Speaker 1: Happy New Year, everybody, and welcome to the Game and
Former Show, a weekly podcast covering the video game industry.
Join us each and every week for a discussion of
the latest gaming news, reviews, and exclusive reviews with Game
and Former staff and special guests from around the industry.
I am your host, Marcus Stewart. I am joined by
Charles Hart. Hello.
Speaker 2: Hello, I'm back and better than ever. This is the
best Charles You're ever gonna get.
Speaker 1: How So show your work.
Speaker 2: I've never been older, quite frankly, and that's and like Wine,
I'm aging.
Speaker 1: So that's my intro.
Speaker 2: Have you ever wanted to be my I should make
a tender account just so. That's my bio. Like Wine,
I'm aging.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, audience, if you ever wanted to
see a bit fall apart before your very eyes? Not together?
Speaker 2: No, no, no, it was good.
Speaker 1: God.
Speaker 2: Eric will not be I'm sure.
Speaker 1: Yes, Eric van Allen is here. Hello.
Speaker 3: I am older than I once was, but younger than
i'll be. That's not unusual. That's a that's a line
from Simon and Garfuncle that you can use in the future. Yeah,
I am also progressively aging, as is the nature of time.
We are here, it's twenty twenty six, and apparently we're
just getting even more unhinged. I am I am concerned
that you said this is the best Charles You'll ever
get or whatever, because that just sounds like it's all
downhill from me.
Speaker 2: I think my initial statement was this is the best
I've ever been. Oh, okay, okay, and then I might
have accidentally flipped it and said the best I'll ever be. Yeah,
it might be true, but I can't. I honestly can't
definitively say that.
Speaker 1: You're like so close from Brett Hart's catchphrase of the
best there was, the best there is and the bester
ever will be. If you could if you added one
more line, you would technically be infringing on him, and
he's a famously grumpy man, and I don't think you
want that if you could go, we.
Speaker 2: Got a similar last name too, So wow, is it?
Speaker 1: You are a heart brother? Officially? Well, okay, there's so
many things I can get into there, but we got
to move on. Joining us as our first special guests
of the Game and former show in twenty twenty six,
editor in large and Polygon mister Giovanni cal Antonio, how
are you sir.
Speaker 4: I'm great.
Speaker 5: I'm aging like cheese, which like can be good or bad, right,
like age cheese can be good or it can mean death,
right like one or the other.
Speaker 1: I think you want to be like a hard cheese
that kind of get better with time, like like a
Parmesana reggiano.
Speaker 2: Like like I end a hangout with you and I'm like,
it's kind of funky. What does that mean?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, not the good funky like like groovy, you know,
like he.
Speaker 2: Means it's kind of clear which funky I mean? Yeah,
it's like okay, yeah, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: A funky spot between and there's like funky Kong like
that kind of funky. I think we'd all aspire to
be a funky.
Speaker 3: Kong level of funky, be the funky Kong you want
to see in the universe.
Speaker 1: Well, thank you for having me, absolutely, thank you for
joining us, GEO, and yes, for this first episode of
twenty twenty six, we are gonna be This is gonna
be pretty much a two segment show because we're first
going to be diving into the games that we played
over our nice holiday break whatever, we caught up on
things that we started, and then the bulk of the show.
Looking ahead to this year, we're gonna be doing what's
kind of become almost like a game and former tradition,
where we're going to be choosing our most anticipated games
of twenty twenty six via the time honored Snake Draft,
or if we want to tie it to video games.
I wrote it down as the twenty twenty six Sawlid
Snake Draft, because much like Solid Snake himself, he has
always made great decisions. He always drafts a great team
of people in his ear to take them on these missions.
And I like to think that that is what we're doing.
We're drafting the video games that are going to carry
us along twenty twenty six, that maybe we'll call into
to ask for advice and learn life lessons from, and
maybe get random movie recommendations from, which is what I
look for in my video games. I don't know about you, guys,
but yes, the twenty twenty six Solid Snake Draft, where you,
the listeners, will be able to choose which one of
us have the maybe look the superior, the preferred lineup
of twenty twenty six releases that we're all I'm sure
we'll all come out this year. Nothing will get delayed this.
Speaker 3: Year, nothing ever gets delayed anymore. Where We're past that now, Yeah,
we left that behind. We made a pact in the
industry to say that everything that comes out this year,
because rand the thought of six has to be out
this year, everything else has to to.
Speaker 1: Oh sure it was the last delay ever. Yeah, Oh
my god, that'd be amazing. If Rockstar build it is
like the last game delay of all time.
Speaker 4: They have to come out.
Speaker 2: Now, we're just gonna We're just gonna put them out
from this point for Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they'd saved the industry. So yeah, before we get
into that, of course, if you would like to support
Game Reformer, the best way to do it, believe it
or not, is what a Game Reformer magazine subscription? Yes
we have are what a Warcraft Midnight issue, which is
also our twenty twenty five end of Year issue. It's
got our twenty twenty five game awards, including our Game
of the Year, all of our genre picks. An extra
thick issue available now, and we should be announcing our
next cover story imminently in the coming weeks, so stay
tuned for that. But if you would like to get
tenish as a year, both physical and digital, sense. You
can go to Gameformer dot com slash subscribe get your
self a great, great piece of physical media delivered to
you as well as you can go to physical stores
now and pick up Game Informer because we're in bookstands
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Daily Bugle, you can pick up an issue of Game
Informer and show it up to all your friends. No
yellow journalism in here, no slandering of Spider Man in here.
It's all the good stuff right here, Former Magazine. I
know we're all tied off that stuff, right Eric of
slandering Spider Man?
Speaker 2: What yeah, really really want to write in April Fool's post.
That's just just hating on Spider Man, just like God,
I hate this guy, just I.
Speaker 1: Just disliked this this guy just like you just want
to roleplay as Jajo to jameson Free I.
Speaker 2: Do, actually Jameson to be honest, yeah that's fair, but.
Speaker 1: Yes, Gameformer dot com slash subscribe, get yourself a magazine
subscription as Sports Game Informer, and you will be getting
a great product every month, if we do say so ourselves.
But yes, holiday break, we had a nice what was
it like, almost two weeks roughly off for Christmas and
New Years, which I would wager a lot of us
spent a great deal of that time release a significant
junk of it either catching up on video games or
starting games that maybe we miss throughout the year, or
just stuff in our backlog. So I'm really curious. I
haven't actually talked to anyone to see what they've been
messing with, but I'll start with myself. So the game
that I started that I actually intentionally saved specifically for
my holiday break, I didn't. I kind of almost refused
to touch it throughout the year, just in lieu of
so many other things. Was I finally started metal Gear
Solid Delta Snake Eater. Ah, Yeah, I love. I'm a
huge metal Gear fan, and Medal Gear three kind of
like goes back and forth, is like is it my
favorite metal Gear between it and two? So this remake
I've was super excited about, and when it came out,
it came out, at least for me, like a really
busy time. I think it was tied up with like
a couple of review games in a row, and I
just it was hard to make the time to sit
down and play it, which I was kind of almost
surprised by because of my hype for this game, But
it just felt like there's something about it, maybe because
it's like a known quantity of like, oh, this is
such a faithful remake that maybe I don't need to
rush out and play it right away. Especially talking to
Kyle who reviewed it and it is a similar like
Metal Gear die Hard, I was like, maybe I can't
kind of like treat this as like a treat for
me when I don't feel obligated to keep up with
all the new stuff. So I finally started that I
haven't finished it. I'm actually, as we're talking now, I'm
at the very beginning of the end boss fight, and
I'm probably gonna wind up beating that guy through old
age at this point. It just because of that little
trick we'll see. I haven't counted the days it's been.
I think it takes like a week if I remember correctly,
something like that. Yeah, which I've never done it that
way before. When I first played the game. I just
beat them the old fashion win. I didn't learn about
that trick until way after, so I'm kind of hoping
to just let that happen just for something different, But
that's actually been one of my main games on top
of Charles. For you, I finished Hades two finally.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, so you've played You've played the new ending then, and.
Speaker 1: I wanted to ask you as off air, like what
the difference between the endings were, because I really liked
I guess what is the new ending? It took me
like a combined between playing on Switch and Steam. It
took me like a combined, like ninety hours. It took
me seventy runs to see credits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it takes I think fifteen clear, no, twelve clears
now because I think it's five up and seven down
maybe eight down.
Speaker 1: I think it's a down for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's five up. It's a lot,
so I understand. My partner also finished it. I think
it was before break, but it took her. I had
to review it, so I went through faster and it
was quicker back then because they added more clears I
had to do. But I will I will tell you
off Era but it's pretty similar. The main stuff that
they change is they add some more context to like
characters actions and decisions. So I'd say, like, the general
structure is basically the same, but they added more stuff
that people say were before you'd be like, wait, why
did they do that? Why are people okay with this
or acting this way or doing this thing. They've kind
of smoothed some of those rough edges out, but it's
not like completely different. I wouldn't say, oh so like
a director's cut more than like a rewrite.
Speaker 1: Sure, And yeah, now I'm just been digging into the
postgame stuff, like I've already done some postgame runs and
I'm I'm going to be doing that for the foreseeable
future because there's enough there and I love these characters
and I'm not I'm not ready to leave that world yet.
It's like, I still love these guys and I like
that there's still more narrative stuff to dig into, So
I'm gonna and I got bonds to phill, I got
to decide who I like. I still got to sell
who I like the most. I gotta take bats with everybody.
I've done it with most everybody to cross. There are
still some people that have not I have not bathed
with you.
Speaker 3: That is a fast way to get to know somebody
for sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It is that historic fishing,
I guess, but I think bathing probably means a little
bit more.
Speaker 1: Than going to fish with somebody.
Speaker 2: The bathing I always go for, specifically because I was
so caught off guard that characters have like unique bathing art.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's like a weird.
Speaker 2: Thing that I'm like too, even like it's they're like
kind of naked, so it's like, well, putting the horny aside,
the concept that it's like, oh, there's like a special
alternate version of everyone that you can see if you
do the specific thing. That's like the kind of thing
where it's like I gotta freaking see what it is.
Speaker 1: I got to know the context. So yeah, wait, I
thought you were going to lead to who you liked,
like that you're going to point out it like specific
character that.
Speaker 2: You I mean, I was always kind of always I
was leaning Nemesis at the start of the game, and
I kind of like finished that way. Specifically, I like
seeing it when a character is like I don't like
you at all, and I'm like and yet I can
romance you interesting?
Speaker 1: How many nectors going to take to evolve? Yeah? Has
this fifth nectar changed your mind?
Speaker 3: I like how you playted that trap card of being like, okay,
now expose your deepest self to the podcast?
Speaker 1: Who did? Who would you bathe with? I was going
to say, because mine was going to be Heckity, because
I actually had Nemesis is on my It's weird to
call it a bathe list, but I think that I
think that is literally my next like milestone with her
is because they tell you, like, okay, next time you
bomb with them, it's going to be this activity, and
I think that is what she's got teed up. But
Hecky was my like, oh this is weird. I don't
know how I feel about this is a good conversation
that we're having, but it's just like, oh but the
arts nice, but also it's weird. Yeah, but yeah, those
have been kind of my two primarily, Like there's like
little things I picked up here and there, like I
fintished Citizens Sleeper two finally, which i'd kind of been
playing throughout the year kind of off and on, which
I liked. But yeah, outside that, those are kind of
my main games. But what about you, geo, what have
you been messing with over the last.
Speaker 4: A couple of weeks.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So January is a great time of year for
me because it's the one time of the year where
I become my worst self and get back into Tetris
ninety nine.
Speaker 4: For like a week, which is the only game where I.
Speaker 5: Allow myself to become toxic for like a week in
a video game. Right, Like, I don't play I don't
play a lot of like sweaty shooters that are gonna
get me like swearing and angry. But like you put
Tetris ninety nine in my hands, and suddenly I am
like the worst person that you've ever experienced online. I
don't know why. It just brings it out of me.
Very competitive in that game. Love that game. So I'm
GIF if you see me online in that just like
leave the lobby, just get out for your own sake.
Speaker 1: I win, Oh I win.
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh I win. I'm trying to I've been
trying for years.
Speaker 5: There's like a playlist that unlocks after you get your
first win that's like a hey, like winners only mode,
and there's so few people in it that like it's
ninety percent bots that it gets filled with, and I've
been trying for years to win in that mode and
I've only ever gotten the second place, and the day
that I like beat that for the first time, I'm
going to retire. I've like decided this, I'm gonna be
done with it. So I'm every year, I take a
crack at it in January and then I'm like, I'm done.
Speaker 1: Until next year.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Nine, your main thing.
Speaker 5: That's my main thing. But the other thing I'll shout
out really quick is there is a game that I've
been playing called Soul Sesto. I don't know if y'all
have heard of this. This is I'll tell you right now,
dear listeners. If you want the kind of game where like,
this game comes out of early access this year and
everyone's like, well, this game is amazing, and you want
to be like, oh, I knew about that before it
was cool.
Speaker 4: I actually knew about it the whole time.
Speaker 5: Get on it now. It's an early access so unbelievably cool.
It is a roguelike dungeon crawler, I guess you would
call it, which I know probably doesn't sound cool. That
probably sounds like every game. But the gimmick of it
is that, like you, each floor of the dungeon is
kind of like laid out as a grid where you
see like an enemy or a treasure chest in each
like square of the grid, and the way you interact
with the game is you click on a row and
then you have like a twenty five percent chance of
landing on any of the like four squares in that row.
So you could land on a monster, and if you
have like the right attack stat you would defeat it
or you would take damage. You could land on a
treasure chest, you could land on something that heals you.
And the entire game is like a risk reward of
clicking into rows trying to like at the treasure and
take risks about, you know, killing monsters, and you kind
of like upgrade your stats as you go, and it
has those kind of roguelike building elements to it, but
the whole thing that you're upgrading is basically your odds
of landing on a thing. So when you get like
your relics or whatever that you're passive, it's like, hey,
twenty five percent less chance to land on monsters and
a twenty five percent more chance to like get strawberries,
or something which heal you. So the entire thing is
just like a numbers manipulation dungeon crawler that is sounds
kind of like boring until you get into it and
get the hook of it, and then it's like, this
is the coolest video game that I think has ever
been made, and the art style of it is like
out of this world. The second you see it, you'll
be like, oh, yeah, that's that's good stuff.
Speaker 4: I think it is.
Speaker 5: Supposed to get its final kind of like big update
in early access this month, and then I think like
they've kind of teased that like one point zero pretty
shortly thereafter. So if you want to be cool, if
you want to be the hipster who's like I knew
about that game before everybody, Solssto. It's on Steam, I
think currently, and it's.
Speaker 1: So cool awesome, Solsa. I need to look that up.
Speaker 2: I've not heard of that. I love your pitch for it. Well,
first of all, you were like, it makes the percent
go up. I'm like, and then you're like it sounds boring.
I'm like, no, no, no, I had me there. Yeah,
I love the numbers I had cause if it's like
a high percentage and then it goes wrong. It's like,
what what were the odds of that? And if it's
a low percentage and it goes well, I'm like, whoa,
what are the odds of that?
Speaker 1: It's just like I love that.
Speaker 5: It kind of like pulls apart what like every game
is now, which is like, hey, they're hidden numbers and
you don't know the odds, and it's like, what if
we just put them in front of you. What if
we just told you it was a seventeen percent chance
that you're gonna mess up. It's like very x calm
like code it in that way, and it's just the
builds are all about like manipulating values and that's it.
And it's like that's kind of what all games like
this are, but they kind of pretend it's not. It's
really really neat. You just click on things. That's it.
Perfect amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Also, anything else you want to touch on, go
before you move on. Uh No.
Speaker 5: The only other thing I've been playing is this really
neat indie puzzle game called Cipher Zero that came out
last year, a very kind of like the Witness esque
like rule figuring out game without the like pretentious parts
of the Witness where you're just kind of like looking
at a grid with some symbols on it and trying
to figure out, like, oh, how do you fill in
the grid to match these symbols? And it teaches you
on the fly. If you like a minimalist like level
based puzzle game that is kind of like doesn't tell
you what to do, but you figure it out on
your own. That's also a really neat one that I've
been working through that gets hard. It's hard. I'm in
the late game and it's stuff. But if that's your thing,
it's it's pretty rad awesome.
Speaker 1: Charles, What about you?
Speaker 2: What is it?
Speaker 1: What was the formally best version of yourself playing Over
the Bird before I was good? Yeah, So I.
Speaker 2: Right before break, for whatever reason, I decided to purchase
and play through Resident Evil seven and eight.
Speaker 1: Right, we were talking about this on the Residval Outbreak
super replay.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I beat I beat eight. I started playing four.
So I'm like a few hours into four. Remake four right,
remake four? Yeah, okay clarified, which I'm not gonna talk
that much about it because I'm not that far in,
but every time I play it, I people love that game.
So much. I keep expecting to start it and then
immediately be so hooked into it, and I just have
not been every time that I've played it. I just
finished the like boat Whale section relatively early on, so
I'm on like chapter four or five. I haven't met
Ashley yet.
Speaker 1: Okay, when anyway, that's when a game gets good, When.
Speaker 2: I believe it, I'm I keep going like, where's this girl?
Speaker 1: I've heard some you gotta gotta babysit this girl. That's
when I really think.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 5: My girlfriend has started playing the Residevil games for the
first time, and it's been like a great experience. She
just did like the game Keep remake of the first one,
and now she's doing two. And my favorite part of
being there for that experience is that I just keeps
playing on her Steam deck, so it's like not on
the TV, so I'm know exactly where she is in
the games based off her reaction to what's happening. And
like last night I was sitting there. I was like
I was in the other room, like on the computer,
and all of a sudden I heard like, oh no,
oh no, not the hat man, and I was like, oh,
she met mister X finally.
Speaker 1: Or took you know, it's one or the other.
Speaker 4: As soon as she said that, I was like, oh,
he is the hat man.
Speaker 1: She's so right.
Speaker 5: That's been a great one to experience by audio only.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's better than calling a mister hat I guess, yeah, yeah,
all it's all.
Speaker 2: It's all the same, all the same guy. What did
you uh?
Speaker 1: Since you didn't feelish you were still working through Village
when you told me you were playing them, what did
you think of it? Cause did you like more or
less than seven? And where'd you land with that?
Speaker 2: I really liked village. Village was like, I played seven
so I could play a village because I'm kind of
I'm more squeamish when it comes to horror stuff, and
Village I found more fun scary then seven was like
scary scary. Some people, like my my fiance Alyssa is
like very into horror. She I think preferred seven because
she just loves all that weirdness stuff.
Speaker 1: But I liked.
Speaker 2: I liked both of them. I don't want to I'm
not gonna spoil it. There was parts. There was the
there's sorry, there's there's a person like this isn't.
Speaker 1: Even a game?
Speaker 2: I want to talk about there's a person that gets
shot so many times in the intro of village.
Speaker 5: I was like, Oh my god, what just happened.
Speaker 2: I'm so glad I played through all of seven so
that I could I could feel the connection to that
person gets shot one hundred thousand times. And then then
later I understood the car like they explained it. I
was like, okay, but I was like, it's crazy that
saw that game opened. Then it takes a long time
to be like.
Speaker 1: They robo copper did them?
Speaker 2: They robot them.
Speaker 1: It's crazy. It's so funny.
Speaker 5: Like the funniest part of that scene, which is like
it is the funniest scene that's ever been in the
video game, in my opinion, is like the main character
of the game witnessing it. His reaction is like, actually,
not that big a deal. He's like, oh, dang it,
h crap.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ah shucks. I mean that looks character. Yeah, is
those reactions? Are you going to dive into the U
the Shadow of Rose expansion?
Speaker 2: That?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 1: I might?
Speaker 2: I wasn't sure if it was like required reading or not.
And it was also like the like at the time,
it was like seven was on sale for like six dollars.
Eight was on sale for like eight dollars, and then
the DLC was like a full twenty Like the DLC
wasn't on sale, and I was like, am I really
gonna spend twenty bucks? Or so see what the Rose
deal is?
Speaker 1: It's yeah, it's hard.
Speaker 2: So we don't know.
Speaker 1: We don't know if it's required to read because that
was technically the last new resideval concept before Requiz. We
have no idea how it factors into like the broader
fiction going forward because on paper, it's like it's actually
like a pretty big deal because it's a pretty big
time jump in the future. Yeah, and we still don't
know when Requiem takes place timeline wise, like is it
set in that time like that future of Shadow of Rose?
Is it before?
Speaker 2: Is it you know?
Speaker 1: Is it even like before or after the Ethan games?
Like we don't even know. Uh so yeah, it's it's
it's TB deal.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I did like it for what it's worth.
Speaker 1: I think it's a fun little like the expansion.
Speaker 2: I think Kyle reviewed it and I read that review
and he was like, yeah, that's fine. Yeah, the game
I wanted to talk about, or should I say games.
I was not catching up on required reading. I did
not play any games. I finished my death Power review,
which is up on the site and go read that.
I spend most of my time playing Lego Batman one
and I finished it and played Lego Batman two, and
then I finished it and played Lego Marvel Superheroes. It
was a very Lego Superhero it was. I was like
I was playing two, and then I was like, well, chronologically,
the next game that came out was like a Marvel
Superheroes and then it was like.
Speaker 1: About Avengers Doomsday Teachers and they're like, oh, I got
a fire.
Speaker 2: I actually watched the Fantastic four First Steps and I'm like,
you know what game you can play is the Fantastic
like a mar Superhero Anyways, Lego Batman one I had.
Actually I don't think I had ever played the console
version because I had the DS version as a kid,
and that was like my thing was that that specifically
that version of the game. So it's very odd to
like play the console version and that's like old Lego.
I mean, there's like different eras of Lego games, but
that's like no one's talking still, so it's like they're
like mining out, you know, the things that are happening.
There's not really much in the way of story. Those
games are fine. I have a lot of instag for them.
They're kind of mid uh. It's funny how it's like
Batman and Robin, which are like these iconic characters and
the way they represent their abilities and like what if
they could step on paan roles that give them different
suits that have like wacky abilities, and it's like, that's
not what I want. I play as Batman and Robin.
I don't need him to be in like a diving
suit and then go underwater. It's very like video gaming
in that way. Lego Batman two is the first Lego
game where they have voice acting and they like wrote
a story for it, so it's like you're an original
Batman story. It's called Lego Batman two. DC Superheroes. It
should really be called Lego Batman two, also Superman, because
the Justice League shows up in like literally the last
level is the only level you plays anyone other than Batman,
Robin or Superman. But I actually like like that story.
I was kind of surprised that I was like, oh,
Batman has like a perceptible character arc.
Speaker 1: In a way that like, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know, I just wasn't I wasn't expecting to like
it so much. This is the game I had the
most nostalgia for as a kid, mainly because you can
free roam Gotham City and you can do that co op.
So my brother and I would like We played this
game so much for no reason. We would like play
tag in Lego Batman. We would play hide and seek
in Lego Batman, where someone would like angle their camera
at a weird spot and you have to guess on
the split screen where they were in the town. We
had a game where one person would stand on top
of a tower as mister Freeze and the other person
would be the Flash and you had to run up
and punch mister Freeze before he could freeze you. It
was great. We were inventive kids. And then I played
Lego Marvel, which I'm still playing through, and I thought
I would like it more because you're just playing is
more characters, so like your abilities are more varied, but
the story is so much weaker than Lego Batman two. Weirdly,
probably because there's so many characters, there's just like no
one to really latch onto and not that people really
play Lego games for the story per se. But yeah,
that's all I've been doing. I'm studying for Lego Batman
Legacy of the Dark Eyed. If you couldn't tell, I've
played all the Arkham games semi recently, so I'm trying
to play all the Lego Batman games, and then I'll
also play DC super Villains and then I'll probably go
back to Skywroger Saga. Just so I'm like, I'm I'm
the Lego guy. There's no disputing that. No one's allowed
to question my.
Speaker 3: Like boxing out your territory right now? Are you like
concerned moving into the new year.
Speaker 2: I just listen, here's the thing. We'll do a little
peak behind the curtain. I'm I'm the youngest member staff
on game Former. When you're the youngest, even if I
like a game, I don't automatically get DIBs on it
because like, as long as I've liked Zelda, for instance,
Kyle is like Zeller for like ten fifteen years long
he's played, he has had more time in his life
to like have played the games. Literally. Yeah, so if
I have an opportunity to be like no, no, no,
I'm the lego guy. Then I'm like I might as
well just like just like carve myself a litle box
and myself in it. I was gonna say you, there's
not a lot. I don't have a lot of spots
like that in the It's like.
Speaker 1: Me, I'm like with wrestling, I guess like, oh, no
one else in Staff. I don't have to really fight
for that one. Like literally no one watches wrestling on Staff.
So it's like it's more just automatically it falls to me,
but I get it, which more.
Speaker 2: Like a like if there is a soul's game, like
we'd probably give that reviewed to Wess or you. Like,
there's there's just like buckets of people that like fit
in different categories, and I just want to partially, I'm like,
let me let me have a category. Let me let
me build my own corner.
Speaker 3: In this in this house, yes more, you always got
a box out a little bit because like y'all, y'all
might be like, oh, we're younger. I'm the newest person.
And I walked in and I was like, Okay, where
where is everybody? What does everybody already kind of have
DIBs on? And how am I gonna like carve out
my niche within that, and RPGs are kind of a
broad niche, so there.
Speaker 1: Yeah. There have been times in our meeting or Eric
will express fandom for something and then another editor will
shout hey, that's my territory, kid, Yeah yeah, get him.
Speaker 2: Gun shots on the other side of the mic. Yeah,
rolled up.
Speaker 5: I'm just the puzzle game cicho. That's that's and no
one ever gets in that territory.
Speaker 1: It's just me. Actually, I really like puzzle games to Actually,
it's just me.
Speaker 3: A surprising number of people on our staff really enjoyed
Detective mystery puzzle games and stuff like that. Of us around,
I'm going to have to really fight some people.
Speaker 1: The three of us are all the root Trees.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I love I also Lovetree.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, we're the reason they got in our top ten.
Joyed it.
Speaker 2: It's us if you're mad, it's a thing where it's
like I wish, I wish, I and I this is
not my genre of game at all. I've never really
liked the second one I've played. If I got really
into RTS games, I would I would have Reign over
whatever I wanted to play as soon as it came out.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you as the guy who plays a
lot of RTS games. Okay, I was, and then RTS
games kind of fell off a cliff and we just
kind of do what I mean, Donald War four looks
pretty good. I'm looking forward to that. But like, it's
been eon since the last StarCraft, so like I've I've
been starving. I had to adapt or die.
Speaker 1: So I thought you were going like I was into
rts's until you said you were, and because of seniority,
I can't be anymore.
Speaker 3: No, it would be funny to be performatively into genres
just to box people out, but that would mean that
you would have to play a lot.
Speaker 1: More video games. I don't have time for that.
Speaker 2: That is kind of what our draft is for today.
Speaker 3: Actually, yeah, here's here's a list of games I probably
won't finish by the end of the e.
Speaker 1: And also, no one else is allowed to play. You
guys can't play these now. Speaking of playing Eric real quick,
what did you play over the break? Yeah?
Speaker 3: I was my best and worst self over the break.
On the best side of things, I kept playing Octopath
Traveler zero. That game just keeps getting better. It's really
really long, but I really really like it. I think
it's fantastic, and I like that they took everything that
was bad about Gotcha and monetization and banners and polls
and stuff like that and just extricated all that, And
it was this miracle moment of like, hey, it turns
out a lot of those games actually are really good
video games that just have bad monetization practices around them,
and when you strip that out, it's a really fun,
enjoyable game that a lot of people should try out.
Speaker 1: It's a good time.
Speaker 3: And then I was my worst self because I was
also like, well, I should probably play a Gotcha game
over the break, So I got back into Uma Musume
for like three days.
Speaker 1: What are you saying that name?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 1: Uma Musume pretty Derby Girls?
Speaker 2: Is that what it is?
Speaker 1: Jeff Keiley said it right.
Speaker 2: I.
Speaker 1: Don't actually know. That was actually the first time I'd
ever heard it said out loud. Was and I was like,
I assume they're saying it correctly, because I think they
would practice this before saying it on public venue, but
they're not.
Speaker 2: There was a funny thing over in the like min
Max corner of things, because I guess Sarah Pozorski loves it.
She says, I think it's where you put it. They
said like Umama Sumi, yes, and she was she was
to be clear, this was uh Sidney Goodman, is that
her name was hosting the Yeah, I was hosting that section.
She pronounced it wrong, and uh, they have like a
they write the pronunciations out beforehand, so it wasn't on her,
it was on whoever wrote that pronunciation for her to read.
Speaker 3: But yeah, it's actually it's the Masamune and it's seph
Roth's Swords.
Speaker 1: You should say right that that game.
Speaker 5: Will ever be as funny as Monkey to Loofy, which
is still just like I think.
Speaker 3: About that every day. No, that that was incredible. Yeah, No,
that game's still pretty good. I've always historically liked kind
of raising slash stat distributed games like that Monster Rancher,
Tokumeki Memorial, things like that, And since we're not getting
the new Toka Meki remake over here anytime soon, I
was like, oh, I'll dip into that for a couple
of days, and then I was my best self again
because I got back on my train of trying to
gold medal every game in Clubhouse Games fifty one Worldwide
Classics and I am so good at Ricci Majong Now,
I like went into the hyperbolic Majon chamber and I
can see through the matrix now, it's incredible.
Speaker 5: When that game came out, I got it, taught me
Mencola and I had like it was like during the pandemic.
I think that game came out and I was like,
I should become a Mancla guy, and I like bought
a Mancola board during the pandemic. It was like making
my part at the time play it with me like
every day and they were like can we can we stop?
And I was no, We're doing another round of Mancala.
There's nothing else to do.
Speaker 3: My family, genuinely, we tried Jackbox one night and the
servers just weren't working or something like that. We just
weren't getting a good connection. So we just put my
switch to on the TV and would play Yacht Dice
and Mancala and whatever their version of Connect four is,
and Super Hexagon or whatever, the one where you like
place the hexagons down dots and boxes is also in there.
Like that game legitimately good and I promise you go
to a social gathering and people are like, oh, we
should play games. Put that on, You're gonna have a
good time. I promise you. Everybody loves Yacht Dice, which
is Yatzi. It's the knockout version of Yatzi. And then
I was my worst version of myself and I played
Doda two again, So I really just captured the full
spectrum of all that I.
Speaker 1: In two weeks. It's DOA two is still fun. No,
it's it's pretty rough out there. It was fun. No,
not at all.
Speaker 3: I mean, like I, for those who don't know, before
I got into games, I was like an esports person
and stuff like that, and I covered Doda two pretty extensively.
I probably have about over four thousand to five thousand
hours in Doda two. Granted, like factor in maybe like
five hundred of that is watching the International and things
like that through the Doda client. Some idle time factored
in there, but no, I've played a pretty significant amount
of Doda two in my life.
Speaker 2: I've played so much Dota two that you said maybe
five hundred hours of those doesn't count, and it didn't.
Speaker 1: Make it really didn't make it sense. It really didn't
make it.
Speaker 2: Still so much it wasn't even like a quarter of
the hours.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, No. Other people will be like,
I've played so much Destiny. I played like one hundred
hours and how I was like, you don't understand what
it means to play a video game. So like, every
once in a while, I just kind of go back.
I have a week where I'll just play some DODA
games and catch up on where the game is at,
what it's been doing. They had a Monster Hunter collab
going over the holiday break, and that was kind of
fun because the old system where you hunt other characters.
Once you do your draft, do you pick your characters,
you go into the game, it's like which character do
you want to hunt and if you kill them before
they kill you, and then you also win the game.
You get different components like you would in Monster Hunter
to then craft into cosmetic sets for different characters that
were based around monsters from Monster Hunter, like Rathlos Zanogre,
stuff like that. So it was a really fun tie
in to have for those characters. I made sure I
got my wind Runner set because wind Runner is one
of my favorite characters. Excuse me, Win Ranger because they
had to change it because of the Blizzard situation.
Speaker 1: But it's a it's a vidame. It sure is a
video game of all time. And I've said.
Speaker 3: Before that the only way I would ever review or
give a critical consensus on Do to two is if
you guaranteed me that for the rest of my life,
I'm allowed to go into the CMS and change the
score whenever I want, like I get to write my review,
but then I always get to change the score depending
on how I feel that day, and it can never
be static. And because there are some days where do
to two is like, ten out of ten, the greatest
game of all time, and there are some days where
I'm like, DODA two is a mistake and we should
delete it from this earth.
Speaker 2: And in the moment after you finished your the most
recent game of Do to two that you played, where's
the score?
Speaker 1: Eight five? I get eight five?
Speaker 3: Okay, yeah, yeah, like generally positive, but probably lower than
I would have put it in past years. I think
it's just a little it's a little too much, a
little too much these days. I find that happens with
live service games as they go on, is they just
keep adding things because the players who live and breed
this game and read the reddit all day at work
and then go watch the content creators and the content
creators themselves who play the game for eight hours a day,
five days a week just inhale it and live it,
and so they always need more. But then it means
when returning players come back or new players come in,
they're like, oh my god, there's so much here. Well,
how do you keep all this straight? Well, you've been
playing for five or ten years if you have five
thousand hours in the game. But even if you have
five thousand hours in the game, you still come back
and you're like, what do you mean? They drop neutral
shards now, and you just craft an item that lives
as a separate thing in your backpack. And there's weird
new facets that you have to get used to, and
everybody has a facet that you selected before that changes
your gameplay.
Speaker 2: It's a lot.
Speaker 3: So, yeah, Dota two still exists.
Speaker 2: Is that is facet the term that they use.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a facet every game when you pick your character,
like you lock in your hero and the draft and
then they most of them have two facets and it
will be kind of like a background characteristic. So one
will be like, oh, instead of shooting, so I'll use
bristle back as an example, bristle Back. Instead of shooting
quills when he procks his bristle back, he shoots his
viscus nasal goo instead, so you like slow a lot
more people than he normally would. Bristle Back is a
great character, so sorry it is. It is called viscous naps.
Bristleback is a character who is kind of like a
giant porcupine, and he's called bristle back because if you
hit him and his back is facing towards you, he
has a chance to I think, reduce or not take damage,
and then proc and ability that shoots spines out everywhere,
and those spines deal escalating damage the more you have
taken within a window. And so his whole thing is
he wants to like walk into your team and then
turn his background and just run around and be a menace,
and then everybody will try to hit him and he
just sprays quills everywhere and kills you. He also has
a thing where he shoots like snot rockets at you
that slow you down, and that's like one of his
his abilities is now you shoot more snot rockets, or
you can take seeing red, which means you can activate
your ultimate to get faster and get more stats, but
your entire vision strengths down to like just around your
character and you can't see the mini map or anything
like that. So you literally just tunnel vision in a
fit of rage and get incredible stats and stuff, but
you can't see anything, which rules. I highly recommend playing
the game that way.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 2: Do two.
Speaker 1: Cool, We're going to change that score in about five minutes.
Speaker 2: What I think. I think whatever the score is. Eric's like,
don't put the must play on there.
Speaker 1: Know that there can never be a badge on it.
Speaker 3: The best review of DODO two is somebody who had
played three thousand hours and said, I don't recommend doing this,
don't get so responsible.
Speaker 1: Yeah it really is. Yeah, well awesome. But yeah, So
those are the games we've been playing over the break,
and we'll probably continue to play into the future because
January is kind of kind of sparse on releases, is customs,
so it's kind of like a good time in general
to sort of go back and play things that we
just would not or will not have time to get
to once the year really starts going in February. But yeah,
speaking of games coming up next, we're gonna take a
quick break and when we come back, we are going
to kick off our twenty twenty six Solid Snake Draft
will be right back. Hey, we're back and it is
signed for they twenty twenty six Solid Snake Draft. What
is a Snake Draft, you ask, Well, basically, the way
it's gonna work is that we're gonna do five rounds
where we are each gonna take turns selecting a game
that is confirmed to come out in twenty twenty six,
whether it has a hard release date or is just
has the year twenty twenty six confirmed. We're gonna pick
one game each to sort of form our team, kind
of like a sports draft, you know, we're building our
teams of what we think are gonna be the the
games that we are most excited about. And what it's
gonna do is we're gonna go kind of one, two,
three four in the first round, and then in round
two we're gonna go in reverse order four three two one,
round three one two, three four again, and so on
and so forth. So it's kind of like a big
old wavy snake making its way down the line. Kind
of makes it a little bit more strategic. Knowing that
if you start at number one, you're gonna be the
last one to pick a game at in round two,
so it kind of it just makes for a little
bit more of an interesting draft selection, kind of having
to keep that in mind. So, like I mentioned, we're
gonna be doing five rounds, and to determine the turn order,
we're gonna turn it to Charles Hart, who is going
to determine that the only way that he knows how
as a Dungeons and Dragons d m.
Speaker 2: Uh yes, okay, So first I want to ask do
we want to get as a guest? Do we want
to give Geo a positive handicap? So we don't have
to I'm just saying, do we want to do you
want to be courteous and gracious and be like give
him the advantage, or we're just gonna let's just let's just.
Speaker 5: I got this.
Speaker 3: The DODA player in my heart says, no, you're gonna
play this game?
Speaker 4: Yeah? No, My list goes deep.
Speaker 2: I'll be fine, Okay, awesome, you want to send me
some bis. Then I got yellow, red, purple, and blue.
Pick one of those colors.
Speaker 1: Purple, I want purple.
Speaker 2: I'll take red, okay, and then I'll be yellow. So
I'm gonna flip the camera around. Do you got a
little pad here where I will be rolling dice? These
are all twenty sided die. Oh my gosh, that's an
amazing set of roles. So I don't know if it's
gonna focus or not. But who is Red? That was me? Ge?
You got a NAT twenty? Here?
Speaker 4: Here we go here it is next?
Speaker 1: Up? Is Blue?
Speaker 2: Gotten eighteen?
Speaker 1: All right? That's me?
Speaker 2: Purple got a seventeen wow, and then I got a sixteen. Okay,
so it's amazing.
Speaker 3: Eric Marcus Charles sounds like, yeah, right, we will barring
something that if it doesn't happen, I'll just edit this
part out anyways. But we will have a graphic over
here on the side to show who is selecting at
the moment and then what games we have chosen.
Speaker 1: So we will have that theoretically. Do you have the
order written down?
Speaker 2: Eric? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I put it in the discord Okay, alrighty excuse
me in our high tech GI recording suites.
Speaker 1: Okay, let's see. So I'm sorry, So so yeah, g O,
you're first.
Speaker 5: Okay, well first, this is actually a tough situation to
be in. This would have been easier to be in last,
because there's so much to choose from at the top,
and the smart thing to do would probably be to
choose Grand Theft Auto six, But I'm not gonna do
it because it's not coming out this year.
Speaker 2: I'll put money on it.
Speaker 4: It's not coming out, it's.
Speaker 5: Not gonna happen, and it doesn't ever it has a
release date, I don't believe it. So instead I'm gonna
I'm gonna start this off with a more reliable pick,
which is a game I'm more excited about anyways, which
we talked about, which is Resident Evil Requiem coming out
on February twenty seven. Hey, Capcom Swinging Swing and Bangers
Home Run Derby publishing output as of late, a lot
of great games that are supposed to come out this
year that will probably be on other lists here. But
I think even Requiem, knowing like coming off of Village,
coming off of seven, I really think that that game
could be special, and especially them kind of splitting it
up in the way that they are with Leon and
the new character and how I'm hoping that kind of
splits up the survival, horror and the action into distinct parts,
like feels like it could fix a big problem with
every single Resident Evil game that's ever been made. So
I feel good about it. I feel like this is
the one. This is the the job, the series defining
Resident Evil game. I'll put money on it. And also,
we just talked about it, so I got to get
it while it's fresh.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm already upset because that was going to be
one of mine. But it's the name of the game,
all right, So.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I believe I'm next. The Van Allen Foundation,
We're really excited about our picks this year. We really
think we're going to put together a strong lineup of
up and coming talents, and we two will not be
persuaded by the hype train. We don't believe in the hype.
We believe in the system. We believe in the program,
we believe in the vision. We will take the heart
that drives this program. We will take Fire Emblem Fortunes
Weave as our number one pick.
Speaker 5: Let's go.
Speaker 3: We love to see the return of an absolute king
in Nintendo's lineup. I think hot off the heels of
two very solid Fire Emblement entries and a series that
really seems to thrive and it's newfound switch Home cannot
wait to see what Fortune's weave does.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's not where I thought you were going to go.
And I'm maybe I won't say the game even though
I don't think anyone else would pick the game that
I think thought you would pick. But I'll I'll let
you sabotage yourself in case you for no, no, let
me let me sabotage myself. That's all right.
Speaker 3: I'm feeling I'm feeling strong about this. This I mean,
for me personally, this is my personal most anticipated games.
There was no way I wasn't gonna take it number one.
And while you're gonna like get to your turn and
you're gonna say something, I'll be like, dang it. But
I I this This has been what I would say
is one of two of my most anticipated games going into.
Speaker 1: This next year. Hell yeah, I keep forgetting about it.
I think it's NETO hasn't really talked about it since
they revealed it, so I have the kind of remindsel, oh,
there's a Fireable coming out this year.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so this is back for some reason. Don't know why.
We'll find out. I guess somehow, somehow, So Thi's returned.
Speaker 1: In Fortnite alrighty, my number one draft pick, as tempting
as it is to say grand theft thought was six.
I feel like we're almost a real being hipsters. Why
not just making out a number one draft pick? Can
you can take GTA, You have to take g T A.
But there's one game that I actually am like I'm
more personally interested in, Like I do want to play
GT six, and I'm a GTA fan, but this, you
know what I'm just gonna I'm gonna go with my
heart and my number one draft pick. It's to be
Marvel's Wolverine.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Man, I was so confident you're gonna say this. I
almost said it out loud and I was like, yeah.
Speaker 1: Ok is because like I'm a huge Marvel fan. I
love Marvel, and I'm also a huge Insomniac fan, like
going all the way back to the original Spiral to Dragon,
I've played damn near everything that studio in ZOMBNIAX has
put out and is pretty much love the majority of
their work, but especially like I love their Spider Man games,
like they proven that they can craft a great original
story in this like established universe and just the loving
care that they put in the Spider man makes me
incredibly hopeful for what they're gonna do with Wolverine, and
that first trailer was a great indicator of like, oh,
they like this. This is as violent as you kind
of have to be with this character, because like, Wolverine
is such a hard character to depict in like a
non R rated setting because his powers are inherently like
like it's like watching the old animated show where it's like, yeah,
he doesn't really ever stab anyone. It isn't like a
yeah because you kind of can't where it's like that.
Within seconds of that first trailer for the game, it's like, Yeah,
they understood the assignment, they know the character that they're
working with. So that makes me very excited. It's gonna
be seemingly a big year for for X Men in
media next year or this year, I guess I should say,
with X Men ninety seven coming back and then Avengers
Doomsday then playing a big role in it seems so Yeah,
I'm excited for Marvel's Wolverine sort of like helped leave
the charge on some some good X Men stuff this year.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm up next. I I think it would be
really funny nobody picked six do it.
Speaker 1: At least in the first round.
Speaker 3: Look, sports has a rich history of people who are
expected first round draft picks, like falling to the third
and fourth round and that's just cinema.
Speaker 1: That's just beautiful.
Speaker 5: Right then you get the snake here, right, don't you
get did you get this?
Speaker 1: Do?
Speaker 3: We all want to write down the game that we
think Charles is going to pick and then like hold
it up to the camera because I I feel dead certain.
Speaker 1: I feel pretty certain.
Speaker 2: To well, what have I have I given away some
key aspect of my personality?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Number one, we're going like.
Speaker 1: Yeahs. And then my second pick.
Speaker 5: Love that.
Speaker 1: Even justifying why Lego batmane, You're like, duh.
Speaker 2: I talked about it. It's also uh uh, I really
like the real reason I'd be excited for it, regardless
the fact that it's like a Lego Arkham game is like,
those are like two of my favorite series. I think
as a twelve year old, I got uh Lego Batman
two and Batman Arkham City like the same birthday or something,
and it was like, oh, these are the two as
as a as a pre pubescent teen, these are the
two sides. This is adulthood in childhood at the same
time and melding them together to one pot is just
like very very Charles inside you, there are two wolves.
Speaker 1: I like that leg I like like I have a
long list of games that I kind of have in
my pool, and I almost chuckled that I even wrote
down Lego Batman, like as if I expected it to
ever survive.
Speaker 3: I wrote it on my list and then put parentheses
C H next to it because I was like, Charles
is gonna take this.
Speaker 2: It was also think where I was like, I could
wait because I don't think anyone else is gonna take it.
But also I'd be so.
Speaker 1: Mad if I didn't get it, assuming we just didn't
do it out of spite, because it'd be funny. Yeah,
that's true.
Speaker 2: And then I was gonna say, of GTA six, I've
mentioned this on a podcast before, but I anticipate GTA
six the way I anticipate a political election, where I'm
just like, I'm not even like excited for it in
the traditional sense. I just think it's gonna be such
a big deal. I'm just so excited to see, like,
what is the world even gonna do? You know, like,
how are we even gonna how are we gonna re
I've seen people that's like, dude, when GC six comes
is coming out, no one's going to work that day.
I think we're gonna see a massive, a massive wave
of no one showing up at work. And I'm like, well,
that can't happen, surely. The part of me is like, God.
Speaker 1: Gonna shut down on the nineteenth, Like the streets are
gonna be but it's gonna be like the pandemic, Like
the streets are bare, no one's at their job.
Speaker 5: I like the way that, like the discourse is rolling
in and you're like at the big map where they
call like county by county and you're like a new
tweet came in from Shroud and Trout says that this
party games.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: I I also like the other part of it is
like it has such massive expectations when it comes out,
it will just be a video game, Like it might
be really good, but so it.
Speaker 1: Is just a game.
Speaker 3: GTA six comes out, Student loans Gone, wife came back,
dog came back, tractor fixed.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: So i I'm just yeah, that's that's how I feel
with GTA six, Or it's like I'm excited for and
it kind of has nothing to do with the specifics
of the game. I'm sure it'll be fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, that's kind of where met too, Like I'm
a GTA fan. I'm anticipating the game itself, but you're
just more like the cultural impact, like this is going
to change everything when it comes out, for better or worse. Well, definitely, yeah,
because back to me, I'm gonna go with something that
I think I'm safe in that I don't think anyone
would pick this, but it's a game I'm personally really
excited about, and it is a resonance a platetail legacy
forgot about. I am a big fan of those blaketail
games or some of my like I don't get to
talk about them in like a public form very often,
maybe because there's only two and they don't come out
all that often. But like when the first one came out,
it was such a pleasant surprise, Like I played it
and just was like enthralled with it and like the
storytelling and the characters and just how dark it was,
and I was like, I really like a Micio and
Hugo and his story of just like if you just
want to watch these sweet kids just get beat the
hell for like twelve hours, it's like very compelling with
these weird rats. And then the sequel I liked even more,
and specifically I really liked who is now the protagonist
of this game, Sophia, who is like this cool pirate
that you meet kind of like part way through Requiem,
who becomes kind of party your crew, and so like
Resonance is like a prequel set fifteen years before Requiem,
where you're playing like a young Sophia and it's her
kind of traveling to this weird mythical island kind of
searching for like some ancient secret. But like the trailer,
like we haven't seen like too much gameplay of it,
but it gives off like real heavy kind of prints
of Persia vibes, at least in my mind, which I'm
a giant Prince of Persia fans, and it's already like
it's it's tickling up part of my brain that already
makes me excited. But like with that combined with just
just being back in that world but focusing on a
new character who was like a really good one of
the best parts of Requiem in my opinion, is like
really exciting, and like they haven't even shown like a.
I can't even remember if the trailer showed a single rat,
It's been a while since I've watched it. But if
there's no, it would be interesting.
Speaker 2: To mass departure for the series.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like literally the plague that the eponymous plague is
like the rats itself, So you would have to think, like,
maybe they'll make some sort of appearance, maybe they'll like
they'll expand on sort of like the lore of that curse.
What if we were the plague the whole time? Whoa, whoa.
I mean a lot of those games is sort of
the like as cliche, it sounds like, oh yeah, as
a Mesi and Hugo travel titty cities, they encounter a
lot of like really awful people that are just terrible
to them in some way. So you're just like, oh, man,
maybe the rats when they inevitably sweep through and kill
everyone here, maybe that's not so bad. But yeah, I'm
super psyched for this game. Like I said, I love
this series and I'm glad that we're kind of taking
like a cool direction with it. Yeah, I'm sorry, good pick.
There we go.
Speaker 3: I believe the Van Allen Coalition is back up on
the platform on the podium.
Speaker 1: We do.
Speaker 3: You know, we understand it's okay to let some of
those those hype machines slide by, but we do got
to acknowledge talent when talent has been asserted and shown
across several titles. And so for our second round draft pick,
we will be selecting Double seven first Light. This is
I am a bit of a Bond fan. I've enjoyed
Bond in my life, but I am a very big
Io fan. I love the Hitman games. I think the
Hitman World of Assassination trilogy is just absolutely incredible. It's
secretly the best Looney Tunes game that isn't about Looney Tunes,
but what if Bugs Bunny was a hit Man that
was taking out people. I think the way they construct
their sandboxes and the way their worlds function, and the
way you kind of have to move as a virus
within the machine is just so well done in ways
that astonish me every time I go back to those games,
and I cannot wait to see what they do with Bond,
who is kind of that loose cog in the machine
but has to be a little bit more present. Charismatic,
is kind of a character with a capital C rather
than Agent forty seven, who wants to fade into the background.
A little bit curious to see what they do with that,
But I really do think that if it nails the
landing h This was a very inspired pick for a
studio to make a Bond game, because traditionally, when you
think of Bond games, they're action games, they're shooters. They're
very driven by the actions that Bond does and not
necessarily the character that Bond is. And I think, Io,
could you know this, this side of doing a telltale
Bond game is the closest thing we could get to
having Bond feel like the character present in the virtual space.
Speaker 1: And I'm really excited for that. Hell yeah, all right,
So I get to two picks here, Yeah, well do
your I meant to do this last time, but do
your round two pick and then we'll do a quick
recap of everything that round and then it will jump
to your round pack.
Speaker 5: Okay, for my round two pick, I want to I
want to There's there's a lot of big stuff that
I could pick here, a lot of a lot of
big games, and maybe I'll pick pick one. In round three.
I want to go with something that's honestly still pretty big,
but I think maybe an unusual pick just because it's
more of a genre game, and that is a game
that I think is going to be killer this year,
which is Marvel Tokon Fighting Souls, the new fighting game
from our systems.
Speaker 4: ARC system Works, Right, is that is that?
Speaker 5: Yeah, that game looks fantastic, stylish. I'm I'm the kind
of person who're like, I'm not good at fighting games.
I can't. I'm terrible, terrible at them, absolutely terrible. But
every once in a while, like every couple of years,
one will come out that I'm like, this is too
stylish or too like just satisfying to play to not
just like get beat up online for a while and
then go like, ah, wow, I'm not gonna play this anymore,
but that was really fun to get beat up online
a bunch. That game looks like it that that looks
like it's going to be the next thing that kind
of like you know, has has a big splash in
the in the fighting game genre and has like a
mainstream crossover moment. It looks incredible And as someone who
is not a big fighting game had like, yeah, give
it to me, I want it.
Speaker 1: That that looks great, awesome, did you play the was
it the close betas they were doing. Have you gone
into any of those No.
Speaker 5: No, not yet. I don't tell me they were bad,
because then I'm gonna I haven't.
Speaker 1: Played them either. I haven't heard anything negative great fighting game,
so I'd be surprised if they like Crap the Bed.
Speaker 5: It's guaranteed to win Best Fighting Game at the Game
Awards when it is the only new fighting game nominated
for the award, as is customary at the Game Awards.
Speaker 1: I would have disputed you on that.
Speaker 3: But they put through two x KO this last year,
even though it was like an early access game quote unquote,
I thought it would wait until the full access is.
Speaker 5: Going to be It's going to be nominated again. Multivers
was up twice for that award. That game is going
to be nominated again.
Speaker 1: Multiverses came out twice.
Speaker 4: That's true, it didn't come.
Speaker 3: There are no guardrails on some of the categories, is
what we're learning.
Speaker 1: Yeah, fighting is very much like listen. We're just trying
to take what we can get.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Man, if if we got to say double seven is
a fighting game to fill this category, well we'll find
of just your seafood was in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, Double O seven Fighting game would go crazy.
Speaker 1: There's enough characters in that franchise to do it, and
you'd still have to do a no odd job rule
because it would just be Yoda and so Caliber four
all over again. Oh, I was gonna reference Serve bought
from NVC two. But that oh yeah, I mean that
is the odd job of fighting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, alrighty,
So round I guess we'll do a round one and
a round two weeks A round one? Eric, what is
our what everyone's life? Around one?
Speaker 2: Are?
Speaker 3: Our picks were Marcus with Marvel's Wolverine, Geo with Resident
Evil Requiem, Charles with Lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight,
and myself with Firemlum Fortunes Weave. For round two, Marcus
selected Resonance a Plaguetail Legacy, and Geo selected marvel tocn
Fighting Souls. Charles selected Grand Theft Auto six a surprise
second round pick you know sometimes the talent does fall
a little bit far down. And then I selected Double
O seven first, like Geo is next up with the
first selection of round three.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'll do, I'll do.
Speaker 5: I guess a major one that has a release date confirmed,
which is Sarah's the other big PlayStation five game of
the year that we know about. I loved return a lot,
and honestly, in my mind, Returnal might be the best
game of the PS five generation. Still, I think it's debatable,
but like, I really think that game does something special
in the way that it thinks about, like what story
you can tell with a roguelike, right, Like that game
is about kind of PTSD and how you are kind
of reliving the same things over and over again. I
don't know if they're going to take that same approach
with Saro's Housemark, which is great developer, done a lot
of really cool stuff. No idea if they're going to
do that same approach, but if they do, like I
am so excited to see what other kind of story
they can tell in that structure, and man, they just
like get how to do a weird atmospheric third person
shooter that's tough as but really rewarding high hopes for it,
hopes and hard to imagine they won't deliver because it
really does just kind of look like Returnal two with
a different name. So I think that's a pretty safe bet.
Speaker 3: Next up on the draft order. I feel like a
running theme here is the strength of the developer, the
strength of the studio. As many have said, that is
something that has been proven time and time again is
a team that makes good games can probably keep making
good games. And this next selection comes from a studio
that made one very very good game and is now
trying to make the second one of it. And I
think there's a lot of question marks about what could
happen there, But I say, if you nailed it in one,
you can probably nail the second bucket too. We're going
to take Slay the Spire two for our third round. Yeah,
in some ways, I and I was working on our
entry for this game recently and I having that moment
in the garden of saying, what do we really get
out of getting a second Slay the Spire? And then
I remembered that's like saying do I really want a
second cookie?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you want a second cookie? Like that's it can
only get better theoretically, plausibly, hopefully. But Slay the Spire
one is maybe one of the most foundational pillars of
the modern roguelike, and for good reason. I think it
has stood the test of time years and years over
that game went into early access in twenty seventeen, and
it still feels fresh and lively and modern, and I
cannot wait to see what they do with a second
version of it that looks tuned, spruced up, gorgeous art,
new cards, new characters, knew everything.
Speaker 1: Cannot wait for that. All right back to me, and
I'm very happy that my next game survived because I
was not sure they would make it to this point.
I'm super excited for it. My around three draft pick
is Control Resonant.
Speaker 5: I totally forgot that that's coming out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, is this resonant or Resonance? I always forget that one.
I think it's Resonance is resonant, Yeah, resonance.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I love Control. Control. It was almost my Goody
twenty ide. I think it was my number two besides
behind Resident Evil to remake. But that first Control is
such a cool game, Like I just love the concept,
I love the setting, I love the lore around it.
Speaker 2: It.
Speaker 1: Like I I it made Alan Wake better honestly just
by existing, because like I like the first Alan Wake
just fine. I wasn't like bowled over by Maybe some
people were, but I was like, oh this is fine.
And then Alan Wake two just because it like by
establishing they shared the same universe and like this their
their like lore starts bleeding together. It made Alan Wake
two so much more interesting of a game, just because
you know that there's like the Oldest House and like
the just the Federal Bureau of Control, Like being involved
in it for me enhanced that case. It's like it's
so good that it made another existing ip better now
that they're kind of interwoven. But like like also just
the swing of making it basically a stylish action game,
which as a stylish action Sicko is even better. Like
that trailer looked absolutely nuts that they showed in the
Game Awards. Just seeing Jesse's brother was just like weird, morephing,
like basically like the service weapon, but as a as
a melee weapon that sounds really cool. And even though
I'm gonna miss not being in the Oldest House, I
also understand that you probably shouldn't just do that setting again.
And having it spread throughout Manhattan is like like there's
a lot of potential for just how insane like like
they have so much to play with with having access
to like the whole city being like warped by the
Hiss and and everything going on, like it looks insane.
I'm so excited for it.
Speaker 2: It's an interesting thing of like the doing control again.
It's where you're saying, like some people might say, like, oh,
doing it again means you would you would put it
in the old house, you put it in the same location.
Speaker 1: But they're like, we're.
Speaker 2: Gonna do it again, as in, we're gonna take the
like wild like spirit of we're gonna make this crazy
abstract place and just do it in a different spot.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, but a different character too, Like like I
appreciate that they're they're willing to be like we're gonna basically.
Speaker 4: Change laws risky.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah, it's not. Yeah, it's like I see,
it's almost like better that it's not just called control
too technically, Like even if it is control too, is
that my?
Speaker 2: Is it mine?
Speaker 3: I believe Charles is next? Yes, Okay, Uh, We're.
Speaker 2: At a point now where it's like, okay, I don't
I don't know if any of these are gonn taken
by anyone. So I'm just kind of gonna go with
my heart my third pick, I'm gonna go mixtape.
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna take that.
Speaker 2: I take it I played a summer game Fest and
I was like this, I love this so much, and
it's just like, I don't know. Perfect example of Eric
was talking about a game before the show that we'll
talk about later, but he started a game like seven
pm and just played it straight until two am. This
is a game that when it comes out, it's just
gonna be like me by myself, lights off, beer in hand,
playing it all the way through one sitting, and I'm
very excited for that. Yeah. So that's round three completed.
Speaker 3: That's that's a good round. We got Charles with mixtape,
we had Marcus with control, Resonance, Geo with Saros, and
myself with a sleeve the spire to Charles's backup in
the snake ground. Coming back with our first pick of
round four.
Speaker 2: I'm gonna take this next one. I feel like I'm
gonna take it away from Marcus. But that's okay because
I do want to play it. We'll see, we'll see
what my next pick is going to be. Phantom Blade zero.
Speaker 1: That is on my long list.
Speaker 2: Okay, it was in immedia. Okay, that's fine. I don't
feel that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 2: It's a big, crazy action game. It's like, uh uh,
there's another one I played this past summer and it's
really good, and I remember thinking it looked really good,
and we have like a really big feature on it
in one of our past issues from last year, and
I think the stuff they're doing motion capture is especially
very cool of just like the extent of which the
action looks cool because it's like, oh, a human could
do these movements in a sense and looks good.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Yeah, it's a kind of piggyback off that I
played it a couple of years ago in Games Calm,
and like even like two years ago, it looked impressive
and it played just as well. Like that, that game
has potential to be like a like a sleeper hit
for this year. Every time they've shown it, it looks impressive.
And knowing that, like at least the gameplay that we've
played has backed it up so far, like that's that
game seems really exciting. My Round four pick is gonna be.
I feel like I'm gonna go kind of take a
leap of faith here because this is a game that
we really don't know much about and I'm more going
from just one trailer and just sort of like I'm
going off potential more than anything, and also the developers
like it's like a fascinating choice for the style of
game that they're making. My pick is going to be
Beast of Reincarnation. So I don't know this so long.
So this is the This is the game Freak action
like his like action game, like they're big tripa a
fantasy kind of like almost like Asian looking action game.
They announced it last summer. It's the one that was
previously known as Project Bloom. And this is a game
that I've actually known about for quite a while before
it was actually announced, just from just conversations with different publishers.
So it was exciting to kind of see it in action.
But it's like, yeah, you're playing like a like is
this Warriors kind of got like a like a straw hat.
You're battling like these supernatural enemies and this cool kind
of like lush fantasy force. But this is the people
that make Pokemon. Like this, this is a Pokemon team
making something that could not look like any like less
than what you know they're primarily known for. But also
game Freak has a I think they have a pretty
solid history of their non Pokemon projects being pretty good
because they've had like solid games like like Harmonite and
like Timbo to Badass Elephant, I think is like a
totally fine, like side scrolling action game. Like they they
they do interesting things when they get away from their
main bread and butter or Pokemon, but this is like
by far they're like wildest and like most unrecognizable game
because even the other games they made, they're still kind
of like in that sort of like for all Ages
sort of his static at least, whereas this and like
you look at if you saw his trailer and I
told you, like, yeah, that's the team, that's the guys
that make Pokemon, you'd be like, what highly recommend if
you have not seen the Beast of Reincarnation trailer to
go look it up cause it looks awesome and it's
allegedly supposed to come out this year. I'm not told.
I'm like not completely sold on that. I know again,
this has been coming together in the background for a
long time. I know that for a fact. So maybe
it's one of those games it's like further along than
we think. But yeah, I'm I'm putting like my all
my faith in that this is going to wind up
being something really special. It looks super cool good.
Speaker 3: The Steam back end describes it as a one person,
one dog action RPG, and I think we might need
to update how we delete that in our back end now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I forgot about that.
Speaker 3: You get a dog too, Yeah, which means they.
Speaker 1: There has to be. They're probably better than this. But
if you had a trailer where there's like Texas says
that the protagonist has that dog in her said to
like a like a rap song montage of her like
slicing through all these enemies, and they're like, you do
you have that dog in you be? And reincarnation?
Speaker 2: There you go, There we go.
Speaker 1: I just did the games marketing for it. You can
thank me later.
Speaker 3: For the next round draft pick for the Van Allen Coalition.
You know, we need a lot of things in life
to have a winning team. You need prestige, you need legacy,
you need talent. You also need fifth generation fighters to
control the skies, over the seas, over the land, to
win combat. We are going Ace Combat eight Wings of Thieve.
Maybe the biggest surprise for me in the game awards.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: I love Ace Combat over I forgot to mention over
the Christmas break, I did boot up ace Combat seven
and start piecing through that again. It was reminded that, Yeah,
Ace Combat games just absolutely rip.
Speaker 1: They're so good.
Speaker 3: It's it's kind of like, I know some people might hear, oh,
it's just a fighter plane game. Yeah, it's a fighter
plane game in the way that there's Microsoft Flight sim
in one you know area, and that's like your car
simulator game, and then over here is like the need
for speed or the like. Honestly the burnout fighter jet games, uh,
mixed with the the middle gear solid storytelling that ACE
Combat always goes for. In ace Combat seven, there is
a giant plane called Arsenal Bird that drops smaller planes
out of its wings to attack you when you try
to approach it. It's the coolest thing that I've ever seen.
And I just love what this team does. I think
they do a lot of really cool things, everything from
amazing graphics and combat and tight ARCADI controls to JPEG
dogs and cut scenes.
Speaker 1: I love all of it.
Speaker 3: Uh, It's it's all fantastic. Can't wait phrase combat et.
Speaker 1: Uh geo I believe Yeah, you.
Speaker 5: Know, I feel like I've drafted some pretty major games
so far, big things so I, you know, I want
to get some of the smaller stuff, right, some of
the like the top prospects from from the colleges, you know,
who are slinging incredible, incredible balls down the field and
you're like, man, they're they're gonna they're gonna be a
big thing, and they're.
Speaker 1: Gonna get a Juco pickup from the transfer portal.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly exactly. So I'm gonna go real
left field here, even though there's some big games on
the table, I'm picking Big Walk.
Speaker 2: Big Walk, Baby, I got it.
Speaker 5: That's a big deal for Big Walk, So Big Walk.
It is the latest game from Househouse, the developer of
untitled Goose game, and that I shouldn't have to say
anything more for you to know that that should be
something you're paying attention to. Uh.
Speaker 4: It is a It seems to be like.
Speaker 5: A cooperative hiking game, right, like a chill out hiking
together game, but not in a peak way. It seems
like it's a little bit more like low key and chill.
I don't know a ton about it yet, and I've
kind of tried to avoid learning too much about it
because I just want to play the thing. But you know,
House House really really smart developer. Uh makes very unusual games,
and considering that, like we are in this age now
of like co op games having a big comeback and
people just wanting chill out games with their friends. Big walk, Baby,
that's gonna that's gonna be the game. I'm hyped to
have that on the squad. I'm putting up there at
number four, ahead of some big games.
Speaker 3: I have immense respect for you for describing the entire
game without using the word friend slop, because yeah, I
think that's a term we have to leave in twenty
twenty five, that has to remain in that year. Seal
the way, Yeah, a cask of a month Lado style.
Speaker 5: This game was also announced like way before that trend
became a thing last year, right, Like this game was
Annaucht a couple years ago, and like I feel like
it can't retroactively be called that, right, Like they're not
cashing in on a trend, right, Like this was something
they had planned for a long time. I feel like
this is more similar to like Flock, which was like
a good antip joint a few years ago. So yeah,
I agree, no friend slop, it's leaving slop behind it.
Speaker 2: Looks no more slop.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so no more slop and no more game delays
in twenty exactly.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it seems like those two things are not going
to line up super well, but will no.
Speaker 3: Big Walk looks absolutely delightful. There was a like breakdown
trailer they did, I think at a recent day of
the devs or something, where they just kind of win
over all the stuff and none of it was like
here's the big story and all that. It was just like,
here are things you can do in our world. And
it was absolutely delightful and I was just immediately sold
by it. Cannot wait for this game that was That
was going to be my my sneaky number five. It's
gonna eak out.
Speaker 5: Gotcha?
Speaker 1: Oh gotcha.
Speaker 3: End of round four, Marcus chose Beast of Reincarnation. Geo
took Big Walk, Charles took Fanom Blade zero. I took
Ace Combat eight Wings the Thief. We are down to
our final selection, the fifth pick, and Geo will lead
us off. What are you rounding out your draft selection with?
Speaker 5: This is so hard. There's so many really really good
games that I wish I could shout out here. Oh
she had like room for ten, especially on the indie
front like a lot of really great indie games, a
lot of like weird, niche Nintendo games that are announced
for this year that I think like are probably up
my alley a lot more like major Triple A games
that maybe we'll get drafted and maybe won't hear. The
thing that I am going to pick is a pure
me sicko pick. It is someone who I would want
on my team no matter what, thick and thin, and
that is our boy, Professor Layton Baby and the newest
Professor Layton game, Professor Layton.
Speaker 2: Bay.
Speaker 1: I'm kidding wrong, Sorry, sucker.
Speaker 2: Yo.
Speaker 5: I've been waiting for this game for a really really
long time. I really like the Professor Layton series. I'm
a big puzzle sicko and it just like also the
adventure game sicko in that way and happy to do
one of these games just like a good little puzzle
book mystery game. I've loved all of these games I've
played mostly and I just have really high hopes for
this one, so I gotta give it. I gotta give
it to my board, Professor Layton. I really hope this
thing like revitalizes this series, especially like being on switch
to where like it has a much larger install base, right,
I'm I'm really hoping that this one breaks out, but
we'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm a fellow Layton Layton stand here and realize
ESP actually reading about the game recently and it got
me wanting to replay Professor lay in the Unwound future.
I think this is like a single to that it
sounds like it sounds like, oh, it's been a very
long time this night that was on the original DS.
I was like, I might have the dust of my coffee.
I just run through that again real quick, like enough
time it's passed where I' probably forgotten the puzzles that
it don't feel kind of do oh.
Speaker 3: I never got around to the second trilogy of Leyton.
I only ever played the original trilogy, and so I'm
like really excited for an excuse to just go play
a bunch of Layton games once they lock in a date,
because those are just the coziest chillist games and playing
them on a three DS is like the best format
for it. I hope there's some touchscreen stuff with the
switch to. I think they have said mouse controls are
in the switch to version of Layton, and so that's
like really promising, but I want that sort of like
tactle puzzly feel. That's that's important.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this game was announced in February twenty twenty three,
three years ago. Professor laon game let me bring in.
Speaker 3: Let me break this down for you because this was
a fascination of mine for the longest time. Level five
out of Nowhere held this announcement stream where they were like,
we're back and we're making all these games, and there
was even I think it was somewhat tied to a
Nintendo Direct where a lot of them were getting shown
for the first time, and they announced so many games.
There was a Fantasy Life I, Decca Police Inazuma eleven, uh.
Speaker 1: Whatever.
Speaker 3: The the Mecca game that they had was Megaton Musashi.
I think yea Police still has not come out also. Yeah,
so that the punchline of all this is then they
had just they were like, they're all coming out, and
then they had to start delaying and pushing back. And
they have been pushing some of these games like Decca
Police back for eons, even though I think there was
a playable version at Tokyo Game Show at least a
year ago. Uh, it's it's been wild. But that that
is why Deca is not on my list, even though
I would really like to play that game, I don't
know when it will exist.
Speaker 1: Is Deca play? I know we're getting on a weird
tangent Deca Place, but is Deca Place the one? Also, like,
I think people are setting themselves up that think that
it's basically like an astral Chain kind of game, Like
I feel like the astral Chain fan base has kind
of attached themselves to Deca Police a little bit and sposative.
Speaker 3: There's yeah, I wouldn't be surprised if there's hopes for that.
It looks like a kind of a turn based RPG,
which Level five has shown that they can do. Uh,
And then also like a detective cop game where you're
kind of solving crimes and things like that, which is
a pretty novel concept. And then you add in there's
like some digital world stuff going on that has a
pretty strong air of digimon about it, and it all
seems to like tie together really interestingly. But yeah, I
mean Level five has been on a tear A Fantasy
Life Eye was very good. It narrowly missed making my
Top of the Year, and I heard really good things
about the newest Inazuma eleven. But it's also like they
they delayed a bunch of stuff, and you don't know
if they're going to stick the landing on a lot
of that stuff, So big question mark. But Layton is
one of those ones that you would hope they land on.
Oh yeah, good, Yeah, So final selection for for the
Van Allen Coalition. Look, we had a lot taken out
from under us. You know, it's everybody knows. First first
picks of a draft are easy, but you get into
the dog days of the draft and that's where the
real picks shine. Uh And and you know, I'm looking
down my list and there's a lot of stuff here
that I think carries a degree of sentimental value. There's
some expected winners as as could be pointed out. I
think I got to go with my heart though, and
I got to say Pocopia is pretty high on that
list for me. I love Pokemon, Pokemon Poke Hopia, uh, Pokopeia.
Speaker 1: If you want to change have I even think it's.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there is no topia because because there is no
utopia yet, you have to build it. But that's the
goal of the game, the objective. It's yeah, yeah, everyone
knows that Pocopia precedes utopia.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I so this is a roundabout way that I'm going
to get here, because I will tell you that the
Pokemon aspects certainly does lend a degree of me enjoying
this idea. But the stronger pull for me is if
y'all remember a little series called dragon Quest Builders, maybe
one of the most underrated spin offs in history. Dragon
Quat Builders incredibly good games, and Pocopia seems like the
dragon Quest Builders three that we're not going to get.
So I support the idea of taking a bunch of Pokemon,
also a diddo that wants to be a human for
some reason, and like the weird vibes around that and
all these Pokemon kind of play acting as humans is
kind of fun.
Speaker 1: And then having it be a town.
Speaker 3: Building sim and where you're placing all these things and
different Pokemon are popping out because you've made the right
biome for them and now they can thrive into your
town and things like that just seems pleasant. It just
seems nice. We should embrace the heart and the pleasantness
in this new year. So that one is going to
edge out a few others that I think are maybe
sure bets, but I'm going to go with my heart here.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, that's a good one. That was also on
my short list purely because of how weird it is.
I'm not even a huge Pokemon guy, but just the
premise of the diddle with his dirty diddle face on
a girl body, Yeah, there's like a weird understated creepy
is that I kind of like my last one again
hard so many games I'm gonna have to leave on
the bench. But this is a more recent announcement that,
again as a fellow puzzle game guy, speaks to me,
and that is Order of the Sinking Star, the next
game by Jonathan Blow and his team at THEKLA to
the mind behind Braid and The Witness, two games that
I enjoyed quite a bit, especially The Witness for how
pretentions it can be, but it still was like a
very brilliantly designed game that I put a crap tone
of time into and never actually finish. And that this
makes me want to go back and replay it and
try to finish it. But this is a game that
it was. It was shown at the Game Awards and
I was lucky enough prior to that to do like
a media pre brief where I got to interview Jonathan
Blow and have him walk me through like live gameplay,
like a demo where he could really break down like
here's what this game is. Hear what makes it special?
And I wish other people got to see it, because
I don't think that trailer they showed really gets the
point across of what really makes that game special, because
on the surface, it's this like, yeah, it's a big
open world game, and it's like you know, top down
grid base, and the puzzles individually look like, oh, these
are puzzles I've seen in like a gazillion different games.
You're moving mirrors around, you're pushing blocks, like oh okay,
But I guess the hook is that there's just like
thousands of them. Is that Is that the big thing?
But it's like, no, the cool thing about this game
is that one each biome is basically a self contained
game in itself, with its own characters and stories, and
each character has its own like special ability and like
bespoke puzzles designed around them. But then eventually the puzzle
the world start bleeding into each other. We're like, oh,
here's a character from this like island that has his
own thing going on, He's gonna encounter this lady that
also has like this other It's it's like like crossover
episodes of like two different series like meeting it. It's
like the Jetsons meets the Flintstones of puzzle games, where
it's like, oh, well, now they got to combine their
like unique quirks to like overcome what are now going
to be like increasingly complex puzzles that continue to blend
all the mechanics that we've introduced along the way, while
also having a broader narrative that is really centered on
this queen that escapes this kingdom, and she's like actually
the protagonist, and she's the character you're navigating in the
overworld before you go into these individual puzzles, but like
she's gaining all the abilities of the individual characters that
you're playing in near old little stories so that she
can get further in the overworld and just the way
that can expand. It sounds in insane on top of
again the sheer number of puzzles that this game has.
But just like like it was one of those presentations
where like as Blow is showing me this and explaining
it in my mind, I'm just like what, like how
how what it's like, and also feeling intimidated for whoever,
for all the people that are going to get assigned
to review to this game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm good. I don't like puzzles. Actually it's crazy.
I hate solving things. I hate riddles. Yeah, it's really like, Oh, you.
Speaker 2: Like oreos, here's forty thousand oreos.
Speaker 1: Eat them all by next year day Oh, it would
have fanned multiple flavors of oreos, and then those flavors
started bleeding into different combination flavors.
Speaker 3: And some of these oreos have shards of glass in them,
and you're not going to know which oreos have the
shards of glass in them.
Speaker 1: But yeah, just the ambition behind it, and just like
it looks so good. This seems like as intimidating as
the sheer number of puzzles, there's also something kind of
like exciting and like relaxings. I am a person that
finds relaxation and just like chipping away at little puzzles.
So just knowing that, like, yeah, I got like nine
hundred of these things. I'm just gonna sit down one evening,
which is like a cup of coffee. I'm just gonna
work my way through this, and you know, no rush,
because there's no way I'm gonna get through this tonight.
But I just kind of like being able to chip
away at something. And I pray that this game comes
out sooner than later, because the idea of like trying
to get through something this apparently massive before the end
of year for like discussions, the way that we're gonna
have to do for GTA six in November is is daunting.
So I pray Jonathan Blow released this before the summer,
if possible. It's probably not gonna happen, but that'd be great.
Speaker 5: Yeah. And to be clear, when you're talking about GGA
six November, you mean next November. You mean November twenty
twenty seven, when it truly releases.
Speaker 1: Right right, right exactly.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's now I have to start thinking of twenty
twenty seven as next year.
Speaker 5: Oh that's horrible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and mass effects still won't exist.
Speaker 1: No, but yeah, that is my night. Pick Charles, pick
number five. Round out the list.
Speaker 5: Still on the table.
Speaker 2: Come on, I think the more thing about it, I'm like,
there's a lot of good games. I might shout out
some honorable mentions, but I'm I'm coming at this from
the respective of like I really want to win this list,
you know, I want I want the fans to love
me so much because I picked the best games of
the most popular game the other stuff I had on
my list, witch Brook, I'm very excited for. End of
Abyss is like a cool like horrory twin stick shooter
scheme called Erosion that was revealed recently. That's like a
time travel y roguelike that looks awesome. Find Your Words
is a cool game from the Einstone developers about like
nonverbal kids at summer camp. It's like, what a great game.
It's gonna be free. That's very exciting, you.
Speaker 1: Know, it's also wild. There's that, and then there's Out
of Words, which is I'm also very excited about it.
Like I'm excited for both of the games about like
kids not being able to speak kids.
Speaker 3: There's one called Too Many Words, which is crazy. One's
hoarding all of them.
Speaker 2: That game took all the words and it's yeah, there's
not a game called Too Many Words.
Speaker 1: By the way.
Speaker 2: My number five it's going to be The Dusk Bloods. Oh.
Speaker 1: That was also my short list.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was like I almost forgot about this game.
I'm not even like the biggest frum Soft guy in
the world. I just haven't played a lot of the games.
But like new original frum Software universe is awesome. I've
switched to exclusive. It's just like it's just really interesting.
I am anticipating it in the purest sense of the word. Also,
I thought, Eric, you would think it's fun. I looked
up the game, uh, just double checking, it was still
slighted for twenty twenty six. If you go to the
dust Blood's Wikipedia page, the first reference there is an
article you wrote for I gen the number one reference
for the dust Bloods, Eric Fanellen.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I get cited for a lot of weird stuff.
Speaker 1: I'm a I'm trying to think.
Speaker 3: There was one time when I found out I was
sited on the Wikipedia page for Rainbow Mika for Street Fighter,
specifically because I think I wrote an article about how
like her costume was controversial and there were issues with
like playing sports tournaments and stuff like that with Rainbow
Mika's outfit all one. Yeah, Yeah, I'm like cited for
weird things on Wikipedia.
Speaker 2: Page.
Speaker 5: I'm cited on the page for the Estelle song American
Boy because I wrote about the Fortnite Chug Jug parody
at something. Yeah, And there's a whole section jug Jug
song and I'm on there.
Speaker 3: So that's the best reason to get sighted because there's
like other aspects of that song that you don't want
to go near with a ten.
Speaker 1: Foot home, but the chug Jug Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Do you want to do some some honorable mentions now
that we don't have heart from under us?
Speaker 1: Were you done talking about the dust Bloods real quick?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Honestly, don't know. I don't know all that much
about it. I just think people are you excited about?
Speaker 1: Yeah, like the PVB the PvP VE sort of structure.
Does that do anything for you?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 2: Yes, in the sense that like uh i uh, the
Night Rain wasn't as so PVPV are you And this
is just proving how little I know about this game.
Are you on like a squad in this game or
can you play it solo?
Speaker 1: And you're fighting other It sounds like you're so so
it's like you like the rounds or whatever you want
to call them. It's like you and seven other human
people's and not like a huge pool, are in this
world individually and you are competitors like this is not
a cooperative game, but there are AI enemies everywhere and
bosses that maybe you might have to team up with
people to take them down. So it seems like alliances
are more circumstantial than anything of like we are out
to compete, because this is like I think you're like
fighting to be the last one standing, almost battle Royale ask.
It sounds like, but like sometimes we might have to
put down our swords because like, oh, this giant monster's
here and it's gonna kill both of us.
Speaker 2: Okay, Personally, to me, that is more appealing than Night
Rain because I'm not as much of a like get
a squad of people and go play a game together.
I'm I just like to sit and play stuff by
myself while other stuff is happening around me and my house.
And also it's like, I don't know, from software, they'd
have to screw up a lot of times for me
to not just be like do what you want and
I'll follow and it'll be fine, Like it'll be fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I would say. What gives me hope is Miazaki
had a quote that he was basically because you know,
some of the hardware fans were a little like I
don't know if I want this to be like a
multiplayer sort of focused thing, and even straight upset He's like,
I'm not really a big PvP guy, so I designed
this with people like me that just like solo experiences
of mine. So that does give me hope of like
that this will if you want to. I mean, you
tend we are playing it by yourself if you're not
in a squad. But I guess I think it is
like you can treat this as a solo focused experience,
like I guess if you just pretend that the other
like players or just NPCs that play exceptionally well, I.
Speaker 3: Mean, like we had the Revolute because I think for
the longest time people were worried about this genre being
very aggressive and unwelcoming in a lot of ways. And
the crazy thing that happened with our greaders was that
game gets put out and everybody plays super passively and
wants to help each other and doesn't want to get
agro or anything. And like, surprisingly, the dynamic evolved naturally
without really any pushing from the developer or anything. They
just kind of put that realm out there and made
the game what it was, and enough of the systems
and stuff returning in Unison that people wanted to help
each other and not hurt each other. And I find
that fascinating in a vacuum and would love to see
if the Dusk Bloods ends up being something that does
encourage that sort of thing naturally, or you know, if
it just turns into blood sport. You know, it could
go either way. Arkov was kind of that way.
Speaker 5: So the other thing that I actually like. At first,
when they announced this, I was like, no way, no way,
it's not gonna work. This is gonna be their downfall.
And then Night Rain when it came out, I remember
reviewing it and being like, oh, this was like good.
I'm not like too totally convinced that they were like
a multiplayer studio, But the post launch support on that
game has been really really strong on Night Rain, and
I think really proved that, like, oh, they actually do
know how to make like a multiplayer game. So like,
I'm way more excited about Dusk Bloods than I was
when it was announced. I truly at the beginning was like,
everyone's gonna pretend this one's good because it's from Soft
and we have to say that all their games are good.
And now I'm like, no, they might be cooking.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, it's got vampires.
Speaker 5: Kind of what more do you want?
Speaker 1: It's the closest thing we're getting the blood Born too.
Yeah yeah, yeah, I mean this is basically a switch
is blood board of like, hey, we have an exclusive
from soft game. Mm hmm. You'll be begging us for
a remaster in five years. But awesome. That that wraps
it up. So what is our our Round five recap?
Speaker 3: Eric Our final lists? Marcus had Marvel's Wolverine Resonance, a Plaguetail, Legacy,
Control Resonant, Beast of Reincarnation, and Order of the Sinking
Star like that. Geo selected Resident Evil, Requiem, Marvel Tocon
Fighting Souls, Sorrows, Big Walk, and Professor Layton in the
New World of Steam. That's one of those lists that
I read and I'm like, dang, that's a good list.
I want to play, almost like you had the first pick.
Charles had Lego, Batman, Legacy of the Dark Knight, Grand Theft,
Auto six Mixtape, Phantom Blood Zero and the Dusk Bloods.
That is the funniest thing to read in the world
out Loud Legacy of the Dark Knight and also Grand
Theft Autos in that order.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 3: And then I myself Eric selected Fire Emblem, Fortunes, Weave
at Double O seven, First Light, Slay the Spire, to
Ace Combat eight, Wings of Thieve, and Pokemon poc Opia.
I told myself going into this year, I'm going to
be firmly on my own brand, and I feel that
this list reflects that I narrowly did not put Trails
in the Sky Second Chapter or Adventures of Elliott the
Millennium Tales on here. Those are two that were kind
of runners up there, but I don't know.
Speaker 1: Those are just kind of.
Speaker 3: Feel like known quantities at this point out of yeah,
want to get adventurous.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well awesome. It sounds like it's gonna be a
good year. Hopefully if everything that we say, maybe none
of our games come out. Maybe everything is still late
into twenty seven.
Speaker 2: Don't even joke about Lego Batman.
Speaker 1: We're delaying everything now. Lego Batman already moved the moment
GTA got pushed out of made. Lego Batman was the
first game a slider right in what are you taking this?
Speaker 3: Every publisher says we're not going to release a game
until Grand Theft Auto six comes out, like they.
Speaker 1: Just say, strike November is going to be one release.
No one's yeah, schedule anything in November.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and three months after it, and they all released.
Speaker 1: Their games exactly. It's gonna be a busy January. But yeah, everyone,
thanks for listening. Of course, let us know in the comments,
whose draft list do you think is the best or
your favorite? We'll keep an eye out. We should have
put stakes on this, We should have bet, like we
should have counted, like who who got the most votes
from the community, and that's something on the line. I
don't know, oh, I thought.
Speaker 3: I think the funnier thing would just be to revisit
this list at the end of the year and be like, okay,
whose games came out. Let's look at the Metacritic, like
the combined. We're basically just doing Fantasy critic at that point.
Speaker 2: So, yeah, does a game, does a game that doesn't
come out? What do we set that at for the
numbers purposes?
Speaker 1: Is that is zero zero?
Speaker 3: I think that's a minus one hundred. I had a
professor in journalism school who your papers started at one hundred,
and you would lose points for things that you did wrong,
and if you got a name date, place, or any
sort of event that you could verify through readily available information. Wrong,
it was minus fifty points. So if you wrote November
eighteenth instead of seventeenth, it was minus fifty points.
Speaker 1: I mean that makes sense, that's within your I don't
know if we should be penalized for other people's decision
making on their release dates.
Speaker 3: No, that was that was a good class because you
learned quick or you switched majors.
Speaker 1: I don't know. We'll figure it out, but yes, everyone
in the comments, let us know whose list you think
is the best. And thank you for watching uh and
listening to Game and Former show. We'll be back next
week with another episode. Geo, thank you for coming on.
Speaker 2: Man.
Speaker 1: Feel free to plug anything that you're working on right now.
If anything, you want to shout out yeah, Bill you can.
Speaker 5: You can find me on the Blue Sky at Mario
Prime if you need to, and you can find my
writing of a video games on polygon dot com currently.
Thank you for having me.
Speaker 2: This was a lot of fun.
Speaker 1: Yes, absolutely, yes, feel free to come back anytime. We'd
love to have you back again. Somehouse keeping real quick,
of course. As I mentioned at the top of the show,
Gameformer dot com Slash subscribe Get Yourself a Game and
former magazine subscription. We got our current issue Border Warcraft
Midnight already out in the wild, both for subscribers. It
should be hitting mailboxes or has been hitting mailbox since
we've seen. Got mine in the mail this week, which
has been nice, and also when it should be coming
into bookstores eminently Barnes and Nobles Books a million in
the US newsstands and also internationally in stores we don't know.
We still don't know what stores internationally yet. We're still
waiting to get that information provided to us, so apologies
for people that have been asking, We're still waiting to
learn that ourselves, but trust us it will and actually
has started popping up in certain countries. We've seen. We've
seen the video evidence of the store we saw, we've
seen the issue in Dubai. We've gotten video verification of
game and our magazines in Dubai.
Speaker 2: Which is and if you see one, take a picture
and send it to us so we can be like, hey,
so when someone found one in XYZ country.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, yeah, do that. It'd be great. Also, new
Super Replay series. If you've been following our Super Replay
right before we went to holiday break, Charles and I
we completed Resident Evil Outbreak. It is in the books,
and this week we have we will kick off or
half kicked.
Speaker 3: Off as of the launch of this recording. Yeah, this
will go live on the day that y'all are doing
the super replay.
Speaker 1: So okay, well we are starting our next super replay series,
which is Sonic and the Black Night a Charles heart
pick Eric's face, just confusion.
Speaker 2: Why Eric, they gave Sonic the Hedgehog a sore? Isn't
so like the coolest game ever?
Speaker 3: No, that sounds okay. In my life, I have played
some total of four Sonic games. I have played Sonic one.
I have played Sonic two. Okay, maybe it's more than four.
I've played Sonic whatever the newest one was that was
on the Switch and stuff that was also a two
D Sonic Superstar Superstar. I played Sonic Adventure, which I
didn't like. I'm sorry, uh. And then I played what
was it, the Sonic Advance, which was good. Okay, Yeah,
what this taught me was that three D Sonic is
not good. And then I finally got around to the
bio where made Sonic RPG for Acts of the Blood
God my RPG podcast, and that was maybe one of
the worst games I've ever played in my entire life,
bar none in acknowledgment of the total summation of games
I've ever.
Speaker 1: Acted, man I was. I was always told that it
was basically mass effect.
Speaker 2: But with Sonic, well, the thing in all of those
games there because the Sonic doesn't have a sword given to.
Speaker 1: Him, so he gets weapons.
Speaker 3: In Sonic Brotherhood, I forgot what it was called Sonic
Dark Brotherhood. Yeah, Dark, Yeah, something like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, in this game, Like it's it's so.
Speaker 2: Crazy. I just really I the reason we're playing this game.
If you're like have listened to the GI Show for
a few years, whenever there's some question about like some
game or like your least the worst game in your
favorite series, or a game you like that no one
else likes, or game from your childhood that no one
else seems to remember. But every reason, I always mentioned
Sonic in the Black Knight because it was I'm pretty
sure my first Sonic game. It was literally my dad
walking into the Toys r Us and is like, my
son's birthdays next week, what games again? Toys r Us
got was like, I don't know, We've got a lot
of these Sonic and the Black Knights that just came
in and no one's buying them. You want to take it?
And I was like, yeah, sure, that sounds fun. And
then I was like, oh my gosh, Sonic has a
sword and it's just so weird that I am really
excited to revisit it. Okay, okay with an audience.
Speaker 1: I'm excited to visit it because I've seen I know,
I've seen the opening cut scenes that I game years
and years ago and was like, this looks so dumb,
I think, and I've just heard it's not a good game.
So I'm excited to be in the passenger seat for
this one because this will be Charles on the sticks,
just just just watching just this weird sort of like
because it was like the second and what was supposed
to be like the Sonic Storybook trilogy that never actually
got a third game, because the first two games, like
the first one was Sonica in a Secret Rings, which
is also not a well not a well received Sonic game,
and then this Black Night too, so it's just like,
let's see what is like now the final game and
this failed trilogy of I'm so excited to start this series.
So yes, like I said, at the time you're listening
to it is the first episode. It's probably already available
to watch on our Twitch channel on as well as
our YouTube channel, and yeah, we'll be doing that every
Friday super replay. You can also go to a Twitch
channel every Wednesday. We also stream usually newer releases, and
also you can follow us on social media of course.
I'm at Marcus Stewart seven on basically just Blue Sky.
I'm on Twitter still technically, Charles, you're at Chuck Duck
three sixty five. You can find Eric at c Mousy
and Gill One more time if you'd like to shout
out your.
Speaker 5: Handle, I'm at Mario Prime.
Speaker 1: Hell such a good handle, Thank you, thank you.
Speaker 5: It's old.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Nintendo is going to pay you for it when
we actually want to use that. Yeah yeah. But thanks
for watching everyone. We'll be back next week when another
episode the Game and Former show. Until then, have a
good one.