welcome
to the show, Eric Van Allen. How you doing, Eric?
Speaker 3: I think you described one of my nightmares. I think
that's that's one of my my terrors that has awoken
me in the middle of the night. Snake in my boots. Yeah, yeah,
you become Woody like, yes, you become a doll.
Speaker 1: Rounding out the show this week, Brian Shay, how you doing.
Speaker 4: Brian, somebody's poison the water hole.
Speaker 1: Somebody has We were talking about this right before the
show started.
Speaker 4: Many people.
Speaker 1: Is either a gas leak or poison in the water
hole or not sure which in Minnesota right now, you
guys gotta yeah, you figure that out.
Speaker 3: Perfect time for me to move there.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely well. Welcome all to the Game Informer Show
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We also want to say that we have announced as
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Former cover story. So you can look forward to that.
We're also going to have a ton of online and
video content and features for you to check out all
that GameInformer dot Com check it out. Let's get into
the show proper, guys. We've been playing. I mean, there's
a lot of games that are out that we're talking about.
We're going to be getting into Skate, Early Access, Sonic Racing, Crossworlds,
Battlefield six. I went hands on with two of the
biggest maps in the game, including Operation Firestorm, which is
a beloved be A three map, two x KO and Hurdling.
But let's get started. Skate, Eric, you and I played skate.
We live streamed it. That's another thing. We're now live
streaming on Wednesdays and Fridays every week. But if you
missed the stream on Wednesday, Eric and I played Skate,
Skate Foard Skate early Access, Skate period.
Speaker 2: I was gonna say it technically skate period, I think
which it is.
Speaker 1: It is choice, Yeah, yeah, but I'm I'm you know,
we dove into it. We played it for a few hours.
I don't know if you've had a chance to play
it anymore, Eric, I have not.
Speaker 3: I've I've found myself wanting to go back. But I
said this on the stream, and I mean this complimentarily.
I promise it's it's kind of a friends slop game
in that it's for for those who aren't aware of
the lingo. Friend slop is a game that you probably
aren't going to play by yourself, but maybe you're going
to play with a group of your friends, and it
becomes a social situation, the social medium, and I feel
like skate is really aiming for that. It has individual
things that you can do that are challenges that direct
you towards doing objectives or you know, hitting different areas
that they kind of give you control, but you really
just kind of impress the local skate gangs and you
build your influence and things like that. But it really
I kept being reminded of track Mania in a lot
of ways because of the number of people on the
map at the same time and how you would just
kind of follow where people were going. You'd see somebody
doing a really sick line, or building up a cool
ramp somewhere, or climbing a tower to get to this
really cool spot, and you would kind of go where
the people are going. And I think that's the more
interesting part in this new Skate is how free form
and open and interesting the city is as opposed to
a lot of this single player, more oriented stuff, which
is a as I understand, I've not played the original
Skate games, but I think that's a departure for the
Skate series. I know a lot of people in the
chat that day were saying, oh, you know, are there
single player things? Are you building your stats up? And
stuff like that? Does not really seem like it, so
no as sight aficionado's like, how do y'all kind of
feel about the shift and focus?
Speaker 1: I you know, I played, I've played every Skate game.
The one I played the most is two. Actually, I
know a lot of folks are on the same boat.
I know, Skate three obviously has lived on, especially like
in online spaces like social media, where like there's a
lot of just ridiculous stuff that people do in that
game that's fun to watch. But it it it does
feel like a bit of a departure, but it feels
natural to me. It kind of feels like a natural evolution.
I know, once some games go from you know, there's
obviously all these you know, big companies want the next
live action, live service game that hits. Yeah, yeah, sorry,
everyone wants f m V coward everyone.
Speaker 2: Back.
Speaker 1: It's yeah, everyone's kind of chasing these games of service still,
and it can often feel soulless, especially when it's a
series that you love that's transitioning to those spaces. But
I think skate makes the transition pretty naturally it, you know,
I think it does e a well. Uh and what
Full Circle Studio. I think to kind of have this
entire city that is designed around skating, right, It's called
San Vansterdam. It's an amalgamation different Pacific Northwest.
Speaker 3: Representation.
Speaker 2: Guys are the co mayors of.
Speaker 1: Alex San Vansterdam Aiken and Eric San Vansterdam Allen as
we are. Those are our Christian names.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, are given names by the skate God.
Speaker 1: I think having this space that feels it still feels
like a city that you might stumble upon, you know,
there there are still cars driving around roads, and like
there is a natural flow to the city that feels
I was very quickly kind of finding myself not having
to consult the map as much, kind of knowing where
at least in the first section of the game that
they kind of drop you in the cities divided into
four sections, and the first section that you put into
we spent a lot of time in there, you know,
climbing around doing like parkour stuff as well as obviously skateboarding,
and you kind of like start to get a familiarity
with the space. That is fun and it kind of
feels natural. And I think had this come out in
some other form, as like a Games of Service, I
think it would have felt a lot more or at
a lot more jarring. But to me, it feels pretty natural.
I like Eric said, it's honestly really invigorating to see
other players doing their lines, you know, coming up with
you know, seeing them do tricks, you know, seeing I
saw some folks do tricks. I was like, oh, how
do you I want to know how to do that trick,
like the line and going yeah, and that's kind of
like a classic skate thing you can do. But I
couldn't remember the button sequences, and so like figuring that
out through asking folks yea to be clear, texting a
friend who was in our lobby. There's not voice chat
to my knowledge or anything like that, but it was
still like this, it feels very lively in a really
fun way. And while I think there is still a
general lack of content and the sense of kondas not
even necessarily the right word. There's a lot of things
to do. I just think like they're the like central
motivation to continue playing the game really kind of lies
on you as the player, like what do you want
to be doing, and less so on a character. Really
kind of like there's not there are like there's a
through line. You know, there's like some characters who will
have you do challenges and stuff, but there's not really
there's not a story really or anything like that kind
of propelling you through. It's just kind of like, you know,
similar to a game other online games, or similar to
like almost like a sandbox game, where like the onus
to progress really is on you as the player, uh
and just purely based on your own enjoyment and fulfilling
that like skateboarding Fantasy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's probably worth noting too that this is an
early access launch.
Speaker 1: Like it is, it is early it's.
Speaker 2: Still very much a big development, so they could certainly, Yeah,
they could certainly add stuff to it and will for
gameplay wise. I I am a big Tony Hawk fan.
I never really got into skate like the most Skate
I think I've played was like a demo of the
original Skate and I kind of was. I was kind
of turned away because of how less arcadie it was,
like it it's a lot more technical, And I always
got the impression from as a onlooker that Skate was
kind of the Grand Turismo of skate games, of like, oh,
it takes itself more seriously and maybe like too seriously
for me, but watching you guys stream it looked a
lot sillier than I Maybe the impression I ever got
from the Skate series is the gameplay still like the
same level of technicality as the old ones, or have
they made it a little more arcadie.
Speaker 1: Or I was talking to Eric about this on stream,
and that Skate One when it first came out felt
so much more radically semish, not the sims but.
Speaker 3: Like simlish, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Like simlish on like real skateboarding. Yeah. And I think
at the time didn't have any other references for that
in the game space. We had, you know, Tony Hawk
for the most part, and you know, other sports there
was like Kelly Slater and stuff, but those were all
very arcadie, you know, And I think by comparison, Skate
felt like such a stark contrast, and it felt it
kind of had a lot of those labels as being
you know, more realistic, you know, more more semi and
you know, and and for folks who aren't aware, you
are really performing your tricks on the analog sticks on
your on your controller and so like an ali is
down on on the right stick and then up on
the right stick, and yeah, and so you're kind of
and there's a lot more complicated ones and there. I
think that naturally was like a barrier to entry for
some people. I always it kind of really captured my
attention when that mechanic first came out. I think it
feels really good, But I wouldn't say these days that
it necessarily feels like a sim skateboarding game. I think
like there's so many other games now like Session skate sim.
There's others I'm forgetting the name of, but that have
really kind of dialed in the very grounded I mean,
some games are even like cutting skate tapes together and
it's all very grounded, whereas Skate has some of those
elements with its mechanics, but the world and the activities
and and all of that are much more what's the
right word, you know, surreal and kind of arcadie. I
guess right, it's in the lack of a better.
Speaker 3: Term, it's in a fantasy world essentially. You know, it's
in this magical city where everybody skates. I was going
to mention earlier. That's why I didn't think about it
until now. But it's kind of weird that there are
cars there. Like, we made a city where people are
going to be riding around on their skateboards all the time,
but we made sure there were still cars that do
not break for pedestrians.
Speaker 1: I think they do that so that I imagine when the
servers are emptier it might feel a little isolating or
lonely without those cars. I think that would be core personally.
But yeah, yeah, one big player. I do think it
gives it like a real city feel, having actual cars there, right,
And I imagine you can kind of grab onto the
back of them and ride. I don't know.
Speaker 3: I was sitting on the back of one of the
flatbed trucks for a while, just riding it around town,
using the city emote and just kind of observing the
town as it went by, and that was kind of neat,
but I think this game does do a lot of
really interesting stuff in that way. Like you were saying,
to take the what would normally feel kind of semi
kind of hardcore, you're doing all these precise stick inputs
to do certain tricks and things like that, and instead
it puts it against this very open, freeform world that
wants you to just find really interesting lines, find cool things.
I think they give you a really good example early
on with that hedge jump that you do, because it's
just a couple hedges on a slight elevation, but you
can see the visual language of oh, I bet I
could do a really cool looking trick off that, and
the game encourages you to look for more of that.
I think my biggest frustration and the thing that I
think they need to address in Early Access is the
ways in which the structures of monetization and free to
play are actively inhibiting the fun of the skating. And
by that I mean there's a lot of I mean
there's like a pseudo loot box. I couldn't really tell
what it was, but there's some sort of thing in
there that's got cosmetics that you can put money into
or currency and of course, there's different kinds of currency
that are accrued in different manners, and there's all that
kind of stuff. You can buy an additional pack for
this game that is out there as well. There's a
Founder's pack if you want that. And that's that's one
thing set that to one side is like, okay, that's
that's the free to play. It's it's it's that we
we did this really cool section uh in skate where
I'd found this tower that just went straight up into
the sky, higher than any other tower in skate Van
Francisco or whatever, and we spent so long climbing it,
and it's a really cool climb. It's a really fun
puzzle that there's there's a climbing ability that feels like
Assassin's creed when you're going up the sides of the
Basilica's and Assassin Assassin.
Speaker 2: That was really weird to watch, you guys, like I
didn't know this game had like straight up parkour your
characters or just.
Speaker 3: It's it's cool. It's fun because you get to see
yourself go further and further up and you keep thinking,
as you get up there, there's gonna be something cool
up here. There's gonna be something so sick up here.
And when we get to the top, there's a fast
travel point and it says locked, get a higher level
to unlock this fast travel point. And I just felt
my stomach sink into my feet because.
Speaker 1: It was like a twenty minute climb.
Speaker 3: It was a really long climb. I did it twice
because I did it once before the stream it was like,
we should do this on stream, it's sick, And then
we did it on stream and both times it was like, right,
I did this whole thing. We get all the way
up here. We had such a fun time trying to
raise each other up it and stuff like that. And
you get to the top and the game is like,
you could fast travel here again if you'd like to,
once you're high enough level. We're not going to tell
you what that level is though, come back later. Maybe
Who's just because you.
Speaker 1: Had leveled up and you were thinking, oh now we.
Speaker 3: Can maybe now we can unlock it. No no, yeah, no.
Speaker 2: You can you buy progression? Is there?
Speaker 3: Not? To my knowledge, I couldn't see a way to
do it. In my end, I feel like all this
stuff surely cosmetic. Yeah okay, yeah, but that's the thing is.
I understand that if it's a free to play game,
you need to find your way to get your revenue
stream to pay everybody. That that is just a base
level of making games and publishing them. But some of
the progression stuff, I think, especially if it gets in
the way of people actively wanting to explore the zones
and spend time playing your game. I think it's cool
to have the structured challenges if you want to go
chase those, if you need something to kind of guide
and signpost you along and say here, go do this,
go do this, we have cool things here, go do this.
But then also let people just explore and get rewarded
for that exploring, you know, find things, and don't feel
like you're approaching it in the wrong way if you
go off the beat.
Speaker 1: Not all the rewards have to tie into the microtransaction.
Speaker 4: System like that. That's something that like, you know, the
best open world games, it's like, Okay, I'm gonna go
over there and there's gonna be something cool waiting for me,
and like it sucks that, Like you do all that
effort and you get there and it's like come back
when you don't suck Lol.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, gain gain or story quests, like that's that's
a weird thing to do in a game. At least
it would normally let you just plant your flag but
then be like, oh, hey, you're like not supposed to
be here yet, like maybe go do some stuff, but
we'll let you. Like you got the point you got here.
But it's weird to know that I'm going to have
to eventually hit some unknown level and then go climb
that tower again just to get that fast travel point.
Speaker 1: Yeah, whereas like that would have been a great reward
that's not tied to monetization, like just let me have
this fast turble point and that's like more of it.
It's like it's it's a game design flaw, but it
does tie. It does relate to the micro transactions, because
the only way that you are getting rewarded in the
game for completing things is you're getting points to spend
in in the shop or getting loot boxes, where it'd
be great to have these more natural rewards like cli
to the top of the tower and get in the
fast trouble point.
Speaker 3: I just think that weirdly enough progression in this game.
If it's going to be an open world, free explore
Go do things. Maybe it's being updated over time, and
they add kind of it'd be cool if they did
some rotations and oh, you know, kind of like what
Fordye does with their map, where they change it out
every once in a while and the city changes and
new things pop up and new lines uppear. Having any
part of that be gated by a metagame progression where
you have to be a certain level to access certain things,
or you can get there, but it's going to be
actively detrimental if you get there before the game things
you're supposed to. Is that that's going to get in
the way of the free form nature of skates, of
finding these cool lines, of doing these cool things and
feeling really awesome about discovering this fun way to explore
the world with, you know, this piece of board under
your feet and yeah, or rolling, you know, we should
talk about the rolling. Yeah, the roll.
Speaker 1: The rolling is super fun. Is ridiculous. Yeah, you can
essentially roll up into a ball off of your board
and you can Eric calls the Blanca roll.
Speaker 3: Shade would like it to be called the Sonic role.
I say, Blot in the comments below.
Speaker 4: No, listen, listen. Blanca does not use his role for transportation.
He uses it to attack opponents. Sonic uses it for both.
He used it to attack opponents and to get places.
Speaker 3: What is an attack but transportation closer to your opponent.
Speaker 4: That's what I was saying about when when I get
in a car, I'm like, this is an attack if
somebody is in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But it is primarily a form of transportation, which is
how Sonic uses it. He goes places fast. But then
he can also attack enemies using the.
Speaker 3: Role when I'm playing for it, so I attack that pavement,
I attack that asphalt. I'm on there, attack that assphalt.
Speaker 2: Skateboarders are rolling up into ball. Is this a real
skateboard move?
Speaker 3: Do people do this in real I've not seen Tony
Hawk comporting itself this way. No, No, it's it is.
Speaker 1: Rolled up in a ball, going much faster than anybody
can actually skate, Like you are going faster.
Speaker 3: Speaking goes faster than skating. It's it's kind of funny,
and I hope they never change it. I hope it
just stays that way forever because it rules.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I mean, we haven't really talked about like
the actual like act of skateboarding We've talked a lot
about the world and all of that, but I I
think skate and this game, this game definitely holds onto
this element of past games where the best moments, the
best time the game feels its best in like the
little moments where you're just hitting a little hitting a flip,
hitting a grind and landing and it just feels crisp.
The sound effects, you know, the difference in the different
I've got actually got a skateboard next to me, like hitting, Yeah,
I'm gonna do a trick on string, the difference in
like grinding at the top of your board versus like
the middle. They've done a great job kind of capturing
the various sound effects that that kind of change, and
just there's like a really satisfying element to just like
these little moments. And your reward is like, you know,
you get points, of course, and it tells you, you know,
great job, but it's also just like the satisfaction of
this of completing this more involved trick than you would
in like a Tony Hawk and a Tony Hawk where
you'd press X to kind of ali and then X
plus left to do like a flip trick, and then
you land it right, and you only have to worry
about like your rotation when you land, whereas in skate
you are one button. You're pushing forward on your on
your skateboard. Then you're kind of pulling back to ready
yourself with the trick, flicking forward to Ali or or
another accommodation to like do a different trick and then
hitting that grind, worrying about your balance and like a
there's not like a there's not like a meter or
a bar that you're like, there's not a mini game.
It's purely like their physics engine. You are balancing yourself
on the board, and you know, it's just it feels
really great. And also when you land, you know, and
Tony Hawk, if you if you land and you're kind
of just you know center, you know, you're kind of
like ninety degrees to the ground, You're gonna land the
trick right, as long as you aren't like at a
weird angle with skate, even if you do that, if
it's a really you know, with physics involved, if it's
a really big jump, you have to actually change the
angle of your board like forward and backwards exactly exactly,
like to make sure that your trick is kind of
landing on the back wheels so that you don't well
you know you aren't and if you do it too
much then you'll kind of the bord'll go out from
underneath that kind of thing. So it's a lot more.
There are a lot more considerations in completing a line,
even a simple one, but there's it's just so satisfying
to do that those those little things.
Speaker 3: That's something that I found myself really surprised by, and
maybe the main differentiator between the Tony Hawk game and
a skate game, at least for me in these specific games,
is that I found so much more enjoyment in just
going somewhere, setting a session marker, which I think is
a really smart, useful tool that you just drop a
point that you can always zip back to, and saying,
I see this really cool line where I can go
down this ramp off here, grind the hit the ground,
do a trick, and it would look really cool if
I nail all that, And it's all about the locomotion.
It ends up being all about the getting from point
A to B and just doing this very simple line
compared to, like you said, some of the stuff that
you might be able to do in Tony Hawk, but
is Tony Hawk's more of a You're racking up really
high scores like pinball, where the ball's going everywhere and
the scores rising up and you're getting millions of points.
You're like, yeah, cool, cool, cool, and that does satisfy
a really good itch in my brain. But skate feels
like the opposite. Where do you all remember Marble Madness
where you have to get the marble across different stuff.
It's that's the difference. It's pinball versus Marble Madness, where
in one case, I'm trying to get this really cool
high score with all the tricks in ways I know
I can link the entire park together, And in skate
it felt like I was, Okay, how do I navigate
this whole thing without beefing it and get like a
really sick line that just feels like it connects together
really well, like everything's moving, and when it is moving
in motion, it just feels fluid and it feels expressive
and like you've kind of mastered these very basic levels
of locomotion that create this really cool flow state and
that I do think works really well in this new skate,
And I think they have mostly gotten that there's still
a little bit of iffinus. Sometimes every once in a while,
you know, there's a little bit of hitching because it
might be server side, or sometimes you just feel like
you hit something a little bit weird and your guy
just beefs it out of nowhere. But mostly I found
that the skating is very solid and an enjoyable to
undertake and has a very different vibe than you would
normally expect from other arcade skaters. Yeah, say it's really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm looking forward to the early access roadmap. They've
kind of laid out that each new season, which they
each last about two months, the first season's coming on October,
then season two in December. But they have said that
each season includes new skatable areas obviously, like new challenges
and like events based on seasons, new like partners and
cosmetics and stuff and oh one thing, the soundtrack's really good,
and they've said that they're going to be adding new
new tracks each season they do.
Speaker 4: They've got McGee on the put Pearl jams even flow
on it.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen that yet, but I did see they've
got McGee on there are you looking up? They've got Turnstyle, Yeah,
they've got some good stuff, and it was so good
that we demonetized our stream yesterday because I was just
looking through looking at them. That's all right, though, Yeah,
but I know that later on. Yeah, and in twenty
twenty six. I'm just going to read off a couple
of the things that kind of my eye and my
ears perked up when I heard that they were kind
of doing this. There's an in season two in December.
There's party Voice Chrat coming, which sure, that's that's actually
pretty good to have. There's a replay editor. There is
a replay editor that I haven't messed around with in
the that is out right now, but I guess they're
gonna be like improving it in season two is their plan.
But there's a new it says, new co op game
mode coming in season two and the season three and beyond.
They're talking about open world collection, more character customization slots
like tattoos and that kind of thing, player created parks,
new game modes, that kind of thing, leaderboards. So like
they're still certainly and as well as like you know,
new tricks and stuff. But I think this the foundation
is solid. I think there's some you know, we've kind
of described some of our qualms with some of the
progression stuff that I do think, Yeah, I'm gonna give
them benefit. The doubt will likely be ironed out in
some way with us being early access. But I think
if you're just looking for that skate experience, and you
you know, you don't necessarily want to go play the
old games, but you're you want to, you're on the
on the fence about checking this one out. I do
think it's worth checking out. I mean, it's free to play.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I'm gonna check out. I'm not a skate guy.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I think I think, I'm I'm I'm pretty
positive on it. Honestly, you know, all things considered, it
it is is, it's it's a lot of fun. And
I'm thinking about how, like this weekend, I'd love to
convince some friends to sit down and just spend an
evening playing skate, you know, just doing stuff. So I'm
I dig it. I'm I'm a fan so far.
Speaker 4: But awesome, Yeah, forward to it for a while. I Mean,
it feels like we've known about this thing for so
many years at this point, because they announced it super
early and then we're just like waiting, and I think
they sent me like a care package like two and
a half years ago. They had like a beanie and
like just a T shirt that said skate and I
just it's just like a shirt that I wear around
the house. But like it's not like it did have
the period, yes, but it was like, Okay, well they
must be gearing up to like release this thing. And
it was like two and a half years later and
it's still was not out and finally it's here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm curious to see what you think of it, Brian.
I think I'll be jamming on this. I think as
updates come out, I'm certainly going to keep playing this,
you know, in the coming weeks.
Speaker 4: For this skate series is kind of I've bounced off it,
similar to I think it was Marcus that said it
where it was like yeah, not like I obsessed over
the Tony Hawk franchise for a lot of like the
late nineties and early two thousands, as a lot of
people did. So when I saw that like EA was
putting out a skating franchise, I gave like the first
couple a shot, and I was like, this is not
quite like the arcade style action that I enjoy about
the Tony Hawk franchise. So I always kind of like
bought the games or like found like a used copy
of them and then played them for like an hour,
and I was like, Nope, maybe not for me. So
I would like to try this because it seems like
there they took a lot of lessons for like modern
game design conventions and like the directions they want to
go and kind of forged a unique identity for this
particular game. So maybe it's maybe it's worth giving a shot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, my last warning, heed this, heed these words. Do
not climb the big tower until you got to pop
up that says you can unlock fast travel points now
because it'll unless you really just want to see the sites.
Speaker 4: But can a leap of faith off the tower?
Speaker 1: You you actually yeah, you actually cant And there are
actually I don't know if you saw this, Eric, there
are different moves that you can do when you're falling
in the air, and I did like a Superman died.
You can also do like spread your spread your wings
out and just like but at the end of the day,
you're falling to your death and.
Speaker 3: It's well, now you're dev like just yeah.
Speaker 1: You are immortal, You're an Immortal Being.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, Yeah, it's.
Speaker 4: A different game than I was expecting the Parkore, there's
Assassin's Creed climbing, there's apparently.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you get to the God.
Speaker 4: Yeah, so it's like Astrobot. It's just different games.
Speaker 3: I thought the visual novel portion was a little strange,
but I think it really propelled the story for.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the horror mission actually is like really highlight this year.
Speaker 3: And pay homage to your solid as well. It was
really cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, Brian, keeping the keeping the sports games train moving,
You've been checking out what is probably one of the
most beloved sports, uh, Sonic Racing, specifically Sonic Racing Cross
the World.
Speaker 2: I watch it weekend.
Speaker 4: Is this the Game Awards where we're lumping sports and
the same category.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we're putting for the Netflix documentary. That's really gonna
get me hooked on Sonic Racing. Yah.
Speaker 3: The Bill Simmons to Survive Sonic Racing episodes.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I mean, don't they have like some collaborations
with like actual racing leagues. I thought they had like
a Sonic Racing Crossworld's car in one of the.
Speaker 3: Some friends and I were talking about this recently that
I think Danica Patrick was in a previous Sonic Racing game,
And that's that's a real crazy poll when you talk
about the crossover characters, because in Cross Worlds you have
SpongeBob and things like that, but you don't have Danica
Patrick in there. Where's a Max verstappin sons World.
Speaker 2: It's almost like Multi Bobby and Sonic Cross World.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Ricky Bobby.
Speaker 4: Like Lebron James being in Multi Versus was also kind
of one of those weird ones. But like, yeah, Danica
Patrick being in one of the previous I think it
was Racing Transformed.
Speaker 3: But yes, while yeah, but speaking.
Speaker 4: Of Racing Transformed, this is probably the best Sonic Racing
game since that game, which you know, a lot of
people really love Sonic Sonic and All Stars Racing Transformed.
I think it's called it's a long told title, it is,
and I know it was like Sega Racing or I
don't know Sonic and Sega Racing originally, but yeah, Sonic
Racing Cross Worlds. I think they have created a kind
of like the poll quote from my review is it's
the most well rounded cart racer of twenty twenty five,
which is saying something seeing as how we got a
Mario Kart game and a Garfield KRT game this year.
I've not played still include Garfield and that yes, I
honestly a full disclosure. I have not played Garfield KRT.
So maybe I'm maybe I'm assuming that it's better than
Garfield Cards. But yeah, so it's like you know, it's
it's like, unlike Mario Kart World, there's no like open
world area that you can explore in Crossworlds. There's no
like there's no like real battle mode. There are some
like side modes that you can do, like some kind
of like party style competitions, but like the meat of
this game is just like the straightforward races that like
I think there's twenty four courses, and then in the
middle of it, like the second lap of every race
is a Crossworld's lap. So you do your first lap
on like the normal that the regular track, and then
the person in the pole position chooses between two courses
like rings pop up in like at the end of
the first lap, and they choose what track you want
to go to next, and it pulls from a like
a list of like fifteen crossworlds that you can go to,
almost like Ratchet and clank style, so like it it
whoever the first the person in first chooses, the entire
second lap takes place on that course, so it teleports
you to the second course where you do this other
the second lap, and then these are like fully fledged
courses too. It's not just like, oh, this is like
bare bones and like nothing really going on. It's like, no,
this is These are actually probably more involved than like
the standard tracks. So like there's one that you go
and there's like actual like dinosaurs running around, like like
that's my favor There's like one that's like you know,
there's there's water and like there's like a bunch of
like ships and everything that you have to like drive through.
Speaker 1: There's not a candy Land kind of style one.
Speaker 4: I mean there's a lot of different ones. There's one
that almost reminds me of like Rainbow Road.
Speaker 2: Actually are any of these based on Sega games or
are they just for this game?
Speaker 4: So that's the thing is like when you look at
like Mario Mario Kart, like most of those levels are
based on something at least like adjacent to a real
world mar you like level this, I would say it's
you know, maybe sixty percent based on Sonic stuff. So
there is like the rooftop Run from Sonic Unleashed has
a level and like you're so you're going through I
forget what what the Greek name, it's like a pop
botast or something like Socrates Socrates that's yeah, so so yeah,
it does play like that. And then there's like there's
various other levels that are like from Sonic games.
Speaker 1: But like there's a cool one from like Sonic Adventure
with the whale you know that jumps up.
Speaker 4: There's Radical Highway from Sonic Adventure two. So like, yeah,
there are some that are from Sonic levels, but there
I think a lot of them are just kind of like, hey,
this would be a cool cart racing level. And that's
the same as like the power ups. Like there's some
where it's like the Wisps from Sonic Colors and like
they give you like the boost and some other some
other abilities and like attacks that you can perform. But
then there's others that it's like, oh, this has like
no thing to do with a Sonic game. It's just
something that they created for Sonic Racing Crossworlds or a
past Sonic Racing game. So like I would have preferred
like there's plenty of power ups that they've that Sonic
has had in the past. It's like, why do we
have to kind of outsource them? But I understand, like
there's certain archetypes that they wanted to have for these
power ups and for these levels, So it makes sense
in that regard that it wouldn't be like strictly tied
to Sonic lore. But yeah, like the racing is super sound,
the levels are extremely creative, and it just feels like
a very streamlined kart racing experience. And there's also like
a rival system when you play like the Grand Prix
or if you go to Race Park, which is like
kind of like the more special condition races, Like there's
one where it's like, yeah, you get points for finishing first,
but also the tea it's like team based since like
the team that collected the most rings over the course
of the race also gets like bonus points for their ranking.
Or like there's one where it's like if you run
into your teammate while you're racing, you get a speed boost,
So it makes sense to kind of stay grouped up
because you just like play off each other with like boosts.
But yeah, like the Grand Prix they'll they'll have like
a rival that you are designated to actually beat, and
that ends up being like kind of like an alternate
objective to just finishing first, although the rival typically is
like the one that's going to be leading the pack,
so it ends up just being like, all right, get
get in first. But there the weird thing about the
Grand Prix is that the final one, so it's four
races of three lap race four three lap races.
Speaker 2: Yea.
Speaker 4: The final, the finale of each Grand Prix is just
like it's just like one lap of each of the
preceding courses. So it's not like a track on its own.
It's like, Okay, you played these three courses already in
this Grand Prix. Now you just do one lap of
each of those courses for the final. So it's kind
of a.
Speaker 2: Strange anyway, it's just here's it. Here it is.
Speaker 4: I mean, there are fewer collectibles because like each track
has like the red rings from the Sonic franchise that
you can collect, but like it doesn't really it removes
them for that Grand Prix finale. But no, they're not
like it might be like because in the final lap
sometimes like the tracks are a little bit more chaotic,
so I think it's just like the final lap variant
of that, so like there's more going on, but it's
not really like anything you haven't seen before, which is
a bit of a disappointment, but it's also kind of
cool to be like, Okay, yeah, I remember all of
these tracks that we just raced through, and now it's.
Speaker 1: Like, yeah, a tour. I didn't mind it as much
when I was capturing for the review. The it was
kind of like a chance to kind of you know,
almost like the oh, okay, we've been racing on these
these tracks, let's put your knowledge to the test. Obviously,
you know, twenty thirty hours in you aren't going to
have really that knowledge test is kind of null and
void because you've probably memorized the the tracks at that point.
But as somebody who was just jumping in and was like,
oh okay, yeah, I think I remember like my strategy
and like what I what my moves were. Did it
work out or not? Let me try to you know, uh,
you know, get ahead.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And that's that's the thing though, is that like
the Mario Karte franchise and kart racing are so synonymous
with one another that I didn't like. I always try
whenever I'm reviewing a game to not do too much comparison,
but it's like Mario Kart is such like the standard
for kart racing that it's impossible not to, like at
least make a little bit of a comparison.
Speaker 3: Especially Yeah, it came out this year, It's it's still
top of everyone's mind. Yeah, came out.
Speaker 4: Three months ago, so like it's it's difficult to avoid that.
But at the same time, it's like I wanted to
like judge it on its own merits, but then you
look over the fence at Mario Kart World and you're like, oh, well,
like you know, they were able to do a different
course for every entry in the Grand Prix, so it's
I don't know, it gives it a different flavor, But
it's also like, it would have been nice to have
like another track here.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's fair. I think I like, speaking of like
that comparison to Mario Kart World. I think I like
the the general experience of Mario Kart more like the
actually like racing mechanics. It feels more polished to me
than Sonic Racing Cross Worlds. But I can't deny that
the amount of content and cross worlds is. There's so
much more there going on, and like in terms of
like modes and the customization of the machines that you're
riding on, Like that's a cool piece and I like
that the what would you call it? What is it
called the gadget system, Yeah, so that's that's cool.
Speaker 4: So there's there's aesthetic and like cosmetic customization where it's like,
all right, you've unlocked these carts. You can swap out
like the different body parts. You can apply different paint jobs,
you can apply different auras that like you know, like
all right, well I want like this red glow to
be all around my car. You can farm in this game, yes,
but uh that stuff like you can go too far
with that pretty quickly. And there are many sponsored decals
as well, So if you want to add like your
favorite Ramen brand to the side of your car, you
can do that. There are a lot of those. But
like the stuff that I mostly did was the gadgets,
which are like basically like these like granular customization, so
every character is is sorted into these different classes. So
like speed, acceleration, handling, boost, and power. Those are the
five classes, and like speed is just all right, You're
you have the highest top speed out of anyone. Handling
is exactly what it sounds like. You can go around
corners a little bit more precise, and like the it's
a little bit tighter to go around. Boost is kind
of like the extreme gears from Sonic Riders if you
ever played that game, it's like the hoverboards and those
are back, which is kind of cool, but it's I
would say that's the most technical of the classes because
it's all about like maximizing your boosts, because your boosts
are really great, so like your boost seems to charge
a lot faster when you're drifting, but also if you
get like a boost, it it's a lot more effective.
And then power you can kind of like ram into
other racers while you're while you're racing and it will
cause them to kind of either be bullied or actually
just lose rings while you hit them. And what was
the other one that I didn't touch on? Handling, power, speed, boost.
Speaker 3: Acceleration, acceleration.
Speaker 4: So yeah, that's simple. It's just you get up to
speed faster. So all of the characters fit into one
of those five and all the carts fit into one
of those fives. You can mix and match. So if
you want, like to do Sonic as a like he's
a speed character natively, but if you want to give
him like a power cart, you can do that and
it'll adjust his stats accordingly. And if you really want
to get granular with like your play style, you can
also make this gadget plate, which is this customizable like
load out essentially, So the one that I have that
I use all the time is in each each gadget
that you put on this plate takes up a different
amount of space on the plate. It's almost like a
resident Evil inventory where it's like you have to like
fit it in the way that like it's it's less
much less complicated than a resident Evil inventory. But like
you know, there's like six slots I think on like
a fully upgraded plate, and you upgrade it by completing
laps using the gadget plate. And so like I wanted
one that's like I want to have it so I
can hold three items instead of just two when I'm racing,
And so that took up two slots on the gadget plate.
And then there's one like I want more defensive items
to show up in my in my my racing, So
that took up one spot. And then it's like, all right, well,
if I fall off the track and I have to
be put back on the track, that like kills my momentum.
Here's this gadget that I can install that gives me
an automatic boost when I land from being like falling
off the track, so it helped me recover faster. That
takes up one spot. So it's like kind of like
figuring out how you want to tune your character and
like what perks you want to give your character. So
there is a lot of customization you can do that
is not only cosmetic but also like it impacts your
performance as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it sounds like there's a lot more single player
meet on the bone here than what I would have
expected because Mario Kart World, you know, again to draw comparisons,
there was stuff to do in that game in terms
of finding challenges and things like that in the open world.
But when you pick your cart in Mario Kart World,
you're not going in and giving it RPG stats. You know,
you're not changing its inventory. It has kind of a
set you know, stat line, and that's what you roll with.
So it's interesting to hear this describe this way. That
seems like there's a lot more to do on that end,
especially if you're a single player. But does that, like,
do you think that might make it a little bit
unapproachable for a multiplayer situation when somebody just says I
want to play tails, I just want to raise his tails?
Is it's still easy to just pick up and go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's pre load outs, like there are like like
ones that they've done that are just like, all right,
well here's a plate. You can just choose that, and
like you just choose from like one perk. The extra
slots open up once you level up the thing, so
if you just want to jump in with a friend,
you can do that. And there's also like carts or
machines I think they're called in this where it's like, yeah,
there's these three stock ones that you can choose from,
similar to Mario Kart. So I think that it's more
it's as approachable in that regard, and maybe even more
approachable because you don't have like the open world element
to consider. I think it's interesting because in my review
I called out that there's not as much meat on
the bone in racing in Sonic Racing Cross Worlds. But
that's only because there's no like story mode, there's no
open world mode. But and somebody asked me about this, like,
you know, what content are you even referring to in
Mario Kart World, because you know, the open world doesn't
have like very compelling challenges, And I'm like, well, you know,
I still think that, you know, regardless of if you
like the open world, it's still content. It's it just
may not be compelling content. So that's where I think
Racing Cross Worlds excels, is that it has a higher
concentration of compelling content. Whereas you know, Mario Kart World,
I can jump in and explore that open world for
hours on end and never even do like an actual
formal race. Now what I want to do that that's
another question. I much rather jump into like the the
I even forget what the Battle Royale mode is called, oh,
knockout Knockout mode, Knockout Tour mode. I would much rather
do that. But at the same time, you know, if
I wanted to jump in and mess around with friends
and like the open world, and I wanted to get like,
you know, a party of twelve to just roam around
and like be goofballs in the open world. You don't
have that option in Sonic Racing Cross Worlds, but there
is like a it's much more focused of an experience.
So it's nice that, like we have these two pretty
good cart racers. I think Mario Kart World is a
very good cart racer for what it does, and I
think Sonic Racing Cross Worlds is also a very good
cart racer. So it's cool that both of them have
released this this good product in the same year. But
they also approach the genre from different different angles, even
if like the core experience is pretty similar.
Speaker 3: Mm.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I one thing that I explicitly don't like is
in the in the cosmic in the not in the
cosmetics and the carts that you can unlock at the
with your tickets that you get from from racing at
the very end is a really cool cart. It's like
a dragon, and the model is like like it's in
the game, but it says coming in November, and it's
like it's in the game though it's right there, just
like why would you show it to me if I
can't have it? Yeah, it's it's in the menu. It's
got its own, like it's in the UI, I can
I can rotate it around and it's like eight again, I.
Speaker 3: Could say I can rotate the object in my mind.
I can comprehend it in the three D space. Yeah, yes, there's.
Speaker 4: I mean they're they're doing seasonal content. That's probably why.
But why would they show that to you?
Speaker 2: Well, like it's in the game now, Maybe keep you
playing of like, oh man, that looks cool better you know,
stick around for.
Speaker 1: That play until November.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess like if people didn't have social media
and they weren't following the game, this would be a
way for them to see that there's more stuff coming.
I guess the kids hooked. I was. I was like,
just let me if you already put it in the game,
let me race with his damn vehicle.
Speaker 3: Also this dragon, Timmy, you can race that dragon in no.
Speaker 2: Opportunity to not just have that cart be Kureu with
wheels on him. Huh because it's a dragon. Oh, like
it's each riding on top of Kirau is.
Speaker 3: Like, where where are the wheels on?
Speaker 4: Here?
Speaker 3: You's body in this Maybe.
Speaker 2: He's like Axle from Twisted Metal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's got his eyes out, or maybe he's like
kind of bent over and he's got like a wheel
in each hand and then wheels on his.
Speaker 1: The real pants on the dogs.
Speaker 2: It's like Michael Jackson and Moonwalker when he turns into
a motorcycle at one point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, or like when the the two Shivas in Final
Fantasy thirteen become the motorcycle. So then we have Eachy
Bond and Kirry you kind of slammed together and turn
into a motorcycle.
Speaker 2: And this is a weird game or series in general.
They could get away with it.
Speaker 3: I think this is I think this is the first
time this idea has ever been floated. Is Sonic riding
on top of a motorcycle made out of kurru and
Ichi bonds. Congratulations on having a completely original thoughts on
this podcast.
Speaker 1: That does You.
Speaker 4: Said axel, but talking about a different axle. I'm talking
about crazy taxi axle. Why is crazy taxi not in
a racing game.
Speaker 1: It's a good point. They're too busy, they're too busy working.
You know, Super came into the city and yeah.
Speaker 3: You know taxi driving crazy about Uber and Lyft would
go kind of crazy.
Speaker 2: You know, it would be funny as if they add
the fake Axle from Infinite Wealth, like they put that
guy in the game but not actual.
Speaker 1: Axel Axel Rose.
Speaker 3: I was thinking that too. It was like Axel Rose
and then November Dragon, November Rain, Connect the dots people,
It's it's been there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's been there the whole time.
Speaker 2: He's the new Danica Patrick.
Speaker 4: Yeah, everybody's saying that about Axl Rose. He's the new
Danica Patrick. Final just just one more piece of evidence.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, well what Sonic Racing is out the twenty fifth?
Is that right?
Speaker 2: Check? That's correct?
Speaker 1: Cool, so look forward to that. You can go check
out our review on game reformer dot com or watch
our video review on YouTube dot com Slash game Informer.
You should definitely go watch that because the reason I'm
yawning is because I was up late editing that video.
So got it. And you can also see the game
see gameplay of everything we're talking about. But yeah, well
let's get into really quick. I wanted to dive into
Battlefield six again. We talked about it a few weeks
back when the open beta was happening. I was invited
to a preview event, a virtual preview event, and the
whole point was to show us Battlefield six's two biggest maps,
and that is a new map called Merrick Valley, which
is the biggest map in the game, and then Operation Firestorm,
which is a level it takes place in oil field.
If you've played Battlefield three, you've probably remember it or
look up screenshots you're like, ah, yes, I remember that one.
A lot of folks like that one for its kind
of it's a classic battlefield where it's all out warfare
with vehicles. There's jets flying over top of you, there's
attack helicopters, there's various there's like two different two or
three different kinds of anks. You know, You've got you know,
smaller like rovers with like turrets on them. There's a
lot going on as well as like your typical like
you know, infantry level, you know combat that's happening alongside
all of that. And Murk Valley is also the same.
It's got like that all out battlefield experience, and playing
these two maps has just kind of skyrocketed my excitement
for Battlefield six. They feel. I think one of my
criticisms coming out of the open beta was that it
feels great to play Battlefield six. It just doesn't always
feel like Battlefield. It feels like Call of Duty, especially
in like the infantry only maps, and of course like
there are that is like, you know they are going
to try to take Call of Duty's lunch this year
and sides they're pointing to the fact that maybe they will.
Speaker 4: They at least, I mean, the reception on social media
and YouTube and everything has been like absurdly good for
Battlefield six so far.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it feels that series has had.
Speaker 4: In a while, Oh for sure. Yes, yeah, especially after
like the last one, which.
Speaker 3: Forty two set a pretty low bar to clear, if
I'm being honest, and there were some good maps in
that one. There's I love the big tornado with wing
suit was pretty sick like I when.
Speaker 1: It would happen.
Speaker 2: Though when it happened, I will never forget. Maybe the
funniest stream I've ever done here was me and former
editor Dan Tack playing that game when it came out,
and I was.
Speaker 1: There, was were you there?
Speaker 2: I titled the stream I think like we're gonna be
fighting or dodging tornadoes in Battlefield twenty forty two, And
we played for over an hour and didn't see a
single tornado.
Speaker 1: I swear I swear we played two hours it was
a single tornado.
Speaker 2: That makes it more ridiculous. But we're just like, yeah,
we're gonna do cool tornado stuff like they've been shown.
Speaker 1: We were on Tornado Watch, we'd be like, oh, is
there a tornado forming in the background, And.
Speaker 2: Then it was just be getting shot and Dan making
fun of me is like trying and.
Speaker 3: Ask for heal like that's that's the thing is. I
played Battlefield for fifty percent the big strategy, you know,
having the feeling of or kind of pushing across a
map or moving lines. There's a feeling of even if
you yourself are not you know, putting up huge kill
numbers and all that, you're kind of fighting as part
of the unit and working together and things like that.
And the other fifty percent is raw spectacle, just the craziest,
dumbest things. And I did have a moment where I
thought Battlefield six might have it when I saw when
we were playing the open beta a dude getting a
helicopter take off and immediately just rainbow arc that thing
into the ground, just completely slam that thing into.
Speaker 2: Oh that's why footage of me using anything that leads
to ground in battlefield.
Speaker 3: That's but that that to me is that's that's beautiful.
That's that's battlefield happening in motion in front of you.
Of its poetry.
Speaker 1: And listen, if you're playing on mouse and keyboard and
you're gonna get into a helicopter, remove your hand from
the mouse. Left hand goes on Wazdi, right hand goes
on your arrow keys. You will have a much easier
time flying a helicopter. That way. Tips for people like me, No,
just get good man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I fly jet with mouse and keyboard and I
use the mouse to control pitch and yaw because I'm
crazy Seco. Yeah, but that's how I learned to play
on Battlefield too, So that's how I've always played it since.
But I I am interested. So it's a larger map.
Did you feel like the vehicle counts and there there
was a lot more involvement there with it, because the
stuff that we played in the open beta definitely had
some stuff. There were a PC's occasionally, tanks and jets
and things like that, but I felt like it was
still infantry focused game.
Speaker 1: No, it was like the it felt like the battles
were fought in one by vehicles, you know, like there
was Obviously infantry was important, like especially engineers, having anti
tank having people repairing your engines, but like the tides
shifted whenever, whenever, you know, a vehicle would enter the battle,
and but there was I want to say, like, so
they're all if you play battlefield, you know that, like
all the vehicles along are on cool down timers, And
when you look at the spawn screen, you can you
can spawn in your teammate, you can spawn on points
that you control. You can spawn at your HQ, which
is like all the way back at the start of
the of the match where you started, and at the
HQ is also where your vehicles spawned in. And I
want to say there were at any given moment there
were like ten vehicles, like at some variation on cool
down t into twelve vehicles, and it felt like there
was always like you know, new vehicles during the battlefield
and it felt amazing, honestly, Like when I was playing
this this event, it was firing in all cylinders, you know,
I remember one. You know, there's there's a lot of
cool new mechanics that are at play that we've talked about,
like being able to like drag people as you're reviving them,
like dragging. I had like so many cinematic moments where
like we're pinned down by snipers and like my guy
runs out, gets knocked and I'm like I'm gonna get
you up and you know, dragging him back together. Yeah
exactly behind. Oh yeah, like that was happening. There were
you know, just like the all of the vehicles were
like just felt so good, like me and my my career.
I was playing with uh, some of the game Spot folks,
Jean Luke. We we kind of like hit each other up.
We're like, oh, we're both in this preview event. Let's
get some people and get a squad going. And like
we were like either doing two and two in two
tanks and like kind of like going around points from
like two directions together, or at certain times we were
all in a helicopter together. Like it was just like
the antics were like cranked to eleven, but everything felt
fair and and like that we were in control of
our destiny. You know, people were playing their roles correctly.
I remember I got downed. There's this one moment that
I was like, oh my god, like this is this
is incredible. Is when I get downed in Murk Valley,
which that map is two large construction sites surrounded by
kind of mountains like hills and and like it's very
much an indevelopment place, but a lot of the combat
happens in and just outside of those big you know there.
It's almost like they're building like big not necessarily skyscrapers,
but very large industrial buildings, but it's all in development,
so it's like this big construction site. Anyways, I get
downed one of my tea mates. I think it was
either it was like a snow bike mic from kind
of Funny, or I think Jake Lucky was on my team.
It was like a streamer guy. But one of them,
I can't remember which one of them got me up.
And I had been like I had been paying it forward.
Let me tell you, I had been anytime people were down.
I was playing medic. I was like, Doom, Doom, get
you up, You're back in the game. I was feeling
like I was like my team loves me, you know.
I was getting like folks like, you know, waving their
gun at me, like to say thank you and stuff
like I don't know, just like wiggling your your that's
the little a little army yeah yeaheah, or like the
double crowd really quick to say like thanks.
Speaker 3: That's what that means.
Speaker 4: But they were dead body though, which is weird.
Speaker 1: But eventually I switched to I switched to recon and
I was sniping and I was just like, this is
like one of my best games. I've ever played a
battlefield and I was like, oh my god, I'm capturing
all this. This is great, and there's one moment and
I'll have to find it. In the footage where I
get down, somebody comes and revives me and like they're
they aren't a medics, so they're like hardly like slow
reviving me and dragging me away as a guy is
running at us, like firing at us, and I'm like, oh,
we're both dead, but like I'm gonna, you know, I
see what's happening. I'm gonna try to fight. My teammate
pulls me up. They get down. As soon as my
gun comes up, I scope in and one shot the
guy and like he falls to the ground and then
I get my teammate back up and we keep moving.
But it was like it was the most cinematic thing ever.
I was like, oh my god, we're dead. We're dead,
and then I get up Boom save us. Then we
get back up together and we keep moving, you know.
But it was just like a there's so many cool
moments like that.
Speaker 3: It was call an ambulance, but not for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly, exactly. Yeah, but both of these maps kind
of going back to my original point, it has felt
you know, there's it hasn't necessarily felt like battlefield. There's
some some bigger maps that were in the open beta.
There's one bigger map which is like the Snowy Mountain
area that like kind of felt like more traditional battlefield,
but a lot of the other ones were kind of
like a weird mixture between like Call of Duty and
and and still battlefield, but like it just didn't have
that feel. These both of these maps have that battlefield
identity in them, like fully, and I think that gave
me the confidence and like, okay, you know, the infantry
only maps, I can I can tolerate those if if
you know, I'm going to be playing a lot on
these bigger maps, and I imagine they're gonna have playlists
and everything. I imagine they'll have like infantry only playlists
and like all at war playlists and that kind of thing,
and it feels good to know that, like as they
are kind of setting their sights on the broader market,
they aren't forgetting the people who you know, who have
been with a series for a while, and like that
those experiences that people are expecting, they're still there. You
just have to like go to the right places to
look for them. But those maps felt substantial. They felt like,
you know, every every match felt different, you know, and
I feel like there were so many points on those maps.
We were playing various various game modes. Is a new
one called escalation, where the whoever has the majority of
the points of the control points. Once you have that majority,
then a ticker starts going up, and eventually the longer
you were holding a territory, like that territory will just
permanently become yours for the rest of the match, and
then the number of points that you're fighting over dwindle,
but you were still fighting for that majority. It's it's
a cool mode, and I forget where I was going
with at but there's that there's you know, we were
predominantly playing Breakthrough, which is my favorite mode. It's where
there's an attack and defending team the defenders have unlimited
lives and the attackers start with like think two hundred
lives that they share with each other. And the attackers
are just like trying to get to time to capture
A and B and have them held at the same time.
And then you kind of you move forward to you.
Speaker 3: Push the line with the Eyeah, you're pushing the capture. Yeah, yes, you're.
Speaker 1: Pushing the line forward. And in those moments, really, in
all the game modes on these two maps, like there
are places I just didn't have time to explore really
and fight out because I was really focused on like, Okay,
I've feel like I've got this point down, I'm gonna
like help my team here. So like it still feels
like even after playing for hours on these maps that
there's still a lot to learn and kind of master.
And yeah, I'm really positive on Powerfield six. I'm yeah,
I'm really excited for the game.
Speaker 4: I'm so excited for this guy. I did not play
any of like the betas or whatever, but like it,
all the footage I've seen has looked incredible. And like
I skipped twenty forty two because I heard such terrible
things about the launch. I know they did make some improvements.
Speaker 1: Like through the spread with bugs, they added more tornadoes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but like, yeah, I enjoyed like the old school
Battlefield games, Like Battlefield three was great. I loved Battlefield
two back in the day, so it'd be it'd be
really nice to get back into it. Like Battlefield one
was fine. I don't know, didn't really enjoyed it. Yeah,
but like it was, it was a perfectly fine entry
in the series. But like, yeah, this seems like the
one that I'm going to like give an earnest attempt
at getting back into the Battlefield franchise.
Speaker 1: I want to play. There's that.
Speaker 2: I know I'm wrong for this, but I'm interested in
the campaign. I'm that guy.
Speaker 1: No, yeah, yeah, I think the three campaign was phenomenal
from what I remember.
Speaker 2: The last one I played was Hardline.
Speaker 3: Played was interesting as a way to put that, yeah yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: It was set in Florida, so I got that out
of it. It's like a whole point. There's like a
whole sequence. You do a shootout during a hurricane, like yep,
just like Home that company slaps, I those are my
I'm not the biggest bats, but I love the two
battle the Bad Company games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm I'm I'm hopeful, you know, obviously, like they
are putting all their chips on the table Battlefield. They've
got what like almost ten studios working on Battlefield something
like that under the guys Andretti Studios. Yeah, yeah, so
I hope it does well for them, for for the
studio's sake, but also as a fan, you know, I
would like to see Battlefield kind of back in its
prime again. You know, it stinks, you know, going you know,
four or five years in between entries, you know.
Speaker 4: And what call of Duty is doing every year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't necessarily need it to be annual, but
like more frequent would be nice because I really enjoy Battlefield.
So fingers crost. You know, we don't have much longer
less than a month now, I believe, so. Yeah, but uh,
well that's Battlefield six.
Speaker 2: Eric.
Speaker 1: I want to toss it to you and and Marcus
and Brian. You'll probably have to, you know, help carry
this conversation because I'm not a fighting game guy, even
though I really want to be, but I'm just so
bad at them. But two x KO is out in beta.
It's like in perpetual beta, kind of like how they
launched Valerant, Ye, like, yeah, yeah, it's just gonna be
you can play it and then eventually there will be
a launch at some point. But like it is, it
is kind of out and and playable. Not all the
content is necessarily there yet.
Speaker 3: But is it an open beta or so for for
those at home, let's let's set the stage here. Two
x KO is the League of Legends fighting game made
by Riot Games. Unlike Valorant and some other stuff that
I think they had maybe talked about at some point, Uh,
this is entirely set within the League of Legends universities,
eg of Legends characters. It does seem like they're responding
to the popularity of Arcane a little bit by getting
a lot of Arcane characters in there early so Jinks,
Vy Echo are all in there. It is it Like
Vinnikin said, it's in a Valorant style closed beta that
you opt into and they're kind of rolling invites and
you might even be able to get some drops from
people that are streaming it or something. But also if
you were in any of the previous alphas that have
existed for this game, you are in the closed beta already.
They just opened it up to everybody who has already
play tested or previewed this game in some manner, So
it is. I mean we were talking earlier about Skate
and how long that's been in development. Two XKO has
been in development for ages. I've been I've worked at
several games websites over the course of two xko's development
life cycle, and it is largely made by a lot
of fighting game people, a lot of people involved in
the scene, involved in the fighting game development scene. The
most like, most well known is probably the folks behind
Rising Thunder, which was a very approachable fighting game that
was all about trying to take the concepts of a
fighting game, your basic street fighter style game, and make
them easier for people to understand and grasp because you
take a fighting game anywhere and the first thing people
start to say is, well, I can't do fireballs and
I can't do dragon punch motions and things like that,
and that's totally fair. And so a lot of this
game is based around the idea of it is a
two on two tag fighter in which you pick two characters.
You have one that's out and fighting on the screen
street fighter style, and you have one that's your back
character that can come in for assists and can also
tag out, and there's kind of your basic attack buttons.
You have a sist button, and then you have special buttons,
so much like Super Smash Bros. Or other Honestly, a
lot of fighting games have been doing this recently. I
think Grand Blue Fantasy Versus did this as well, having
a dedicated special button. Persona kind of did this with
having normal attacks and then having Persona attacks. You have
the ability to instead of having to do dragon punch
motions or quarter circle forward, quarter circle back type stuff,
you just do some input of a direction and special
and that is how you access some of your special abilities,
like your fireballs, your projectiles, your special moves. And I
think in that respect it's a really solid interesting game
to get involved with if you want to learn how
fighting games work. Because the current batch of fighters in there.
So one of the big critiques of two XKO right
now is that the roster is not very big, especially
for a two on two fighter. I think it is
ten or eleven characters at the moment, which when you
start to do the math of how that shrinks down,
it's not a huge roster compared to games.
Speaker 2: How big it's going to be.
Speaker 3: It's it's it's going to grow, it's it's just going
to keep going because it's a live service game like
League of Legends. Yeah. There, there's there's not really a
theoretical endpoint as far as anyone can tell, until they
run out of lead characters. You know.
Speaker 4: Also you mentioned Rising Thunder. That is a game that
I previewed, I think for Game and Former my first
year at Game and four. Let's go seth Killian. I
want to say it was Packs West that year, or
it may have been E three, and like he walked
me through, I'm like, wow, this is really approachable. And
then that game never came out because Ryan acquired the
team basically and they started work on two x KO,
which I have also played preview events for two x KO.
I played it at Riot's campus in Santa Monica and
it has a lot of that same DNA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's I think the roster that's in there
right now is kind of interesting. There's a good mix
of different what you would call archetypes within fighting games.
You have your zoners, like Jinx is kind of a
zoner slash trap character who wants to kind of set
up all these different gadgets and tools and keep you
controlled from a distance. Whereas you have Blitzkrank, who's the
newest character. He's a grappler. He's got the Zangie valariat
that he just walks you down with, and he's got
if you've played blitz Crank in League of Legends, you
know he's got the hook and then the uppercut into
the air, and he can do that into XKO as well.
He's going to move that grabs you and pulls you closer,
and then he can uppercut you to do a launcher
and then put you into a combo. Ari is kind
of a mid range, a little bit rushed down, but
also just kind of like tricky, being able to do
all these sorts of air combos with her Spirit dashes
and setups with her Spirit flares. They all feel very
similar to their League of Legends counterparts. I think the
ways in which they have taken these concepts from of Legends.
I think one of my favorites is actually Yasuo's wind wall,
which in League of Legends blocks projectiles. In this game,
it blocks projectiles, and that's a very straightforward thing. But
seeing those concepts recontextualize in a fighting game and what
it means for that design space and that strategy space
is really really cool, I do. It still feels a
little rough at parts, especially like super animations, the one
for Vi, which Vi is also one of the newer
characters that's in the game, her Level three super was
kind of getting some jokes about it because she's kind
of just punching somebody that's off screen and you don't
really like see stuff involved. It could use a little
bit more or just panache a little bit more, like
like jushing up of some of the animations and stuff.
I think that is happening over time, because I've already
seen some of those animations get better over time and
more character be added to these characters over time, so
I kind of expect that to change as time goes on.
But I think the one part that you can really
tell it's still close Beta is a lot of the
infrastructure around the fighting game. So there's a lobby system
that's very much like the Arc system Works style lobby
system of the other Little Avatar and you walk in
and everybody's playing at stations. You go sit on the
couch and that's how you ready up and I've never
really I know some people hate those. I like them.
I think they're fine. I n't say I love them,
but they work, they function, they're kind of goofy and fun.
But there's some menus and some user interfaces and just
pieces of locking in and playing a game that still
feel kind of funky and like they're still kind of
being put together. And I hope that improves because once
you're in the game and playing, it's a really enjoyable
fighting game that I think does feel more approachable than
I would have expected, especially a tag fighter to feel,
because if you're talking about games that feel approachable, street
Fighter is kind of middle of the ground. I think
Street Fighter is easy for people to pick up because
they've probably played it before, but you can feel a
like a skilled differential between yourself and a good Street
Fighter player very fast. This has got me in trouble
for This got me in hot water, but I'll put
it on the pod. I think tecans really easy for
anybody to pick up and play. There there is a
much higher skill ceiling. I always have to say. Techan
is also a very difficult game to get very good at,
and I think the skill differential is much higher there.
But for somebody to just pick up and play a game,
Techan and soul Caliber have always been kind of my
my ones that I go to of if somebody doesn't
really play fighting games, they're still going to have a
good time playing it because it's a very.
Speaker 1: I played a lot of soul Caliber growing up. Yeah,
had a great time. I wasn't playing you know, I
played techans at our arcades and stuff, but I was
never any good, but I would agree with soul Caliber
was like, yeah, yeah, soul Caliber was always like, oh,
I know, my comments.
Speaker 3: Into Yeah, I had got into hot water because I
said the normies love techan and I'd stand by that,
but apparently that's that's.
Speaker 4: A but the experts love techan as well.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, everybody loves.
Speaker 4: Literally, I walked out of a tech and Aid event
with Justin Wong, so it's like, you know that the
the the officionados love it as well.
Speaker 3: Everybody loves Tecan.
Speaker 4: You beat I did not beat Justin Womer?
Speaker 3: Okay, uh so so there's that. And I would say
on the opposite end of the spectrum, tag fighters have
a very high level of entry and a very high
level of skill, where where I think, no matter what,
you're dealing with so many factors. There's I mean, Dragon
Ball Fighters I think was maybe the closest we got
to it feeling a little bit more approachable for new players.
But Marvel versus capcom is a lot for anybody to handle.
And you can kind of button mash and have some fun,
but the second you start playing anybody who kind of
knows what they're doing, you can get overwhelmed by what
is happening on the screen.
Speaker 2: If you play someone that knows how to tag reliable, yeah, man,
you are screwed, which is always I've always found out
to be the biggest barrier for new people in tags,
like how do I tag? Like what is the tag button?
Speaker 3: If they're thrown in hyper combos and and they got
cable ripping a viper beam from across the screen to
check your your jump and things like that, Like that's
it's a different world, man. That's you're you're entering into
the zone, the zone of Tag Fighters, and I I'm
really impressed by what two XKO does to lower that
barrier of entry. Now, of course that's going to come
with some controversy of is it courting casuals too much?
Is it too casual of a game? I think this
discussion happens around every single fighting game that has ever
come out in the history of ever. Is a game
comes out, it does a few things to try and say, hey,
let's make it easier for new players to do, as.
Speaker 2: Simpler control scheme that you can choose from, and people, Yes,
I'm unreasonably upset about that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And honestly, like, I love the simple control schemes
in both Street Fighters six and Tech and eight. I
think they did a great job of that. And I'm
somebody who's been playing Street Fighter since street Fighter two
and Tech and since Tech and three, and it's like, yeah, like,
I think these are great. I think allowing more people
to play a game is awesome, Like whether it's like
if you want to play Persona five on easy, I
think that's cool because you're still just enjoying a game,
Like I don't think we need to gatekeep.
Speaker 3: And the interesting thing is, there was a belief that
was going to change the way that Street Fighter was played,
and there was I think it was Evo two years ago,
a Street Fighter six player who used Chunley specifically on
simple inputs because of the way in which it simplified
some of the kamba routing there, but broadly it's still
kind of the same character. I think other things like
the introduction of hit boxes or leverless fight pads have
done more to shift the talk about how a fighting
game is played than any sort of input system on
the software side. I know this is getting crazy technical.
I'm sorry, but I I always say I wait for
the tournaments. I wait for when Combo Breaker comes around,
when EVO comes around, when CEO comes around, I watch
what players do there because that gives me an idea
of what is the upper limit, what is the upper
potential of this game? And sometimes like games do sinker
swim at that moment, you know, we there have been
a lot of games that have come out that have
been pretty solid, interesting fighting games, and then the competitive
scene doesn't really latch on and they just kind of
don't really go anywhere. That happens sometimes, but I'm interested
to see what happens there with two XKO. But I
think for a casual standpoint, which I do think is
what Riodte is going for, because you have to keep
in mind that Riot is not just trying to make
a fighting game for fighting game players. They absolutely are,
and they've got a lot of people on staff who
are doing that. They're also trying to get some Legal
Legends players in the door. They're trying to get some
Arcane watchers in the door. They're trying to get people
who enjoy this IP but don't want to engage with
it in a mobia to engage with the IP. I
think it's a smart play from them, and I think
there's some really good foundational work done here to build
that up. And yeah, I find it a really really interesting,
fun game that I've I've run sets and had a
good time doing it. I need to get back to
it at some point, but it it's in kind of
a strange place because of the close beta situation. You
have to find people like, Okay, are you in the
close beta. I'm in the close beta. Okay. Let's like,
you know, meet up, make a lobby, all that kind
of stuff. But I do find it really interesting, really compelling,
and they need to add more of my favorite le
characters so I can play as them, because there's there's
a few I'd like. Vi VI is really fun. VIB basically, yeah,
give me chow Goth. I'm going to need I need
Shavana in there, and I need to be able to
turn into a dragon for my ultimate that'd be.
Speaker 2: Pretty what's the short little furry teo?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Is he would he? I guess he wouldn't. He's too short?
Speaker 3: Probably right, Like, you can you can do that. You
got serve Bot in Marvel versus Capcom. You can absolutely
do ye.
Speaker 2: Make him the serve bot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, making the serve bot so you can just kill
him in a one touch situation.
Speaker 2: Well, unless you're good excuse me, you know.
Speaker 3: I mean there there are some people good with serve Bot.
I won't won't discount that, But I Timo. I would
be surprised if Timo doesn't appear at some point, just
because there's always the room for some some quote unquote
joke characters, and I could see them doing some cool
stuff with him. But I think here's the legends, who's
the the Dan of leg I don't that's a really
van aken? Are you thinking of anybody? Off the top
of your head, like, who's the the the goofy jokes?
I feel like Shako might be that character. Shako. There's
there's an old adage about Shako who is a clown
Prince Jester uh. In League of Legends, Shako, the Shako
team is always going to feed and flame everybody in
the chat and do terribly and the Shako on the
enemy team is going to terrorize you and end the
game at twenty minutes because that's just the paradigm of Shakos.
The same with Trenders, the same with Mortekaiser's uh. Mortekaiser
would be the most insanely toxic character they could add
to that game.
Speaker 1: There's a cool character in League called nar Nar sick.
Nar is like a little guy and he has a
little boomerang. But when he gets enough, when his rage
meter fills up, he transforms into this giant beast and
like starts bullying people. But like at the start, his
first form is just like a little guy with a boomerang.
Speaker 3: He's just a little guy.
Speaker 1: But he let him transform. Then it's like, oh, we're
in trouble. That could be a cool mechanic. There's a
guy named Cled who rides a like.
Speaker 3: A chocobo night, essentially Chocobo night.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, uh, this is a cool, cool thing they
could definitely pull from.
Speaker 4: If you told me all these names were completely made up.
I would never know.
Speaker 3: Have you what League of Legends media have you engaged
with Brian Jay.
Speaker 4: Two xko playing for twenty minutes at Riot Headquarters?
Speaker 3: Have you watched hit animated series Arcane yet?
Speaker 4: Because I because I guarantee you that there is too
much media to consume in the year twenty twenty five
that I will never catch up to my list of
stuff that I want to watch.
Speaker 3: Season one of Arcane is worth a watch. I will
say that season two, jury I feel is still roiling
on that one. I had a good time watching it,
but I would not be surprised if most of their
early editions go that way, just because it was it
was incredibly popular. I mean, people who don't play a
League of Legends watched Arcane and fell in love with
the characters.
Speaker 2: My mom.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and so imagine we'll get Jase at some point, Jace.
Speaker 3: I think Victor. I would love himer Dinger. I think
heimer Dinger would be he's got to have the banjo,
he's got to play a little tune, play a little
ditty exactly.
Speaker 4: These are all AI generated names I can tell.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I'm actually AI generated. What I said at
the start of the show, what I said one of
us on this podcast is an AI. I find out
the whole time is.
Speaker 2: Going to be in there.
Speaker 1: Well, I know, Shay, you have to head out, You've
got a heart out here in a couple of minutes.
So we would just want to say thanks for joining
us this week. Of course, if you want to follow
Brian online, you can follow him at Brian pch on
Instagram and Blue Sky and Shay, we'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 4: Yeah, thanks for having me and uh I'll see you
guys hopefully in a new episode very soon.
Speaker 3: Yeah, all right, bye, lea, all right, nobody stopped.
Speaker 1: All righty, welcome back to the Game and Former show.
We're gonna close it out with Marcus telling us all
about Hurdlane, which is a cool game. I actually played it,
I think last year at Packs West, and I think
it was when they were first showing it off and
it seems cool at the time, but I haven't really
kept up with it. Marcus, can you kind of give
us the rundown on what it is and how far
you are, what you're thinking all that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you know it's a tale as old as
times but a boy and as calicorns. Yes, yes, more
than one of them. It turns out I.
Speaker 1: Have good memories being on the Calicorn calicorns farm.
Speaker 3: Yeah, home on the range where the deer and the
calicorn play.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you know the ones.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 2: This is a So this is the no game from Ocomotive,
who was the developer of the what do we call
it the far series Far Loan Sales and Ye are
Changing Tides where you were piloting a big, old, complicated
ship over a desert, which I like those games quite
a bit. So I was really interested in this because
this is completely different than those two games. So it's
it's the setup is strange because it really just kind
of gets going with little to no context, where you
play as a boy in a city, which I was
not expecting just watching all the trailers. You just see
kind of like, you know, big majestic landscapes.
Speaker 1: For us and then mountains and stuff.
Speaker 2: But it starts in this like dingy city and you
wake up as this kid in a hoodie and immediately
you know there's no dialogue. But he finds this like
a stick and is exploring a city and he finds
one of these giants sort of like they kind of
like yax or wilderbeasts, like a weird kind of like
fantasy take on them and called calicorns. He finds one
in the city, a media tames it and just starts
ordering it around, and he makes his way out of
his city into the big open world, and ostensibly the
goal is to get not only this calicorn, but other
caliicorn that you find along the way to the summit
of a mountain off in the distance. Yeah. It's uh,
it's it's strange. I don't know, like why, like why
this kid has taken upon himself to do this.
Speaker 3: It's messed up because he does this and it becomes
a video game. But I try to tame an animal
and suddenly I'm banned from the San Diego Zoo and
I just think that's wrong, you know, Yeah, apparent to
the animals out, well.
Speaker 2: Did you have a big stick, because that seems to
be like a symbol of authority, So I think if
you had the shepherd stick, they'd be like, oh, we
know what this guy is.
Speaker 3: It is it a big shepherd cane, like what you
would hook people off a stage with if they're telling
bad jokes.
Speaker 2: Uh, well, maybe not like a candy cane shape. But
it is like a a big old stick that shoots.
It's glowy. He's got a little bit of a glow
to it.
Speaker 3: The glow does help for establishing authority.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and so the game is it's pretty simple so far,
but it's kind of like it's challenging and it's simplicity,
I guess. So you're you're finding these calicorn along the way,
and the way that you guide them, it's very like
there's a cursor that you're kind of moving, and the
closest comparison I can think of is maybe Pickman, but
it's not as precise as Pickman, which is actually one
of my kind of issues with the games is kind
of steering these things is is tough because basically, like
you're it's in front of you, like they tell you,
like you want to stand behind your herd, and you
see the curse in front of you, but it moves
any opposite direction that you are aiming it. So if
you are aiming left, it's the cursor's going to go right,
and so is your herd. Does that make sense? It's
almost like yeah, horizontally inverted a little bit, okay, Yeah, yeah,
and you know, combining that with like swinging the camera
around so that you kind of keep not only your
self in view, but kind of the cursor to make
sure you're not guiding them into hazards because they because
the caleicorns can get hurt. I don't know if they
can die. I have not lost one yet. I have
five currently. But yeah, like it's like a lot of
the challenge is trying to just kind of keep everyone
oriented the way you want to go. I'm I'm almost
embarrassed to even admit how long it took me to
get the first calicorn out of the little area you
found them and down an alleyway because of how like
I just thought like, oh, it's like pickman, like wherever
I point is, you know where it's going to go.
But then he was going every which win. I'm like, wait,
how is this targeting system work exactly?
Speaker 1: It seems like just give it some cup pet tutorial vibes.
Speaker 2: Uh okay o, listen, we can joke about listen the games.
If this game is on game Pass, you download it
and you see how hard you see to get that
first caliicorn out of there.
Speaker 3: Caliicorn Challenge.
Speaker 2: So yeah, and I I have a better handle on
it now, but I do wish it was maybe more straightforward.
I don't know if the way to control scheme works
now really serves anything other than maybe be a little
more complicated than I think it needs to be. But
eventually you get you know, you get used to it.
You can and you can command them to stop. You
can make them move at like a brisk pace. You
can have them slow down. You can like along the way,
you can have them eat this fruit or run through
these special flowers that basically give them speed boost that
you can just kind of spam. It almost feels like
like literally you can collect them to where it feels
like hitting the Mushroom power up and Mario Kart where
you're just like, all right, I'm just gonna boom boom boom,
and they're just like flying, which when you get to
a big open field in a game, like like you
know you're gonna go have a good time, and you
get to a big open segment and there's like flower
patches in the distance and you're like, oh, we're schmiant
to just sprint through this, and you're just like flying
down this majestic hill and the music starts to swell
and you're like yeah, And also because it's wide open,
is less difficult to or it's easier to not have
them running into something. It's I'm I'm enjoying it so far.
I'm not loving it as much as I did the
Far games. Again, very different games, but it is there
is something like relaxing about it once you wrap your
head around the controls. Like initially I was frustrated with
it in a way that was disappointing. Was like, oh,
it seems like something I would be into, but I
just wish this controlled better. But once I kind of
got my head around it, I'm it is fun to
just sort of like explore and just sort of, I
don't know, just kind of chill out with these these
weird acts, like you're not really doing anything super crazy,
like you're like some of the obstacles have been as
simple as like, oh, there's like this this door that
I need to find a way to get around, Like
you can separate yourself from the herd and go exploring
your own like, which is generally been assemble as like oh,
I need to climb up this thing and maybe jump
across this gap and then open this door so that
they can come through, or I need to push a
box so I can climb it, or to fill a gap,
and sometimes the calicorns can help with that because it's
too heavy for you. Where I'm at in the game,
which is probably a halfway point, because from what I understand,
the game isn't very long. I think I've seen people
say it clocks around like four hours ish, Like I
have not finished it, but I've gotten to a point
where they introduced like an actual enemy, Like it was
like this like hawk, this big old It kind of
reminded me of the owl from the Oriy games a
little bit.
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah. You're going through an area where it's kind of stealth,
where it's like you're in its domain and you're very
carefully trying to guide your herd and not have it.
Have any of them knock over these like rock pillars,
that's gonna alert the owl, and then it's gonna come
swoop down and start swiping at your herd and they
can get like bloody and stuff. Again, I have not
lost anyone yet. I don't know if any of them
can die. I assume they can, mainly because there's an
accessibility option to make them invincible if you want.
Speaker 3: Ah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I was like, I assume they can die,
but so far all five of them are intact.
Speaker 1: Are these are?
Speaker 2: They can name them? When you tame a new one,
you get the option like a.
Speaker 3: Little don't name them, that's gonna make it worse when
they die.
Speaker 2: I think you have to name them. So I've named
all five of mine so far. Just what are the names? Well,
the first one because he's like, he's like the biggest
one in the party so far, and I was like, oh,
he kindos like a yak and then immediately I was like, well,
you're gonna be yacko. And then because of that, the
subsequent two have to be whack and Dot, which it
worked out sarendipitously because they creased in height as they went,
So the middle high, the middle tallest is Wacko, and
the smallest is dot. So I like to think the
game was accommodating in that sense. My next one kind
of had like he's like extra shaggy. He had kind
of like a shaggy dog vibe to him, but he
kind of made him look older, So I named him Gramps,
and then there was one after him. His horns were
twisted in a way. There's no real reasoning for this one.
Just for whatever reason, I saw his horns and I
was like, you're a herald. You're gonna be Harold. And
I think the most recent one I got, I rescued
he was falling from a cliff and I had just
gotten there in time and pulled him over the edge.
I don't know if I could have failed that, if
he could have just like gone over, because I got
an achievement for doing it. But I was like, man,
you almost went over that cliff. You're gonna be Cliffy.
Speaker 3: What No, No, no, you can't like, oh you almost
got hit by that car.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna call you room like I'm gonna call you car.
Speaker 2: I like naming people after their near death experiences. Finds
like this is your personality, trade is how you always die.
Speaker 1: I always name mine after my animals, and so it's
probably not a good game to do that with in
case they do get eaten.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you can name your favorite ones. You know,
you can play favorites, especially because you can decorate your calihorns,
like along the way you can find these ornaments that
you can hang under horns, and you can put one
on each horn, or if you really like them, like yacko,
who I've decided He's like, okay, you're like my pack
leader because you're the tallest and you're my first, so
you're gonna get two on your horns. So he's the
only one that has that is dual rocking these like
almost like Christmas ornament looking things. One of dot has
a harness I believe they called it. It's like it
just covers all over horns and it like like light up,
so just like little lights. So everyone looks pretty. I
think everyone has an ornament now. So Mike gets to
the point where more than one of them are gonna
have like you know, double horns or double ornaments. But yeah,
you can decorate them, name them, you can pet them,
of course. You can stop and give them pets, and
you can clean them off when they get dirty. There's
times and you kind of have to plow through shrubs
and they get branches of them, or if they get hurt,
they get covered in blood and you can kind of like,
I guess.
Speaker 1: Is this like a DS game where I'm using my
stylist to kind of like wipe away the dirt.
Speaker 2: No, you're just holding the white button until meter fills
and then they're good to go. But they also gonna
have personality traits like if you can look at your menu,
some of them don't have anything, but I have two
that have other like like one of them is affectionate
and then the other is I forget what it is.
It's something mischief like a lot. I don't know what
the exact where to use, but it's basically like, oh,
this is like the mischievous one. And I haven't seen
these traits translate into gameplay, Like I was like, Oh,
it's like, is the mischievous one? Is he gonna like
wander from the pack a lot? Is he gonna get
in in trouble or something? And I have something? Yeah,
it's like, what do you It's that gonna mean anything.
I haven't noticed anything dramatically different about them, so I
don't know if that's something that comes later or if
it's even something like like I don't I wonder how
much petting them matters, like are they gonna play favorites?
Like can I bond more with some of them than
the others? I didn't pet them enough. I kind of
make a habit, not only in this game but in
other games where you can you have a constant companion,
they can pet that. I usually pet them after we
got through like some rough like patch, like, oh that
was like a rough sequence there, All right, good job, everybody,
everybody gets a pet. And I don't know, that's just
I feel bad when I go long links without petting
a companion. Yeah, yeah, like it feels like, oh yeah,
it's like if this is my dog, I would pet them,
you know, regularly.
Speaker 1: I would do the same thing with my fall Up
four companions, you know, you would pet them.
Speaker 3: Valentine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Mean I would pet him. He's great. Yeah, and he's
a robot. So I don't know if it's it's not
as weird right anyways, but yeah, it's it's I said,
it's not the most complicated game. Like again, the challenge
is just trying to navigate the weird steering system and
keep your calicos from running into spikes or off a
cliffs and stuff like that, and just enjoying the scenery
along the way. I don't like the story is pretty minimal.
It seems to just be like, for whatever reason, just
get to the top of its mountain. Don't know why.
But it's almost kind of like similar to like, I guess,
like for loan sales, Like it's kind of almost feels
like it's more about the journey than what you're trying
to get to. Yeah, yeah, but I'm enjoying it. It's
it's like, if nothing else, it's kind of like a
nice little chill pill game in between the big review
game I'm currently playing.
Speaker 1: Nice. Well cool. Well, that's hurdling if you were trying
to remember which game we're talking about, folks.
Speaker 2: I'll give it up the next week on how many
of my calicorns actually survived.
Speaker 1: The journey, okay, and I hope for all of our
sakes they are all remaining at that point.
Speaker 3: Will have a terribly somber update.
Speaker 1: I've become very attached guys.
Speaker 2: Bad news guys.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Cliffy and Yaco are doing okay, take care of them.
Well that's the show for this week. Everybody, make sure
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