Speaker 1: Welcome everybody to the Game Informer Show, a weekly podcast
covering the video game industry. Join us every Thursday for
discussion of the latest gaming news, reviews, in exclusive reveals,
onside game of Former staff, and special guests from around
the industry. I'm one of your hosts today, Alex van Aiken.
I'm joined by Marcus Stewart. How you doing, Marcus?
Speaker 2: Hey, I'm doing well. How are you, Alex?
Speaker 1: I'm feeling great. I'm feeling rejuvenated after our last conversation
in the hotel suite. You know, I like not recording
this at ten pm at night. I feel like I
have generally more to give at this epident.
Speaker 2: That's when all the spicy stuff comes out, though late
at night.
Speaker 1: That's fair, that's fair. Well. Also joining us is Charles Heart.
How you doing, Charles?
Speaker 3: Hello, I'm good. I just just came back from seeing
SGF Super Good Friends.
Speaker 1: Well, speaking of Super Good Friends, We're joined today by
Eric van Allen, returning guest friend of the show. Hello, Eric,
how are you.
Speaker 4: I know about super good that's a little presumptuous, like
like kind good, like like okay friends? Maybe yeah? Hello.
I was also at the summer Jeff fest as I
call it.
Speaker 3: Alex, you just got you just got You just tried
to super friend zone Eric and somehow got normal friend zone.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you got friends back.
Speaker 1: I know, I know, I know it's real, and I
know we are super friends. But of course Eric, people
don't know you. You are from Acts of the Blood God.
You prevols. I mean your bylines. You have bylines everywhere
I g N, Washington Post, Polygon, of course your own podcast,
Normandy f M. In addition to Act the Blood God,
You've kind of been everywhere. But just so people know
who we got on here, we got we got a
games media expert on here. Today. We're gonna be talking
about a lot of fun stuff. We're gonna be kind
of doing a summer game fest rapid Fire, just to
clean up the last of our impressions. I actually just
thought of another one I want to talk about, but
we're gonna be talking about that first, and we're gonna
get into a very big and hindu switch to review discussion.
Last week, we had Rogers Base on the show. Loved
having him on, loved his energy and just his deep
knowledge of Mario Kart World. Finding out how to unlock
the mirror mode that was awesome. But we now have
all kind of put our own time into the console,
and I think we have some pretty robust thoughts on
the console the games all that also gonna be covering
Magic Gathering X Final Fantasy That set is finally out.
I actually have a couple of packs. Maybe we'll open
live on the show.
Speaker 2: Are you gonna get that gold choke a bo Man?
Speaker 1: I hope? Later on, Charles is gonna be talking FBC
Firebreak with us, the new multiplayer spinoff of Control by Remedy,
Mark is gonna be talking about the Altars and Lost
in Random, and then finally I'm gonna be talking about
Fantasy Life Eye alongside Eric. So it's gonna be a
packed show. It's gonna be good. Thank you for being
here with us. Really appreciate all of the support the
past couple of weeks as we've relaunched the podcast. It's
been great to see your comments. If you, I guess,
hello podcat cast users, you haven't gotten our podcasts until
they finally updated our podcast page today, so you're about
to get like four episodes in your feet at once.
But welcome back. Good to have you here. Just some
quick housekeeping before we get started get a Game Informer
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us out, and I guess we can. We can officially
now announce that our first cover story is on border Lands.
For now, we aren't going to be getting into the
details of that today. Next week, myself, Brian Sheha, we
were the ones who went out to Gearbox to play
the game, interview the team, learn about its development and
a lot of the changes that it's bringing to the
table in this new installment. We're going to be diving
into that next week on once we officially show off
our actual magazine cover I believe on Tuesday, so stay
tuned for that. But I did want to put that
out there, so if you're wanting to get that cover story,
you have until we have early bird pricing through June
twenty third. So if you really want to get that
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and you want to get digital access and all of
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With that, I think we can get into the show
Summer game Fest. Obviously, we talked about it a lot
last week. There was so much to play last week.
I was really thinking during our podcast last week, Wow,
I'm really only hitting probably twenty percent of what I played.
And so we're going to try to rapid fire get
through these. But Charles, I'm gonna send it over to
you first. You've got a few you want to talk about.
What you want to talkalk about?
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, So I'm gonna keep it fast and tight,
fast and tight like the Flash.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I kind of butcher I kind of butchered
that he wears.
Speaker 2: A tight suit.
Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: You know, I appreciate you. No, I appreciate you. Try
to save me even though played a game called uh
End of Abyss. This is one of the games Epic
is publishing.
Speaker 1: It is.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I took a bunch of Epic Game appointments from
Alex and they were, yeah, I'm.
Speaker 1: Really sad, yeah, Alex for me, and the Abass looked
like that was previously it didn't have a title, but
that's the the Section nine game or the Yeah.
Speaker 3: It's a top down twin stick metroid Vania kind of
in the vein of a lot of like Soul's Life,
like Metrovena hybrids. You see a lot like a hollow
night type and aesthetically kind of reminded me of like
if you did Tunic Button Metroid. So it's got the
aesthetics of what I felt like an old Metroid. There's
a button to scan things like you do in Metroid
Prime that helps you do stuff, and you're unlocking new
weapons to explore the world. Really great, tough combat, really
great atmosphere. Really like that game. Then I played a
game called Out of Words, which I think used to
be called Vocabulantis and they changed it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that was the best name change of the show.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's great co op I'm gonna call it, and
it takes too like for lack of a better term,
but it's a co op game. Has to be played
co op two people, stop motion animated, so it's absolutely gorgeous.
All the backgrounds and stuff are all handmade and like
it takes too You go through a bunch of different
worlds and there's very unique mechanics. It starts out as
you guys throw a little like magic manta ray back
and forth and whoever has it, they're gravity goes upwards
so they're walking on the ceiling the other person's down
and you have to like toss it to other person
the time, like unique jumps and stuff, which is really cool.
A manta I think it's yeah, like it's like a
cute little blue manta ray.
Speaker 2: That's cool. That's just just the random animal. I guess
it definitely is also can I I take exceptions? It
takes two likes. I think you need Adventures of cookies
and cream likes.
Speaker 3: I don't know what that means.
Speaker 2: Cookie it's from software.
Speaker 3: No, I like, I like cookie like. I like that
as a term. I'll use it. Well. I like there's cream,
so should we cream like?
Speaker 1: I'm trying to pull up on the ares of cookies
and cream?
Speaker 2: Does no one else know this game from software?
Speaker 3: I'm trying. I'm trying to make this fast and tight,
and you're bringing in cream likes into the mix.
Speaker 2: The flash, flashy, slow and loose. No, but it's very good.
Speaker 3: I was gonna say. The other mechanics, so that's one
where you're still platforming, you're throwing a mechanic back and forth.
Then I saw a later section of the game where
you basically find this old primordial clay and you glob
into one clay monster and each player controls one of
the clay monster's arms and you like swing around the
level really.
Speaker 4: Fast and this stuff.
Speaker 3: So that was like a taste of like how different
they can be. That was like very promising, and it's
a game that looked good. But when I was playing it,
I was price how good it felt to play. And
a lot of times those games, there's a lot of
games that look good that don't necessarily play good, and
this seems like it has both. Nice Next, I played
sort of the Sea Giant Squeak.
Speaker 2: I'm excited.
Speaker 3: This is the people that made The Pathless absoo, and
that's the art director that worked on Journey composer also
wentry back to the score. It is like a uh,
skating surfing game in the desert where you can just
flip around and do tricks. And that's not that's that's
just for fun. It's mostly like a adventure game. We're
going around unlocking the world and there's this really cool
visual effects where you'll activate these like blue beacons and
then the sand will turn into water, and so you're
surfing on the water and then off the water onto
the sand. It's just like very visually breath taking, minimal
text to explain, you know, what the world is. But
it was very very good game.
Speaker 1: With that and you and and real quick, sorry, this
is just one I'm really interested in. Yeah, yeah, you said,
how are you You're kind of just exploring the world.
Are there things you're supposed to be finding? Is it
is it? Does it? Does it reveal yourself like as
you're playing it?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's so so for example, it started out it's
it's a linear game. So we start out and you're
in like one area and then it opens up and
it's a pretty big open world zone. And I picked
up that Okay, there's these two statues on this one
big like sand temple, and I can go to the
left and then eventually open that one statue that opens
a path door and then open up the other half
of the door in this other place. So it's all linear,
but it's reminiscent of other games that the studio has
done where it's like you have these big open spaces
that are like fun to move around, but it is
ultimately very linear. Cool, and there's you can like unlock
new tricks and.
Speaker 4: Stuff, which is tricks can you like the first.
Speaker 3: Button you get is the trick button, and then the
second button you get is the advanced tricks button. You
can hold you can hold like the bumper and then
press a bunch of buttons in the air to do
like different poses. And that was just the intro, Like
maybe they get really crazy. I don't think they have
any gameplay benefits.
Speaker 1: It's just for fun, okay, score system or anything.
Speaker 3: Just well, they did actually tell me there is a
hidden score system in the game. Matt Navia, the creative director,
told me, when you beat the game after the credits,
it will tell you your score, your trick point score, and
then when you played the game again a new game, plus,
you can opt to have the score meter on the
screen if you just want to like brack up points
for some reason.
Speaker 2: Okay, so I hope you can do.
Speaker 4: Christ there.
Speaker 3: Just insane stuff. And then my last one I played
I couldn't talk about until today June eighteenth, when we're
recording is Marvel Cosmic Invasion side scroller Beat Him Up.
Playing as Marvel characters. It has that exact great feeling
where it's like this this game looks like it came
out in nineteen ninety six, but it feels like it
came out today, you know, like it plays exactly how
I wanted to play and how I've like imagine it
should play. But it's got all the quality of life stuff,
but like a nice classic aesthetic. I played as spider Man, Storm, Venom, Wolverine,
and at the very end I played at as fila
Vel and Captain America, and it's they all felt very different.
Flying characters were very fun. I had a lot of
fun playing as Storm, and then some characters block and
you can like parry a lot of characters dodge to
get out of the way of stuff. And as you
were going through like the world, there's like chaos happening
around you. That's like telling the story in the environment
as you progress. And we like started on the street
and then we fought the Beatle and we went up
on like a Shield hell a carrier, and there was
some kind of war going on between Shield and Aim,
and it was kind of a thing where it's like
I'm not really paying attention, but I'm fully following along
with everything that's happening. It's all just kind of backdrop
to just do fun tricks and web people up and
swing around. It's really fun. Oh, each each person plays
has two characters at once also, so you can do
a bunch of like cool combos where you like hit
someone as Spider Man and then swap into Storm and
then swap back to Spider Man.
Speaker 1: Okay, And I.
Speaker 3: Believe it's up to four player local or online co op,
so at any given point you can have four people
on screen, I mean, eight different heroes there. You're all
collectively swapping between it's really cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's thing too? That This is by Tribute Games
who did Team and t Shredder's Revenge. This is their
next thing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, which you can tell it feels it's got, it's
got the vibe of like this isn't this is a
new old game.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's It's one of those games I don't have
a lot of questions about because you kind of see,
you see what it is. Yeah, cool, got it it is.
Speaker 3: It looks it plays how it looks like it plays,
which is to say, awesome, all.
Speaker 1: Right, cool, can't wait. How about you, Marcus?
Speaker 4: What even?
Speaker 1: What do you check out at SGF?
Speaker 2: I played Blighted, which is drink Box Studios new game
drink Box makers of Guaca Melee Severed their last game,
Nobody Saves the World, I'd say compared to the specifically
their last two games, like Nobody Saves the World and
Severed blight it's probably a lot more familiar genre wise,
like they're not, at least from what I've seen. It
isn't like too out of the box, like you're playing
it's like this kind of esimate isomet view like action
game you can play either alone or in co op.
It was one to two players when I was there,
I was playing one of the devs, but they were
telling me that they are tinkering with expanding a number
of players on screen, so it might be more than
that when it, you know, when it gets closer to launch.
But you're going around. You're playing as these kind of
skeleton warriors after your village gets destroyed by this like
bad guy, and like the cool thing about this world
is that, like it kind of has like a meso
American kind of vibe, where like the culture of your
village is that when people die, the villagers eat their
brains to like gain their memories and like it like
preserves their memories and their knowledge. And so this bad
guy shows up and kills everyone and just consumes all
of their brains, so he has like the sum of
the villagers collective knowledge and abilities. So you're trying to
go get those backs. So you go around fighting a
bunch of bad guys, and you're fighting these giant monsters
and eating their brains and that's how you get new
powers and like a very like Metroid esque sort of
like ability and like exploration gating, like you're going around
seeing like, oh, I can't get past this until I
eat this guy's brain. But we fought a like weird
spider horse monster. It kind of looked like that water
that Poseidon boss and God of War three if he
wasn't covered in water. And then once we ate his brain,
we could summon him and he just shows up as
like a ghost version of himself and just starts like
stomping around on top of doing just like hack and
slash stuff with your scythe weapons. It's got a little
bit of souls is nessing it well with like when
you die, you started a bonfire and you got to
go get your things back. So it's like a blend
of different.
Speaker 3: Is this like a horror game? Like what is the
aesthetic of because they're described there is some things, but
I don't know the studio to be scary, I don't know.
Speaker 2: No, it's that it's that same drink box style, like
very colorful, very bright, vibrant. It's like you know how
like nobody says the world or even sever like it's
got like dark stuff, but it's so it's presented in
such a bright and weird way that it's like not scary,
it's just weird Okay, I.
Speaker 1: Feel like ever felt more oppressive.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's true.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and that this kind of reminds me more of
that when.
Speaker 3: You say eating brains. Is it literally like we see
like skulls get split open and the brains could eat
out or is it like more artistic than that?
Speaker 2: From what I understand, I mean, I think it's pretty literal.
It's like this guy's dead and their brains there and
you just eat it. Yeah, there's no metaphors consuming these brains.
Speaker 4: So so I also demoed this, and the way they
showed it was like in the culture, they would like
plant they would bury the bodies and then like trees
would spring up and you'd eat the berries, and so
it was like an abstract eating of brains. And then
one dude was like, let's cut out the middle man, guys,
it's a lot of steps, and also let's not wait
until they're dead. Those are good brains, and and he
just started going in on that and then got like
corrupted because of it. So I admire like the efficiency.
Speaker 1: But oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4: Exactly. It's it's a cool. It's a cool thing and
definitely has those like severed vibes. I really really like Severed,
and so I'm glad to see them like going back
to that sort of style.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I I really it. Also, I mean there
are hints of like I was the last game. I'm sorry,
nobody Nobody saves the world. Yeah, well, like you are
really kind of collecting in a way, you're collecting brains
in that game and using them as transformations, like you
kind of have like a catalog of you know, you
can turn into the horse in that game, and now
you can do this, and then there's like elements from
that game that like based on what you're saying, like, oh,
there's kind of a similar concept here with like yeah,
and it sounds interesting. I really like just the the
that plot, like that, that that setting of oh yeah,
brains and what you say, meso America.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's or it's got that vibe like like a
psychedelic meso American like western Ish vibe to it. But yeah,
play that. I also checked out over at Atari. Probably
the only game I had no idea what it was
because it was sort of like mysterious until I got
they confirm what it was. But it's called Adventure of Samsara.
I don't know if you guys have seen this, but
it is a two D metroid vania that is loosely
connected to the adventure the older like the classic Guitari
game Adventure. Wow, it's like very foundational to like just
the adventure game genre, like like Zelda probably doesn't exist
without adventure and it's wild, Like I don't think it's
quite as like the closest comparison is like what they
did with what was it yars Y of like taking
one of their classic franchises and reimagining it in sort
of like a modern sort of context where you're playing
as this night. It's got this very like almost like
rotoscope animation, like like eight bit style where you're going
around like just killing monsters basically in like a big
Metroidvenua map. The like the most remarkable thing or interesting
thing for me about it was like outside of the
sort of like loose connections to adventure, like I ran
into the Dragon from Adventure at one point, but it
is like the animation of like it's a very deliberate
animation style in the way that the original Prince of
Persia is so like when you're climbing up ledges, you
are seeing like, oh, this is this is very fluid
and it takes a little while. And that extends to
the attack animations, like you have a sword and shield,
but you can't hold your shield to block. You can
only parry with the shield, so if you want to
dodge things, you have to time it. I will say, though,
I think that the parrying mechanics sort of clashes with
the sort of like deliberateness of the animation because there's
so many frames to like pulling your shield at that
you really kind of have the plan in advance, like Okay,
I have to tap it like a second and a
half earlier because I have to wait for him to
pull his shield out all the way to deflect this
like sowred strike coming my way. And that was really
messing with me. And like, I love Perry mechanics and games,
but you're so used. I'm so used to it to
being like you know, faster pace like kind of reflex
based things, so like having it in a more slowed
and deliberate fashion. I don't think I'm entirely in love
with Like I kind of got used to it during
my like thirty minutes I played to it, but I
was like, I don't know about this. But other than that,
it's like it's like it didn't blow me away as
someone that is like a metro danea Siko. But I
think just the idea of just resurrecting adventure in this
format is like super fascinating to me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting that they I was looking up the
developer of the game, Ilex Games, and this is their
first game since twenty seventeen. It looks like they had
a demo for Adventure of Simsara on Steam back in
twenty twenty. Oh wow, So I'm curious, huh. And the
last game I made was not well received. But you
know that is it's called face It a Game to
Fight Inner Demons.
Speaker 4: I play that game every day. Baby, Let's go one, and.
Speaker 1: It definitely looks like a glow up in terms of
face it, and in this game, I would will say
it is the word. Yeah, face it a game to
fight inner demons, that's the whole title.
Speaker 2: It's like, no, you face it like Penny one.
Speaker 1: Oh no.
Speaker 3: But finally, I wasn't sure if you were saying face
sit because you're saying that's a different game.
Speaker 1: That's a different game. I have those filtered out on
my Steam so it was.
Speaker 3: Like, I play that game every day. I was like,
I clearly misrode something there.
Speaker 4: I like to other people's podcasts and be like, I
play that every day with such enthusiasm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Marcus, you checked out another game, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah. The last game I'll mention that I wrote a
big pre before on the site is called Spine. I
was really excited for this. I saw a trailer for
it months ago at like an indie showcase. It is
a third person action game heavily modeled after the Batman
Arkham series, primarily combat, like taking that free flow combat
from those games and just sort of pretty much replicating
it and adding your own sort of John wickspin to it,
because that's the other big influence of like the Gun
Fou and those movies. So the game feels like what
if Batman just had a gun? What if he broke
his no kill rule? Where he plays this young girl
in this sort of like Cyberpunky, sort of like Neon
like Acid Wash World, and you're just going from room
to room. I don't even know what the story is about.
This is one of those games where, like, like the
demo didn't give me like much narrative context and it's
also like I don't think I care because I just
want to go into a room and just mess a
bunch of guys up. And the game so far it's
pretty good at that. Like it was like a rough
alpha build, so it was it was you know, janky
in some spots, but it it did nail like the
core of what made those Batman games fun of just
like you go in there and you're immediately just bouncing
from guy to guy. The animations and the attacks felt
like smooth and tight in the way that I like
from Batman. You're you know, you're doing cool cinematic finishers
where you're just like flipping over a guy and like
doing some intricate like arm break thing and just taking
him down, or you're doing a John Wick thing where
you do like a hand to hand combo and then
just shoot him in ahead at the end.
Speaker 1: It looks ridiculous. I'm looking at it on Steam and yeah,
it looks really stylish. I think they've nailed the the
art direction of it for sure.
Speaker 2: I think it's all what were gonna say.
Speaker 4: I also played this one and sat down and talked
with one of the leads on it, and I specifically
was like, your game one turns into gifts very well,
and you know, I was asking, like, is that something
y'all do intentionally, and it's like not, not really, but
like it does help to think of it in terms of,
like can you get because that's the vibe of Gunfu
is like if you watch John Wick, like a lot
of those like sick moves and kill shots like do
gif out very well. And so if you can do
the same thing with your game, you're probably nailing the vibe.
And that's so much of that game was that that
demo was about just nailing the moment to moment of like,
oh that was sick. Oh that was sick, Like you're
playing incredible five ten second gifts one after the other
after the other. It's it's the reels of Gunfu. You know.
It really like works that way.
Speaker 2: And it also like like it shows well, but I
think it'sporting to note that it feels good to play
so far, Like I said, it's a little rough because
it's an alpha, but like for to feel as good
as it is it did, then that makes me hopeful
what the final product would be. Like the really only
kind of like complain I had was that the camera
was a little looser than I would like, so it
was a little flayley, especially because you're jumping around and
changing like your your camera angles changing constant because you're
jumping from guy to guy. But that can be tightened
up hopefully. But yeah, it's cool, Like, I miss Arkham combat,
so it's good to see it sort of live on
in this game.
Speaker 3: That's one of those things that like, I feel like
you often see games be like and our combat is
inspired by counter based Arkham Combat, and it like the
fact that you're saying it feels like that. After playing it,
I'm like, okay, so they actually did it this time.
A lot of people try to do it. I'm always
excited when you're like, and these people succeeded. It's not
just like a buzzword.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The only other skin big game that I can remember
that got close was the Middle Earth games.
Speaker 4: Yes, that combat was very.
Speaker 2: Much like Yeah, we played Batman, but if Batman had
a sword instead of a gun.
Speaker 3: There was theoretically like they could have asked them though,
right because it was like Warner Brothers and DC's of
Warner Brothers property.
Speaker 2: You know, they're probably across the hall from each other.
Speaker 1: Maybe, Yeah, well cool, Eric, I know you wanted to
talk about Jamon.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Somehow, Digimon was my game of the show. Another
game that you have listed was my very close number two,
but Digimon Story Time Stranger. I'd heard for years that
Cyber Sleuth and games like that were worth playing, and
I always kind of blew it off because I was like,
I look, okay, don't don't hate me in the comments
for this. But I feel like there were there were
kids who grew up with Pokemon, and then there were
kids who grew up with Digimon, and the Digitimon kids
always felt like they were like kind of second fiddle,
Like they were like, oh, our stuff is just as
good as Pokemon, and so they always had to like
wave the banner for it a little extra hard in
the process. And so I always heard, oh, Digimon's really good,
you should play that, and I was like, ah, but
is it really good or did you just grow up
with Digimon. Turns out they were right. I was wrong.
I made a kulpa, like y'all got this game is
really really cool. It's a it's very much a creature collecting,
creature evolving RPG in the vein of a Pokemon or
even a Shiit make on me tense, but feels kind
of a like a between point between the two where
you get these really cool evolutions, the digivolutions that are
based on different stats and things that you've done throughout
raising your digitmon, and you can always kind of like
branch them out, see where they go, build a build
around them, maybe bring them back if you don't like
the digit evolution that you went down and going a
different path, you can build up moves and kind of
create these digitimon and also lean into type weaknesses in
a way that I kind of wish Pokemon would, because
there's like two different typing things. There's like one main
one that's kind of like the main triangle of virus
I think it's virus data vaccine, and then there's the
elemental wheels as well, so you can get like double
type advantage on some creatures and also have that done
to you. It looks gorgeous, It plays gorgeously like it's
got a really cool vibe of this digital world that's
built out of this like sheet metal jungle of Central
Town where all these digitmon are just kind of hanging
out and doing stuff. So you walk up to this
guy and he's a giant dinosaur inside a tank that's
like half dinosaur half tank, and you're like, what's up
and he's like, Hi, I'm tank Mon. I'm vibing over
here being a tank and I'm like that rules man,
that's awesome. And I go talk to Pumpkin Mon and
he's like, oh, I wish the train was running again.
But the train is called Loco Mon because the train
is also a digimon and like that it feels a
little bit livelier, because I feel like the more recent
Pokemons don't always do that of have the Pokemon feel
like they're in the world. They're just kind of there
for you to collect and battle with, and maybe certain
story Pokemon get to like have a more prominent role,
but here, like it's digimon all the way down. Yeah,
dimon able to talk helps with yes, Yeah, yeah, they
can speak.
Speaker 2: They can be characters like actual characters.
Speaker 4: Yeah. I was. I was incredibly impressed by it. Like
I literally went home and opened up but the Switchy
Shop and was like, do they have cyber sleuth on here?
Because I've I've clearly missed out on what has been
like a pretty solid RPG series and and I think
that's the sign of you have built something really interesting
and really fascinating. If even I a Digiti heathen Em,
I'm like, oh this is this is legit, like this
is something to pay attention to. Ethen Mon, it's my
favorite heathen Man. You don't want to know what heathen
Man does?
Speaker 2: Oh you don't want to s.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that makes me excited. I was a Pokemon kid,
but I I also liked Digimon, gobm On and were
my favorites.
Speaker 2: Is that the wolf is Guru room On Matt's Digimon.
Yeah cool than I was saying war.
Speaker 4: Graymond at all Warramon, is he the the wolf, but
he's like a robot.
Speaker 2: To No, he's the well, that's that's metal. Guru room
On was the little dinosaur. Yes, that was his mega.
Speaker 4: Just see war Raymond. But I do think, yeah, he's
like the chartisard of Digitmon is my own pretty much.
I was a monster rancher kid, which makes me like
hip that's the third lay. Yeah, that's the iceberg of
monster catching is like monster Ranchers at the bottom.
Speaker 2: It really is.
Speaker 4: I talk about Suazo and Mochi and Wolf. I think
Wolf was just its name. I don't remember.
Speaker 2: You're playing the CD soundtrack on your place.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm putting Santana's Supernatural from my dad's CD collection
into my PS one to try and get like a
monster from it. Like that. We got to bring that back.
You should ring that back.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that rules. I played a couple of things I
want to chat about. Luminous Arise.
Speaker 4: Was this the game that was my close? Number two?
That was real close?
Speaker 2: I really wanted to play this.
Speaker 1: Yeah it. You know, I have to admit I've never
played a Luminous game before. I've always wanted to.
Speaker 2: And but did you own a PSP?
Speaker 1: I did? Yeah?
Speaker 4: Oh that's even more Yeah right, yeah, i'd.
Speaker 1: I was playing NTV versus at X on my BSP. Okay,
I was that kid. I was playing like Madden, you know.
Uh but but yeah, so I've been playing luminessa Rise
a bit. They actually took me to the back room
and I got to play a few more levels than
were public, and so I played this really cool level
that was It was hyper pop, so think I think
like hyper Potions style music or yeah, I mean hyper pop.
But and the visuals were all sorts of like pixel
and voxels. It was really bright and beautiful and the
stages I mean just like Tetris effect, luminess, a rise.
The big draw I would say, are are of course
the music, the soundtrack. People want to hear that that's
a huge part of the game. But but yeah, these
these these immersive screens that you're gonna be especially if
you playing VR, right, that's like the big draw. And
so far I've been really impressed with them, just the
the visual effects in every level that I played. There
was one level where I there was like a astronaut
stuck inside a TV station and when you would when
you would make a cube, and you know, and and
and what what what is it called? And yeah, is
that just what it was? Okay, Well, when you clear,
when you clear, there's like all these each stage of
these like really neat animations that play, and of course,
just like touch to Effect at ramps up in intensity
and it's it's really good. It felt really good. The
soundtrack was great. Unfortunately, the headphones aren't working for some reason,
so I was just listening through TV speakers amidst summer
game fest madness, and so didn't get a great great
I can't tell you about the mix or really disparate
elements of it, but I I kind of feel the
energy and I out here occasional melodies, and I really
enjoyed it so far. And I think that's coming out
later this year. I'm not sure if they announced a
specific release date or not yet. I could be wrong.
Not yet, not yet, but I can't wait to play that.
I think it's gonna be great.
Speaker 4: I was gonna ask did you feel like the mix
was a little bit different from Tetris Effect, Because when
I went in, like playing Tetris Effect, I felt like
a lot of it was very chill, vibes zy, and
then some of the levels would be really amped up,
but it was it was more of a almost relaxing vibe,
whereas Lumines felt like the inverse where everything was kind
of do good do good do do do do do do,
and then like some of them were kind of like
a little bit more spacey and viby, but it felt
like there was still a mix of them, but the
ratio was kind of inverted from where it was with
Tetris Effect.
Speaker 1: Definitely, yeah, that's that's a good I think you're right
on that ratio. It definitely leans more towards you know,
I wouldn't say it got up to like, actually there
was one. I felt like it was kind of break beaty,
but yeah, higher higher bpms. Uh, you know, more drums
present on tracks, and like more like sign wave basses
and and that sort of thing that you would kind
of expect from from more you know, techno and and
and ed M and that sort of stuff. And there
were a couple yeah, slower ones and those are harder
to hear.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, in all, uh, I believe it's
all original music, because the first two Luminus games were
heavily like licensed songs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I believe they are bringing back the I think
it's the same composer as Touch just Effect, Touch just
Effect band. I'm doing a quick search high Delic.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, that sounds right.
Speaker 1: I don't want to credit the wrong person, so I'm
trying to look. But I knew it was like a
notable band that told me, and it was one that
had worked on a previous project with them, So I'm
guessing it's Hidelic.
Speaker 4: But but yeah, yeah, yeah, it's the same person as
Yeah Cool.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed that. And then separately, Crimson Desert continues
to be a game that fascinates me. That game wants
to be every game possible, and part of me thinks
they might be able to pull it off. I will
say the I would say Crimson Desert has some of
the most complex controls that I've played in a while.
There is just there are probably thirty different button combinations
that you have to eventually learn for like, because it's
a character action game, so it's not a Soul's like,
so you are doing combos which require you know, various
input configurations. There's also you have multiple Okay, let me
tell you about the cool thing about this game, all right,
There there is a lot of movement options for you
that require So number one, you kind of like wheel
this like magic force your character. I don't know what
it's called in the game, it's just magic, right, And
so you can do a lot of things with that.
You can sort of shoot up a a grappling hook
and or I think it's like a grappling arrow or something,
and you can aim at this. So you click in
the left sticks and you kind of go into this
slowed down mode where there's like a big color overlay
that comes over and you know, it's almost like think
like I don't know.
Speaker 4: Like.
Speaker 1: Hero detect Division, Yeah, that kind of thing. And when
you slow it down, you can aim up at the
tops of trees and you can shoot it up and
you can grapple up on top of the tree tops,
and then you can turn into a crow and like
sprout wings from from your back and glide around. And
there's a couple of different you can kind of go
quicker down, you can kind of take your time and
glide down. There's also an ability that and sometimes you
have to defeat certain bosses with this where you jump
up in the air. You click I think they've just
remapped it. You click right trigger, and your right hand
shoots a palm thrust of magic on the ground and
it shoots you up into the air. Then you have
to click left trigger and then that is your left
hand palm thrust and you can even do a third
one to for another. You can do like three palm thrusts.
Speaker 4: So it's like Iron Man kind of where you're like
doing the little palm thrust like thrusters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then you can turn into the crow again
from that and glide on top of big enemies. There's
one fight I had what I like fought a tank
and instead of a tank like think not world, not
a modern tank, thin thing like almost like a phalanx
looking a phallax. God, this is not going well a
very like think of like a massive like it almost
looks like a hut on wheels. And the hut has
a bunch of spikes all around it. Okay, and the
entrance to the hut is on top. Okay.
Speaker 2: And it also.
Speaker 4: So it's like an r V with like a bunch
of deer catchers.
Speaker 1: I just realized it's like a It's like a ridiculous
bay blade is what it looks like. Imagine, yeslades are ridiculous.
It's spinning and shooting flames out. Yeah, it's spinning and
shooting flames out the sides. Sure, while there are like
twenty dudes attacking you. So in order to defeat this tank,
you have to jump up. You have to jump arm thrust,
arm thrust, arm thrust, crow glide on top of the tank.
There's also another t shooting at you. I think this
game needs some balance changes, but is that top level
what it needs?
Speaker 4: Because I got a few other ideas to put up.
Speaker 1: No, ok okay, okay. And so once you're on top
of the tank, you jump into the arm thrust thing
again and you blow the tank up. It's it's they
there's also okay, there's some weird stuff in this game.
There's also a boss fight at the end of this
demo that I fought against, where throughout the boss fight
he runs into and slams his his sword into these
big stone columns and they'll fall down in the boss fight,
and you have to essentially dodge perry that sort of
thing to fight him, as well as like get your
combos off. And this particular boss doesn't take damage really
from normal combat, so you have to build up his
stagger meter. Then you stagger him and he goes down
on one knee and that's your window. You have to
And they said, they told me like this would be
more natural in the game because you would have had
like the muscle memory by the time you got to
this fight. But you have to click in the two
sticks to go into your magic mode. You have to
aim down at a column, a stone column, and then
you press I think X and it summons like this
this like whirlwind cyclone underneath of the stone pillar. You
have to tap repeatedly to like your character's like raising
levitating this stone pillar, this all while there's a character
that's like downed next to you and he's about to
get up and start swinging again.
Speaker 4: So you have you have like roughly how many seconds
to I would say like ten, oh, okay, that's my
eight seconds.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, it's it's longer. It's it's not long
enough to where like you can like relax and do it,
but it's not ridiculous, okay. So essentially, you levitate this
thing up, you pick it up this giant piece in
the environment, and you slam it down on the boss
and do like a third of his health bar and
it feels awesome. And there are other puzzles and other
I'm like, you could just do this mechanic in the world.
It's not like a special boss mechanic. There are just
things that lie on the ground in the world. Like
there's one there's like a big invasion that I played
where it's hundreds of enemies on screen at once, like
ridiculous amounts of enemies on screen, and you're running through
this battlefield and you have to like increase the morality
your troops, so you have to like raise a flag
and to do that you do like the the same
mechanic and you put the flag into the into its
stand and like helps helps the invasion. Right, this game
is like very very all over the place, but in
a way that I kind of love it. I don't know,
this game could be like incredible, Like I don't want to.
Speaker 2: I don't want to.
Speaker 1: I know that as hyperbole. I genuinely believe if they
can pull off the best parts of this game and
polish up the stuff that that is still a little
rough around the edges in terms of like the control
scheme and there are some some lighting stuff that was
throwing me off. But like it is a very dense
and very impressive attempt at a open world, you know,
RPG action sort of game, and I am I will
be their day one. I want to see if they
can do it. It is really really interesting.
Speaker 4: One question, Yeah, did you get a sense in all
of this and everything you've done in all of these
adventures of who your dude is? Because Cliff cool.
Speaker 2: Like that, that's his name's Cliff, this Omega level mutant.
Speaker 1: He also looks like he looks like Clive from Okay.
Speaker 3: They just wanted to name him Clive.
Speaker 1: I want to say Scottish, Scottish or Irish.
Speaker 2: His name used to be before they changed it. For
a long time, his name was McDuff, which I was
disappointed they changed.
Speaker 4: It, like Shakespearean McDuff, Like, uh no, McDuff, McDuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, fear, but mac mcduff's a character in Macbeth, right, yeah, yeah,
I don't know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but yeah, McDuff because he was again they were
leading into like the scottishness. So yeah, his name until
like relatively recently they changed his name. I guess the cliff,
which I was like, McDuff is better. I just like
saying McDuff.
Speaker 4: I am into the idea of the insane video game
retelling of Macbeth where he can turn into a crow
and punch the bay Blade from atop his iron Man's thruster.
Speaker 2: Some tornadoes and whatever.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, that's my Macbeth, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Macbeth is the name of the character of the play
and the ridiculous bay Blade tank that shoots fire out
the side. Yeah, don't get it confused, you will.
Speaker 1: This is the second time that I've played this game now,
so I've played it for probably to two and a
half hours at this point, and I've done various scenarios
that are all just like vignettes. They didn't even want
me to call this one a demo. They're like, this
is this is just like a a slice. I was like, okay,
not what a demo is. But I think they were trying.
Speaker 3: To find gaming experience.
Speaker 1: I think that what they're trying to say is like there,
it's not meant to be a holistic view of the game.
I think is what they were trying to tell.
Speaker 2: Me, which is what most demos are.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, exactly. But I don't know, but yeah, it's
this game wants to be a lot. This is the
one that people have been watching. It's from the developer
behind Black Desert Online, which is kind of known for
its beautiful art direction and combat to cool combat. Yeah. Uh,
this game, I would say, is like not it's like
middle Fantasy. I don't know, like you're gonna be running
up against I believe there are like orcs and that
kind of thing as, but there's also like weird like
siege engines like this tank was.
Speaker 2: It's got a it's got a bit of the Game
of Thrones kind of gritty fancy to it. Yeah, pretty much,
I think, Yeah, I think maybe, yeah, sixteen is probably
going back to that.
Speaker 4: That's a good comparison, you.
Speaker 1: Yeah, maybe a little less, like I don't know about
the fighting, you know, Giant Gods, Yes, not to that level.
The other kind of a step down from that, right,
And that's kind of like a vibe for for the
setting of this game. But yeah, it's there's also like
a lot of I remember back at Packs East, I
played a build where it was a non combat boss
fight that was essentially a big shot of the Colossus puzzle.
They had to like climb on top of this big
stone crab and slowly take out its weak points, and
then at the end you had to use your your
palm thrusts to then grapple to get high enough and
then shoot your grappling hook midair, swing around him and
flip up over top of him and like kill him
from above. I told him, I was like, this is
too much. Is very cool. You got to figure out,
you know, how to make this more more achievable because
it was like pr was even like struggling to like
show me how this is supposed to work because it
was so convoluted. So that's what I mean, Like this
game is doing a lot. If it can overcome the
complexity of its character controls, I think it could be
really really special And I'm I'm I can't wait to
play this. Yeah that's Crimson Desert. I didn't mean to
spend so much time on his game, but I I
have really enjoyed it. Yeah, or it's one to watch, Yeah,
it's one to watch.
Speaker 2: Am I am I wrong for?
Speaker 4: Like?
Speaker 2: I hope the game is good? But am I wrong for?
Just want to get to come out so we could
talk about do k A V again everything video game?
Speaker 4: Yeah, do kV wasn't at SGF right, Like we didn't
see a trailer for it, or.
Speaker 2: It hasn't been and it hasn't been shown since it
would shown the first time.
Speaker 4: V M I A.
Speaker 1: I've heard it's still like actively being worked on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I I've assumed that once they're just pushing Crimson
Desert at the door first, like that's the focus, which
makes sense, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, So yeah, that's Crimson Desert. A very curious game.
Really excited to see.
Speaker 4: More of that.
Speaker 1: But yeah, that's kind of our our our Summer Game
Fest wrap up. Didn't mean for it to take that long,
but hey, a lot of cool games. Uh, let's get
into our Nintendo switch To review discussion.
Speaker 4: Eric.
Speaker 1: I want to go to you. How are you feeling
about switch To? I know you and I have been
playing Mario Kart World together. Has that been the extent
of your time with the device? Where you're at?
Speaker 4: I've been dipping in and out. It's been an interesting
time because I didn't get my switch To until I
got back from SGF, and I'd played some Mario Kart
while I was out there on other people's systems, and
I definitely got a sense right away of yeah, this
is a solid Mario Kart. I would know if I
would rank it as the top Mario Kart. But I
think it's got some cool ideas. I really like knockout races.
I think that was probably like the golden ticket idea
with this game is it just works super well and
maximizing the fact that you can bring so many players
in and do those knockout races and they go by
it just the right amount of time and everybody has
a good time and then kind of gets into the
next one. I think it flows super well and seeing
that workout. I mean, we've been putting up room codes
and playing knockout races with a bunch of people who
all join in. It's a great time. I really like
that all so kind of been dabbling in either switch
to specific games, so I played a little bit of
I actually went back to Pokemon Scarlet to kind of
tinker with that DLC because I never finished the DLC
because it ran terribly. It just barely functioned. Yeah, and
so now playing it in a really good frame rate
and looking pretty solid, I was like, oh, maybe I
do actually want to finish the DLC of these games.
I booted up New Pokemon Snap because I was like,
no one else is going to care about whether New
Pokemon Snap works well on the Switch too, but I
do because I really like Pokemon Snap. That game runs
super well on the switch too.
Speaker 2: They announce any formal upgrades for that.
Speaker 4: I just booted it up to try to I've been
doing that with a lot of old games that I
thought kind of ran not great on the Switch. One
was just see like does the hardware get it just
working a little bit better, And it turns out with
Pokemon Snap, it just there's barely load times. It just
moves faster, there's not a lot stuttering or anything like
that just feels a lot smoother overall and really like
makes that experience shine a little bit more. And so
I really like that. I've been playing clubhouse games because
I'm a sicko like that. There's no like noticeable upgrades
for clubhouse games except for the fact that you can
game chat with it. But that that's all I want.
I just want to sit there and keep get in
my medals. Exactly. You're you're talking to a Mancala maaster.
I just got my impossible medal the other night. You know,
I'm just saying, you know, don't don't test me when
it comes to Mancala.
Speaker 1: I used to play Mancala a bunch at the after
school place I went to. I ran those streets.
Speaker 4: Okay, well, we're gonna have to show downline enough to
see what's what. I think. The weird thing with the switch, too,
is I just keep going to it, and I'm like,
it's not I don't think it's a bad console. It
just really feels like I got an upgraded switch, and
I don't. I don't think it's going to start to
feel like switched to instill until stuff like Donkey Kong
Bonanza and stuff like that starts to roll out things
that feel very distinctly this is a new console making
use of new hardware. I don't think Mario Kart World is.
It's definitely impressive, it's definitely like amazing to look at visually,
It's just not that substantial, sink my teeth into game
that I was hoping for with the switch Too, and
I think that's what it's missing right now. Delta Rune
has been the one that I've been going back to
and playing a lot on there, and that's something I
could have played on my PC if I didn't have
it on switch To. I just wanted to try the
switch to version. So I don't know, it's a weird
console launch. It's not a bad console launch. I've certainly
lived through worse, but it's a strange one, I think
because it just doesn't have a breath of the wild.
I even remarked today looking at the Donkey Kong direct
that I was like, that feels like the switch to game.
That feels like the big waving the banner. We have
a new console game, and so it's a little weird
that the release is staggered the way it is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would have been really cool to have it launch,
especially because it's so close. But yeah, I got my
switch to finally, guys, when that I can wave around recklessly,
I don't have to.
Speaker 4: Use balances for that anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: But so I've probably played the least because I got
my less than a week ago and I've only played
like it ends short Burst, played to Mario Kart. I've
only completed one Grand Peak pre Cup. It's it's fine,
it's fun, but like Mario cart eight was such a
high bar that it was like, at least the tracks
that I played so far, like haven't really held a
candle to like the tracks in those games. But it's like, oh, yeah,
it's fine, it's Mario Kars. These new power ups are
pretty cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the thing on that note, Marcus, because
of the open world nature of this game, they don't
really have many. I mean, I guess they add in
sort of like construction traffic cones to block off certain
certain areas during races, But I feel like Mario cart
eight had the advantage. These are levels right versus like
an interconnected world, and I think, yeah, that makes them
less moment to moment the.
Speaker 3: Actually think like they I think the courses are good.
We're just in a weird spot where like, uh, because
of the way the Grand Prixs are structured, where like
the third lap is actually, oh, you only get one
lap on the court if even played Mario Kart World.
The way Grand Prix work now is you do three
laps on the first track and then the second race
is the path from that first track to the second track,
and then you do one lap on that track and
then the race ends, which.
Speaker 2: Still off by the way, because I was like, I
know you had to drive to the next one was like, oh,
are we in a are we in a race? I
see the little lap counter and it's like, oh should
I care right now?
Speaker 3: Yeah? And it's I think the levels are well designed,
but it's hard to get used to them because you
don't even get to spend that much time on them.
And that My main issue is I just wish that
they had included like a classic and pre mode, or
like you can't play Grand prixse between multiple switches, which
is weird to me, like you have to do races. Yeah,
at least I have not found a way too.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah. I think it's just because the tracks of
the interconnected I feel like they just have less of
an individual identity than previous Mariocard games, because you know,
when they're just like individual tracks, they can do whatever
they want thematically with them oras here since they kind
of have to blend together a little bit just because
they all take place in one living world. So going
from some tracks of tracks, you're like, oh, I mean,
I do see a difference, but it's not like, WHOA,
this is completely different than that last ter. I went
from moving meadows to like that weird piano like techno
track from like what was it whatever? It was called
an eight, and you're like, it's missing that a little bit,
at least one seen so far.
Speaker 4: I don't know if the other cups or not, but
I think DK Spaceport was the one that really yeah
realized that was you have a really great track in
DK Spaceport where you're kind of winding up the Donkey
Kong arcade game, but you have to spend like a
lap or two getting to the track, and that that's
always a weird part to me. I've heard tell that
there's somehow a way to play just the circuits if
you want to just do that. But I was talking
to this person who was trying to talk me through it,
and it was through different menus and options in the
multiplayer and stuff like that, and I was like, why
is that not just play like you said, play classic,
play original, you know, whatever you want to call it.
And I like the idea. I even like the idea
of what they're doing for Knockout Race again, and I
think it works really well in that context. But for
somebody who wants a classic Mario Kart experience coming off
of eight Deluxe, it's going to feel a little strange
at times.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I will say I am really enjoying. I know,
like I know, there are there are people, I mean,
we're talking about it right now, like some of you
don't like that, but there is a certain novelty to it.
It is unlike any other Mario Kart game in that way,
and so I am appreciating it for that. I also
think that the Grand Prixs are it's kind of I
don't know, maybe I'm looking at a glass half full,
but if you complete that Grand Prix and then you
select a different one that's connected that, and maybe it
doesn't work as well. Maybe it's maybe I'm thinking Knockout Mode,
but essentially your next the next race you're gonna do,
like the next Grand Prix you do, you can have
it so that, oh, I'm getting two laps on the
map I actually wanted to end on last time, right.
Speaker 3: I think that's a that's a versus race setting?
Speaker 1: Is that a versus race ocause you can't you can't.
Speaker 3: Pick where you start when you do a Grand Prix.
It's just like, ah, shoot, you're right.
Speaker 1: I've been doing a lot of I've been doing a
lot more of the versus.
Speaker 4: The verses is.
Speaker 3: Fun, where like you're all in the open world and
you get to vote on the next track that you
go to from the track that you yes did, so
you can change a bunch together. That is cool. I
like all the stuff they added. It's more that they
don't have the old stuff. But even then I'm still
enjoying it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I still have the mess with it. I
haven't done any of the versus stuff. I haven't done
Knockout Tour yet. Like I've literally just done like Grand
Prix and the free Rome stuff, which the free room
is like fine, but it's not you know in terms
of like and you know this has been set to
death by other people, like the density of activities hasn't
really like Blown me Away, especially compared to its closest influence,
which is Forts of Horizon. So it's like, you know,
it's fun to drive around. I still want to look
around for secrets, but it's it is something where it's
like I need to put a podcast song. It's gonna
be a lot of driving around through nothing until I
see a pee block or something. I guess, yeah, yeah,
but yeah, I want to play Knockout Tour. That's the
one I really need to. I don't want to get
in there since that's like the big new thing.
Speaker 1: It's great. That's probably my favorite way to play right now.
Speaker 3: And there are like they're not like Grand Prix, but
there are If you go into the Knockout Tour single
player Marcus, there are like set things you can beat
and like the way that you rank. It's like you
got three stars on this Grand Prix. You can do
that with the Knockout Tours too, So it's like there
is like single player stuff there, which is cool.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I would say for for old games that I
fired up to see how to better I because I
am an Expansion Pass subscriber. I downloaded the switch to
version of Tears of the Kingdom because that was the
game I most wanted to see, like how much better
it was? And I played it for like an hour
and I don't. It was this weird emotion of being
simultaneously incredibly impressed on how much better that game runs
and being like upset that I can't play this for
the first time with this, like it.
Speaker 1: Plays so much I never so I'm excited to go
back and do that now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I'm excited for people to get to come
to Breath of the Wild Answers in the Kingdom for
the first time on switch to, because it's like going
even for like I was just like, man, it's great
that this exists, but I'm I'm I feel angry and I shouldn't.
Those are two of my favorite games of all time.
I still very much love my time with those games.
But seeing like, oh, this is how this is, how
much better it could have been?
Speaker 4: Huh. The person who gets to play Breadth of the
Wild and Tiers of the Kingdom for the first time
on switch to, that's like euphouric. That is like I
cannot imagine what that's got to be. You have to
have been living under a rock. But that's like you
win in that scenario.
Speaker 1: Yeah, when you're a kid who's finally old enough to
do it, and then it's like that becomes their Ockerina
of Time on N sixty four Formative Experience.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, did.
Speaker 2: You guys because I fired up the game cube stuff too.
I don't know if you guys are Expansion Past people.
Speaker 1: And I am iah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like the very first game I fired up was
not win Waker, but Soule Caliber.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because it's so I love Soul Caliber two. It's
who now, yeah exactly. You know what's funny about Soul
Caliber two, Like you know it still plays like a
dream loves Soul Caliber two, But the switch to loads
so fast that the like fight load screens are way quick. See,
you only get like a second to do the like
noises with the fighters, like the grunts when you hit
a button, so like you have to really be on
it to be like when they just stare at each
other like straight faced and only their mouths moved. I
was like, oh crap, I missed it. I have to
just mash the button immediately. So that's like the downside
to the new load speed.
Speaker 1: Does it feel good? Otherwise though, Oh yeah.
Speaker 2: It plays like Soilk Caliber two, which is I.
Speaker 1: Think I wasn't there a remaster or a re release
a h version. Yeah, yeah, that's the last time I played.
Speaker 2: That was the last time I played, too. I don't
think I've played the proper like, I can't remember last
time I played the GameCube version, specifically because I never
owned it. I played at a friend's house. I never
had a GameCube, so my version was the PS two
version of head Hey Hachi. So yeah, going back to
this one, I think I don't think I played the
gamecub versions. It's high school now thinking about it. But yeah,
Solkap two is still one of the best fighting games
ever made.
Speaker 1: So yeah, you know, I've been I've been kind of
I'm playing a lot of Mario Kart and then I've
I've re downloaded uh Spolunky and Spolunkie two, and just
because I love those games, and I was like, yeah,
great games, phenomenal games. I downloaded uh Splatoon three. Haven't
been able to check out the new the new update
downloaded I've got. I've downloaded a ton. I downloaded Fall guys,
because I thought it would be an incredible way to
play that game on the go. I don't remember. I
don't know if it has Steam Deck support. What are
you laughing at?
Speaker 4: Eric? You reminded me. I also downloaded Splatoon three and
I got into a match, and I'm pretty sure I
played against like six year old seven guy. There was
no mercy on that there was. I I rolled in
there with my arrow spray and I was like, like
they were kind of walking around and just kind of
shooting and painting, and I like zipping in and spraining
it all down, like doing all the tech and stuff.
And I was like, I feel bad. This is this
is like the classic story of kids on Christmas Day
getting destroyed.
Speaker 2: But do you think they'll patch in mouse controls for
that gangs? That seems like of any game to get
it because, like you know, like they always say the
hardcore players use the motion controls, which I still think
is insane, Like I cannot play Splazoon.
Speaker 4: That way, but contro flick Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: But mouse control seems like the way you even the
playing field, just because you know, that's just the way
a lot of people like to play shooters.
Speaker 1: Yeah, are you are the lobbies split up as matchmaking
split up by platform or switch to. People just in
there with switch one.
Speaker 2: That's it's probably the same. It's just to switch one
game like they haven't if there's like no switch to
edition of it. So yeah, it's just backwards compatible, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but oh I got to test out if you
could do mouse because then you can.
Speaker 4: Just we should go dominate the lobbies later. Yeah, yeah,
these kids got to learn about how to play Platoon.
Speaker 2: So yeah, before that weird spinoff comes out, I will
now that you we mentioned the mouse controls. I will
say that was the one thing that did make the
switch feel new, because I was I'd forgotten about the
mouse controls until I was running through the controller pairing
and then it's like, hey, you know you can do this.
So I did like the little tutorial and I was like,
oh right, So like that's like the one thing that
makes me go, that's right, this is a switch to.
I could not do this on my old switch, and
just I've only used it to like navigate the menu,
but it was it was novel and weird to be like,
ye can't believe I'm using a mouse cursor on a
Nintendo console, Like this is pretty this is pretty neat.
Speaker 1: I have yet to actually use it once since.
Speaker 3: Oh right, now you're switch in front of you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, use your mouse.
Speaker 3: Through my just my captures. When I show people, I'm like,
look and I can scrub so easily now it was
always annoying or the right stick.
Speaker 1: Okay, what I'm gonna do. We're gonna do some journalism
right here.
Speaker 4: Okay, late journalism, late journalism.
Speaker 1: We're going to see if you can actually if you
can actually use mouse in spultan real quick.
Speaker 3: Oh. I think I think there's a zero percent chance.
I think they would have, but.
Speaker 2: I could also see Nintendo because they're.
Speaker 4: They like the shoe on, like you're actually putting the
shoe on.
Speaker 2: I think the mouse controls are better when you put that.
You can do it without the shoe, but it feels better.
Speaker 4: No, I do that shoeless. Yeah yeah, raw.
Speaker 2: Raw dog in the mouse.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm going to Sulton's. Wow, this feels so weird.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I'm with Charles, like, it's probably not gonna work.
But also it's it's not unlike Nintendo to quietly push
out a little update like that to where they chut
to figure it out on your own.
Speaker 3: Probably later it'll turn out that like they announced it
but on the Nintendo Today app and nobody just saw it.
We never never got picked up anywhere.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I still haven't downloaded that app. By the way, I.
Speaker 3: Probably probably probably today it's Donkey Kong.
Speaker 2: Oh yeh, that's probably I am.
Speaker 1: I think I'm about to do it. Let's see. Oh yeah,
can you skip this this damn intro?
Speaker 4: You can speed through it?
Speaker 1: I think, God, that is the most annoying you do.
Speaker 2: I still haven't played Splatoon three really well. I love
the first two games, and we did. We didn't get
a code for the third one, and I was like, well,
I don't want to pay full price for it now,
and you know, nothing ever goes on so Nintendo. So
I just haven't gotten around to, like, I guess I'll
pay sixty dollars for this right now.
Speaker 4: I always paid the price. Splatoon is, like, low key
one of my favorite Nintendo properties. I think it's one
of the best things they've made in a long time.
It's very very good.
Speaker 2: Honestly. The announcement of the spinoff one reminded me, like,
I still haven't played Splatoon three. I should do that
because I like those first two games a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I still have absolutely.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I need to go back and play the
rogue mode that they added that was like the tower
Side Order. I think it was one I like expansion
that was so yeah.
Speaker 2: So they're they're they're good on their expansion game. You
guys excited for that new one that threw on a subject.
Did you guys see that trailer?
Speaker 4: What is it?
Speaker 3: I did not see. I'm not a I've tried every
Splatoon and none of them have clicked for me.
Speaker 2: But it's like a it's like a single player thing, right,
eric I It seemed like, surprisingly, I have not watched
this trailer yet because it just happened to appear one
day when I was not paying attention to the internet
and has been memory hold Yeah, I forgot the name
of it. It's like Splatook Raiders.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I saw it and thought it was an
extraction shooter, which I was concerned about.
Speaker 1: But I was sitting here thinking I was doing mouse
controls and I was just doing motion controls on but
with would.
Speaker 4: Say that's how.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was like the hell, yeah, hold on, waggling
your I'm going to the isn't getting done? I know,
right handheld handheld mode most controls.
Speaker 1: Oh there's supposed to be off. I'm so confused. Also,
nothing in here about mouse.
Speaker 2: I was also going to say the other thing that
makes this feel new was since I I never upgraded
my switch, Like I had a Launch model switch all
the way through its life cycle, never got the light,
never got the old D. So for me, having a bigger,
nicer screen is like whoa Like this is this is
like my I'm late to the party and like how
much of a luxury that feels of like, oh, these
games look so much better now. I can't believe the
screen is this big. And I also don't have a
Steam deck so big handheld screens for me, it's still
like I'm still fresh to that, and I'm like, man,
this is what people I've been talking about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's not even old, but you could have
fooled me. Honestly, it is.
Speaker 2: It is a better looks though, isn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: Well they've got like HDR working on the screen, don't they,
I think.
Speaker 2: So yeah yeah its ahgr yeah yeah then it's like
four K sixty on the when you play doct and stuff.
Speaker 1: It's honestly for content capture, video capture, I'm I'm so happy.
Yeah you Yeah, And like I was capturing fourteen forty
P the other day. The PS five and the Xbox
Series X wouldn't even let me do that when they
came out, like they would only only do ten eighty
or four K. And having the switch just work with
with with that kind of thing makes my job a
lot easier.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it also just feels better, Like just the hand,
it just feels sturdier and nicer, like I don't know
if the plastic, but there's something about it where it's
like I like holding this more than I did the
original switch.
Speaker 4: Have y'all seen the tech with the the kickstand that
people have been doing.
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I've been using the kicks Dan a.
Speaker 4: Lot, so I've seen people I'm holding my switch to
for a visual help here prop people will kick out
the kickstand and then kind of use it to like
rest their fingers so they have like a pop socket.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like my phone has like a thing.
Speaker 4: I haven't.
Speaker 2: I haven't used my kickstand yet.
Speaker 4: I want to say. It was like Jeff grub or
somebody was posting about this the other day and I
was like, that looks stupid and then I picked it
up and I was like, oh no, damn it.
Speaker 2: You were too quick to judge, too quick to judge,
just like Digimon, the Jeff Invintage. Should we credit grub?
Speaker 4: Is this? The grub grip is that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got it right now, and I'm like, my
pinkies are underneath of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, they you could do ring finger you can. He
does feel kind of good.
Speaker 1: Pinky feels better.
Speaker 4: It depends on like what kind of triggers do you do?
Do you do you like the do you double finger
the triggers or do you like single figures on the game? Right? Yeah,
software game, you probably want to double face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, unless I'm like really trying to get this kind
of something.
Speaker 4: This is such good audio content.
Speaker 2: We're describing everything, okay, Yeah, for audio listeners are just
helping the pinkies under the little kickstand.
Speaker 1: Kickstands at about a forty five degree angle. H My
pinky is resting underneath of it, and it feels comfortable.
Speaker 4: It does it surprisingly like, feels drastically better the.
Speaker 1: Side the sides of the kickstand are kind of sharp,
so I don't know that might wear on.
Speaker 2: You, maybe not long term. You don't want to do it.
Speaker 1: I guess we're gonna see you gotta.
Speaker 4: Wear yea hoary or somebody is going to come up
with like the the gamer grips for these, and that's
that's what will happen.
Speaker 2: Just wear pinky gloves.
Speaker 1: Oh there you go. Yeah, racing, it's my racing gloves cover.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh that actually that reminds me. Yanky sent over a
couple of accessories for me to check out for the
switch to They sent over a case they have like
a grip system that I honestly wasn't loving. I've seen
other people online really like it, but for me, I
just I really like my I've got my top case.
I really like slim case designs. And when you have
the grip on it, it just like it was a
big kind of like instead of having you know, you know,
the satisfied grip on switch one where it's just like
one big piece of plastic that you sit your switch
in and you just pull it out when you don't
want to, this one was more so you have to
attach these disparate pieces and and it was just like
it was a little too much for me. But what
I really like is the screen protector from Ginki. They
sent that over and it's one of the ones where
it's kind of got a cage that comes with it,
a three D cage. You line it up perfectly. It's
got like the multiple it's like pull here, press here,
and the easiest, probably the easiest screen protector installation I've
had on a handheld device, And so I very much
vouch for that case. Seems seems great. I've got a
case already. Unfortunately, maybe I'll use it for for if
Kyle gets one. A switch to And the one thing
I really do like is they have the game organizer
and it's a single switch to case, but it's got like,
I think twelve or eighteen game slots in it. So
if you're somebody who carries around a lot of games,
that seems really cool.
Speaker 4: For those switch to physical cards.
Speaker 1: Hey, I am a get I get my switch to
physical No.
Speaker 4: I'm saying they're all game key cards right now, right,
that's like the whole Oh, the drama amongst the people.
Speaker 1: Oh shoot, I'm uninformed. I've been I haven't been informed
on that.
Speaker 3: I missed that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, formed to you of such things.
Speaker 1: I mean, yes, I'm sure we have informed people, but
I'm a busy guy. You know I don't keep up
with news like you. You you low lifes.
Speaker 4: Look, can I.
Speaker 2: Also say that I am counting down the days. As
much as I love the switch to form factor, I
cannot wait until I can get some Horry pads for
this thing. Yeah, because I've been using Hory pads for
my switch one for years now, like I have. I
cannot tell you the last time I used my joy cons.
They've just been in a drawer just because my hand.
They're just too small. They're just like the little buttons
they heard after a while, like the Hoary pads. If
you've never seen them. It's like if you cut a
three sixty controller in half like an Xbox control and
just bolted them on the side, so it feels like
you're holding an actual big boy controller. And I want
those for switch to so bad, even though the joy
Cons for the the switch to are bigger so they
are easier, but it's I don't like that analog stick.
Speaker 4: It's too small to get round it, bro controller.
Speaker 2: I have two pro controllers, I mean when I'm playing handheld,
you know, at.
Speaker 1: One at one point in time, and apologies to the
company I don't remember the name, but there was a
pro controller stand that would clip onto the back of
your pro controller and it would have like the goose neck,
so you're playing on your pro control. You're playing. It
was awesome. I played so many games like Controller Fortnite.
Speaker 4: The unhinged one is if you get the goose neck,
but you install it like in your bed so you
can like lie, that's.
Speaker 1: What I've ad. I I okay, I am relatively new
to goose neck in bed. Okay, this is not like
a I'm not a kindle person. I'm not.
Speaker 3: Got to define goose neck in bed real quick because
I don't. I don't really know what you're talking about.
And it's getting worse the longer I go without contact.
Speaker 4: Okay, it's not.
Speaker 1: It is a goose neck mount meaning okay, there is
a desk mount. Think about it like a disk mount,
right that you would like tighten on your desk and the.
Speaker 3: Clam like a microph.
Speaker 1: Yeah, something like that. It's plastic light and you, yeah,
you tighten it onto the surface. And then there's a
long flexible tube that is like three feet two feet long,
three feet long, and at the end of the tube
is a mount for your tablet or your swich lip,
and you remove the joy cons from your switch and
you dock the tablet in that mount. Then you you
twist the goose neck because it's it's strong enough or
it's gonna hold where you place it, but it is flexible,
and so yeah, you you twist it to be how
you want it to be. And then you lay in
bed looking up at your switch, and you got your
two joy counts in your hand.
Speaker 4: Now, now do you keep the joy cons like at
the ready or do you like.
Speaker 1: Just go like I pull the covers up over my
body and I am like pencil like like hands on
my sides, resting, but I'm playing the game.
Speaker 4: It is incredible peaceful when he's goose neck.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean that is the nice thing about the
joy cons is that you can like lay down arms
your side, but like normally the TV is just like
in front of you normally. Yeah, so this is like
next level. I guess, uh, it's amazing.
Speaker 1: I love the goose neck in bed, and I just
I don't I don't have like a switch to goose neck.
I just have one for the iPad and I it
actually doesn't fit like it properly should, so I turn
it on its side and then there's enough room I
guess horizontally that it'll still it'll still fit the switch too,
But yeah, I highly recommend. It's like twenty dollars and
you can do it with iPad if you want to
play like Magic the Gathering in bed or watch a
show if you don't have like a big I don't
really have a nice TV in my room. Like I'm
not really a big TV at night person in bed,
but like sometimes I'm like sick and I want to
watch you know, ever somebody feed fill and I'm gonna
you know, I got my mouth or now Super Mario
Kart World. I like how you're like, I'm not really
a big like TV in bed type of person, but
you will install a gooseneck hugging just above your face. Okay,
it's not even install. You turn a knob and it tightens.
It's not like I've got like of me mount do
the wall mount that I've got a secure.
Speaker 4: Also, like, like no amount of like security or clamping
will ever stop me from thinking about the fact that
you will have to explain the world's funniest concussion to
somebody if that thing ever, like it's a little bit loose.
Speaker 1: I mean I have dropped my switch on my face
and before, so this.
Speaker 2: Is everyone probably has at least once.
Speaker 1: I have dropped it multiple times on my face, on
your face because you're holding it up and I get tired.
You get tired in with.
Speaker 3: The switch in the air. Yes, I'm I'm like, I'm like, yeah,
you know, I.
Speaker 4: Get elbows up, like stomach down, and i feel like
I'm at a sleepover and I'm kicking my feet in
the air like like I'm just kind of like to sleep.
I roll over, like.
Speaker 2: I'm not laying completely flat, but I'm not elevated enough
to where I'm like sittings I'm going to lay down.
So you like, yeah, yeah, you're like you're You're It's enough.
You're flat enough to where you got to kind of
raise it above your face even if it's not like
directly over your face, but you can still drop it.
Speaker 1: And I don't like pillows either. I have like a
very thin pillow because I'm sick.
Speaker 2: I don't like the pillows.
Speaker 1: I don't like pretty much flat holding holding it directly
about my face, and I started to get sleepy. My
my grip loosens and I drop it on my face.
Speaker 3: I'm really glad there's never snare. I'm gonna have to
like stay in your bedroom for some reason, flat ass pillows.
Speaker 2: For TV and.
Speaker 4: Yeah, sounds like this just this weird press.
Speaker 3: I'm glad it works for you, but it's so just
learning the specifics of your bedroom is very funny to me.
Speaker 4: It's so so tailored to you. Yeah, there's an animator
at Pixar like listening to us describe this like.
Speaker 1: I made Wally to stop you from doing that. Okay,
all right, I get it. What were we talking about, Dan.
Speaker 3: I do want to move on to someone others.
Speaker 4: We need to get off.
Speaker 3: We're hitting you're hitting the ninety minute mark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we gotta go on to the next topic. Marcus.
We're gonna go to you talk to me about the altars.
This is the new Is this the eleven bit Studios game.
Speaker 2: Where you.
Speaker 1: Have copies of yourself? Right? What we're gonna say the makers.
Speaker 2: Of uh like sad Bashard games like frost Punk and
this War of Mine. This is actually I never played
any ether games. I didn't play either of those games,
so this is my first eleven bit This is less
sad so far, but still got some like some mess
up stuff tod It's like a third person adventure game.
You play as a guy named Jan Dolski who is
part of an expedition crew sent into space to search
for this rare resource called rapidium for this big corporation.
But unfortunately, like a big accident happens and everyone on
your crew like crash lands and dies except for you,
So you're stuck kind of like in charge of the
ship that requires an entire team to like run and
make function. And also the planet you're on has this
thing where like when the sun rises, because like the
star that it's orbiting is incredibly close to the planet.
So basically when the sun rises, you will die. You
will just burn up and die. So you need every day,
you kind of need to move, like it's a mobile ships.
You need to kind of keep moving so you're not
always in the path of it, and you can only
stay out so long because when the sun doest start
deris like the radiation from it starts to affect you.
So the way that you kind of get around the
fact that you're alone is that you use rapidium for
this machine in the ship that creates duplicates of yourself
that are basically alternate universe versions of yourself. Like the
corporation has your entire like basically all of your memories
stored in their database, so they can see every life
decision that you've ever made, which in this case for
the game, because he's only thirty five. It's kind of
just displays it as like, here are the most pivotal
moments of your life that have shaped who you are now.
And the way you make a new version of you,
which is called an altar, you look at every branch
or potential branch, and you just go the other way
of like, oh, like he grew up in an abusive
household with an abusive father, and it was like a
scenario where you know he is like the father is
like being abusive to the mom and he could have
stepped up to stop him, but he decided not to,
Like this is prime yan like he was, so he
just sort of like ran away from it. But what
if he did step up and like stop is that
and then that creates a version of self that branches
and his life takes a different trajectory. If he had
stood up to his father earlier than he did, so
then you're creating someone like that or like, oh, he
had the choice to go to medical school, but then
he didn't because he wanted to keep this other like
maybe more steady job. But then again you get an
alter that did go to medical school, so he might
be a scientist. So basically you're spawning these new versions
of yourselves to gets like versions of Yon that are
proficient in skills that he is not to help run
this ship. So the ship is itself. It's a cool
looking ship, like it just looks like a giant tire
with a bunch of almost like shippings in the middle
of it, which serve as like your rooms. Because it's
like a very modular ship. You're like adding rooms. You're
taking a wave rooms and you can expand the ship
and wait matters like if you have too many rooms,
then the ship requires more resources for it to run.
So it's a lot of like the game as a whole,
it's a lot of management, uh sim stuff. And then
uh so you're a lot of the game from what
I played so far, Like I'm still I'm only a
few hours in and I only have three three altars
so far, But it's a lot of like you're in
an area, you go out to scavenge resources so that
you can create new items that then make it easier
to scavenge resources, and that becomes the loop if you've
played enough sort of like survival games or any sort
of resource sort of like loops. But then there's also
a big like relationship component because you can you can
talk to all your alters and they all have very
distinct personality traits and their moods can change depending on
how you interact with them, and so I'm over more
more volatile than others depending on just where their lives
have taken them, which you can see, like when you
create a new one, you get like a branch that
kind of you know, it's a good idea to sort
of like read how their lives turned out, so you
kind of get a sense of like what their personality
might be and maybe some landmines to avoid stepping on
when you're talking to them. Yeah, Like I have a
minor version of me who like developed like he lost
his arm in a mining accident and as a result,
he developed the crippling addiction to painkillers and alcohol, and
so there was a situation where he like when I
brought him back, since he's in a new body. He
has his arm again, so he's like, oh wow, this
is great. But then he starts feeling like reverse phantom
pain or he's like I still feel the pain. I
don't know why. And he's like, listen, man, I think
you know what I need right this And he's like what,
And he's like asking you basically like can you give
me some like some drugs, some painkillers and you can
choose to sort of like indulghim or not. And I
have chose and like, no, man, you don't need that
and stuff. And now he's like really mad at me
because he's like incisa, mom. Man, it's like, don't be
don't be heartless. Like he's like he's like it really hurts,
like I would not lie about this, and I just
kind of help my foot to the ground like no,
you're not getting any I'm sorry. You're just gonna have
to just tough it out. You know, it'll pass. And
now it's currently he's pissed at me, which I'm worried
about because he's like the only miner guy and I
kind of have him in charge of like the main
like mining medals, so I don't I don't know if
he's gonna want to do that anymore because they like
one of the traits that the Ultra is gonna have
is rebellion. So it's like, is he gonna like like
just flip out of me at a certain point? You
basically I think they can because it was like the
fact that that's like a a legit like trait that
they can have, is rebellion. It's like, yeah, I can
if I pissed them off enough, will they try to,
you know, overthrow me or take over the ship because
I'm the de facto captain right, So like juggling Astuf
has been fun, and it's also fun seeing them interact
with each other because you'll walk around because you're walking
around when you're not exploring the planet, you're just walking
around your ship. It's like tears. You're taking elevators everywhere
and you can zoom out to kind of see where
everyone is at a certain time, and it gets almost
like sims ish because they'll ask you for different things.
Like the first guy I brought, like, he's like, hey,
kind of tired of sleep on the floor. It'd be
great if you make dormitories for us, And so I
had to make a dormitory and now he's happier with me.
Speaker 1: It sounds a lot like like a fallout shelter where
people have played mind Over Magic recently, Like that side
view where you kind of see and I guess, like
this horn is there, but when you're out exploring, it's
like behind the shoulder, right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, like just third person behind the shoulder, just running around.
Speaker 1: Do you ever have that perspective in the ship?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: Okay, okay.
Speaker 4: One thing I'm curious about is it sounds like you
kind of have these different permutations that could vary up
between play styles or playthroughs. Do you get the sense
that this is a run? Is this a run based
game or are you kind of doing like a narrative
playthrough of like one big thing rather than going on
different excursions and being like, oh, well, I failed this
one because they all rebelled against me. Mutiny, Okay, boot
up a new run, go again. Or does it feel
like you're supposed to kind of sit down and like
play through a longer session of this.
Speaker 2: It's a narrative, like they have a straight story that
they're telling. I have not reached any of what I
would consider a failure state yet, just because I'm early,
so like I'm We're cool with everyone save for the
you know, drug addic guy. We'll see where we go
with him. But yeah, like uh, you're just like it's
broken up into like days and then they every day
because you have to sleep, like you have to manage hunger.
You have to manage the hunger of the team, so
you have to make food. You have to sleep otherwise
if you stay up too long, you get exhausted, and
then that adversely affects your performance the next day or
the current day, because if you stay up too long,
then you produce things slower because you build everything. But
if you're tired, then to build time takes longer. And
the clock is always taking in this game because of
like you know, at night, the radiation gets too high,
so you got to get back to your ship. They'll
give you like a counter. And the days go by
very fast, and everything you do eats away at the clock.
So every time you build something, it takes away at
the clock. Every time you mind something, it takes away
at the clock. Every time you like create an altar,
it takes away at the clock. So you have to
kind of plan your days in advance of like I
cannot do everything each day I need to. I've learned
that quickly, Like maybe this day is just resource gathering.
Maybe this day is more hanging out, trying to socialize
with my crew, make sure we're all on the same page.
Maybe this day is just like building something, Like you
kind of have to pick one or two goals each
day and just focus on them instead of trying to
do a little bit each day because you have a
roadblocks that are in front of you, where like right now,
one of the roadblocks in the area that I've gone
to after the prologue is like, oh, there's some rocks
here blocking your path. You need to build a thing
that can get ready to these ros. That's going to
take a while because I need to get resources, but
I can't get those unless I build a mining thing
that can siphon the resources faster. And I should probably
make another altar that can man this machine on his
own so I don't have to do its. That'll save time.
And ideally you want an alter that's like good at
that because that each have their own little bonuses, like
the minor guys like hey, if he's doing it. When
you mind things, you get more of it. And it's like, great,
you're gonna be in charge of that. So yeah, it's
it's like a blend of genres between like the management
sense stuff and the like relationships sort of like I
don't want to say visual novel, but it is a
lot of like like choice driven dialogue stuff with your alters,
and again, the things you say to them might make
them better or worse performers for whatever task that you
assigned to them, and then also trying to maybe put
out fires if they have any inner conflict between them.
And then there's also like the because in between them,
you're checking in with the corporation who calls you periodically,
and you're kind of like having to navigate those waters
because you get the sense that they're maybe not entirely trustworthy,
like they're saying, like you no, no, going to send a
rescue mission for you. But while you're there, can you
get some more of that rapidiom and stuff like we
really like if you get that. So you're like you're
dealing with a couple of people there and you're short
at the siding, like how much do you want to
tell them about what's going on versus like like you
know what I mean, like do I do I lie
to them about what's really happening? Do I even let
them talk to the other altars? Do I tell the
Altars that I'm talking to the corporation? And how much
do I want to tell them about what's happening. So yeah,
it's a lot of so far, like really interesting and
really engaging, like like like conversation stuff. But like I said,
I'm still very early, but I'm like into it now,
like things are starting to click where it's like, Okay,
I'm starting seeing what the loop of this game is
going to be. But yeah, I want to play more.
Like there's some really interesting story stuff, Like I think
Yon himself is an interesting character and it's fun getting
to know these other versions of him, and I want
to see how many I can have and like again,
like like it feels like a game that would have
multiple ending just because of how many choices are involved.
So I kind of want to see how many different
roads at this that the plot can take. I guess.
But it's really cool so far, Like it's it's very
fascinating cool.
Speaker 1: I can't wait to play this. I have it downloaded,
I just need some time to play it. So I've
heard really good things from from some other folks on
staff who are playing it, and also just externally seems
like a really really it sparks my curiosity, so I
want to check it out. But Eric, I want to
talk to you about Magic the Gathering cross Final Fantasy.
The new Final Fantasy set is out and I've only
opened probably two packs.
Speaker 4: I have also only opened about two to four packs.
I think it has been incredibly difficult to get actual
physical product of this game, and it has This is
coming from somebody who I used to collect Pokemon cards
for a spell, and then I got to the point
where every single release was so heavily in demand and
immediately bought up and sold by scalpers, especially in the
area where I live, that I just hit a point
where I was like, you know what, I'm good. Maybe
I'll play Pokemon TCG on my phone instead. Maybe I'll
find some other way to like kind of hit that.
And Magic Gathering has always kind of been in and
out of my life. I love Duels of the Planes
Walkers on Xbox three sixty That game as a classic
and it got me really into the idea of magic.
And then around the time that Bloomborough came out, which
I think was about a year ago, which is a
set that was very red Wall in nature. I really
just thought the whole theming of that magic set was cool,
and I downloaded Arena and played a bunch of it.
I always said that there were a few silver bullets
that could get me into anything, and Final Fantas is
one of them. I've really loved Final Fantasy for most
of my life. Fall Fantasy ten is probably my all
time favorite game, and so when they rolled out all
the magic stuff, I was like, oh boy, here we go,
all right, And so far I've really spent most of
my time playing online Magic Arena because that has just
been the easier way to get involved with those cards
and play them, Which is a little bit of a
shame because from what I've talked with people who play
a lot of magic, I've talked with people who don't
play a lot of magic, and the consensus seems to
be that number one, this is an incredible adaptation of
Final Fantasy into the magic the gathering system. I think
it would have been really easy for this to be
kind of a cash in just say we're going to
take some magic cards that we already had designed and
slap Cloud and seph Roth on them and get some cash.
And to be clear, there is a separate discussion to
be had about how the MSRP of this entire set
is slightly higher than normal because they know that they
can ask for it, and that kind of sucks. But
the actual design of the set is incredible. There's so
much love and attention put into adapting the way that
these characters act, the way they do things. I think
one of my favorite ones is the way that they
handle summons, which they created this creature type that is
a saga creature where you play it and it kind
of ramps up in power while it's out and then eventually,
if it does not die in combat or because of
whatever other cards that happen, it will eventually go away.
So it acts like a summon. But then you can
have characters like Ridia or you know who can kind
of bring those summons back in for a second run.
So that's just like UNA's overdrive in Final Fantasy ten,
is she does her grand Summon and brings in these
AONs to help her. When you have the espers, like
in Final Fantasy six, you have Tera who literally when
you meet certain requirements, you can flip Tara over and
the backside of the card is now Esper Tarra, and
you can play that version of that character for a
certain amount of time using her trance mechanics, and then
flip her back over to normal Tarra. And there's so
many little cool touches like that that just make this
set feel like you are playing Final Fantasy. And there's
so many deep references to all the mainline games. They
specifically stuck to the mainline numbered one through sixteen, and
but really went deep on all those, especially with like
File Fantasy too. Commune with Beavers is such a good
card poll that's such a fun thing to pull out
of that game and turn into a card. I really
love it. I think the Commander decks show a lot
of that flavor too. There are if you don't play Magic.
The Gathering Commander is a separate game mode where four players.
Usually you can do two or three, but commonly it's
four players play with higher life counts, and then a
deck of one hundred cards that are what people call
singleton Belie leave the parlance, but basically one hundred cards.
They're all differently named and it's kind of like it's
a little bit like the Mario Party of Magic, the
Gathering in some ways. You get these decks that are
really complex and big, but you're also playing them much
more like socially because it's four players, and you can
be like, oh, I'm going to attack this person this turn,
but the next turn they're like, hey, don't hit me.
I'm in last place. You know, my life is lowest,
so you go for the other person. You can do
some of the table scheming and stuff like that, and
that gets really interesting. And the commander decks, which Wizards
puts out like special pre con preconstructed commander decks so
you can just buy and play immediately. All come from
what I would say probably the four most I'm going
to get some heat for this, but the four most
popular like final fantasies that are around it's six', ten,
fourteen and, seven AND.
Speaker 2: I think that's.
Speaker 4: Accurate, yeah, yeah some people sometimes take onus with, ten
BUT i think like ten is a big. Dog and
Then i'm not just saying that because.
Speaker 1: Is one of the more as somebody who has a
very surface level relationship with that. Series ten is up
there for me in terms of like just as a,
kid a lot of nostalgia for those.
Speaker 4: Characters, YEAH i know the Nine heads and the Eight
heads are riding on me for this, one but LIKE i,
promise and There's grade nine, representation there's great eight. Representation,
like there's a lot of really cool stuff in the.
Set if, any if Any Final fantasy got a little short,
CHANGED i think it was. TWELVE i think twelve could
have used just a little bit more. LOVE i Wish
balthier And fran were separate cards and not combined into one.
Card justice For, Yes, yes there's a lot of cool
stuff in this set THAT i think works really really.
Well and again they do great. THINGS i love The
fang And vinil From Final fantasy thirteen have a mechanic
where if you get them both on the field at
the same, time you literally flip their cards over and
then put them together to make one big card that Is.
Ragnarok and it's such a cool visualization of the game.
Mechanic so that all of that is. Great that's number,
one that all works, Great but number two is this
is also a really easy set to learn if you've
never Played, magic and it's going to teach you a
lot of the very core basics of, magic the idea
that you kind of play two color, decks what those
color identities, are what you want to do with those,
decks the. Cards i've seen previous magic cards where you
look at it and you're, like they Put ulysses By
James choice on a freaking magic. Card, MAN i don't
know what's happening. Here and this is a lot easier
to just kind of pull a, card see what it,
does and immediately start to, Understand, okay this is how
it can all sync, together this is how it can
all play. Together on, ARENA i play A landfall, deck
which is basically just all centered around playing, lands and
then any card that Has landfall on it gets a
like bonus when you play a. Land and so it's
all about doing these cool things where you're building up
energy and ramping really. Fast while also SO i create
giant swarms of chocobos and then throw them at my,
enemies AND i think that's kind of the bummer in
all this is that it's really hard to get physical right,
now when this is probably the set THAT i would
tell a lot of people if you've ever been curious
about magically, gathering this is one to jump in. On
this is one to check.
Speaker 1: Out this is up there with The lord of The
rings set they, did, yeah a couple of. Years that's
that's WHERE i got back.
Speaker 2: In, wait are you saying it's hard to get physical
because people are like buying them, all so it's hard to.
Speaker 4: Find, yes, yeah, yeah the stock out really. High scalpers,
are although that has been cooling pretty fast BECAUSE i
Think wizards probably saw some of the demand coming in
and tried to deal with. It so if you're trying
to get like A vv card that's like super, Deluxe
surge foil. Whatever if you're trying to get like the collector's,
items that's that's something That wizards also does THAT i
kind of wish other stuff would. Do is they, say
like there are collectors, boosters which are way more, expensive hilariously. Expensive,
yeah but they're specifically for people that want to chase
really nice cards and collect, them sell, them see them
as financial. INVESTMENTS i guess if you think that's a wise,
CHOICE i would personally advise you not to do. That
but your life is your, life and there's kind of
play boosters for people who want to, play who want
to just get the cards and put them down on
the table and play some cool. Stuff there's as always
a little bit of gray in. There BUT i think
even if you can get a hand on the starter
sets which HAVE i think It's cloud is red white
and Sephy roth is black, blue two very clear understandable deck.
Identities archetypes really playable right out of the. Box you're
immediately going to have a good time with. Them and
then The commander decks are very. PLAYABLE i would personally
SAY i think the ten deck is the one to
pick up if you haven't played, before or maybe the seven.
Deck those are going to be easier to. Understand And
pilot versus fourteen is a lot of complex spell slinging
and stuff like, that but just a really it's a
fun set and they did a great. Job there's great,
art there's great work in all, this and even On
arena there's there's kind of a lot of different events
happening where you can do different drafts and even the
jump in, mode WHICH i would highly recommend if you're
Downloading arena to check it, out do the jump. In
it'll let you pick two different color, identities mash them
together into a, deck and play a bunch of matches with,
that it's like a really good time to get in
and just play, magic especially if you Like Final fantasy
and you've been curious. It just you, know there's there's.
Diasterisk there's always an, asterisk, right and that's kind of
the bummer asterisk is that physical is kind of hard
to get right, now depending on where you. Are it's
also a little bit more expensive than it normally would.
Be all the MSRPs have kind of been bumped up
because it's high in. Demands, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah IT'S i found five packs at the store today
AND i was, like And i've been looking everywhere AND
i was, like, Oh i'm gonna grab those. IMMEDIATELY i
just got the play. Boosters so these are not like
the Super you, know you have a chance of getting
the some of the like The chocobo's in, this BUT
i don't think you have a chance of GETTING i
think like the big chase card is the serialized Golden chocobo,
Yea AND i think that's only for. Collectors but there's
also another series of, like, uh colorful, chocobos AND i
think you can pull those from from. These but, yeah
THE I i have talked, To i've confirmed with multiple
parties both ON pr and Like wizards repped, themselves like
one of the the main designers of the, Set gavin
AND i was, like you you are going to be reprinting, these,
RIGHT i, mean and everyone has said, yes there will be,
reprints SO i, think, like you, know if you're really
serious about wanting to get, these definitely tried to get
them if you. Can but if you, can't you know
there is an you'll have another. Chance.
Speaker 4: Hopefully don't don't overpay out of. Fomo AND i said
that About pokemon cards, before And i'll say it About
magic cards. Now don't overpay out of. Fomo you, know
these things come and, go and there's always like a
hype around a lot of this stuff that people can
get swept up. IN i highly recommend being a frugal
card player first and, foremost and that's WHY i usually, say,
like if you want to Play magic right now and
you're kind of, unsure arena is free to play On.
Steam it's really easy to jump in and just start
playing matches, there and they have a lot of great
modes for jumping in and playing that. Stuff so, yeah
And Final fantasy is an arena.
Speaker 1: Again you can play with those.
Speaker 4: Cards that's the weird part is so the other big
drama In magic right. Now and Granted i'm a newcomer to,
this so IF i If i'm a little out of,
pocket you, know people in the, comments please correct. Me
But Spider man is kind of the other upcoming, one
and there's been some drama about the fortnightification Of, magic
The gathering and all that kind of, stuff a lot
of brand, crossovers But Spider man is a weird situation
Where matt Like wizards got THE ip For Final fantasy
to do both the print and the digital, version so
it's in print and it's In. Arena Spider man is
only going to be in, print and they basically have
to create a proxy set that is the same, cards
but Not Spider man For arena because apparently there was
some drama around getting the rights locked. Down you can
go listen to Any magic podcast if you're. CHOOSING i
was talking With Palomine chievenbod about this the other, day
and it's just weird that they're going to have like
two different. Sets So Final fantasy worked out very well
and that they got to kind of do this and
put the whole set out. There as. Is so you're
going to play online with the same cards you would
play in. Person, yes.
Speaker 1: So that is a good, Reminder, ERIC i need to
If i'm going to Get Spider man, BOOSTERS i need
to pre order. Them they are.
Speaker 4: Available, LUCKILY i don't care About Spider, man So i'm.
Glady all, right there makes. Spern. YEAH i Like Spider.
MAN i Like Spider, MAN i just don't like want to.
Speaker 1: Buy that is totally.
Speaker 4: Fair lots and lots of money worth Of Spider man
trading cards is HOW i would.
Speaker 1: Put i'm, Hotter, Yeah i'm hotter On Spider man Than Final.
Fantasy so that's Where i'll choose through. That but really,
Quick i'm going to open one. Pack we're gonna see
what we, Get, Okay So i'll narrate this for audio.
Listeners opening the, pack you got an art card right
off the, bat.
Speaker 2: The victory Fan fair. Music if you get, yes, Chokoo.
Speaker 1: Eric who is? This what do we got?
Speaker 4: Here? Oh that looks like an astrologian From Final fantasy.
Fourteen IF i had to take a, guess that's a
lot l astrologen holding up. THERE i forgot what it's,
called but it's like the tool that you. USE i
only astro an. Astrolabe yeah that's probably.
Speaker 1: Right, Yeah, okay what else do we? Got we Got Chocobo.
Kick it's a sorcery. Card it's a good. Card uh
kicker return a land you control to its owner's. Hand
so kicker in magic is you can pay an extra, cost.
Speaker 2: Like you got a choo.
Speaker 1: Choo, yeah it's not The chocobo's that, people but.
Speaker 4: That's What i'm talking. About like the flavor is so
good where it's literally Called chocobo kick and there's a
kicker on, it which is fun. Wordplay but then also
it plays into that landfall idea of it puts a
land on your field back into your, hand so the
next turn you can play the land again and get
the landfall PROCs from your. Cards you can kind of
see everything start to work and how it cycles. Around,
speaking WHICH i hope they made Choke alena a. Card
Choke alena was that the girl dressed up like a
chocobo in Fifteen she's a characters LIKE npc you talked,
To she's like dressed up as A.
Speaker 2: Jokovo that's.
Speaker 4: Awesome that Would i'm looking this up BECAUSE i don't
fully believe, you, Right.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: One.
Speaker 1: THING i also, like there's a card here That i've
got Called dreams Of. Laguna, yeah, Yeah. Fantasy, YEAH i
wouldn't have known that Because i'm not A Final fantasy.
Siko BUT i like on the bottom of the cards
it tells you which games. From, Yes so this one
Is Magic Tech. Infantry it's From Final fantasy. Fifteen it's
an Artifact Creature. Soldier i'm just gonna roll through these
because they're probably.
Speaker 4: Not pretending that's just a standard. Dude that's, yeah you're
putting on the Field warriors. Sword this is From Final fantasy.
One that's the jars like. Stuff so they put in
a mechanic to do like job classes In magic The,
gathering which is really.
Speaker 1: Cool this is a cool. Card it's a but cornered
by Black mages and, YEAH i love that iconic iconic character.
Designs final Ten. Syncopate OH i Got oh speaking Of
Final fantasy, TEN i got an uncommon full Art Luca,
stadium which is where they do. Blitz, Right, yeah so
this is an. Artifact interesting got clashed the icons obviously
From Final fantasy. Sixteen All, right we're getting close to
getting to our rare hopefully on a lixir random. Encounter that's.
FUN i like.
Speaker 4: That, yeah they have a command, menu want, Too that's
that's pretty. Fun.
Speaker 1: Yeah OH i got a Rare Jadoor Aristo Aristocratic capital
From Final fantasy Six it is a land that.
Speaker 4: Oh, yeah it's it's the land that has the adventure
stuff on it, too so it has like extra effects
that you can.
Speaker 1: Use oh, YEAH i guess that's really. Cool, OKAY i
got a legendary creature human noble. Warrior this is a
rare From Final fantasy. Fourteen Zenos Yay, Galvus Zenos Yay.
Speaker 4: GALVAS a lot of people really hate this dude because
he turns, around, right he's got it?
Speaker 1: Back oh he. Does, yeah, yeah he turns Into, shinryu
transcendent rival Of.
Speaker 4: Dragon i'm gonna warn people that if they care About
Final fantasy, fourteen that's not like a Huge Final fantasy fourteen,
Spoiler but if you care about fourteen, spoilers a fair
number of the cards are spoilers in this set have
some contextual. Spoilers for it's like a picture of a
main character, dying not quite but like a little. Close
because they do some things with like mechanical Like earth
has a mechanic where when she dies in, combat everybody
gets powered, up and it's like that's that's flavor text
that also kind of gives away. Something so, yeah there's
there's some of those sprinkled throughout all The Final. Fantasies
but and.
Speaker 1: My foil was a dwarf In Castle. Guard OH i
love those, Guys they're. Great and THEN i just got
A i Got Insomnia Crown city from. Fifteen.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah that's good.
Speaker 1: Land so, Yeah i'm happy About Lucas. Stadium that's a cool.
Speaker 4: Card that's.
Speaker 1: Sick, yeah but you know there's a lot of that
stuff as, somebody like, AGAIN i, said Like Final fantasy,
ten that's a GAME i, remember you, know playing with my.
Friends so like that kind of imagery is like more
striking to me than something from F f six or,
eight you know that kind of. Thing so but this
that's really. FUN i Think eric did a great job
of kind of breaking down why it works so. Well and,
YEAH i just hope more people can can kind of
find them get in your. HANDS i totally agree if you.
ARE i am A tcg. COLLECTOR i mostly Collect, pokemon
BUT i like to Collect magic BECAUSE i like to
play different. Decks i'm less so Like i'm more So
i'm a player Of. MAGIC i don't play Much. Pokemon
but one thing you should never do is pay out
your ass for a pack of.
Speaker 4: Cards also support your local game.
Speaker 1: Store, yeah, yeah and some not all local game stores
are as fair when it comes TO i love one
of my one of my local game. Stores they even
in demand super in demand. Packs they will they only
sell FOR, msrp even if it's like really rare hard to.
Get if they have, it you can just come by
pick up pick up some. Packs other local shops one
will will charge you out the out the. Butt it
really kind of you. COULD i would reckon men like
figuring out if you have multiple, locally like try calling, Around,
hey what how much are you charging for, this and
just kind of compare and try to figure it out that.
Speaker 4: WAY i love HOW i went support your local game
store and you're, like, yeah but like not these. Guys,
YEAH i mean like if.
Speaker 1: You, are if you are effectively scalping, people which some
local game stores, DO i think that's.
Speaker 4: BAD i will say one thing That i've seen some
stories doing THAT i think is pretty smart is they, say,
like if you want to actually crack, this like we
will break the seal here and then sell it to
you FOR. Msrp but, like if you are clearly trying
to scalp this and sell like the sealed, product then
you're going to have to pay what the online going price.
IS i think that's. Fair, YEAH i think that's a
pretty fair compromise, because, yeah if you want to crack the,
packs then buy them at the normal. Price but if
you're trying to like buy a sealed set and sit
on it for potentially higher price later on down the,
road like happens in a lot of, yeah trading card,
games then they, say, okay well if you're going to do,
that then we're going to get the profit that we
should get.
Speaker 1: Off, yeah that's, fair that's fair THAT i just like the,
blanket you. Know scalping price was JUST i can't remember
the exact number it was for a set Of pokemon
Pack it was the New Journey Together prismatic Oh No Journey,
together which is really is really in high. Demand my
local shop was, like, yep four fifty or five bucks
WHATEVER msrp, is and the other, yeah and the other
SHOP i called was, like, yeah it's fifteen dollars a,
pack And i'm just, like, okay WELL i know which
which One i'm going to. Support but, yeah so like
if you have multiple game stores, around you double, check you.
Know but a couple more things before we end the,
Episode charles will go to. You you've been PLAYING Fbc,
firebreak LIKE i, said spin off From, control a co
op multiplayer. Shooter tell us about.
Speaker 3: It, yes so this is a weird. Game it is
remedy making a spin off Of. Control as you, said
you play as essentially like maintenance guys in THE, fbc
which is the game Controls Federal bureau Of. Control it's
like kind of a haunted branch of. Government and your
maintenance isn't stuff like cleaning toilets or. Whatever it's, like,
oh there's sticky notes and they're covering this whole wing
of THE fbc and you need to shoot them all.
Off and also THE hisss has possessed a bunch OF
i guess they're workers OF, fbc and you have to
kill all them, Too so it's like it plays kind
of like a zombie. Shooter and then you also have
other tasks that you have to. Do AND i went
To finland to play it a month or two. Ago
they like If i'd be. THERE i did a preview,
trip AND i liked that session more THAN i have
liked What i've played, here because they've changed a bunch
of stuff as games off and do. Development but the
main thing for me that's different right now is the
thing that makes the game unique is you have these
things called crisis, kits which is like a set of
abilities you have that are like specific to The federal
Bal Over, control which always has these like supernatural mundane.
Items SO i like use the splash kit WHERE i
have like a big water cannon AND i can spray
stuff with, water which can like put out fires and
if someone's got like some kind of hazard on, THEM
i can wash that. Off and the other parts of
the crisis kit is you have a, deployable which is
like just a thing you set down in the world
that has different.
Speaker 1: EFFECTS i remember those like the, gnome right that would, like,
well that's.
Speaker 3: That's the third, thing which is the altered, augment which
is kind of like, Ability, yeah, Sorry i'm getting to Have,
no you're, Fine you're. Fine the deployable is like so splash,
kit that's the ONE i.
Speaker 4: Use you put it.
Speaker 3: Down IF i spray my water can at. It it
creates like a little healing. Field and that also like
sprays water all, Over so if there's a place that's on,
fire you can drench. It if you got a bunch
of like enemies overwhelming, YOU i can put this down real.
Quick we can all get healed while we help clear the.
Speaker 4: Mouth it's very useful if you have guns during all.
This you also have, guns, okay BECAUSE i was, like
are you being sent in to fight the zombies with
just a really big super Soaker and that's kind of, crazy,
honestly that cooler it is a.
Speaker 3: Gun and the third thing is altern, augment, which like
the other, ones are like magical quote unquote in like
the sense that they're doing things like water doesn't normally
heal you in real life for. Example, uh the altered
augment is like you add an objectively magical item to your.
Thing so in the splash, kit you get a, Teapot
you attach it to the water. Can it turns it
into a flame thrower and now you have like a
huge flamethrower that is like shooting fire all over the.
Place useful and. Chaotic, also all the altered augments can
also hurt your. Allies So alex mentioned the. GNOME i
think the jump kit has a, gnome and it's just
a garden home you put down and then it just
kind of gets possessed and jumps around and causes these
crazy lightning, storms. Terrifying it will kill you and your,
friends so you have to run away from, it but
it's useful if there's again a bunch of. Guys the
THING i have not liked about the game so far
is those are all locked under like. Upgrades so the
most defining characteristic of the, game which is these kits
and all their, abilities you don't actually get a lot
of them until you've played the game for a good,
amount AND i feel like they should be there from the.
Start so it's clear like this is what makes the game,
interesting and even like the most basic upgrades you have
to get from playing the, Game I've i'm like level.
Ten i've played maybe four or five hours at this,
point IF i had to, estimate not as much AS
i would have liked to at this. Point BUT i
only just now got my. DEPLOYABLE i don't have my
ultimate thing, yet SO i can just now put down
my washer thing and when you don't have all the exciting,
stuff the game is kind of. Boring it's just not like.
Speaker 4: You So, eric you mentioned.
Speaker 3: Guns you do have, guns and there are more that
you can unlock as you get further in through the,
Game but you start out and you just GET i
think there's a submachine, gun there's a, shotgun and there's a,
revolver and then your first upgrades are you can get
a bolt action rifle and you can upgrade the revolver's.
Damage so a lot of People i've seen at my
level have just been using the upgraded revolver damage because
it just does the most, damage. Right but the guns
don't feel particularly. Good you can only have one at a.
Time Like i'd love to have OPTIONS i could switch.
BETWEEN i wish. THAT i don't know if you used
a gun a, bunch that would be how you upgrade.
It but, instead all the upgrades are in this like
it's not a live service. Game they're gonna add, updates
but you don't have to pay like a for a
battle pass or. Anything but the upgrades are structured like
a battle. Pass so in order to get to page
two of the, upgrades you have to have unlocked a
certain number of stuff on page, one which includes class
upgrades and weapons and. Cosmetics so it's a thing where
it's LIKE i have to unlock the Yellow gloves in
order to get to the next page WHERE i can
potentially later unlock you, know the actual gear abilities THAT
i want to.
Speaker 2: Have, WAIT i forget you might have mentioned THAT i
might have missed. It but this is A is this
a paid game or free to? Play it's it's.
Speaker 3: Forty bucks thirty nine ninety, nine but it is on
Game pass AND i think it's on PlayStation, plus uh
like essential essentials.
Speaker 4: Here, yeah so it's a thing that like it's paid
in some. Way it is paid in some.
Speaker 3: WAY i think most people are probably going to be
playing it through Game.
Speaker 2: PASS i, asked just because that would like shape how
progression works for, sure for, Sure LIKE i was, like
DO i have to paid on lock or like or
DO i have the option of paying to speed up
progression or.
Speaker 4: Is it is it further? Monetized?
Speaker 3: Yeah there you can buy cosmetic like a cosmetic battle,
pass but you can't MONETIZE i don't think you can
buy your way through upgrades or, anything which IS i
appreciate THOUGH i kind of WISH i could pay the
skip pets all the stuff BECAUSE i just want To.
Speaker 4: Charles given them.
Speaker 3: Ideas but, yeah and then the other thing is separate from,
this the. Requisitions that's what that main thing is. Called
we're unlocking class abilities and weapons and. Stuff there's the
research lab where you're getting perks and the perk systems
cool where it's like you unlock it at, first and
let's say it's like you heal, faster you can then
upgrade it so you heal even, faster and then you
can upgrade it to a resonant tier where you and
all your allies within a certain radius get. It so
you could theoretically do a bunch of cool builds where
people are picking different like resonant level, perks and if
you're staying, together you're getting all these like cool cool,
abilities but you only unlock them like one every level
that you get the new option to buy. Again i'm
like level, ten like five hours in AND i don't
know if it's going to speed up or slow down at,
all but like you get up to like level forty
to fifty when you're unlocking new stuff still and when
you're spending your currency on that. Page it does not
count towards the page where all the cosmetics and stuf,
are but it's the same. Currency so it's a thing
of LIKE i have five, POINTS i can unlock the healing,
faster but it won't progress me towards getting my later
class features and. Stuff so that that's like my main
issue is, that like there's a version of this where
you unlock three perks a, level you start with all
your crisis kit, stuff and the game feels like HOW
i think they want it to, feel and then we
can evaluate how the game is and you know whether
we like it or. Not and right Now i'm kind
of in this weird thing WHERE i feel Like i'm
just waiting to get to the, game which doesn't feel.
Speaker 4: Good and yeah it.
Speaker 3: Is it's, yeah, yeah it's three player, online.
Speaker 2: But you can't play by.
Speaker 4: Yourself you can play by.
Speaker 3: YOURSELF i would not recommend.
Speaker 4: It it's a n.
Speaker 2: Like on a scale of one to Night, rain how
ill advised is playing? Alone it's like it's.
Speaker 3: Possible there's just. Things so so the, kits you have
your basic, THINGS i can do alternate. Stuff, right so
you have your, WATER i can put up, fires BUT
i can also give enemies the wet. Condition the jump
kit has this like electric baton. Thing if you hit
someone with the wet, condition it does more damage because
you're shocking someone that's. Wet so you can do combos
and stuff like. That but they can also do things,
where for, example there's fires you might need to put.
Out if you or yourself are on, fire it's nice
to have the splash cannon because then you can wash
yourself off or you can wash your allies. Off there's
broken fuses and stuff where it's nice to have the
jump kit because you can use your electric thing to do.
It and then it's nice to have the fixed kit
where you have like a big wrench where you can
fix broken. Stuff so you don't have the other. Stuff
those only. Three, luckily if you don't have one of
the other two, kits you just have to manually figure it.
Out so the fixing and the electrical stuff you do
through this like it's kind of Like Hell divers, esque
where like you're typing in the dpad stuff code to
put in the. Code it's just like, that except it's
just the left and right bumpers and so you're just
doing right, right, left, right, left let left right right
left left right right, right and then that like completes the.
Thing you can do that on your own if you
don't have the. Kit, also it's nice if someone has
the fixed kit but they're across the map and you
want to fix the thing and you don't want it
To you just don't want to wait for them to come.
Back the thing that makes it hard is if you're
playing single, player all of that stuff is still available to.
You it just is faster because one you're doing it by,
yourself and two it's all this like timed minigame. Thing
so there's one mode where you're putting up these emitters
to clear out this gunk from a, place and you're
attaching all these special plates to a, thing and there's
like six plates and they all need to be. Fixed
and if you're one guy that has the fixer, tool
it'll take you all of ten fifteen seconds because you're
going around hitting. It maybe you've got another person that
wants to do the fixing, thing and it goes a
little bit faster as well in handling. Them if you're
doing single, player you have to go one by one
right left, right, right left, right, left, left, left, right left, left, left, right, right, right,
right right, right and then go to the next one right, left, right, left, left,
left left, Left and it's just not fun to do.
Speaker 2: That so it's just not it's not super well designed
to play by, yourself even though.
Speaker 3: Yeah it's just it's just not. Interesting and then there's
a there was a boss. Fight there's there's an, Enemy Sticky.
Ricky if you get to the end of paper, chase
it's just a giant maheemoth made of sticky.
Speaker 4: Notes very.
Speaker 3: Funny it's frustrating because you gotta use one machine to
make him. Wet you gotta use then other schine to do.
Electrically they're on different sides of the. Map different parts
of them can break, down so you gotta repair this
thing and this thing and then press it to turn this,
on and then press to turn this. On at the same,
time infinite waves of enemies are, spawning and if you're
one guy dealing with all the enemies and trying to
do this and trying to do, that it's not even
like an unmanageable amount of. Enemies there's just so many
tasks going. On that was WHY i was supposed to
be in a meeting yesterday With marcus and some other,
people AND i was like ten twelve minutes late BECAUSE
i was just in this boss. FIGHT i was, LIKE
i swear it was gonna be done by. Now but
every TIME i try to do, this another guy shows
up AND i have to run back AND i.
Speaker 4: Got to heal and do.
Speaker 2: Whatever so damn, Sticky.
Speaker 3: Ricky i'm at a point Where i'm, Like i'm GONNA
i need to play more of the game BECAUSE i
want to unlock all the abilities to be able to
Say i'm playing the game as they want it to.
Be but in this like modern culture of like so
many shooters are free to, play so many games are
free to, play people are going to bounce off of
a game so, fast especially if it's on game. Pass
that's how something you've played For, LIKE i just don't
think it's a good move to put a bunch of
stuff behind upgrade. Walls AND i would love to do
like a bunch of funky, experiments BUT i just don't
Think i'm gonna put in the hours to get to that,
point AND i don't think most.
Speaker 4: People are going to.
Speaker 2: Either so for the for those of us that are
not really into competitive, multiplayer games like, myself BUT i
also really love control And i'm excited For control. Too
is there any like narrative stuff in here that's like
interesting or THAT i should care about that would set
up the next game in?
Speaker 1: Anyway, well i'd also say it's not a competitive, shooter
do you, like, yeah it's a multipla, yeah multiplayer.
Speaker 2: SHOOTER i, guess like, yeah like, yeah is there anything
here that it's like that would make me want to
play it just to see like more stuff like there
there are.
Speaker 3: Some fun little dialogue moments that people will say out
in the field or you'll get in the. Menu, uh
and that's about. It like there's there was a lot
where someone's, like did you know the director got this
job and they didn't have an. Experience, oh it's like a,
oh just like Referencing, jesse just like quips that kind
of reference, stuff or there's little nods to the. Lore
but like unless you're taking, note like unless you're really paying,
attention you're not going to internalize a lot of. It and,
yeah so.
Speaker 4: Nothing important Basically overwatch pre match dialogue based basically, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah are there not like environmental logs or anything you
can find in the world, no like audio logues or
OR i don't.
Speaker 3: Think so there's also like just on the note of
the environment And i'll just say this one thing and
to be. Done there's a lot of stuff where there's
ways to do it that isn't immediately, clear and IT'S
i think the intention is like someone will figure it
out and you'll feel really cool and then they'll tell
their friends about. It but if you're just playing, it
it's not going to click for. You one of those
things is there's like open binders and if you pick them,
up those are like the currency in the. Game AND
i knew that because they told me that during the,
preview BUT i don't think it was ever explained to
me in the game THAT i should be looking for
those and picking those up because that's like the currency
is just like documents and paperwork. Basically so you could
look around and be, LIKE i keep picking up these lower,
notes and, Ah i'm getting is more. Currency there's another
thing of like one of the modes is called ground,
control and you're picking up there's these like gross little
pods on the. Wall if you shoot, them you'll get
these glowing pearls out of. Them the pearls are radioactive
and if you hold them for five, seconds it'll max
out your radioactive met or just start taking damage off
to go to a healing. Station, apparently AFTER i died from,
RADIOACTIVITY i got a hint that popped up and it's, like,
well if you stand right next to one of the
pods when they, pop you get leech. Slimed it's to be,
CLEAR i didn't say. This it said you glowed to.
Death next, time use a healing shower or leech slime
to prevent.
Speaker 2: That AND i was, like what the heck is leech?
Speaker 3: Slime and if you stand near one of the, Pods
and to be, clear this is like we've all played video.
Games there's a little bulbous pod and if you pop,
it it explodes and splatters. Everywhere every instinct in me is,
like don't be near that, way you're gonna get. Poisoned,
apparently if you get slimed and it covers your, camera
then you're like immune to radiation for a little. Bit
so that to me feels like a the second you
start the, game it should tell, you, hey stand near
these things and get slime so you don't radiate yourself
to death and instead it's like a weird trial and,
Error like it's just.
Speaker 4: Not, fun or even the idea that you could have
some sort of like fun in universe way of maybe
you stumble upon a training video that you pick up
in the field and you take it back and you
watch and it's like how to not get radioactivity from
those Weird, yeah stuff like that'd be. Great, yeah or
especially if it was remedy that's, free you can take.
Speaker 3: That especially if it was more clear that it was
that you're doing it, wrong you know where like when
it just feels a little bit, Bad i'm, LIKE i
GUESS i just got to keep healing myself all the.
Time but if there was something like, that whereas like
a clear surely there's a better way to do, this
and then there was the unlockable stuff like, THAT i
think that'd be really.
Speaker 4: Cool. YEAH i have one quick, Question, so like control
is all about THE scp style nature of these things
and kind of like the incomprehensibility of.
Speaker 1: A lot of the way that these like entities.
Speaker 4: Act do you get a lot of that sort of
horror in this because the way you were describing that
boss fight earlier was sticky. Ricky it sounded like a boss.
Fight it sounded like a video game boss. Fight AND
i don't know if the strange horror of like the
fridge or the ash tray maze would translate Over have
you had those moments in here or as it felt
more like you're kind of Playing left For.
Speaker 3: Dead it's a lot more left for. DEAD i WHEN
i talk to them about the game In, finland they were, saying,
like If control is eighty percent surrealist horror and twenty
percent surrealist, comedy this is kind of flipped where it's
like they're leaning a lot more into how it's goofy
than how it's like, serious and a lot of characters
are treating it, seriously but there's not a lot of
It's it doesn't definitely hasn't tried to scare me very, often,
gotcha and these that there's only five there's only five,
jobs so the ideas you're playing these same things over
and over. Again So i've played all the jobs multiple
times AND i don't have all this stuff unlocked, yet
but they want you to just like craft your build
nd over and over. Again so if they were trying
to surprise me like, that you get old very, quickly
SO i kind of understand why they haven't done.
Speaker 4: It but, yeah that's a.
Speaker 1: BUMMER i been really looking forward to that.
Speaker 3: ONE i might still check out still play, it, yeah
still still maybe you'll like it Way, YEAH I i like.
Speaker 1: It, YEAH i definitely want to make some time to
play that in the coming. Weeks BUT i KNOW i
mentioned at the top we were gonna check Out Fantasy
life And lost And. RANDOM i think we're going to
save those for next week just for the sake of.
Time we're now over two hours and we got things
we got to get, done but real. QUICK i did
just want to, Say, eric thank you so much for joining.
Us do you want to take a second and let
people know what you're working on where they can find
you all that?
Speaker 4: Stuff, yeah, well well thank you for having me. On
as we said the, TOP i mostly do stuff For
acts of The bloogout. Nowadays that's my INDEPENDENT rpg PODCAST
i co host With Kat bailey And Nattia, oxford where
we cover the wide wide world of. RPGs we just
did our own episode On Final fantasy And Magic The
gathering With chip And. Bought that was really. Good coming
up later this, month we'll be doing a charity stream
for Trans. Lifeline our fourth annual charity stream will be
On june twenty eighth and. Ninth we'll be doing a
ton of fun stuff for, that including some magic. Stuff
we'll have, giveaways we'll have codes to hand, Out we'll
have all kinds of. PRIZES i will drink a gonster
if we h. Over. SO a conster is something that
my brother in law told me about AND i saw
it AND i was, LIKE i have to do, this
but only under a circumstance in WHICH i have like
a plausible excuse to try, this which is, like, oh
it's a charity. INCENTIVE i have to do it because
OTHERWISE i have to admit THAT i purely crave my own.
DESTRUCTION a gonster is fifty Percent, guinness like like dark
Stout guinness, yea and fifty percent original Green monster energy oh.
My and it kind of looks like if you put
you know When Billie eilish had like the black and green,
hair yes with kind of staggered. Highlights, yeah it looks
like if you put that in a, cup because it
kind of. Separates and the worst part is that The
guinness seems to separate on top and the monster goes
to the, bottom WHICH i think in that, scenario IF
i had to drink one and then the, Other i'd
want to Go Monster guinness instead Of Guinness. Monster if
we reach the point where we will have raised fifty
thousand total lifetime raised for Trans, LIFELINE i will drink The,
gonster an Entire gonster live on, stream and then whatever happens.
Happens we'll see where it goes from. There but, yeah
it's a great charity stream we do every. Year really
excited to put that. Together we have a lot of
great folks who are lining up to do some segments
and have some fun on, there so it'll be a good. Time,
otherwise LIKE i, Said i'm on NORM, dfm which is
a retrospective game club PODCAST i do With Kennis. Sheppard
we're currently Doing Near. Automata we just restarted that season
and have been getting back into. IT i think we're
at the ending Of ROUTE a right, now which is really.
Exciting And, otherwise you can find me on various different websites.
FREELANCING i do a lot of STUFF i GN i
do news over. There i've been on the Night rain
beat for, them uh and THEN i do some stuff
FOR Pc. Gamer i've done stuff for Games. Radar, uh
nothing for gaming for, me. Y'all don't Come. Colin you
know so you put me? Podcast yeah, yeah, yeah what is?
This well my word's not good enough for, You LIKE
i gotta, Change but, yeah, NO i. DO i do
a lot of stuff. Everywhere that's kind of what you
got to do in this. Industry so uh BUT i
love all the STUFF i. Do so thank you for
for having me, On, like, yeah thanks for coming.
Speaker 3: On it was so great to podcast with you before
your untimely gonster based.
Speaker 4: Death, look IF i go out drinking, gonster you can
put it on my. TOMBSTONE i went down the WAY i,
lived you. Know that's that's HOW i always wanted to.
Speaker 1: Go that's, uncomfortably uncomfortably but never forgotten in severe. Distress,
yeah that was, Good. MARCUS i just wanted to say
you deserved a laugh for. That speaking of that funny,
Guy Marcus, stewart you can follow him on social media
At Marcus stewart at. Seven you can Follow charles At
Chuck duck three six, five and you can follow me
at hits Fan. Aken, uh don't forget if you are
wanting to get a magazine, subscription whether physical or, digital
and you wanna you wanna still have that early bird, pricing,
uh sign Up gameformer dot com slash subscribe Before june twenty,
third uh and you can get that discounted price before things.
Increase but, Yeah borderlands for stay tuned next. Week we're
gonna have a lot to talk, about, uh in terms
of in terms of that game are our our magazine in.
General it's an exciting. Time thank you for your, support
and we'll see you next. Week all, right bye. Everybody
when you