Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to the Game Informer Show, a weekly podcast
covering the video game industry. Join us every Thursday for
a discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reveals,
alongside Game and Farmer's staff and special guests from around
the industry. I'm one of your hosts, very happy to
be back. My name is Alex van Aiken, and today
I'm joined by Kyle Hilliard. How you doing, Kyle, Alex.
Speaker 2: Saying those words? Did you have to write them down?
Did you remember them fully?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: I just have Game Informers back written across my notebooks.
I don't forget.
Speaker 2: I'm yeah, No, we're back, man. It's it's cool. It
feels good to be. It's been too long. It has
like it's almost like we shouldn't have ever stopped. But
you know that wasn't in our control.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was out of our control. I would say,
it's been what doing math real quick?
Speaker 3: About ten months?
Speaker 2: Ten months since.
Speaker 1: We've last you've last heard our voices. It's been a
wild ride. That other voice you heard there is Marcus Stewart.
How you doing, Marcus? And I proved Senior Associate editor
Marcus Stewart.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, like leveled up. I guess you know it's
a aged maybe I guah true, But no, I'm back
to talk video games and video game accessories.
Speaker 1: Wow. Yeah, what kind of accessories?
Speaker 3: Oh? You know the like hoary pads and the mad
cases and yeah, you know the ones that mark and
be bothered with you.
Speaker 2: I have a backbone review on the site. You could
read that that's accessory right, the mobile device thing?
Speaker 1: Yes, I think by law it is I have a
backbone and that I will stand up for my friends
and what I believe in. But I don't have the accessory.
You know.
Speaker 4: I have a game pad in that you can come
to my pad and play some games.
Speaker 3: Damn.
Speaker 1: That voice you heard is our new full time associate editor,
Charles Heart. How you doing, Charles?
Speaker 4: I am doing good. I have my we you insights
and it's it's providing me the emotional support I need
to carry on podcasting.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Charles has had a tumultuous week with tech uh
and that includes today. Just before we started recording, UH,
he rolled a gnat one randomly on his desk. He
likes to throw dice around and see what the vibes are.
Speaker 4: Don't want to do, I'll do one right now won't
be on camera, but you'll have to believe me what
it is. It'll pick up on my complay thirty better,
that's a that's an unlucky number.
Speaker 3: Though this is an unlucky number.
Speaker 1: But you know if I've gotten like a plus, I
thought it was lucky number thirteen. Yeah, lucky.
Speaker 4: It's like I think that's like sarcastic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's not a thing, Alex. I'm sorry, but I
like that. Charles is basically the Harvey Dent of D
and D Dice. It doesn't make any decision unless he
rolls the dice.
Speaker 2: Is that like I did that?
Speaker 4: I did bring this D twenty with me to Finland
and would roll it at times to be like, all right,
how are we going to do with this event? How
how's this social situation going to go?
Speaker 3: This is your villain origin story, Charles?
Speaker 1: Yeah, did you also have to be carrying a weapon
on you?
Speaker 3: In case?
Speaker 4: It was just I was gonna get a weapon and
then I rolled the dice and it said I shouldn't
bring one.
Speaker 3: Okay, Now you just need to get in some sort
of like dice related accident that like basically like you
become a dice or it becomes part of your identity.
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, there's gonna be a Charles drowns in a
vat of D twenties. Is gonna be like the obituary
on the headline of Game Reformer. And then like later
you're gonna get a really long piece about how Dagger
Heart's not as good as Dungeons and Dragons because it
doesn't have the D twenties that the players use. Well,
it's gonna be like a mysterious by like twenty face
is going to be the byeline.
Speaker 1: You know how Big Boss gets the horns and MG five.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah right, yeah, the shrapnel.
Speaker 1: You'll have, Yeah, the shrapnel you'll have like a D
twenty sticking out of your temple.
Speaker 3: You look like that one Pokemon has, like the jewel eyes,
but it's just dice.
Speaker 4: Yes, I should. Someone should make glasses sunglasses where like
the lenses are big D twenties. It kind of makes
me look like a bug.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you should, especially wear them all driving on the highway.
Speaker 3: I bet those exist.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can probably just get Kalidoscope glasses and it
would be a similar effect visually.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I wouldn't know the difference. Other people looking might
be like.
Speaker 1: That's that's Have you ever looked through a kalidscope?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 1: In your life you have?
Speaker 3: Yeah? What do you mean, I don't stopped making kids
uses these days?
Speaker 1: Isn't the app. It's not that you use it.
Speaker 4: It's just like you know, you're at a carnival and
it's like your tickets for some bubble guys.
Speaker 1: Card used to have one in my I used to
have one in my bedroom. Kaleidoscope.
Speaker 4: Okay, well that's not I was. Were you into colidis?
Did someone get you a kaleidscope as a gift one year?
Speaker 1: Yes, it was wooden. It was really carved, really very nicely.
I would say.
Speaker 3: Alex used to wear a little pin wheel hat on
his walking around with a giant.
Speaker 1: No, that was that was actually around my like when
I collected Beanie Babies and also game Boy era. It
was an interesting time. Had a lava lamp, game Boys,
Beanie Babies, Simpler kaleidoscopes, Yeah, simpler time back. We're feeling
the energy today. If you've missed us, if hey, if
this is your first time listening, let me tell you
what we're all about. Video games. We've been around for
thirty four years now. Game Informer where there was a
small blip in time, as Kyle puts it, where we
were blipped out of existence, and then we came back
and we're back doing our thing full time. Everybody's back,
so we're going to be back to bringing this podcast
to you every Thursday, talking about the biggest topics in gaming,
new releases, exclusive details from our upcoming cover stories. Another
big piece that we should talk about is the magazine.
By the time you're listening to this should be available
to purchase once again in print and digital. We have print,
unfortunately it is only to the US, but we have
a digital international version where you can read all the
information everything for a discounted price because we don't want
to you know, ripping it off if you're not getting
the physical version.
Speaker 2: If you want the physical version, you can subscribe to
the physical version and you'll get the digital version as
part of that. But then we then correct. Alex said,
for international readers, we have the just the standalone digital version,
which saves you a little money. And you know, we
nothing to announce or anying, but like we're always looking
into getting going internationally. That's something we want, but it's
something that is you know, we don't we don't have
an answer for today, which is too bad, but we're
always looking into it.
Speaker 1: Rest assure, yes, but if you are interested in supporting
us and getting a magazine or getting our digital exclusives,
you know, please go to gamaformer dot com slash subscribe.
There are two SKUs available, like Kyle said, the print
and digital. The current price from June third through June
twenty third is forty five dollars USD for the print
and digital version a year. That's a year, not a month,
and digital version you get it for thirty dollars a year. Now,
this is a discounted price. After on June twenty fourth,
we're probably going to be running. You know, it's going
to step up a bit. We're gradually going to get
back up to the full msrp our. Standard pricing after
June twenty fifth will be seventy dollars a year for
print and digital, so you're getting ten issues a year
to your mailbox. You're getting a special print edition at
the end of the year to celebrate Game of the Year.
It's gonna have like a fancier cover, all that kind
of stuff, and then the digital version for the standard
pricing will be forty five dollars a year after discounts
are taken away, So you know it would behoove you.
If you're interested, sign up Earli. You're getting almost a
fifty percent maybe not quite fifty percent, you're getting I
can't do math, Okay, that's why I've been podcasting. But
you get a big discount, and it really helps us out.
You know, we've been working very hard behind the scenes
to bring the magazine back to you. I think it's
what makes Game Informer stand out amongst the competition. It's
it's unique to us in the US at least. And yeah,
it's it's it's what makes Game and Former Game and Former.
And there's the magazine itself is also getting a lot
of improvements. Kyle, do you want to talk about that.
You know, I think better paper quality for one, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean the big I mean I I yes,
I think maybe the biggest one. The thing that we
had been pushing for forever was better paper quality. So like,
the quality of the paper is gonna be better, there's
gonna be more pages, and then like another like sort
of it almost feels like it's like one of those
things that's like when you sort of think about it,
it's like that's kind of small, but it actually will
make a radical difference. Is we're gonna be shipping the magazine.
Speaker 1: In poly bags now, oh yeah, so.
Speaker 2: Like which may which means for those when I would
get those emails from people that were like, you know,
my magazine just always gets messed up in my mailbox,
and I'm like, that sucks, man, But like I I
there's like nothing I can do about that. That is
all in the postal services hands. I wish I could
do something, And this is like our best attempt at
like just improving the quality of the magazine. When it
comes to you, it's like, it will be in the
poly bag. It's gonna be a better quality magazine. It's
gonna be in a poly bag. And it's like it's exciting, man,
Like I'm excited. It's one of those things I was like,
I never thought I would be so excited about a
little plastic bag. But it's such a huge difference.
Speaker 1: It's also going to have fifteen percent more pages. From
from cover to cover, it's one hundred pages now, Roughly
about ninety six of that is is actual you know
what you'll be reading, but it's overall, if you compare
it to our old magazine, it's fifteen percent more content included,
better paper quality, shipped in a poly bag, better cover stock,
it's it's it's just all around better. Also a huge, huge,
you know, perk of supporting us. You're also going five
percent of every subscription purchase goes directly to Saint Jude
Children's Research Hospital, and it helps support the critical work
they're doing over there to help prevent and find a
cure of you know, hugely problematic pediatric diseases. Yeah, so
not only are you supporting Game Informer, you're getting this
excellent magazine, and you're also five percent of your subscription
purchase goes to Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital.
Speaker 2: Yeah, poly bags, better paper, more pages, charity directly supporting us.
Like I'm sorry that we're pushing so hard on it. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: One more thing, well, a couple more things, reduced ads
on the website. So think of your Game in Former
subscription now, like a membership to Game Informer. We're going
to have You're going to get exclusive digital access to
behind the scenes features and vlogs and that sort of
stuff that non pain readers will not have access to.
Don't worry if you can't afford a magazine right now,
that's totally cool. You're still going to get you know,
all of our reviews are going to be free. You know,
you're still to have plenty of stuff to read on
GameInformer dot But if you are willing and able to,
you know, go that extra mile and get a membership,
then we want to make sure that it's worth your money,
so you're gonna be getting you know, web perks as well,
like reduced ads. You know, if you have the digital subscription,
as soon as an issue launches, you'll be able to
read the entire thing and also a huge free perk
that anybody can get without paying for anything. Go to
GameInformer dot com, make a free account, and you can
read the entirety of our magazine archive up until now,
So from nineteen ninety one to twenty twenty four, you
can go and read every single Game in Former issue.
Major shout out to several partners. You know what, Video
Game History Foundation helped us out a lot. Retromag if
I'm not mistaken. RetroMags, there's several members and we do
shout them out. If you go to the website there's
more details on that, but yeah, it's it's a very
exciting time to be back at Game Informer and to
also be a Game Informer fan. Yeah, that's the that's
a lot of the housekeeping out of the way.
Speaker 2: Should we just talk about it feels like advertising, but
like we've been working like lots, like we've been very
excited about this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's kind of weird to talk about publicly.
Speaker 1: Finally, Yeah, yeah it is. How do you feeling, Marcus.
Speaker 3: Uh, feeling excited? Good? Like like a tinge of like
I don't want to say anxiety, but it is that
like what do you call like nervous sighted? Right, So yeah,
I always say, like the difference between being nervous and
excited is how often you breathe. So it's like just
remembering to breathe. And but like, oh, it's a cool
thing that we're doing, you know, So you're just hoping
that it goes off with out a hitch and that
people like it. But no, it's it's exciting again. Everything's
been exciting these last this last year has been a
whirlwind for all of us. So it's cool to see
the things that we have just talked about and meetings
kind of like start to come to fruition finally. So yeah,
feeling good though, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because I mean, you know, we lost our jobs.
I think it was August second or August third, August.
Speaker 3: I remember, I remember vividly because I had a flight
to Japan that Monday. It was a Friday that we
were laid off and I was supposed to be going
to Japan to go to Konami for like a Silent
Hill two thing, and then I just read one of
the many things I need to do that Friday was
called Kanami and be like, yeah, I don't have I
could go to that.
Speaker 5: Saw the news but uh yeah.
Speaker 1: And you know what was It was September or October
that Matt came to us and I was like, hey,
this is a long shot, yeah, but there's this kind
have been coming.
Speaker 4: Like Matt never really stopped communicating with us.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very nice of him.
Speaker 4: There was there was one once or twice he was like, hey, guys,
I know I'm not your boss anymore. I just want
to give you an update, and like I don't want
to be like in charge of you because we're not.
That's not how it worked. And I was just kind
of like you can. You can be in chargeless still
that I don't know my life. You can just.
Speaker 3: Like your teacher.
Speaker 4: Your teacher was like, hey, guys, I'm just gonna start
taking classes here with you and that's all gonna be normal.
I'm like, no, no, no, you're you're up there and that's fine.
Speaker 2: It's like editor in chief by the way, in case. Yeah,
it's just a case.
Speaker 4: People don't know what we're talking about, but yeah, yeah,
And then he had continued he was just in lots
of conversations with all sorts of different people that were
like interested in buying Game Informer or reviving it in
some capacity, and.
Speaker 2: It was it was very selfless of him because like
he he does not he did not own the Game
Informer name right, like Matt was not in charge of it.
But he was there stewarding people who are interested and
being available and like pushing for certain things and like
like he was always keeping us in the loop. And
it was always very very tempered of like, guys, I
don't know this, don't let this interrupt your life, right,
don't hold out for me for this, But here's what
I'm working on, and here's what could happen. And He
was always very you know, classy and tempered about it
of like you know, just this is this is what
I'm working on. And then yeah, and then it actually
started to look like a real thing, which I don't
know how you guys felt about it, but like I
didn't really. I still was putting very little eggs in
that basket of just like that sounds great, Matt, that
sounds cool. I'm really excited about that, but like, you know,
let me let me know if an offer letter comes through.
It was kind of like my approach, you know. If
you guys were similar.
Speaker 3: I was the same. It's like I'll believe it when
I see it, basically, like it's cool to have something
like nested in the back of my mind, but that's
kind of like I will not allow it to leave
that space until, like said, more concrete things, just because
that just that's just not wise, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
It's like I need to look for like other things
and and and you know, just support myself with more
like things that it seemed more like in front of me.
Speaker 1: So yeah, Marcau he did a lot of freelancing, didn't.
Speaker 3: You, not like a lot. I it was it was
weird because we were only gone about eight months roughly,
and so at least for me specifically, that wound up
being like the perfect amount of time in terms of
what I could afford to like sustain myself with without
full time work. But then also realizing about maybe like
a month after because I went to games Com a
few weeks after we got shut down, because I had
had that trip arranged through Game Informer, and it was like, well,
my flight and stuff is still booked, I just let
me go, and also this could be freelance fodder, which
wound up being for Polygon. But I kind of like
after that trip realized I kind of needed a break,
and yeah, like I was like, oh man, I guess
we were running like really hard, and I think it's
something about going that hard and then just slamming on
the brake so abruptly without that kind of like transition
to slowing down kind of like there was a whiplash
that I didn't really feel. So after I got back
from games Comps, I was like, you know, I was like,
I can afford not to just freelance to death, and
I don't really want to either, So I think this
might be this might be a wise opportunity to maybe
just like distance myself away from just games writing and
just give myself that break to just do explore other things,
but still like stay like keep my finger on things
because I still enjoy this. But like I did, like
I contributed to Jill Groats like the Indian Former, and
that was more or less the extent of it in
terms of like regular stuff like that was like that
was kind of like the level of involvement I wanted
of like I don't want to really go beyond this.
I'd rather just try other things, like I did like
a hosting gig for bandy Namco for like a launch
live stream.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I remember seeing that.
Speaker 3: Yeah it was Unknown nine Awakening.
Speaker 1: That's awesome. Yeah, it was that you were in the
like the big video studio right with the big video
wall and all that.
Speaker 3: It was weird because I had been there earlier.
Speaker 2: That year, first sand Land, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that are like showing me around, like oh and
I was like, I no, I was here like four
months ago. Maybe if even just like boring as Hell
showed me something, Yeah, oh this hasn't changed, Okay, So
yeah it was sort of like oh yeah, like and
I'm just doing just another interview because I did an
interview there the first time, but at least for the
Leveshom moves in person with the creative director, I believe
it was. And and yeah, and outside of doing like
you know, Mid Max stuff here and there, it was
kind of like I was kind of like keeping it intentionally,
kind of like on the deal in terms of like
what I was doing. And again, thankfully I was able
to sort of like I was able to afford to
do that. But and I and it wound up working
out because by the time we did started rolling for real,
I felt like refreshed in a way that I hadn't
in a while. So I think I made the right
call ultimately doing that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Charles, what about you?
Speaker 4: Yeah, just just what I was doing in the break.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just in the meantime. Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it called a.
Speaker 2: Break now in retrospect, yeah, yeah, a vacation.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I uh. I was like I was comfortably busy.
I would say for the rest of twenty twenty four,
I was doing a lot of Midmax stuff. I went
to Japan to see Monster Hunter Wilds, which is really cool.
That was my first international trip. What was that, Like,
I mean, weird, so weird. I mean, uh every time. Uh,
traveling for Mimax is nice because it's like it's so
chill in a way because it's not like I'm not
like talking to someone who's getting approval from someone who
answers to like the CEO or whatever. I'm just talking
to Ben and he's like, yeah, here's you. I'll reimburse
you for your food and cabs and stuff, have fun
film stuff. And it's like, I don't know, he's he
tells me what to do. It's not like, uh, he
just kind of lets me loose. But it is not
It's not like I don't know, it's not it's not
corporate at all. So I was just kind of in
there and I don't know, I'm not I was stressful
kind of just because I didn't know the language. That's
always kind of it.
Speaker 3: I remember me asking for like I have never been
to Japan helped me, I don't think. Yeah, it wasn't
as dire as that sounded, but it was like, oh, okay,
it's your first international trip, and I think I just
sent you a list of just like yeah, here's some
dues and don'tes maybe.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and uh so yeah I did that I also
was writing some stuff for The Indian Former. I had
a Balder's gate piece that I was working on for
the last issue that went up on IgM. That was cool.
And then I've turned it into a video that I
didn't know about because they wouldn't. They don't like email you, like,
by the way, we did this with your video, and
it has like half a million views. It's like maybe
the most viewed thing I have contributed to in some way.
And then the start of twenty twenty five was right
when we started hearing about Game Informer coming back in
a in like a real way, like we had a
meeting and I remember Matt like Matt brought us all
in for a meeting, and I had expect it to
be like, hey, this is going from a ten percent
chance to maybe a fifty percent chance, and then it
was like he was like I think I pressed him on,
like I was like, what percent chance you think this is.
It's like it's not definitely gonna happen, but it's like
ninety five percent, and I was like, oh okay, Like
I hadn't realized how serious of a conversation that these
company has been having. I will say that there was
like a period of what like six weeks after the
new year, where we were waiting to see like the
deals agony that was. That was horrible because I was like,
I don't want to commit to something else. I don't
want to take on any long term projects. But like,
that's that's the most unemployed I've ever felt.
Speaker 1: Is like yeah, and also like that many months into
at least for me, like my unemployment was running out
at that point, was about to, it felt like. And
also my wife Kayla was unemployed. She got laid off
a week after we got laid off, and so I
was working my butt off too luckily. I mean, huge
shout out to. I did a lot of work. I
did a lot of consulting work that I can't talk about.
Worked on a few really big multiplayer titles last year,
probably the extent of which I can say, but min
Max is one of those places I do want to
shout out for. I think everyone on this call they
gave work to.
Speaker 3: I mean they're still.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Kyle and Charles, you obviously are are you know
what cohorts right?
Speaker 4: But I'm like, a, I'm cohorted, Jason.
Speaker 1: Cohart. I like that, Marcus and I not cohorts, but collaborators.
Speaker 5: I would say frequently, Yeah, friends, friends of the show,
friends of the show, and I know they gave you
some work. Marcus allowed us to finish our super replay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, marathon stream. I think, what do we play? Like
eight hours or something or.
Speaker 3: You just I say it that it was longer than
I guess I thought, not knowing how long the game
was because it was my first time. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then Hanson, Uh, there's a couple of time
Leo invited me to just stream with him, and I
was going under the presumption that I was just doing
it for fun, and then I would get off the
stream and Hanson had venmoed me like however, like over
like one hundred bucks, like, and I was like, oh,
I was just playing for fun, man, And then of
course I like help, I was just doing this yeah, yeah, thanks.
So now it's at the point where like, if Leo
invites me on, he's like, hey, f this is just
for fun. I'm like, okay, yeah, that's what I thought
you were gonna.
Speaker 3: You were gonna be like, where's my money exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna really really mean mug hum. But
also I got to host the mid Max Deepest Dive
with Leo Jacob and Charles your yours for Mere's Edge.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I think Charles, you and I had like
we picked one to pitch, so we were all gonna host. Yeah,
we were all in the running to host one game
that we all chose.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I got what I chose.
Speaker 4: I pitched. I was between me and Arkham City and Uprising.
I ended up because I was like, it was it
was by far the least I think it got the
least votes, just because it's like, you.
Speaker 1: Probably could have beaten Merror's Edge with Batman.
Speaker 4: I think so, but I'm.
Speaker 1: Grateful that you didn't because I got paid.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I mean for me, it was like, if I
have a chance to talk at length about Kidicker's Uprising,
I wanted that to be on the running.
Speaker 2: Charles, this is this is a tangent. But there's a
book that came out recently called Good Game, No Rematch
from Mike Trucker. Are you familiar with this writer?
Speaker 4: Oh, I think he worked on the game.
Speaker 2: He worked on Kidicrious extensively. He did a lot of
the sort. But he talks about it in the book
and it's a very good book. Shout out to That
book is hilarious, but you should. You should read that
book just because it's good, but also because he talks
about KIDDI Ris. It is the most in depth anyone
will ever go in Kickers Uprising, since we didn't do
the deepest dive in the MEGS.
Speaker 1: I don't know Mike personally, but hopefully we can somehow
get you in their room with him Charles and you
can talk about Oh.
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, we should have him on. I I I've
corresponded with him, I was emailing. I mean, I want
to say spoiler alert, but that's not the right term.
But I'm really trying to work with him to have
him write some freelance pieces for a Game Informer. I've
back and forth on some ideas and stuff. So I
would love to have Mike on. He's hilarious and talk
about kid us.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but but Kyle, what about you? What were
you up to during the Dark period?
Speaker 2: The Dark period? Similarly min Max as well, which I
am still a a co host at min Max. I'm
still there pretty often, so you know you can still
find me over there. But my gig kind of became
I once the layoffs happened. Pretty quickly. I emailed the
developers at Thorium who made the Undermine game. I don't
know if you guys played Undermine, but it's truly like
a favorite of mine. I don't I'm not even like
in the biggest fan of that genre, but I just
love Undermine. That game really clicked with me. And I
messaged them kind of with the sort of email was
sort of like, hey, I think I can help you
guys if you have a job for me, maybe that
would be nice and uh and they got back to
me quickly and we talked and we had some conversations,
and I was kind of like I was just like
a community manager social media guy there like part time.
Like I was working like part time there while sort
of doing like what you did, Alex, doing consulting on
a number of things that I don't think I'll ever
be able to talk about maybe, but and uh, yeah,
I worked with them for a while and I was
actually I was really sad to leave, honestly when the
game and form Opportunity came along. I had a conversation
with them and they're like, yeah, we totally understand. You know.
It's like I, you know, this is a full time
opportunity that you got to go after. But yeah, I
think the game is actually under Mine two is coming
out July twenty second or something not to like. You know,
I fully acknowledge my bias of working with them. You know,
you're not going to see me covering Undermine, you know,
in a sort of critical way on game inform, dot
com or anything. But I think there's a demo out
for it now, and like I played a ton of
that game and I really like it.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's why you reached out them, right, Because.
Speaker 2: That's why I reached out to them. Yeah, because I
really like that game and I thought maybe I could
help them out. And I'm still rooting for that game
for sure, So that that's what I did. Basically. That
was kind of ended up being the majority of my
my sort of focus was like I worked on that
game and then did a bunch of stuff on the
side and continue to do min Max until until the
opportunity to come back came along and I demanded a
new title. I said, I executive editor. I walk and
Matt was like, that seems fine, sure, I heard that?
Speaker 3: Is it is it worth bringing up to in terms
of like the there was one thing during a dark
period that we all experienced. And I don't know how
like if this how publicly this was known, but we
had like a wake of sorts for Game Informer, like.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah afterwards talk about that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I
got together in Minneapolis. Yeah, everyone who was able to attend. Marcus,
did you come out explicitly for that? Was that?
Speaker 3: Well?
Speaker 2: Yeah, just for that, I see you guys. I wasn't
like that you were missed, Charles.
Speaker 4: Marcus said it if we were like all four of
us were there, and I.
Speaker 3: Was like, oh yeah, I forgot that.
Speaker 2: You like for Andy McNamara was there.
Speaker 1: You were invited To.
Speaker 3: Be clear, I know, no it was like we said no,
don't come, but yeah, it wasn't. It was. It was
everyone that was there at the end. But also like
it was kind of like a Game in Former reunion
of it was like as many people from like multiple
eras of Game Informer, both in like editorial and in
production and graphic design and whatnot. So it was like
the the Avengers end game of Game Informer walked through
portals and said, hey, we're here to to to l
this corpse. Yeah, or in my case, I had a
nice it's like the.
Speaker 2: Year the camera just kept going by people or even
you know, maybe one actor who was a child in
Iron Man three who was an adult by the time
that scene came along, and you're like, who the hell
is that? Like we had a lot of that happening,
you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So that was like that was a fun thing
that like after that, I'd kind of like, again we
we knew in the background that Matt was talking with
like our current owners about like a potential revival. But
it was like, at least for me, after that, I
had kind of like made my piece of like I
guess this chapter of my life is over now, and
I guess I'm okay with that because of how nice
of an event that it was, Like it really felt
like closure, which almost makes kind of like the we
still have to do like a reverse version of that,
like I get together. What is the opposite of a wake?
What would you call that? If someone comes back to life,
Like in any fiction when like like if Rachial Ghoul
comes out of the Lazarus pit, do the.
Speaker 1: Rich that's a ritual, I think, actually, so let's.
Speaker 2: Call let's see, let's just set.
Speaker 3: So yeah, let's do let's just theme it like that specifically,
like League of Shadows and Batman Wichy vibes each.
Speaker 4: Do we each get Lazarus pitted or do we just
pick like a representative to do the Lazarus.
Speaker 3: P Well, it's like a baptism.
Speaker 1: I do you have a question. Is the Lazarus pit painful?
Speaker 3: I don't think it's ever been depicted as painful. I
think it drives you insane. It drives the more you know,
the more you use it.
Speaker 1: But just like one time, I'll have like some anxiety
or something.
Speaker 3: I think the first time is fine. I think racial
Goule's problem is that he did it so many times
that it just broke his mind.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, but I think I would.
Speaker 2: I think I would try centered again.
Speaker 3: You know, he gets punched in the face by Batman.
It says some straight.
Speaker 1: To go to like a health and wellness retreat after
getting Lazarus fitted exactly. Yeah, so we're back. Magazine's back.
That's kind of what we've been up to a bit
in the meantime, and like this, this podcast is coming
out of the week I think we said it at
the top, maybe a one of the busiest weeks that
I can remember working here we've got well, I've got
a cover story trip I'm going on tomorrow. Uh then
I I'm meeting Marcus and Charles in LA on Thursday
for Summer Game Fest Shenanigans, which is also the Nintendo
Switch to Launch day. Did you guys secure pre orders
for that, by the way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I did through someone else, which yeah me too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I have I have a Walmart order that every
day I wake up and I like check it like
as I have, and it hasn't been canceled yet, so
fingers crossed. I feel pretty good about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I hate to get one of those stupid ones from
best Buy where it's like the line was really long
for the just normal Switch. But it's like, but if
you buy a Switch and Mario Kart and a pre
order of Donkey Kong Bonanza, then that has like it
was easier to get in that way.
Speaker 1: So I tried that I couldn't.
Speaker 4: Yeah, to be clear, I don't have the bundle that
comes with a digital version of Mario Kart. I have
a switch with no game, a physical version of Mariocott World,
and then also eventually I will get a physical version
of Donkey Kong Gaza and you'll finally be I'll finally
be happy. It only cost like six hundred and fifty dollars.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this was that Donkey Kong.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this was the most unique preorder experience for me
because I was in Japan at the time. Yeah, Like
I was at Kajima Productions for a desk Stranding two
preview event because in the US, preorders went live at
like midnight for you guys, right, yeah, so for us,
it was like one o'clock in the afternoon and like
smack dab in the middle of like a multi day
like just play session for desk Stranding two. And it
was myself, Dan Reichert of Giant Bomb formerly of gi
and Blessing Junior of kind of Funny, the only US
journalists there because all the smug Eurogamer and Video Game
Chronicles guys because their preorders went up weeks ago, so
they're like, oh, no, we did this already, and it
was actually it was They were like, oh, it was
a very smooth process for us, and I was like, oh,
that must be nice. So then the three of us
are huddled, like we all left our demo stations and
huddled at table on our phones because we weren't allowed
to bring our laptops to Kajima Productions, and we're just
having multiple tabs just like yelling plays at each other
basically like okay, Walmart's down, all right, that's not up yet.
All right, let's try target. And we're just trying to
help each other get Switch to is when we should
be playing Death Training too, But this is the only
window we have to do this.
Speaker 2: He's always getting in the way. A switch to that
happened to you? And then I think we can say
I mean I could. This is all I can say
believe is that I got the review code for Debt
Stranding two now in my pocket, and I'm like, I
gotta play switch to A, Like, how.
Speaker 1: Do you think he feels balancing those two things?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Did we get the dish raining too? Was that
release date for the game announced before the switch To
release date? Like? Is he blindsided by this two?
Speaker 2: I think I think so?
Speaker 3: Yeah it was, Yeah, so he might be in the
same boat of like I thought June was safe. What
the hell?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's Doug Bowser who must pay I ran it too,
Doug Bowser a Super Nintendo World in Orlando.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah he was. I was with someone he actually
knows personally, so I kind of piggybacked off of like
they are meeting and we weren't expecting it. So I
was filming something and I have a very funny, almost
like Blair Witch esque like found for the style, like
Doug Bowser appearance of like, oh, yeah, I just get
in some shots. And then a very excited Doug Bowser
running out of the darkness to greet my friend and
we have a very animated like whoa, it's you. And
I'm like, shaky CAGs. I'm like, oh, I wasn't expecting this,
and I'm trying to and I'm decided should I introduce
my should I say hi? But he was so like
in passing like out of his he was leaving as
we were coming in, so I didn't get to say anything.
But watching it back, there was a very like oh,
this could be like a Cloverfield sequel, and he's in
Doug Bowser, No, nothing's in Bargo. I could I could
show it to you?
Speaker 2: Well that week we should put.
Speaker 1: This in the podcast. Mark, Yeah, I'll.
Speaker 2: Send line yeah, because I mean to be clear. Marcus
was at the opening in Florida for Superintendent World which
has a Donkey Kong lane and stuff like that. And
it was fun because you were sending us pictures of
like the celebrities that you were seeing, Like was it
Gerard Butler, Like you have a really blurry shot.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, it was to go back to the cryptid
thing like it's a very like like Patterson Gimlin Bigfoot
style photo of Gerard Butler standing in front of the
Stardust roller coaster with like his people, because I was
doing it as I was moving and I want to
be weird and just stand there and try to like
really get him and shot while he's like two feet
away from me.
Speaker 2: But you had to show us that you saw him.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I need a proof or it didn't happen.
Speaker 1: This is going in the show to it was a politician.
Speaker 3: Right Oh and then I guess if you want to
call him celebrity, are wonderful Governor Ron DeSantis?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, who was in Super Nintendo World, which is he's.
Speaker 2: Not allowed in Disney World, right like the pretty sure
he's just not allowed to go there. That cack him out.
He tried to get in, he.
Speaker 3: Got his face on the wall. I guarantee he was
there at least out of some degree of spite. I'm
gonna support these guys. They're gonna kick your ass. Hey,
what's the Syoshi Ride? I saw him. I saw him
enter Yoshi's Adventure. I don't know if he'd in my
pett cannon or is he still there? No, he did.
He did leave, like that's where I took the picture
was out outside of Nintendo. But I saw him go
into the ride, so I'm really in my mind he
got into the little Yoshi cart with like his protectors
and a very slowly road around the park.
Speaker 4: The final boss version of our jobs would be trying
to explain Yoshi to a DC politician that is no
concept of what Yoshi is, and trying to be like,
I've informed the game so well that this person that
is so far from this concept is understood it.
Speaker 3: I like to think that Yoshi will somehow melt his
heart and he'll become like a better person, like something
about something ride affected him on like a very deep level.
Speaker 2: He's not coming back.
Speaker 1: Was there a Toad's Cafe at that version?
Speaker 3: Yeah? There, I got the I got the Mario burger
that has a little mustache, and actually I'm bag you
brought up have a bone to pick. So I was
there with with Brian Altano from my gn He ordered
a kid's meal, which was a few dollars cheaper than
my meal. Like he got a kids burger. I got
an adult burger. However, for less money, he got something
like it was like a little junior burger, like a
small thing. He got like basically regular sized burger with fries,
a corn, and a cob that was surrounded by broccoli,
like the way it was a range was supposed to
be like the flagpole and Mario, like it was like
the cob was sticking out. I had a little like
like toothpick thing that's supposed to be a flag. And
he got a cookie like he got like a gold
coin cookie that was just like a like a fudge
covered cookie or something. And I was like, oh man,
that's pretty neat. And then I get my expensive adult
meal and it's just a slightly larger burger and fries
and that's it. So maybe like like I don't know
even thought it's a hack, but you should if you're
going to eat there, just get the kids meal and
the burger's like barely smaller, but you get technically more
food and you get a little cookie toy or not toy,
but you get a cookie cookie. You did get a toy,
though the toy was like bs because the toy in
quotations was the they had the sandwich like uh, you know,
like when you stick like the toothpick in your sandwich
to try to keep it in keep it together. It
was one of those, but it just had a figure
of Mario on it doing like his Yahoo jump, and
that was what constituted a toy. But when you pull
it out, it's like that toy with basically a dagger
sticking out of it, and it's like, did they want
kids to play with this like this like you can't shot? Yeah, yeah,
like basically weapon, whereas my burger just had the same thing,
but it was Mario's hat because the bun had a
mustache like burn marks, it was supposed like Mario. So yeah,
I looked at Brian. I was like, I think, I
think I got Gypsy.
Speaker 2: A mile away.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well they were getting invaded by Bowser in the
middle of That's right.
Speaker 2: That does happen everybody, and it happened twice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I am trying to remember what Shane and I
got at the Japan location. I know, we got a
sort of meat loaf dish. It was like a meat
loaf sort of mixed with a beef Wellington like. It
had a pie crust like protective barrier puff pastry, but
it was lattice, like a lattice.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like his signature. Yeah, and we got that.
We got a strawberry or raspberry cake and it was
kind of doing the flagpole thing on that one. They
love the flag pole.
Speaker 2: They have that one over here. Because I got that.
Speaker 3: In California, I think, Yeah, one thing was good. Did
you guys get the Yoshi shake?
Speaker 1: No, they didn't have that.
Speaker 3: Okay, I went this summer.
Speaker 2: I went during the break that we refer to it now,
the break had I had already, we had already planned
to go.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the g I staff has been to Super Nintendo
World already, because I I thought it was just like
a few of us. Apparently everyone on this podcast. Well,
Brian's gone, I think of us. Me I went just
as a family vacation. And has West gone. I mean
he lives in Florida.
Speaker 3: He probably hadn't gone to the Well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a whole baby thing going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you have to make a pilgrimage there, Charles, that's
like how it works.
Speaker 4: It's like I will actually be in I'm going to
My partner has a like work conference in Orlando in
late August, so I am going to go down to
Orlando with her health. It's like at Disney for some reason,
and she has days where she's working. Question it, and
I was like, do I just do a solo trip
to the Mario world? Is that going to be?
Speaker 2: And if you if you're solo, you can get on
the rides easier too, because like that's if your solo.
So yeah, I'm jealous because Marcus got to ride Donkey Kong,
which sounds like the best Nintendo ride, like multiple times. Yeah,
Mario Kart was a little underwhelming in California. I want
to I want to get on the Mine cards man.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I messed up Mark like Mark Carr was fine.
It took me about a third of away through the
ride to figure out how to actually plagues I didn't
know yet to It's like an ar ride for those
that don't know. You have like yeah goggles and you
see like basically ar competitors you're not and you're playing cars.
Speaker 2: It's it's there's too much going on, so it's a
very visual.
Speaker 1: Brian and I we have a video where we went
to the Japan and did a blog there, yeah, on
the YouTube channel somewhere.
Speaker 3: It took me like maybe like the first third of ride,
realized you have to aim by moving, like looking at
the targets and not like the steering wheel.
Speaker 2: Yea.
Speaker 3: So we were losing it first, but then once I
figured out, we were like destroying, like me and my
my partner shout out to Desion over at a Nintendo
Life him and I we got first place in uh
in Mario Kart, and then we said never again because
we can't top that. You know, we're esh in history.
Speaker 1: Now that's awesome. Well yeah, I mean yes, switch to
is here. I'm trying to think how we got to
this subject, but I guess it was.
Speaker 3: I think it was.
Speaker 2: It was a very busy week.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and then we got then we went to Disney,
I guess yeah, and it was it.
Speaker 3: Was grow Universal. Technically let's not get him twelve.
Speaker 1: But yes, Orlando, or Orlando, that has both, right.
Speaker 3: What do you mean like like universally.
Speaker 1: Disney Universal Disney? Is there a third one?
Speaker 3: I mean, we have sea World that's like the oh
the Sea World's great, it's better you're thinking of pre Blackfish,
SeaWorld post Blackfish when they kind of had some I
guess we shouldn't keep these because they don't do that.
Speaker 1: It's gone.
Speaker 3: They did all for like ten years. Yeah, they still
have not done anything with Shamou stadiums. So when you
walk there, it's like this weird ghost like town part
of the park where you just see Shammou Stadium just empty,
and you're like, how have they not figured out what
to do with this in this time whereas everything else
is like active, but it is a fun sort of
like time capsule, I guess from like simpler, more horrific times.
But yes, actually eat SeaWorld low key, very good park
that nobody goes to because they've I think in the
wake of we can't have Shamou, we have to have
more rides. So they have like really good roller coasters
now and like a lot of them. So I always say, like,
if you just are in the mood for roto coasters
but don't want to pay the price or deal with
the crowds of Disney Universal, like just go to SeaWorld.
Speaker 2: Like SeaWorld from a local Floridian.
Speaker 3: Exactly like SeaWorld at its busiest is like half as
busy as like Disney. Pretty much.
Speaker 1: They need that on the T shirts, right. I was
to post Blackfish SeaWorld less problematic, Sea Rolls.
Speaker 2: Changed the name to that just overall, just that's what
the sign problematic.
Speaker 1: Hey guys, we've seen the documentary, we know about it.
Speaker 3: We heard you. It's like every corporate apology ever. It's
just like the sign is just like a Twitter background.
Speaker 1: I thought I thought Shamou was still trapped. There was.
Speaker 2: What other word would you use? What other there?
Speaker 1: Volunteer? It was hunted.
Speaker 3: I mean, you don't know if he signed.
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know Shamus.
Speaker 3: Shout out to Shamo utile shamboos, so I guess all
of them. Oh, whales don't live that long. Sham who
has been a thing for like decades.
Speaker 1: I thought whales lived a long time.
Speaker 3: I mean not as long as Shamboo has been a brand.
Speaker 2: There's been alex he Okay, I feel like you're learning
a lot in this last five minutes.
Speaker 1: I haven't seen Blackfish.
Speaker 3: I'm learning like being sad for like.
Speaker 1: Wait, I thought whales lived like turtles like for a
long time.
Speaker 3: No, not many things live like turt like turtle, they
do have like longer, they have long lives for like
most animals. But turtles are like next level?
Speaker 1: Is it like like when you haven't? I mean like
it's part works harder.
Speaker 2: Well, I mean like a whale lives for like Google
is fifty to ninety years.
Speaker 1: That's a long time.
Speaker 2: Similar.
Speaker 1: Shamoo hasn't been around that long, has it.
Speaker 3: Like the brand of shamboo. I mean no, but like
there has been more than one Shamoo.
Speaker 1: Basically that's disappointing because.
Speaker 3: There's been there's more than one SeaWorld. You know, it's
not just next there's one in California too, I think,
isn't it just because there's always a California version of
our parks that is inferior, because the Orlando parks are
always better.
Speaker 1: Just saying as well the vibes the I'm bummed right now.
Speaker 3: Man, you haven't even seen the movie. I'm not going
to definitely watch that movie.
Speaker 1: I'm good dude.
Speaker 4: You guys played the there's a is a sea World
case in Ace Attorney Dual Destinies. That's yeah, Well the
whale commits the murder.
Speaker 1: Spoilers, let me let me phrase that the whale is accused.
Speaker 4: Of committing the murder. So you're you're defending the whale.
I honestly don't remember how it ends. I didn't really
like it all that much, but it's it's it's just
particularly on the way I was trying. I was trying
to tie it into a video game.
Speaker 3: Does he speak English?
Speaker 4: So like I think the the it's like they there's
a trick that the whale does. And the conclusion or
the conclusion they jumped to immediately, is that the whale
did its trick to kill this person through some like
it does, like some dropping thing or throwing things like
I don't know. They said he was crushed to death
or something.
Speaker 1: All right, all right, well that sounds like a great
time for a break. We're going to take a break,
come back talk about some of the games that we've
been playing. Will be right back right after.
Speaker 3: Hello, Welcome back to the Game and Former show. And
this is the section where we talk about the thing
that we do at our jobs, which has played a
lot of video games. It's this is again we've been
away for a while, so this is going to be
a little bit of a scattershot approach, but you know,
and especially because like at least for me right now,
I don't know if you guys are taking the same attitude.
But with SGF, I kind of marked it as like, Okay,
we're entering the second half of a year, so I'm
kind of trying to clear as much of my backlag
from the first half before I have to start turning
my attention to like the latter half as things get
release dates or even like something gets shadow dropped during SGF,
which there's always like something. So I've been like playing
things that I've just had outstanding, and my current obsession
this past weekend has been Blueprints Finally Nice. Yeah, because
I started it at launch, but I was so busy,
but like other reviews and trips that I was very
frustrated that I could not sit down and life like
really dig into it, like I was like, yeah, seven
days in for like weeks and weeks how much time
I had for it. And so I actually started the
game over because I started on Steam and then I
found myself wanting to like not be at my computer,
so I downloaded the game Pass version last week and
I was like, oh, if I you know, if I
want to play on computer again, I will just download
the PC on Xbox version because of the safe transfer.
So I've since started over on Xbox and that wound
up being way better because I still had all my
knowledge from my Steam playthrough and all my notes that
I had taken in screenshots on my phone, and but
so I very quickly got to where I was and
then had I'm now on like day twenty something, don't
remember the day.
Speaker 2: Oh nice, okay, but I've gotten to the anti chamber.
Have you got I have not.
Speaker 3: I got real close one time. I literally was one
square away before I just I think I ran out
of keys.
Speaker 2: And I yeah, yeah, that which I mean. Charles could
confirm this too. You you you finished. I did see
credits with my wife. My wife and I saw credits.
It's it's weird because like, in a way, the anti
chamber isn't really like the primary goal in the long run,
sort of you know, which is like, but it's it's
a nice metric to see how far you are. It's like,
have you gotten into that room yet?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And then it's like then you kind of know where
people are at sort of you.
Speaker 3: Know, I just got again having starting over the second time,
knowing like tips from like like like Jesse Fatlly front
of the show, like talking about blueprints with him and
other people that are like you should focus on this
or these are just sort of like some some things
to keep in mind. I have carried those into my
my second play through and has served me much better
because I've started off on a better a stronger foundational
knowledge of like you know, every time you get a
new floor or a new room, just pick it, no
matter what, just so you can get all the things unlocked.
And okay, like I did not do that the first time.
I was just so fixated, like I got to get
to the ends. I think that's what you have to
do in this game. And because of that attitude, I
have found so many other like ancillary mysteries that are
like in some ways more interesting that it's like I
kind of just want to work on these because it
was like I didn't know this was a thing, or
I want to see what happens when I get all
these flames lit, or like I got it. I found
a tomb recently and there's like a thing in there,
and yeah, yeah, there's all kinds of stuff that I'm like,
all right, you should see my This is the first
game since Lower Line a Laser Eyes where I have
like a Madman's like doodles of notes and just weird
terms that I've written down and currently have a blue
prints photo folder that has like a hundred screenshots, just
like just taking pictures of every piece of like writing
and like anything of interest of like I might not
see this room again, so I better just just capture
every bit of knowledge in here, Like who knows, I
might need the references later, and I don't want to
wait for it to come up in the pool again.
But it is such a fun game. The rang element
is annoying, but it's at least for me. It's there's
so many other things to work on that if I
get shut out of something because of a bad drawl,
there's usually something else I can kind of work on
or pivot toah that it kind of I don't mind
as much. And it's like it's it's supposed to hurt,
I guess, And maybe when I get to the point
when I do decide I'm just gonna make a run
for the end, that'll be when it's like maybe it'll
start to sting a little bit more. But I also
think that spending enough time getting the other stuff has
kind of prepared me for like that eventual, Like I'm
just gonna gun it to the angs. I think I
just have enough things un locked to where that seems
more feasible to do than it would be at the beginning,
at least to me. I don't know, but it's definitely
it's one of my favorite games of the year so far.
Speaker 1: I found a lot has been sitting next to me.
I actually haven't removed it from my desk since beating
the game, but I'm looking at my I've got my
moleskin here that I used for my run, and I
probably beat the game probably a month and a half ago,
two months ago, and I think I ended up beating
it around somewhere in the fifties, maybe early sixties. I've
heard of some people Eric Van Allen, another Front of
the show Days not out Sorry Days, yeah sorry Days.
Speaker 3: He beat it.
Speaker 1: I think on like day twenty eight or something.
Speaker 4: I was like day twenty seven, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I took towards the end, I was just restarting
my day because I was wanting something very specific. I like,
but that's fair. I was for a while. But it's
just fun to go through like just my ramblings of
you know, probably fifty pages of notes of just like
random puzzles and like things that you know, I don't
even know if they even were a thing.
Speaker 3: Really yeah, like out of context, like when your notes
look like a serial killer's manifesto, Yes, it is, Like
that's when you know you got a good puzzle game
on your puzzle.
Speaker 4: I had a shared notebook with my partner, a list
that was like very organized, like we had every room
had its own listing in the notebook. We would take
notes specific to the room. It was like a whole
thing that we were playing it the two of us.
Speaker 2: And uh my wife started a like a one note document,
you know, and would take pictures and soff like she
was she was like actively writing what could be a
published strategy eyed basically yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, what else? What if you guys been tinkering around
with besides some Blueprints?
Speaker 1: I've been I've been playing Blueprints was the last game
I really I think beat I I have not started. Well,
I guess I'm about an hour and declare obscure. I've
been waiting for a time where I'm not traveling, so
I can sit down and play it. I'm hoping that's
after SGF. I've been playing three things recently. I don't
have to dive super deep on all of them. Have
you guys played skin Deep at all?
Speaker 3: I played a demo during Steam Next that was like
two chapters, but I have not played the full version yet.
I haven't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's essentially it's an immersive sim from Blendo Games.
They I think they made what Quadrilateral Cowboy?
Speaker 3: Is that right?
Speaker 1: I haven't played that game. I've heard I really like it,
but this is my first Blendo game. I've heard of
them before, haven't played them. It is very very cool
you are, I would I would say it's a really focused,
very funny, immersive sim. More, it feels a little more
Arcadie maybe, or or more like you are in a
man more like you're in a cartoon than a world
that feels like a dishonored or something where you feel
like you're in that world. I don't know. It feels
disjointed from reality, but in a very fun way because
there's just so much ridiculous stuff happening. You are an
insurance adjuster, who is saving cats from spaceships, and there
are pirates who have captured the cats on those spaceships
and they are the primary uh you know object enemies
like patrolling that and your goal and your goal is
kind of progressive to get more complex as you go,
but at the at the end of the day, you're
trying to rescue these cats.
Speaker 3: The cats can talk.
Speaker 1: They have the cats could talk. Yeah, you have emails
with the cats. The cats like what.
Speaker 4: They're down. There's just normal cats to.
Speaker 1: Talk, normal cats, normal cats with cat faces.
Speaker 2: But a confused about Charles. They're just normal cats to
talk with their paws stuff.
Speaker 4: I'm like, are they walking on two legs or like.
Speaker 1: There's like mob boss mob boss cats. You get to
one cat's palace, uh, and he's like a mob boss
that used to run with and you're like, you know,
going in for one last, one last run. Like it
kind of has vibes. So when you get to his
big mansion that's guarded, the front door opens and it's
it's just like a tiny little like cat door.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: So you have to like but you're a human, so
you have to like crouch down and like go into
the door and the entire place is you know, it's
built for a cat. So it's just like it's really
funny stuff. And No, normally cat humor doesn't really do
a lot for me. I would say like, I'm not
I'm not a guy who's like, look, cat has cheeseburger.
That's not me. But this is this is genuinely funny
and I'm having a lot of fun.
Speaker 4: Was Cat has Cheeseburger was genuinely funny when it was
a thing because I was too like, we're people actually
looking at that and being like, oh wow, this is
really funny.
Speaker 1: There was a thing, so it was not a thing
for me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I was specifically Alex and your you know, highbro
comedy and more just like the cultural consensus.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying I was high brow. I just wasn't
into that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, A zoned in on cats like I don't like
cat humor.
Speaker 1: You know, well, I love cat I love watching cats
like funny stuff.
Speaker 2: I'll also be like, I can has cat like and
he looks very excited about it.
Speaker 1: Oh that makes me cringe. Oh man, don't do that
to me. But skin Deep's cool. I recommend it. I
don't want to dive too deep on it right now.
I'm hoping to actually like maybe make a video or
something on it later in the year, because I think
it's one that people should have on their radars just
for kind of if you're plugged in on Game of
the Year and that kind of thing. I don't it's
certainly I don't think a Game of the Year contender,
but it's like, this might make my top ten. I
really like it. And if you like trying to solve,
if you like games, stealth games predominantly where you are
interacting with environmental hazards to try to you know, oh,
let me break this camera, so the camera starts sparking,
and then I'll throw this camera at a like a
leaking gas object, an explosion happens. Like there there's that
kind of stuff that you're playing with, as well as
increasingly difficult like non I guess non combative hazards that
you have to get by, and later on the level,
I just got to there are traps that for some reason,
and I'm sure there is lore that explains it. I
haven't played the level yet. I saved and quit at
the start of it. But if you have a book
on your person and you go through a door, you'll
get lasered, like the books aren't allowed on this space station,
I guess, And so using those objects to you know,
play with the environment and sabotage the pirates on board.
There's a lot of cool stuff happening, and a lot
of more like I wouldn't say maybe obtuse, but there's
a lot of things like at the end, when you
call the the safe like the what would you call it,
like the drop pod or something, the escape pod, you
have to call it down using Morse code, and if
you don't do the Morse code right, it won't work.
And so you have to like read the instructions, do
the Morse code, and then that'll let you get like
a laser pointer like that a cat would like to
play with, and you laser point on the ship where
the drop pod goes, and yeah, and then you put
the cats in, and just before you escape, there's always
a pirate like invasion, like a group of pirates will
come and kind of reach the spaceship that you were on.
You have to defend it. There's cool stuff happening. The
thing that I've really been playing quite a lot of
within the last couple of days actually is split Gate
two the open beta. So if you remember, this is
the Halo meets Portal multiplayer game. There was the first game.
Obviously they shut that down to move resources and the
ta to It was.
Speaker 3: Like the hottest shooter for like a month, like an
a couple of years ago. Yeah, like the servers were
crashing because people were trying to get in that thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it had great map design. It was it
was a unique idea. You know, oh, what if there
are walls within a arena shooter where you can exclusively
uh you know, put a portal like you know portals
up there to see through other locations on the map,
and a lot of really cool ideas there, and that
is in the sequel. I think the sequel is more
polished in a lot of ways. The gunplay feels better,
I would say, or maybe the gun feel. The gunplay
feels more polished, I'll say, maybe not exactly better. And
you know, the lighting it's on like I think it's
in UI five now, so everything's really triple A looking
in terms of art direction and graphical adelity, and everything
just feels more like, oh, you've got money, now, you've
got some funding. I will say, I don't and I've
been talking to a friend of the show, Jesse Vitelli
about this because we've been playing together alongside John Carson,
former game and former Front of the Shower. Yes, friend
of the show, former co worker. And the maps are
they don't feel as good as the first game. Unfortunately.
The first game was a little more rough around the edges,
you know, but there was this charm to the maps
where oh, this this map would not fit in any
other game, and it is whereas in this you know, sequel.
So far, the maps I've seen, they are there are
some maps where I hardly use the portals and it
just kind of feels like a first person shooter with
abilities and I don't like that.
Speaker 4: I I.
Speaker 1: There are some serious like there were some levels in
Splitgate on one that were I thought world class, Like
I am blown away by this map. What a cool idea.
And it kind of feels like when Halo five came
out and the maps just feel like this really refined. Oh,
this is what this is what everybody like, this is
what an esports shooter map should look like. That's what
every map kind of feels like. Everything is very symmetrical,
you know, it almost feels like you're in a stadium
rather than a place, and I guess I guess that
quality was in the first game too. I guess that's
not fair.
Speaker 2: But it's funny that you're sort of like pulling this
thing out the recesses of my brain. Is that Halo
five like Esports mode right where it was like so
focused on like we're trying to make this a watchable gain, right,
And I remember like just really not liking it.
Speaker 1: You know, it feels like they maybe are in a
similar they've fallen into a similar track app maybe, And
I mean, luckily, you know, you can make new maps,
right you can. I would honestly love for the old
maps to come to Split Gate two. I think the
game would still work great. And you know, obviously that's
that's not as simple as just bringing in you know,
assets from one to the other. You know, they'll have
to rebuild it in Unreal Engine five and you know, upgrade, upgrade,
all of that stuff. But I think with time, I
would love to play those maps with these more refined,
more refine movement, you know, really tight gunplay. I think
that would be like a great package. And then lastly,
the other thing I've been playing is elden Ring Night Rain.
We had our review go up on the site. Wesley
wrote that for us, I believe he gave it an eight.
Charles here worked on the video review, but a lot
of us got code for that, and I've really been
enjoying and I wasn't sure how I I was going
to if I was gonna bounce off of it or not.
You know, obviously I love multiplayer games and I love
elden Ring, so I don't know, but I still had
some sort of trepidation about it. You know, it's just
like a it's a new a new format for that
studio and that game specifically, and I'm really enjoying it.
I'm having a lot of fun with it. I have
beat six bosses. I want to say out of the
I want to say eight. I think I've got I've
got two bosses left, and I'm really impressed with it.
I know it's getting you know, I've seen all I've
seen opinions all over the spectrum on this game. But
if you are somebody who likes, if you enjoy speed running,
maybe you aren't somebody who actively speed runs yourself, but
you watch things like games done quick, or you're just
plugged into Twitch where people do that sort of thing.
And it's very much a game that holds up efficiency
and execution above everything. And if you are unable to
uphold those two values in your gameplay sessions, then you're
gonna fail, right, and I feel plenty of times. But
the great thing is that you know a run from
start to finish is only about forty five minutes, and
you know it takes place across three nights, three days.
So and the way that kind of works is think
of a Battle Royale game. I think about Fortnite where
the circle closes. Now, imagine at the end of Fortnite's
final circle, you the circle stops moving and a boss summons,
and you beat that boss, and then the circle expands again.
The circle disappears and starts back all the way out,
you know, on the perimeter of the map. And that's
that's one day finished. And then you ring that is
that is the Elden Ring. Yes, spoilers, yes, go watch
the body video on it on the lore behind that
Marcus No, but so that that that ring then expands
again and that's the start of day two, right, and
you do it one more time, and then you get
I won't spoil what happens, but you get taken somewhere
and you kind of have a breather, and then you
initiate the final boss on the third day and throughout it,
at the start of your run, you have to pick
the night Lord, which are the main bosses in the game.
The thing with the game is you're gonna fight many,
many bosses. You know, a lot of fan favorites return
and you'll randomly stumble upon them as world bosses in
the game. Across the map, which is randomized, you'll you'll
see similar pois, but their locations change and I lost
my train of thought.
Speaker 3: You know, it's fine because I've just had an epiphany
with you mentioned in the three day cycle, and I don't
know how it took this long for for it to
hit me about this games. I love elden Ring. This
is is this the major's mask of Elden Ring.
Speaker 4: Of like it's this weird stuff, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Like we've taken that game and remixed it
into this weird three day cycle that is like the
anthesis of how you play the last game and turned
it into this thing that is also very polarizing for
fans of the first thing. Yeah, Yeah, it's just like
because everything I want to I love elden Ring to
death and and I love Shadow of the Archery as well,
and this I I've had it, and I still have
not started it because it's like it's got those things
where like I love roguelikes, Like I have no issue
with roguelikes, but it's like, do I want that from
this because everything you're saying, but like, and I've heard
it from other people who have like the point of
the game is just the move don't don't stop the
smell of rose, like just you need to hit these
points or you're gonna lose. And it's like when I
play elden Ring, that's all I want to do is
just like stop and smell the roses. I want to
live in this world and like look around and just
like you know, like just ride my little magical horse
and just have a good old time, yeah, getting annihilated
by things. So it's like, huh man, it's that's like
all in the paper and it does not sound appealing.
Speaker 1: I don't think you should play this game if you
have not played elden Ring.
Speaker 3: Oh, if you have not played it.
Speaker 4: That's an interesting thing with this game where I was like,
usually when you switch genres like this, it's like we
were going for one audience and now we're going for
another one. But like the base gameplay of elden Ring
or just like a Frumsoft game is so important to
playing this that it really is like taking a really
wide audience and then like picking a chunk out of it.
Is how I see it it.
Speaker 1: To me, it feels like an encore of sorts.
Speaker 4: Sure, yeah, yeah, you know we.
Speaker 1: Like like checking st Yeah, it feels it depends on
what you want out of an encore, right, if you
want if you want the you know.
Speaker 3: Like more of the same, usually means like give me
that again, the same thing more or less.
Speaker 1: Yeah, then maybe maybe shout out more. So sure, yeah,
we'll say that this is like the B side.
Speaker 3: Sure yeah, this is the.
Speaker 1: This is the acoustic intermission in the middle of the set, right,
But you only appreciate it because you have the knowledge
of the other the other works, and you know, nobody's
going to the show and and you know, expecting the
acoustic intermission. They're there to see the full band and
all of that. But what if you know halfway through,
you know, oh, this is this is a weird experimental part, right,
and that's kind of what Night Rain feels like.
Speaker 3: MTV Unplugged is not the way to maybe introduce yourself
to Nirvana for the first.
Speaker 1: Time, exactly. Yeah. So I think if if you have
played Down and Ring and you want to go back
to Limb Graves, specifically the starting area, you want to
see aspects of you know, the Scarlet Rot, you want
to see some of the some of the snowy areas
and the fire areas, those kind of make appearances, but
the base canvas is a sort of alternate reality of
Limb Grave. It just I don't know, it's really doing
it for me. I'm really enjoying it, and I kind
of thought maybe it wouldn't you know. Like I said,
I had that skepticism about probably maybe play a couple
of matches and I'll be done. But this is a
game that I'm really enjoying to go and going and
helping friends who are earlier in their runs, just because
I like playing the game. And it's it's in some
ways a puzzle in terms of you're pathing right right,
which this night this night Lord that we're fighting at
the end, they're weak to lightning. Right, Okay, well, we
need to prioritize on the map there are certain camps
that we can see that are lightning attuned and we
are more likely to get you know, lightning gear, lightning items,
and weapons and talismans from those places. Let's prioritize those.
But also we need to make sure that we have
enough estes flasks. I forget what they're called in and
they're not called ess flasks. They're called another kind of flask, right, Yeah,
I don't remember, but yeah, yeah, whatever, I need more
flasks for the final boss. So we also need to
prioritize their churches that are randomly scattered around the map.
And if I go there and go to the altar,
I get a flask charge. Okay, so we've got that
knocked out. Oh but you know our one of my
friends needs to go to us. Maybe we need to
go to a mine to get a the weapon shards
or whatever to upgrade our weapons later on. Right, there
are a lot of those micro decisions that are happening.
And the cool thing about the multiple days is you
know the circle is closing around you. You might miss
a camp that you really wanted to go and clear
but like, okay, well we can we can go back
there if we really need to tomorrow on the next day,
but then this other part of the map is likely
to open up to us in a cool way. There's
something called shifting earths, where like craters will erupt and
there will be like special they're kind of like special
world events that happen, and there's some really cool secrets
to find within those. There's there's so far up on
like three of those shifting earths. One is like a
mountaintop that like you have to explore and and and
find like these buffs that are in it that are
protected by these ice dragons. There's another that's a magma
crater that's full of little mini bosses, and at the
end is like a big, you know, magma worm that
you can get and if you beat it, there's an
altar that lets you level up one of your weapons
to a legendary And there's a Scarlet Rot Forest version,
which I haven't fully explored yet. And I know there's
more because I haven't gotten the Steam achievement that tells
me I've unlocked all of them. But yeah, it's it's
a cool game. The characters that you're playing as you're
playing as pre built, pre made characters. You know, Uh,
they are their their own classes, they have their own abilities,
but you are along the way on every run. You
are kind of equipping them with new things every time,
but your your base abilities kind of stay the same.
But it's about how you modify your your character to
exploit your strengths and minimize your weaknesses well while while
considering everything else. It's it's a cool game.
Speaker 3: I like it a lot awesome. What have you been
uh your current love?
Speaker 2: I'm in a weird place right now. Like I loved
Clare Obscure right, which I wrote the review for Game
and Former, and it really does feel like a potential
Game of the Year contender apps. I only started that too,
actually yeah, but then I played Blades of Fire, which
was a game that, like I didn't like, I really
wanted to like it, Like you can find my review
on game from dot com. I gave it a five
point five, which is like the lowest score I've given
in a while. And like I love I love Mercury Steam.
I still love Mercury Steam, but that game, Like I
got so frustrated with that game to the point where
I was almost like hit a point in my free
time where I was like, I just don't want to
play a lot of games right now. Like I just
like it just turned me off of games for a week.
But like, yeah, I know, and it's I feel bad
even saying it, because like it's a very technically proficient
game and it has some cool ideas, but I just
I hit so many sort of frustration points with it.
And then also to be fair, I was I'm kind
of clearing the runway a little bit for death Stranding
and switched to you know, like I knew those were
like coming soon, and like I didn't want to be
in the middle of anything so like, but I did
want to shout out I think you By the time
this podcast airs, there should be like a video online.
But I played through Holston had like a recent build,
which is this really cool horror game that looks a
little like Signalis or crow Country recently. If you've played those,
it looks like like it looks very pixelated in two D,
but it's not like you have full three D control
of the camera, and when you pull the left trigger,
you go into third person shooting mode, and it's like
it's it's a game that, like I really encourage you
to like look up footage of it and see it
in action because it's really interesting and cool and like
I really had a good time with this demo that
I played.
Speaker 3: Kyle, how accurate is it, say, like trying to visualize
how to the third person mode looks. I don't know
why I thought of wild Guns because it's like that
flat behind the shoulder kind of if that if that
totally matches up. But like wild Guns popped in my
head first, So like the PS one RPG or no, no,
the the like Super Nintendo, like like gun Shooter, the
Cowboy who again it's dumb, it's for some reason it
popped in my head.
Speaker 2: It is like it might work. I mean when when
you go into that third person shooter mode, it feels
like Resident Evil fo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a residue before d make.
Speaker 2: Yes, Yeah, that is kind of what it feels like.
And they're and from playing that demo, I feel like
so far they've really nailed it, and I was very
impressed with it. Yeah, it's not it doesn't have like
a release date or platforms yet. I mean PC actually
take that back, PC and consoles, but it's it's so
it's probably still a ways away, but like I was
really impressed with playing it. I don't know, I played
like an hour this like more recent sort of build.
It's it's very cold. It's called Holston.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Also, I just looked up just some screenshots of
wild Guns. Yeah, I'm way off. It's been a while.
I thought the camera was seemed a little closer to them,
but it's like no, no, no, it really is.
Speaker 2: It is. It does have that sort of sixteen bit
kind of look. It's it's very cool. They really did
a cool job with it. Yeah, I'm very excited to
play the sort of final game whenever that comes to exist.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and you mentioned Claibscire. I do want to mention
I touched on it. I finally started that game in
earnest because I played the press build that they sent out.
This was before but just like right when we had
just started kind of getting the wheels back together with
Game Informer. So I have, like last week started the
full game that I've been sitting on, and that game's
awesome and it's super good, and I'm still like pretty early.
I just got to like the water area, which yeah, yeah,
but it's it's so good so far. I love that
that intro. It's kind of like I've wrote down like
this might be a Moment of the year contender, right.
Speaker 2: I think, Yeah, Yeah, Like it starts strong for sure.
Speaker 3: It starts very strong, and including like when I say
entro I meet up to like when you actually get
control on the island because the things that happened at
the island is like incredible.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's very good. It's it's one of those like
make sure you play it before the end of the
year kind of games, you know exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And what trole was that I missed that?
Speaker 3: Cl three that.
Speaker 1: Is that is next on my list.
Speaker 3: It's amazing on what a game's done given, Like that's
got to be the trickiest game to not only remember
the full name, but to spell.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, especially if you have a daughter named Claire
who spells her name differently.
Speaker 4: Claire and the word obscure, like both English versions of
those words end with the letter E. In French, she's got.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like no e and the title Claire obscure.
If you were English, that's how you would read it. Yeah,
does your daughter want to be referred to as obscure.
She does. She think the title of this game is cool.
Speaker 2: No, she doesn't care. She's too cool for it. She doesn't,
she's got other Oh she's too cool.
Speaker 3: Okay, it's too cool. Yeah, gotcha, Charles. What games are
too cool for you right now?
Speaker 4: Well, the games are just cool enough for me. Are
Monster Trained two? Which I reviewed? I really liked it,
and I have continued to play it after reviewing it,
which is not something I do very often. I don't
know if either any of you guys are Monster Trained one?
Speaker 5: Now.
Speaker 3: I always meant to get to it because I like
good things and I liked Slate Aspire, but yeah, it
just never got to it.
Speaker 1: I have it downloaded, I have a sequel code. Yeah,
I'm going to play it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Monster Train two feels a little better to me, especially
after I was playing the sequel and I was trying
to tell my partner how much I liked the game.
So she has like, there's Monster Trained one is an
Apple Arcade game, so she was playing the first game
on her phone while I was talking about how much
I like the second game. But like the basic just
is it's kind of like tower defense roguelike deck Builders,
how describe it. So you're on a train and there's
like three tiers of the car, and it will appear
on the first tier, and then they'll go up if
they survive each turn. And you have all your units
that you pull out of your deck and you get
to place them on each floor, and just every you
have clans, which are like sets of units and like
related abilities. So there's like the pyre Born and they're
like dragons. They've got this like fire status, and then
you've got the Banish, which are these angels. They have
a status called Valor, which gives them shield and more damage,
and like the whole thing that's really cool about the
game is there's all these different clans and you can
mix and match them and the way that they interact.
It's like like there's five clans in the base game.
There's more like secret clans you can get, but just
between the five clans, each one has two champions, and
each champion has like a different set of starting cards,
so there's something like eighty ways you can just start
a run before you even get into like the randomizing elements,
and it's just like it all and it basically always
feels good. There's some that it's like it is harder
to make some combos work than others, but I'm almost
always surprised. I'm like, oh, I forgot this was a thing.
These guys did work starly with this other one, so
I've just been having fun going through that. They also
have like a really cool dimensional challenges mode in this one,
where it's like there's challenge modes where it's like, ah,
you have less health or you do less damage or
whatever that are in a lot of games, and this
is like what if everything was doubled. What if every
time you did a status effect it was doubled, and
every time you got money it was doubled. The game's
not harder, it's just doubled. And that's just like fun
to play.
Speaker 3: I don't know.
Speaker 4: And if you as you unlock them, there's like a
tree where you unlock lots of more modes, but I
like that, it's just as funky. So I highly recommend that.
I had written in my review that it was my
favorite rogue like of the year, and then Brian, who
had its ALLAR reviews first like, hey, Charles, this is
kind of weird to say, considering you did review Blueprints.
I was like, oh, I forgot about Blueprints. I like
fully as I was writing this because it almost doesn't
even feel like a rogue like in my head, because
it's such like a weird kind of game. But those
are one of Yeah, these are my two, two of
my favorites so far the same ration score.
Speaker 2: I think right nine five for both.
Speaker 4: I believe, Yeah, Monster Train, I think it's nine two five.
Blueprints was like, I don't know if you guys have
ever had the thing where I had a hard time
landing where exactly it was a Blueprints. I thought about ten,
and I was like, I don't know, but I've never
thought about giving a game at ten before. That's like
the first one I've been reviewing where i'd considered it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's weird. I gave my first ten as one
of our Like when we came back to life, one
of our we reviewed a bunch of twenty twenty four
games that came out during our absence, and one of
the games I reviewed was Astrobat and that was the
first game I'd ever awarded a ten, and I think
served yeah, and it was it helped maybe having had
having had time to let it marinate in my brain
after i'd finished it because it had been a few months,
so that one was like an easier conversation than I
had ever envisioned about, Like, man, there's gonna be there.
It might be a day where we're gonna have to
sit down and think, like this might be a near
perfect video game. And it has never happened to me yet.
Speaker 4: So have you ever like talked yourself down from a ten? Not?
Like I know, it was a whole thing of you
gave cheers the Kingdom of nine of a five. Yeah,
I mean that was a conversation that we had that
was like understood, why you did that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, this is good.
Speaker 1: You gotta go with your gut, right yeah, yeah, yeah,
Actually I lied.
Speaker 3: There was the close up come was a shadow of
the archery because I gave that a seven five yeah,
and we gave I didn't review bass elden Ring. That
was the format editor Dan tact, but he gave that
a ten and I was like, yeah, this says I
did rationalize in my mind of like I don't ultimately
I don't think this is better than the base campaign
and own ring, but it is like right there with it,
Like I don't think it supersedes what they had already done,
and I think that's what would have been made, would
have made it worthy of a ten to me, as
if they topped it somehow. But since it was like that,
combined with the fact that it's maybe not necessarily see
what's well, But now that it's a known quantity, it
doesn't have that X factor of like I don't know
what I didn't I don't know what they did here.
Basically it's like, oh, no, I know what this is.
So now I'm a little bit more critical of what
they could do. So yeah, that was kind of that
was my reason for I went, I guess a point
two five. You know, I know that's very harsh, but
you know, point two five less than a.
Speaker 2: Ten, so bother playing it at that point, you know,
I know, right.
Speaker 3: And basically saying it trash. So yeah, I think that's
the only time I got close to having that conversation.
I just remember that now. Yeah, But yeah, I guess
some other stuff as we start to wipe out that
I've been touching that we haven't really covered in any
like formal fashion, that I've been playing, Uh have you
guys started uh deliver it all costs at all?
Speaker 4: I played a little bit of it. Okay, I think
we have we have slightly conflicting opinions by to hear
you talk about.
Speaker 3: First, Okay, I'm still like I feel like I'm still early,
so like my opinions are still forming. I'm like I'm
like on day three or something, I think. But yeah,
it's basically like a top down It feels like if
a modernized GTA one or two, and sort of like
it's like a top down sandbox game where you're driving
around just causing chaos basically, but you're like a delivery
driver in the late nineteen fifties and you're just doing
all these very weird deliveries for these even weirder people
and it's just but like, for me, the main thing
you're coming to this game for is like the destructibility
it's got, Like it's it's like GTA Teardown, like the
video game teardown. Yeah. Yeah, of like every the destructibility
in this game is insane, Like every building can just
be absolutely leveled into like rubble, and your car is
like nigh indestructible, Like you're just plowing through buildings and
then watching them just like collapse and then hitting citizens
who are all like invincible and they all have like
great rap all physics, so like it's just fun to's
just like I'm not even I'm barely gonna use these roads.
I'm just gonna cut a straight line and then whatever
I run into is just you know, it's just it's
not your lucky day today. And that's like the sort
of like sheer dumb fun of that has like carried
me through, like and like the missions themselves are like
to me, kind of hit and miss or some that
are like really funny and like fun to execute, and
there's some that are like funny thematically, but maybe like
doing them is like like the ones that kind of
require me to drive carefully or like that is not
what I want to do in this game at all.
Speaker 4: That's my least favorite part of the game is when
it's like you look at the game and it's like
this is a game where you crash cars, you can
hit people and they go flying and it's silly and
they don't die. And then I open it up and
like the first several missions are like how slow and
careful can you drive?
Speaker 2: I'm like, why would play this game? Right?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Or like the Marlin and again they're funny, like
like I like the premise of this, like this is
a good gag of like I have to carry a
live marlin in the back and dip it in paint
to make it look called bino because this idiot guy
is trying to impress this girl's dad who's a fisherman.
But it is a like of like if I drive
too crazy, this Marlin's gonna like fly out and I
gotta go pick it up. And it looks funny, but
I'm tired of doing it for like the fifth time.
Like that kind of stuff kind of clashes with what
it feels like the real thing you're coming to the
game for, which is like just go crazy, you know,
just get in there and just go mess stuff up.
And you're like yeah, So I almost.
Speaker 4: Like for a mission where it's like and I'm sure
it's there, because I also haven't gotten that far. I
keep betting for a mission where it's like, hey, this
guy made me mad, let's go destroy his neighborhood and
you just obliterate the whole.
Speaker 3: I think it would be super fun. I just want
to do donuts and just take out a city block.
H yeah, but it is, it is fun, Like I
think people should definitely give it a try, just because
for at least for like the the destructibility alone is
like worth messing around with.
Speaker 4: My other take with it is that it has so
many cut scenes.
Speaker 3: A surprising amount of storytelling. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I was like, this is a game that does not
need to have any story, and it felt like every
time I had to walk to a place and talk
to a guy and then there was another cut scene,
and it was like, I maybe if it was later
in the game, you could use it to like hook
me back in and get me invested enough to finish.
But like the amount of game I played versus the
amount of game I played where I was actually crashing
like I wanted to, was like the ratio is way
off for me.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this game surprisingly has a story at once in
hell yeah, and then yeah, and I think that's yeah,
that's pretty much it for me. But yeah, Alex, I'll
throw it back to you.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, Well, thank you all for listening to
our first episode back. It's been a lot of fun
to record. Honestly, it's gonna be a busy week. The
next time you'll hear from us will actually probably be
me be me. Marcus Charles live in La our hotel
and summer game Fest, we will probably have a guest
or two. We're still figuring it all out. That episode
might come earlier than next Thursday, but it will be
next week's episode, so look for that on this feed.
Of course, go to gaming hoomer dot com slash subscribe.
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Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 1: We'll be back. We'll be here, so thank you again,
and get rid of us. You can't get rid of us,
and you can can, you can, Please don't though.
Speaker 3: It's not a challenge or an invitation. It's not a challenge,
you know, it's more of a statement.
Speaker 1: We're glad to be back. All right, everybody, have a
good week. We'll see you next time. Goodbye.