Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome to the Game Informer Show, a weekly
podcast covering the video game industry. Join us each and
every week for a discussion of the latest gaming news, reviews,
and exclusive reveals with Game Informer staff and special guests
from around the industry. I am your host, Marcus Stewart,
and we're gonna We're gonna do a different introduction because
before we were recorded, I was tasked by one Charles Hart,
who is here to assign each person a Ninja turtle.
So I'm gonna go around, I'm gonna introduce everyone, and
I'm going to name the turtle that I personally think
maybe you match with personality wise. So Charles Hart says,
this is actually I'm gonna start with myself and you're
you're gonna yeah, I think maybe amongst this group, even
though this is not my personal turtle, I'm gonna give myself, Mikey,
I'm gonna give us some of Michelangelo, just a monkst us. Charles,
You're gonna be don Tello.
Speaker 2: Okay, Donna Tello's maybe my favorite. I'm always between Donna
Tello and Leo, and now I'm.
Speaker 3: So curious of who's gonna be Rappie.
Speaker 1: Hell, well, you know what to host. You know, I
like you, Charles because Donna Tello is my actual favorite.
But I figured for the sake of the dynamic that
we have, I think you would be the better Donatello
and I would be the better mikey Uh. Wesley LeBlanc, Hello,
you're like you're the news hound, and you're kind of
like the leader of the news, So I think it's
only appropriate that you are the Leonardo.
Speaker 4: I'll take that. He's purple or blue.
Speaker 1: He's blue.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he's purple or blue.
Speaker 4: I'll take that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, perfect, Well, he's crucially green is the important partner?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that was a Donna Tello last answer.
Speaker 1: Actually, you know what, actually, Eric Van Allen, the person
that just spoke up that is that's a Raphael answer
if I ever heard one. Because Raphael famously is a
smart ass. That means like, you know, like, well, you know,
Raphael is the rough and tumble one. He's like he's
basically the wolverine of the team. He's the the loose cannon,
the hot head always, and he also has like a
pretty pronounced rivalry with Leonardo. They butt heads a lot
because like Leonardo is the site famously famously that yeah, yeah,
you guys are always like you're always questioning Wesley's like authority.
Anytime Wesley presents an idea, you're always just to say
how dumb it.
Speaker 5: Is every time I suggest Yeah, every time you suggesting
like we could not do that. I'm sorry, I'm having
a hard time reconciling. I know you said that, I
know you said this, Eric that you're not the biggest
Turtles fan Wes.
Speaker 1: I did not know that you were not. Are you
not a Turtles person either?
Speaker 4: I specifically really like the eighties or nineties movies where
it's very clearly adult men in costumes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially say that to the kids.
Speaker 5: Sorry, sorry the kids.
Speaker 1: Close to forty.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but the rest of the series never really did
anything for me, so I kind of lost my enjoyment.
Speaker 3: Turtles very good.
Speaker 4: Okay, I did like that, that is fair. I did
like that, but it wasn't like enough to like make
Turtles my new hobby.
Speaker 1: I would say, Because you know, there's been multiple TM
and t animated series, I think one that still holds
up that I think you would like is the two
thousand and three series that was on Fox Kids. I
think it's like a good blend of kind of like
the fun and like goofiness of Turtles, but it's like
pronouncedly more badass than the original nineteen eighty seven cards.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at it now. I like their design of
their design out like Superheroes.
Speaker 1: This is yeah, yeah, hoppin with that one. That one's
a good one. But yes, everyone, thank you for hopping
into this podcast. We've got a big show this week.
We're gonna be talking about Resident Evil Requiem. Wesley LeBlanc
reviewed the game. I believe all of us have been
playing it. It's a great game, spoilers, and we're excited
to dive into it. Finally, we're also gonna be talking
about Steam Next Fest has been going on this week.
We've been checking out a bunch of demos or we're
gonna share some of our favorites that we have played
thus far. And then to round out the show, I
get to take over basically because as the noted and
sole wrestling fan on staff, I get to talk about
w two K twenty six. I went to a big
preview event at WWE headquarters, so I'm gonna talk about
my experience at the event itself a spoilers. It was
pretty wild, as well as just some early impressions of
the game ahead of its launch in becoming week. But yes, uh,
before we get into Resident Evil seven, Resident Evil seven,
what do we Resident Evil requiem? Oh my gosh, getting
my numbers mixed up? Which is Resident Evil nine? Before
we get into that, a little bit of housecheming. If
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to support Game Informer and help us keep doing what
we're doing. And speaking of doing things, Wesley LeBlanc, you
have reviewed Resident Evil Requiem, the ninth mainline entry in
the Resident Evil series. Two protagonists Grace Ashcroft and the
returning Leon S. Kennedy. It is a big one. You
gave this game a hell of a high score. Tell
us why what is so great about Resident Evil Requiem.
Speaker 4: I gave Resident Evil Requiem, like you said, the ninth
main light game. Something I learned today the thirty first
Resident Evil game. That's which is pretty bonkers.
Speaker 1: Does that mean the thirtieth was that mobile game that
came out last year?
Speaker 4: The oh the little like uh, I know which one
you're talking?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, that's awesome.
Speaker 1: That was the.
Speaker 4: That perfect just in time for thirty years of Resident Evil.
I gave Residevil Requiem a nine point seventy five, which
is my highest score ever, which is a score I've
only given to Lives of p which is also an
amazing game. I do not take giving such a high
score lightly, but admittedly it wasn't very hard for me.
Like I finished half way through this game, I was like, Yo,
we are cooking. If this stays, this is gonna be
my new favorite Resident Evil. And then I finished the
game and I was like, that's my new favorite Resident Evil.
Wasn't even like one of those moments where I need
to think about the history and the other games and
compare and contrast them and truly figure out if it
was my favorite. It was just like a commanding, Hi,
I'm Resident Evil, I'm Requiem. I'm your new favorite Resident Evil.
And it felt really good.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So, if you somehow have not seen anything about Resident
Evil Requien, which is basically impossible in twenty twenty six
because Capcom refused to stop showing this game at every
possible showcase out there. You play as Grace Ashcroft, the
daughter of Alyssa Ashcroft. From PS two's Resident Evil Outbreak
as Marcus.
Speaker 1: She is a crucial girl.
Speaker 4: Ridical care to the the entire magnum opus of Resident Evil.
Resident Evil falls apart as a series without Alyssa.
Speaker 3: Correct guys said.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she there were these so many locked doors if
Alyssa was not around with her amazing lock picking.
Speaker 4: Skills, exactly, And because of Alyssa's work, Grace had a
few less doors to picklock and we are grateful. That's
a good mom right there. Ironically, because of Requiem's story,
Alyssa actually is a very important character in Resident Evil
Lord now because well that we already know this her
she is murdered. Alyssa Ashcroff is murdered, and that puts
Grace as somebody didn't watch x y Z direct.
Speaker 5: Paying attention when he played the intro of the video game.
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, so uh that's kind of what uh. Kickstarts
great journey kind of into the world of Resident Evil.
She goes into the FBI, becomes a FBI agent, and
starts like investigating. In my head canon, she joined the
FBI to learn more about what happened to her mom.
But she's a pretty good agent and she's investigating some murders,
and these murders sent her spiraling into the story of Requiem,
which if you've played a resident Evil you know that
it sounds a little something like, oh, what's going on here?
Let me investigate. Oh that's that person's dead. I think out,
they're live and moving. Now, Oh, I need to kill them,
And thus begins Grace's journey to Resident Evil.
Speaker 1: Protagonist Wes can I push back a little bit. I mean,
you've played Morning Games, so maybe you know. But on
what you said of Grace being really good at her job,
I'm not entirely sure if I see enough to Okay, So.
Speaker 4: Her job isn't killing zombies and surviving the perils of
viruses and whatnot. Her job is investigating cases and solving them.
Speaker 1: And I'm the analyst.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I guess, which is pretty good at that.
Speaker 5: She's a very Clarice Starling character, Like this is a
very silence of the Lambs set up for Grace Ashcroft,
and I think like that had to be like a
touchstone for the team here.
Speaker 4: M m.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I'm not saying she's terrible or anything like that,
but a lot of her characterization, at least from what
I've played, I've played the first several hours of the
game so far, and a lot of her characterization is
just her being very scared of everything, understandably so like
she probably maybe one thing I do like about her
is that she probably has the most human reactions to
anything in this series of any protagonist, like even more
so than Ethan. Like she sees something and she freaks
out in a way where like, yeah, more people should
react like that, But she also has a bit of
a like, oh boy, I'm really scared of everything, and
they're like, oh, you work pretty FBI, right, But yeah.
Speaker 4: Crucially her for the case that opens up Requiem sends
her to the hotel where her mom was murdered, So
she is already thrown into this ocean of madness that
is resident evil, a world she doesn't understand, and dealing
with the trauma of returning to that place for the
first time since watching her mom die. It wasn't just
my mom died here, it was I watched my mom
be murdered here. And I think that kind of colors
where she's at throughout the game is just like, I
am so scared, this is so messed up, But I
have a mission, and that mission evolves over the game.
It starts with let's go investigate a homicide, it turns
into a lot more like saving a girl and maybe
saving the world, as does happen in Resident Evil. But
to your point, I do like that she feels grounded
in a way that is refreshing for Resident Evil, which
is crazy to say because we've had so many protagonists,
but you're right that even the most scared i mean
Leon walks into the police station in RI two and
very quickly just becomes the hero that the world needs.
Like it doesn't take them long to be like, oh
this sucks, okay, boom, I'm gonna blow bullets through everybody's heads.
Grace is the is a protagonist that feels like what
I would feel like in this world, which is like
why do I have to do this? Why?
Speaker 1: Why?
Speaker 4: Why? I do not want to rise to the occasion.
I do not want to save the world. I just
have a mission and I'm trying to accomplish that. Ye
like touching cur.
Speaker 1: Like this super size why and like yeah, I like that.
It never seems to like like she gets a little
bit more accustomed to it, but not really like it's
like she sees another dead body. She's like, oh my god,
that's horrible.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, And it's a I'll give Capcom credit to
because I think they could have very easily, accidentally intentionally,
I don't know, fallen into like a damsel in distress
type role that feels out of place in twenty twenty six,
especially given the series's history, but like they really toe
the line of U. Grace is capable, like by all means,
she's capable, and she's handy and deft at what she's doing.
She's just scared out of her mind, and that is
very relatable and I think that that is something that
really worked for me. I also played as Grace primarily
in first person, which is what the game defaults to,
so you kind of get to lean into the survival
horror first person aspects that Village and Residevil seven made
work so well, and that's by design. Grace's sections are
the horror moments of Requiem. Leon sees some scary stuff
and does some scary stuff, but you feel empowered, you
feel strong.
Speaker 3: He's not worried.
Speaker 4: He's gonna shoot out some one liner quips after he
takes down a monster that deserves to be in book
revelations of the Bible. Like Grace, on the other hand,
is constantly just trying to survive. And I've talked about
it in my preview before this game. You've probably seen it.
But like, the big marketing piece for this game so
far has been this care center, which is where you
quickly get to in Resident Evil Requiem, and it is
your Raccoon City Police Department. Like it has a different name,
it has a kind of different look, but for all
intents and purposes, it is giving you the Raccoon City
Police Department Are you too style again, This is a
place where to exit you inexplicably need some gemstones that
are inexplicably spread out throughout this care center. And there
is a very large man with a machete who just
wants to cook some meat. Maybe your meat as a
human patient.
Speaker 5: Car is so difficult these days, you know. It's it's
really they talked about this on the pit. Actually that's
finding the gem stuff is to get to their patients.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, god, I didn't even Yeah, you're making me
realize in real time that this is a place for
caring for patients. This is a logistical same setup.
Speaker 5: Yeah, doct like running around like I need the moon key.
Speaker 4: Sanitizns trouble one.
Speaker 2: Doctor Robbie just being like, hey, can we have an
a side with like big your cleaver guy, and he's
like this, man, I appreciate your efficiency on the job,
but the knife is freaking people.
Speaker 5: Out here behind on your charting, Like you really got
to step it up. This is a difficult year for the.
Speaker 3: R Way, so much time on this one patient.
Speaker 5: How to get those Yeah, great shout, I love.
Speaker 4: The pit Yeah, so yeah. I think if you have
played Resident Evil of late Grace is going to feel
very familiar as a character and as a gameplay mechanic
like controlling her. They're not necessarily Capcom's not really reinventing
anything with Requiem, which is kind of the thing I
drove home in my review. This is like a refinement
of like masterful Precision. It is a perfect refinement of
Resident Evil. So like, don't go and expecting an overblown
rework of how Resident Evil works, like I gave it
a nine point seventy five. Yes, but it is because
it is a like a They took every aspect of
Resident Evil, went through it with like a fine tooth comb,
and made sure that every single piece was in line
exactly where it needs to be. This feels like, I
don't want to say scientific or sterile, because it's not,
but like it almost feels like a lab grown Resident
Evil in the sense that like every part of Resident
Evil you love is here, and it is, in my opinion,
the best it's probably ever been.
Speaker 2: It's like what I like about the album almost Yes, Yeah,
all the parts come together.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and it's weird because Village was also that in
its own way, but also like a bit of a
sampler of like every style of the series up to
that point. Yeah. What I like about requaem and specifically
the Grace section, is that it's the first time that
they've done the first person style, but it's with zombies,
like because you know, the even games, the molded the morewolves. Yeah,
like this is the first time where it feels like, oh, no,
you're going this is a back to basics Resident Evil,
but we're doing in a first person and that's something
that like really stood out to me as like, oh, yeah,
we've never just shot zombies and I mean, if you
exclude the like gun games, we've never shot a zombies yeah,
in first person before in the like like bio seven
Biohazard style, which I thought was really fun, especially because
they made the zombies terrifying in this game in a
way that I I don't think they have been since four.
Speaker 4: Maybe, like I don't know, maybe go back to like
two or three. Four. Maybe maybe it's because of the
structure of four and who you're playing as and how
you're playing is leon like four never really struck me
as too scary maybe outside being village section.
Speaker 1: Sure, And I guess four is also like zombies, you know,
is quote unquote they're technically maybe not that, but yeah,
maybe you're right, maybe it is like two or three.
But the point is that the zombies and his game
are genuinely terrifying. Like they're not just kind of like, oh,
they're just shambling idiots that you can just kind of
like easily run past or just you know, they're just
like ooh, like there's different like types of them that
have their own like terrifying little quirks.
Speaker 5: The shriekers, the screamers or whatever it goes.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, just so that's something. The faces on them too,
when they get up on you, like you just like
see their just crazed eyes and it's like, oh my God,
to get this thing off of me.
Speaker 4: There's a big change with Requiem zombies that is due
to the type of virus that play here, and that
is that the they retain the memories of who they were, Like,
this is a virus where surprise, somebody was trying to
create a bio something serum that makes it so where
we are the perfect humans and retaining your memories after
transformation is part of that surprise. It doesn't work, and
it turns out putting viruses into bodies is not good.
But these these zombies retain some of the memories of
who they once.
Speaker 3: So there's a guy on a hallway.
Speaker 4: Now, yeah, they do talk, and it's weird and also
very cool and very different, and it makes it feel
a lot more real, especially for Grace who probably has
never killed anybody based on her reactions to having to
shoot down zombies and like Leon has gotten to kill
crazy zombies and it's very clear that those are long gone.
But like, imagine killing a zombie who is still trying
to do their job and talking about that job. It
becomes a lot more real that like I'm gonna kill
this zombie because they're a threat, but also man, it
really feels like the person is still in there and
now I'm also killing a person. I think it's a
really cool, like dive into the psychology of zombies. I
think Residievil largely has been unconcerned with zombies. They're a
cool thing to shoot and they're fun to work with
in a story, but like, what does it mean to
shoot a zombie and what does it mean to be
a zombie? That's not a new question, Like zombie media
has been asking that forever. I don't think Resident Evil
has ever really been interested in diving into that, and
this feels like their first attempt at that, which I
really enjoy. And it extends to like, I mean, there's
a lady who's cleaning the glass. It's in our review.
Actually she's cleaning the bathroom glass because she's like custodial
staff and the glass is all shattered and she's just
rubbing her hand on broken glass and getting her hand
all bloody and gross.
Speaker 1: She got I ran in her.
Speaker 4: Yeah, there's a guy who just desperately wants all the
lights off in those dang hallways, and every time you
turn on those lights, he will stumble back to the
lights to turn it off and he'll tell you like
lights off and it's it's it's it's real fun. Uh I.
Before I dive into the next part of Resident Evil requin,
which is the leon stuff, I want to mention like
for me, Resident Evil has ninety nine percent always been
so much stronger in the first half of its games.
Like I adore the first half of a lot of
Resident Evil games, and they rarely stumble there. For me,
where Resident Evil typically stumbles is in that back half,
and even when it's good, it's still just pales in
comparison to what you start the game. And Resident Evil
two is a great example. Is the back half bad? No,
it's fun going into the lab and escaping the police
department and seeing which.
Speaker 3: Real quick, Okay, it seems you're done.
Speaker 2: I I just want to preface there's a there's a
part in this game where you're playing is le Onion.
He has like a brief flashback to Residuevil two. I
pause the game there. I was so invested in this game.
I purchased Resident Evil too, and I am currently like
four hours into playing Resident Evil Too as a flashback sequence,
So I'm not gonna the very end of resid to No, No,
that's how I'm going about the game right now. But
I was just like I really need to have the
context for this location that I'm at right now.
Speaker 5: That's the sick way to play that game. That's that's awesome,
Like like you're like, oh, Leon's having a flashback, so
will I.
Speaker 2: It's crazy how quickly it pays off to and like
I'm not going to spoil any of the details, but
like even just like Wes you were talking about, like
it being concerned with like killing a zombie or whatever.
There's a guy in Residentvil two in the police station
that's been like wounded, and he's like telling Leon, he's like,
you gotta go on without me. One of the things
he says, he's like, don't be like me. If you
see one of those things, no matter who they used
to be, don't hesitate to pull the trigger. And that
like it's just interestingly flavors to go from that, And
then remember who I was playing as Leon in Residentevil nine,
where he's just like, yeah, I'm just gonna kill so
many zombies. He's like kind not even thinking about it,
Like it's just as a very cool time jump to observe.
Speaker 3: But anyways, you can continue.
Speaker 4: No, that's a great point. No, I won't spoil resid
Evil too. But basically, like, the second half of Resident
Evil two is great, but it just doesn't compare to
the Police Station. I think, honestly, the ARI two's first
half and the Police Station is like probably the best
opening to a Resident Evil out there, at least maybe
before Requiem. I have the same problem with Village. Village
is an incredible start, like a fantastic start, and then
the second half just doesn't do it for me. Actually, sorry,
I'm at seven. Seven has an incredible start. Second half
of seven does not do it for me. Village again,
the first two of the four main locations you go
to incredible, and then the back half I'm like, nothing
doesn't compare. Requiem has a really nice remedy for that,
which is, instead of taking the protagonist who is in
a survival horror experience and all of a sudden ramping
them up to be an action hero like Ethan Winter's
like multiple other games before him, Grace remains like the
survival horror protagonist of this game, and we switch to
Leon instead when the game is ready to give you
a break from the tension. Of horror and let you
just like kick some butt and shoot zombies. And it's
Leon and he's obviously seen it all. There's nothing new
here that he has not dealt with. He has his gun.
It's a very very large gun also named Requiem, which
made me laugh out loud when I first started the game.
Speaker 1: That the game is about his gun is what we're saying.
Speaker 5: Yeah, and it's a cool gun to be fair, is
a wrist breaker of a revolver that is sick as
a hell to shop.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's basically like a one shot, one killed
type of yea. And yeah that that's when the game
just kind of says, like, USU, your bullets, have fun,
sprint around roundhouse, kick zombies.
Speaker 5: Chainsaw, you are the threat.
Speaker 4: Yeah, change Leon Perry is a chainsaw in the first hatchet. Yes,
it does that even make sense?
Speaker 2: Sick?
Speaker 1: I like is that he can he can pick up
certain objects and just automatically throw them at the heads
of Yes, like that's fun and also it's like a
fun way to kind of play with the environment. Just
pick up an ass. But like, yeah, that guy in
the corner, you're just you're done.
Speaker 4: Mm hmmm. It's really nice like playing there is a
they strike a perfect balance throughout the game of like, Okay,
I've had it with Grace. I'm my hands are sweaty,
I'm gripping my controller really tight. I'm ready for like
I want to feel a little powerful now because Grace
rarely does. And then you get Leon and you're just, yeah,
you're in control. It's a it's like a call the
ambulance but not for me type of situation or like
you're locked in here with me zombies like that's that's
what Leon is in this game.
Speaker 1: And they're breathers. Like I said, yeah, the Grace stuff,
the gray stuff, Like you know, we can't really talk
much beyond the hospital, but that section is oppressive as hell.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, we kind of can't. I mean, we shouldn't
spoil it for people listening. But the embargo for like
the game will be out by the times, but we're
not going to spoil anything crazy.
Speaker 5: That is the weird part about this is that there
were like a decent number of embargo restrictions that we're
kind of saying like, hey, don't talk about certain stuff,
which is like we got to kind of walk around.
But also there's some stuff you don't want to like
completely give away even though this this game was kind
of leaking and getting spoiled already.
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, no, no, we're not. We're not gonna get in
a yeah story specific it is. Yeah. Also like having
on top of just the how action centric, the Leon
sections are like just having him be a damn quit machine. Yes,
when you've listened to Grace for like two hours, just
be like, oh my god, oh my god, oh my god.
Again great, I love it. But then you get to Leon,
who again it's unphased to the point where he's just
like killing zombified doctors and being like, I'm gonna need
a second opinion.
Speaker 5: That that is Like that's like an s here Leon quip.
That's like everybody's gone to bingo or whatever. Like that's
that's real up there.
Speaker 4: His quips, Yeah, they're like every major action set piece
you get through, he has something fired up, Like you know,
he's walking into this horde of zombies and he's like,
I got one. Let me killed him first, and then
I'm gonna unleash. And it's the best quip you've heard.
Speaker 1: Do you think he practices these?
Speaker 5: I one of my in his Porsche He doesn't listen
to music. He just like equips in his Porsche silently.
Speaker 2: One of my ideas for, like in April Fool's headline
was like, uh, Leon Kennedy's improv coach, really proud playing Requiel. Wow,
he's really really good at comforting little minors. I like
the dynamic of the game is like, what was the
main character in Sons of the Lams, Eric, you said
her name?
Speaker 5: I forgot Clarice Starling.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It's like it's like Clarice and John Wick occupy the
same universe and every time they cross paths, it's like
he was like, oh, no, what they're buying?
Speaker 1: Zombie.
Speaker 2: And then like this like a sequence where Leon is
like on a computer like doing something like you know,
researching and being like, oh, this is how this is.
And then he just like turns to the left and
is like, ah, good a sniper rifle. I can shoot
out the window and defend Grace from this thing. And
it's like like the logic is just it's just a
different genre. But for some reason it doesn't. I feel
like it would annoy me, and for some reason it
never does. It's just like, well, that's Leon has two superpowers.
One of these really good at killing zombies, and two
he will spawn in the most epic set piece or
item that will make this moment cooler.
Speaker 3: And it always makes sense.
Speaker 5: He's like thirty percent John Wick. But like there's also
a lot of Bruce Willis from die Hard in there.
Speaker 1: Sure, Yeah, I was gonna add even a splash of
Chris Evans Captain America.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's some I don't think it's like MCU quippiness.
I do think it's like just quick one liners like that,
Like he's not doing the like, well that happened type
thing to the camera. He's not doing like a gym
look at the camera type thing. Like he is just
saying like a funny little one line as an aside
to himself while he's still like locked in the moment.
So it is very like ho ho ho, I have
a machine gun now type stuff. But yeah, there's just
a lot of like action hero type vibes and that,
like you said, does this is actually I've never finished
a Resident Evil. Fun fact, the most I'd played of
Resident Evil prior to playing Requiem was I played the
VR demo for seven, which was absolutely terrifying, And I
played the demo for two and I liked it a lot,
but I never played the full game, so this is
like my first time spending time with an actual full
Resident Evil game. Turns out I really like Resident Evil.
Also turns out it is kind of a weird thing
to be plunged into both those play styles at the
same time, to have almost these like rapid tone shifts.
But because of the characters that you have in place,
I don't think it feels like whiplash, because I do
think it would feel like if I was playing as
a character who's very scared and hiding in hallways and
things like that, then all of a sudden, I have
a machine gun. Now let's go. It's like it would
feel kind of weird. But having Leon step in here
is clearly like he's done this before, he's seen this before,
he's old hat at this. It works. It's a weird
like chocolate and peanut butter colliding that works really really
well and gives you those like rises and falls very naturally,
and they're paste so well too. The breaks are paste so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yes, it's like every time they switch, it's
usually at a point where I'm ready for.
Speaker 4: The exactly Yes, yeah, that's the balance I'm talking about
like they they're just so seeming so clearly aware of
like where it feels like focus tested, where they're like
watching an audience and they're like, oh, right there, that's
where they stopped wanting to do Grace, let's switch to
Leon there.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's getting too scary. I could use a yeah,
some kick ass action. Oh here's Leon, All right, here
we go.
Speaker 4: Yeah. So Leon, he picks up. He's in his fifties
at this point. He is sick. He has an illness,
certain infection or something wrong, and he doesn't know what's
going on, and he's looking for answers, and he suspects
going back to the heart of where this virus stuff began,
Raccoon City, the surrounding mountains, et cetera. And that's kind
of where him and Grace's paths cross. And then at
that point, Leon sees a girl, Grace, who is in
need of help and trying to survive. And what is
Leon going to do. He's gonna do what he's always done.
He's gonna help this person survive. And something that is
really interesting that they've done with Leon, and it's very light,
it's a light handed touch of this but I think
it's a step forward for his characters, like letting Leon
express and feel what he's gone through, Like if you
have played his games, if you know his history just
in general, like, yes, Leon is this awesome superhero zombie
killing machine, but like at the end of the day,
he's also a guy who was showing up to work
to be a cop in a city and Racomon City
is not like New York City. It's like a Midwestern
city in between some mountains. He was just gonna go
probably drink some coffee, you know, answer a couple calls
a day, and instead he had to go and shoot
one day what would be his coworkers at this police stage,
and be one day on the save the President's daughter.
Like his journey is crazy, and they've never really given
Leon the time to look back on that and this
game lightly, lightly, I probably would have liked a little more,
but it is Leon, after all. They do allow Leon
to be like, you know, I have survived massive massacres
that maybe happen because the government or because of this
corporation or because of this or that, Like am I complicit?
Am I part of this? Why do I feel the
way I feel? Why am I so good at this,
and Grace is there to kind of bounce off of
him and be like, hey, dude, it's okay to not
be okay with this. It's a very basic message. But
she's like this sucks, and like it does suck, and
he feels good saying it for once, and I really
enjoyed that Requiem gave him just a little just a
little room to stop killing zombies every now and then
and be like, Raccoon City is this specter in my
head that I have never forgotten about, And I'm not
gonna lie. It's kind of scary being back here, because
that is one of the big parts of Requiem is
and they've shown this in the trailers. You get to
go back to Raccoon City. We're not gonna spoil what
happens there, but you were back to Raccoon City twenty
eight years after the Thermo barrack bomb went off. Corrected
today online. I said nuclear fallout of Raccoon City and
it turns out.
Speaker 5: Of thermal bears on them. That's crazy Grizzlies.
Speaker 1: Yeah again, I was gonna to build off your point
Wes about Leon. One thing I just highlight this game
is gorgeous, just graphically, like the Ari engine always looks great,
but especially in a games funny enough, but like Leon's
model especially, like I just love looking at him because
you can see the year you're not alone, buddy.
Speaker 5: Like.
Speaker 1: In his face, like he just looks worn down and
just hagger it and you can see like, yeah, man,
that's the Facebook man had to go through resid Evil
two and res Evil four and RESL six and every
other canonical and non canonical spin off and movie like
you just and you're like, that's man, We've been through
a lot, buddy, haven't we know? You do not look
like someone that's having People.
Speaker 4: Are really into that. Shout out Ken Shepherd, a Kataku
with how.
Speaker 5: He time, Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think something that is
really interesting about this is like we're in an era
and granted, like franchises are always doing this, but especially
a lot of video game franchises are doing that thing
where they kind of look back on themselves and get
very meta about it. I was thinking about Final Fantasy
seven make while I was playing this game, because obviously,
Fan Fantasy seven remake is a game deeply in conversation
with its own legacy, its own series, its own reception
over the years, how those characters have changed over time.
You look at things like Twin Peaks, the Return, you
look at like Evangelion. There's a lot of that in
modern works, especially when you go back to these long
running franchises. And what I kind of like about Resident
Evil Requiem is that you feel the specter of Raccoon City.
You feel the specter of everything that has happened in
this game, especially for Leon, like you said, hanging over it.
But it's also a lot of those characters. You know, Requiem,
a ritual held to commemorate the souls of the lost,
is for the living. It's it is for the people
who are still there trying to deal with what has
happened in the wake of it. And I think Residevil
Requiem does not just kind of throw that out because
it feels, you know, like, oh, Requiem's a cool world.
It is a cool, cool world, cool world. Well got
to talk today, Yeah, but it's it grapples a lot with,
like you said, what it means for those characters to
still be alive in the wake of all that, how
to deal with a lot of a lot of guilt,
a lot of feelings of what it means to be
in this world and to be carrying the legacy of
so many things I'm having to talk around so much
right now, But it's it's cool to see a series
like this really grapple with that and do it very thoughtfully,
I would say, And that I think is what put
Requiem Over for me, is like a story in a game,
is that it really does try to grapple with that
stuff in a thoughtful manner.
Speaker 2: I think it's also a matter of like, with Leon
as a character, and again, this is someone who's who's
not played all of his games, but I'm just familiar
with him. To keep him in a game and keep
it interesting, you have to keep like raising the stakes,
and I like that they're like, there's actually actually if
we're in the middle of a game and Leon's going
up against some crazy mutated monster that he's never seen before,
the player has no doubt that Leon's going to be
totally fine. There's actually no internal steak. There's stakes is
a player of like, I got to figure out how
to beat this boss, but there's no illusions that like, oh,
this thing might kill Leon, because we're.
Speaker 3: Like he's like a superhero at this point.
Speaker 2: So it's like the only way to raise the stakes
even higher is like he's got this mysterious illness. But
I think it's also just like making it internal and
making him be like I'm actually having like uh PTSD
or something like that about these things that have happened,
and it makes that's like the only way to me
that you can make someone like Leon relatable at this.
Speaker 1: Point in his story, And I think it works a lot.
Speaker 5: Cyberpunk did something similar, where like the main character v
you have this constant power rise to the point where
you're basically like the most powerful runner in Night City,
but you have that constant thing in your mind that
is constantly like this is going to be the end
of you, eventually end and it was really it was so.
Speaker 1: Powerful because of that.
Speaker 5: I love cyber and I think Requiem is hitting a
lot of those same notes.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's another it's another game in the recent
decade of maybe in the nineties, therapy wasn't as cool
or talked about, but like a lot of people go
to therapy today, including game developers, and I think that
we're seeing the effects of that. You look at Krados, now,
look at Leon Kennedy like, there are countless games that
I'm not naming right now that are concerned with looking
at what the main character has done. Nathan Drake and
Uncharted for for example, like it's about Okay, this person
is a god amongst humans basically for all intents and purposes,
whether it's plot armor, their killing abilities, Like what does
that do to a person? What is that? What's going
on inside of their head outside of the constant barrage
of one liners he's coming up with. And I think
Requiem does a really cool job diving into that.
Speaker 1: Leon would have the wildest therapy sessions. Yes, imagine the
things that he would talk about.
Speaker 2: I wonder that my sessions in until the therapist is
like we got to stop these one line. You keep
deflecting from your emotional turmoil.
Speaker 1: Yeah, He's like, if I think about that monster again
that you were talking about, you could say it was
a freud of it. You know, He's not that kind
of quick. He's a he's a profile.
Speaker 4: Go back to your sewer you're in.
Speaker 1: I'm going to go back to your sewer.
Speaker 4: Yeah that feels like that feels.
Speaker 3: From that is something I feel like Leo would say.
Speaker 4: Before we move on, because We've been talking about Quim
for a while, but I do want to touch on
I mentioned you go back to Raccoon City. There's a
lot of things we can't talk about per the embargo,
but uh, there will be a debate, and I don't
even debate is an annoying word because it's just conversation
about service versus uh, the opposite, like when you use
fan service, but it works. Fan service has like this
derogatory term with it, and we're not talking like boobies
and feet fan service. We're talking like nods to two
series history fan service here, and it is. There is
a lot of fan service just by Sorry.
Speaker 3: I'm just picturing now. I had assumed it was called.
Speaker 1: Charles is dying. I think he's infected.
Speaker 2: I'm just imagining, Like I haven't gotten to the part yet,
but I'm gonna unpause my REQUI.
Speaker 1: What is happening case his head's about to explode into
like a espectually on being like I need to lie down, and.
Speaker 5: Yes, yes, it's like rippling out a little bit. He's like, oh,
these these boots are really dirty. Now better get these off.
Speaker 1: His feet?
Speaker 4: Yeah, is his thighs and his pants like rip off?
Speaker 2: All the reviews I've seen, that's like the main critique
they have is the fan service, and what's like, I
think it serves the story really Yeah, yeah, sniffles.
Speaker 5: I need to eat, but I don't have a knife.
Guess I'll break this watermelon open with my thighs. I guess, yes,
give us.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we do need this. And does an evil to.
Speaker 5: Evil beach volleyball I've been saying it.
Speaker 4: Yes, No, that's a that's awesome. No, there is a
lot fans. It exists in the game, so it's fan
service by default. But like, what Capcom does with it,
I think is what elevates it above something that I
would critique the game for. Like there are callbacks, there
are nods, there are lots of familiar places, people, things,
all kinds of stuff like that, and it is more
than a nod to me, Like it's sorry, I'm trying
to talk around. I'm telling y'all the spoiler brimbargo whatever
restrictions are very ridiculous for this game. But yeah, what
they do with it and where they go with the
fan service, if you want to call it that, I
think it has a purpose, and it has a purpose
that is well founded in the text of this game itself.
Like I think it's, yes, this is the game coming
out for Capcom's thirtieth anniversary. Yes, of course it's cool
to see this, this, and this as a nod or
a return or whatever. But like they don't. It's not
just there for that. It has a purpose and it's
there's places where they could have done more and they didn't,
And I think that shows that, like the fan service
exists only because of what it can do for the story,
which is a very annoying way to talk around stuff
that I don't want to spoil.
Speaker 2: But we can probably do a spoiler episode in a
few weeks, like most people have played it.
Speaker 3: I think that would there be enough.
Speaker 4: That would actually be Yeah, I would love that. It'd
be a lot of fun. That's where it was evil Requiem.
I gave it a nine point seventy five. Please go
read my review and then also go watch the video
review we did. Alex man Aken did an awesome job.
It's my favorite review in a while. I think it's
my best one too. I really wrestled with it, and
I'm very happy with how it came out, and I
would appreciate it if you read it.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I want to add on just to.
Speaker 2: Also say I played seven, eight and now I'm playing Requiem,
and I went back to play two. But I agree
with Wes that Requiem is my favorite. I obviously haven't
played a lot of the games, but I was really
as someone who doesn't play a lot of Resident Evil,
I'm kind of weird at out how like Marcus roped
me into the Resident Evil Outbreak super replay and now,
like six months ago, I haven't played any Resident Evil
and now I'm like half I've played like four of
them basically at this point, I guess five of you
count the two times I started Residuevil four and then
didn't finish.
Speaker 3: But that's how it goes.
Speaker 4: You're gonna you are. You're somebody who's not into Resident Evil,
you play some of one, and then a year later
you're like, I have played thirty one Resident Evil games.
I've watched everything on Netflix, and I've watched every movie.
Miila Djoviovic is incredible. She is their face of Resident Evil.
Speaker 2: There's another there's another movie coming out this year by
the Weapons.
Speaker 5: Dude.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I can't wait. So exciting, And apparently Capcom gave
him like carb Blanche to do what ever he once
with Resident Evil. So I think it's exactly what.
Speaker 1: I just want the zombies to run with their arms outstretched. Yeah,
I just want zombies, but exactly just do the same thing. Yeah,
I mean that's the Resident Evil appeal. It's much like
the T virus itself. It's just infectious once it gets in. YEA,
one last question before we move on. You said this
is your favorite. Do you think it's the scariest Resident
Evil that you've played?
Speaker 4: Ooh, No, I don't think so. I don't think so.
I think the first half of seven is still like
the scariest.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 4: I'm partial to that because the scariest I watched movies
like Wrong Turn and the Hills have Eyes like way
too Young and Backwoods Family maybe Cannibal's My family's from Louisiana,
Louisiana swamps.
Speaker 3: Like.
Speaker 4: It was a perfect mishmash of stuff that I'm like,
this is my actual worst nightmare.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 4: The second half of the game made it a little
easier to swallow the first half of the game because
it just kind of took away a little bit of
the fear I had. But I still think that first
half is terrifying. I don't think Requiem is pretty scary,
but not like that scary, especially if you are a
someone who has been playing these games for a minute.
There's some pretty good scares. There's one that I almost
posted this on Blue Sky, but then I didn't because
I was a little embarrassed. But I'll say it here
because you know, we're we're family here. There was a
jump scare that got me so good at farted.
Speaker 1: Is that a normal reaction to, like.
Speaker 4: No, no, that's a new reaction.
Speaker 5: It was that, I think because there's there's a section
that's pretty scary in this game, and I was seeing
like I could see that being the reaction. Was it
during like a flashback sequence?
Speaker 1: Perhaps?
Speaker 4: Yes, in a way?
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that that part horrifying. You have
you beat the game? Uh roughly? Yeah, okay, approximately, it
sounds like exactly. Completion percentages up to the beholder, is
what I'll say.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that's fair.
Speaker 3: Okay, that doesn't fun for me. But I haven't finished.
Speaker 5: No, it doesn't.
Speaker 1: I haven't finished either. I'm I'm I'm I'm deep into
it though it was just a moment.
Speaker 4: Maybe I was too relaxed in the moment. I was
not prepared for the scares coming. I don't remember what
I had for dinner that night, but I was chilling,
tummy was rumbling.
Speaker 1: Did you scream too or was it just was It was.
Speaker 4: One of those like.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to the concept of no scream, just fart
is actually so funny or even just like you're sitting
next to someone so loud and like what have you like? Sorry,
I got really scared for a minute there the world
what what was louder on the scale? Like the fart
was louder than the scream or vice versa.
Speaker 4: Trying to Yes, I had had phones on too, which
is great because my wife was next to me crocheting.
And her reaction, oh yeah, yeah, I don't know. I
don't I didn't like catch a reaction because I was
in the game, But I do like the idea that like,
it's nice and peaceful and quiet, and then she just
hears her husband do a little like, yeah, I'm sensing
this isn't normal. I guess maybe this is just a
mean thing.
Speaker 5: But it's the noise that precedes the fart that's somehow
funnier to me than the part. God I wish you'd
wrotten that in your review because Capcom one hundred percent
would have used that as a pull quote. You would
have got an emails. Do we use this part where
you mentioned because you were.
Speaker 3: Just like he was just started.
Speaker 1: There's no other parts.
Speaker 3: I started nine.
Speaker 4: The first time I've ever done that in residual history.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, to add the second part, I lost, like I.
Speaker 1: Lost nine point seventy five out of ten of my bowels.
That fart everyone, that's resident evil requee at the time
that you're listening to us. The game will be out now,
so you too can see if it scares the the
farts out of you.
Speaker 4: Drop a comment. If you've done this before, I know
I'm not probably hopefully not alone, so let us drop
you are also a electronic scare farter.
Speaker 1: Oh geez, we're gonna take a quick break and when
we come back, we're gonna talk about some Steam Next
Best demos and wwe two K twenty six. We'll be
right back. Hey everyone, welcome back, and we are gonna
be diving into Steam Next Fest. Yes it is back.
Hundreds of really cool Steam demos now available. At the
time that you were listening, it should still be going on.
It ends on March second, which is Monday, So if
you're listening to this on Friday, you still have the
full weekend to dive into some of the games that
will gonna be I guess ostensibly recommending that you check out.
I think each of us have had a chance to
at least dive into one or two demos, so we're
just going to kind of go around in a horn
share the ones that we have kind of like either
enjoyed or at least found the most interesting, and kind
kind of give our takes on it. I guess I'll
start This will be a quick one, but one that
I was really looking forward to is a game called
Wild Blue Skies, which is I wrote this in a
there'll be a written version of this sort of like
list of editor recommendations that might be up by the
time you're listening to what actually probably almost certainly will be.
But I described it in my blurb about this game
that this falls into a very specific subgenre that I
like to call the fine I'll do it myselfs and
the idea of like, hey there's a game or franchise
that I really like that the original creator stopped making.
I'm just going to make that and just do it myself.
In this case, Wild Blue Skies is Hey, Nintendo doesn't
make Starfox, I'm gonna make a star Fox. This game
is star Fox sixty four, maybe even specifically to a t,
but also like refine, like you play as a I
believe his name is Bowie. He's a dog, some sort
of dog like creature. You got a crew of fellow
pilots who are other animals, and you're just flying through
the skies, just gunning down all these targets and kind
of like cool on rail shooting sequences. It's got a
really clean sort of like cell shaded cartoon animation style,
and it's from the demo, which is very quick. It's
like one mission that I think it's framed as the
second mission in the game, where you're like flying through
like a big storm. It's checking off sort of like
the Star Fox boxes of like the combat and just
how dorky everyone in your team seems to be. Like
you got the coms chatter where they're all like shouting
things like hey, watch out for that, and oh oh
got a dodge, and then of course there's always one
person that dies, and it's funnier than it. Maybe they
wanted to be where you're like, oh oh, I got
through this mission with three out of the four people,
Like I lost a Wilderby's guy, and I think he's alive.
I think his ship malfunction technically, but hearing his sort
of like like, I guess we'll call him death ROAs
even though he's alive, made me laugh in a way
that I usually chuckled at, like the dark humor of
like uh oh lost Peppy, Well he sucks or like
a flippy it's like all right. I don't know if
they recapture that or maybe that part of my sense
of humor has never grown up, but regardless, it's scratching
those same itches.
Speaker 5: Like I said, this is instantly imagining one of those
little pilots doing the h.
Speaker 3: My ship malfunctions.
Speaker 5: I'm gonna go home now.
Speaker 1: Actually, I hope, I hope you don't immediately regret telling
us that story, because now it's your It's just it's like,
g I cannon now, But yes, I woppless guys. It
seems pretty cool like it like the flight controls felt smooth,
the combat feels pretty good. If you're a star Fox fan,
I highly recommend downloading this. It seems pretty promising and
it's supposed to come out in full sometime this year.
Have any of you guys had a chance to check
this out? One?
Speaker 4: I have checked it out last year because I was
doing a preview thing for the magazine. I don't know
if it's the same demo as this one. It probably is,
but yeah.
Speaker 1: It's cool.
Speaker 4: It's really really cool. Echo everything you've said. It's made
by a former Riot designer as well, so it has
like it has some it has some sauce that uh,
I think somebody from Riot would deliver.
Speaker 1: Also, I'm glad you said that I'd forgotten. I believe
the I believe it's the creative director or it's one
of the mainly it might even be the studio head
is x Nintendo and worked on the original Star Fox
for s and so there is some I guess authenticity
on the team. But yes, I throw that out there too.
But yeah, Wile Blue guys, seems pretty cool. Check out
the Denno ye whoever wants to chime up first? Eric,
what have you been playing?
Speaker 5: I've been playing a lot, so I'll keep it like,
uh down a little bit. I love Next Fest because
there's always just something new around. I kind of wish
valves tools were better at surfacing some things. I feel
like we've been in a space now for a couple
of years where discoverability on the next fest has been
very difficult and a lot of devs are struggling with that,
especially as you know, surprise surprise, there's there's a lot
of uh to be frank like slop on the next
best because there's a lot of I mean, they have
to disclose AI and stuff like that now, but there
is a lot of that flooding in there, and so
discoverability and all that is important. So doing segments like
this is important. Go shout out people like Indian Former
and stuff who are doing a lot of the digging
to go find a lot of these cool demos. Go
check them out as well. For me, I think like
the most discussion worthy one is probably zero Parades for
Dead Spies. This is the new Zooom game, which if
you know anything about Zooom aka the makers of Discolesium
or the studio that made Discolesium rather, you know that
comes with a big old list of footnotes.
Speaker 1: And also is that how you say their name? I've
never heard the name.
Speaker 5: I used to say zoum or zomb, but I was
told that apparently you're supposed to enunciate the like like backslash,
like like is zoo?
Speaker 1: I just said z a A like I just said
the letters because of the backslide, like oh.
Speaker 5: Z am Yeah, yeah, I mean probably right way, but
no real wrong way. Yeah. So yeah, this is za
oom it is. I was doing some research. It is
obviously difficult without just looking at a list of names
next to each other and credits and stuff like that,
and current rosters to see like who remains of the
people that worked on the original Disco Lisium. But obviously
a lot of the league creators, the very recognizable names
and faces that were out there, especially in the wake
of the release and reception of Disco Lisium, have scattered
to the winds. They're working on a lot of different
projects now, many of them are successors in their own
ways to Disco Elysium. This game is very much in
the vein of Disco Lisium. It is a isometric point
and clicks CRPG I would call it. You know, it's
playing in the realm of CRPGs m sims. A lot
of planescape torments, and DNA in there a lot of
Obviously the original Discosium in their playing with this idea
of you are a character who has kind of an
internal monologue thing going on, where the different facets of
your personality, your abilities, your skills, your persona are split
out into different things that you can level up all
uh perks, right, So one of them is poetics, So
just like how poetic are you? Are you familiar with
the arts? Are you somebody who likes this stuff? One
of my favorites in this one is called Blueprints, and
that is kind of the understanding of the city and
knowing the urban structure. It's not quite history, but it's
more what it means to live in a city and
to understand people who live in the city, the nature
of that and all that. And obviously those voices are
kind of doing success and failure roles in the background,
and sometimes they'll speak up or offer options in dialogue
to move you forward. Uses die rolls a lot. Obviously,
it's very tabletop inspired. The twist here is that each
of the those perks are kind of allotted into three
different systems that kind of embody your like I would
loosely say, body mind, and spirit, let's say, and you
can exert, which means you can kind of add advantage.
So if you're rolling to die and you need to
get a certain role to get it success, you can
add another dye to that role and exert. But that
means you take damage to.
Speaker 3: That part of you.
Speaker 5: So say you like exert on a mind role, you'll
take anxiety because of that. When you hit certain thresholds
on your anxiety, you won't be able to exert anymore.
There are also dialogue options, things that can happen in
conversation that will give you anxiety much like real life,
and when you hit max anxiety, it'll bump you back
down to zero and you'll have to take a skill
point out of something from the corresponding stat so you
d level when that happens. And I think that's a
really effective way of taking the structure of discolesium and
putting a little bit more like risk reward, push and
pulses in Sleeper two did this with its own systems
last year where it said we're going to add a
little bit more risk and reward to these ideas and
kind of put some more push and pull on that,
and it worked really, really well, I think it's working
well here. I think also what works well for zero
Parades is the setting. I think esthetically it's still very
similar to Martinez from Disco Elysium. It's a lot of
that kind of bramshackle street corner of a European city
type thing. A lot of there's a bizarre that you
kind of tore around. There's you know, some like a
twenty four hour photo that you're going around.
Speaker 3: It's very like.
Speaker 5: Localized urban living in a way that's really dense and
really fascinating. Because of that, you can find all these
little pathways and things like that. And I love a
lot of the where you can see how the city
transitions from being kind of structured and built for purpose
versus like where people have kind of cobbled together homes
and things like that. I always love that feeling. But
you play a spy, so your whole setup is that
you are a spy, had a crew literally called the
whole sick crew as one phrase, and you got pulled
out because something went bad and all of them got
zeroed out, all them got taken out, and you're now
back from the freezer, which is the where they send
you know, agents, who aren't good at their jobs. You're
back from the freezer to be put back in the field,
and without saying too much about the intro of this game,
your job goes bad from the jump, it's already bad,
and so you kind of have the option to say,
I want to still prove that I can do this,
and you go and try to figure out what has
gone wrong, why did it go wrong? What are all
these things at work? And I think the air of
paranoia of being suspicious of everybody, of not knowing if
that person you're talking to at a shop is really
trying to help you, or if they might be an
agent for somebody, or if you know they might be
trying to get information out of you, but you're trying
to get information out of them. It's really good in
that in this system it works really well. I think
Discolesium was really good about like the pulp detective fiction
side of investigating and looking into people, but it was
very introspective. It was about Harrier's journey and here playing
as a Cascade is your operative name, which is a
really sick name. It's a lot more of a defined character,
but you get to do a lot more of having
these sort of almost verbal sparring matches with people trying
to get information out of them without kind of rubbing
them the wrong way or giving up too much about yourself,
blowing your cover, that sort of thing. And there's a
real tension to a lot of the conversations that I
enjoy in Zero Parades. So that's my way of saying, like,
I think this is an academically interesting game. It is
a fascinating follow up to Disco Elysium. There is a
big asterisk on that in terms of whether you are
cool with the idea of zahoom as it is carrying
on this banner when so many of its leads who
made Disco Lisium in the first place left. Probably the
same things you have to grapple with when you talk
about modern telltale, Probably a lot of the same things
you have to grapple with, and you talk about really
any a lot of like long running series, the way
things are made in games. A lot of this just
brings it to the four because it happens so rapidly,
so publicly, all within the span of the last few years.
But I think as a project, this is definitely an
interesting one to keep an eye on.
Speaker 1: How long was that demo that seems like that type of.
Speaker 5: Game did not reach the end of it. I've heard
people say that if you really stretch it out, probably
about three hours. Yeah yeah, I mean it's it's it's meaty,
there's stuff to do in it. With a lot of
these games, I try to spend about thirty minutes in
them and then bounce. I treat it like I'm at
you know, like a Pax or something, And basically, you know,
a dev is sitting you down in front of a game.
You get to play it for a little bit, and
then you get up and you go and and you
go on your way. Because with the story games like this,
you don't want to like spoil everything either, right, and
so you want to kind of retain something for the
eventual full playthrough.
Speaker 3: So just yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 5: This was one of the few demos I booted back
up where I played my thirty minutes. I bounced them
the next day. I was like I could kind of
go for more of that. I'm kind of feeling like
playing a little bit more zero parades and there are
very few games on my list that you know, I
enjoyed a lot of them. I played thirty events to them,
but I haven't gone back to them, and this is
one of two games that I did go back to,
so worth saying that.
Speaker 1: Awesome. What about you, Wesley.
Speaker 4: I've played one game for Steam Nextfest. It is called
ar Karen, comes from Bonfire Studios. It's launching later this year.
This is basically it's in Steam Nextfest, but it's like
an open beta that just happens to be happening at
the same time as Steam next Fest. It's advertised on
Steam next Fest, but like, this is an a Steam
next Fest specific demo. This is a beta to go
in and play a bunch of the game if you
want to, and help test it. It is probably one
of the most unattractive pitches I have ever received. I
did it for work, and it was one of those
moments in this job where you're like, I'm gonna do
this because my editors have asked me to. It's not
necessarily a game that I'm like dying to play. Stay
with me here. This is like a isometric, dark fantasy,
gothic PVPV Battle reale game.
Speaker 1: We're running for the hills. You said the br word.
Speaker 4: Yeah, It's like it's just not a game that I
think there's room for more battle reals in the market, certainly,
but not for me necessarily. That said, I played this
and I'm sold. It's a blast to play. It is
so it is isometric in the sense that like, it
looks like you're controlling a character in the sense of Diablo.
But curiously, a small change has like really changed how
it feels to play. You instead of moving your character
in a rotation to aim and whatnot, you move like
I played on a controller. The right stick moves the
camera around the character almost like so it's almost like
you're a It feels like a third person shooter. And
it's very weird to explain that this isometric game feels
like a third person shooter, but it has the accuracy
and that the needed pin pointness of a third person shooter,
and I really enjoyed that. So it is fifteen trios
fifteen teams of three, so forty five total in a tower,
and everybody starts on the bottom floor. The goal is
to reach the top floor. Each floor gets smaller and smaller.
I think there's like three floors based on what I played.
And you start the game. You are just an avatar
and you search for loot on the bottom floor of
this dungeon, and it kind of feels a lot like
Haitie's in the sense where it's like the loot is
random kind of. There are these things called eternals. There's
twelve total in the game. There's ten that wrote Tate
in and out of the lute rotation, I guess. And
so they have different pieces of gear, different weapons. And
I can't remember any of the god's names because it's
like sci fi fantasy mumbo jumbo. But let's say, like
sci Fi God A his loot. If you collect two
of his pieces, you get a set bonus. If you
collect four of God A's pieces of loot, you can
actually become him, which is super awesome when you're fighting
other players in this battle reale anyway, So you're collecting
loot and at a certain point a storm it's magic whatever.
We'll start to close in, but it's not like Fortnite
or other battle Rials or the storm is like what
you're trying to avoid. To move up to the next floor,
you basically have to find this circular arena. It's like
an elevator, and the only way it will allow you
up is to like make a sacrifice to it, which
is by killing others. So you are pretty much guaranteed
to run into another team, maybe two teams in this arena,
which is quite small, and only one of the teams
gets to go up. So four teams make it into
the arena, only one team will survive, so you can
really cull the numbers fast and plays out well.
Speaker 1: The circle, like I assume because you're so there's a storm,
that is there's a circle.
Speaker 4: No, it's so you have like your map and you'll see, okay,
it's time to go. It's time to move up to
the next floor. There will be multiple spots on the
maps marked kind of like those are the elevators. Get
to one, and the storm just pushes you towards one
of those. Once you're there, you're basically waiting for another
team to show up so that you can hopefully kill
them and advance up. The combat that plays out is
really really cool and really strategic because you have different
moves based on your loot. You have different abilities and
bonuses and buffs, you have different ways to heal, you
have like passive abilities, you have an ultimate. You have
to work with your team to survive, and this is
like a small little fight of like three v three.
But it's like it's so it's such a weird thing.
It's like it's it looks like Haiti's combat, but it
feels like I'm playing Valorant or something like that, or
or a third person shooter. It's like really cool engaging
with these other teams because it's not just we're fighting.
One of us is gonna die. It's okay, boom, I
just hit a third of his health, let me fall back. Okay,
I'm with this teammate. Now we're helping this guy. He
drops a health down. Let's healed up, let's seal up. Okay,
let's go out. Let's target this guy who's over here
by himself, almost in like an Overwatch kind of way,
where you're like, uh, you're not necessarily trying to kill
every person you shoot. It's like do some damage and
maybe somebody else from your team will swoop in and
finish it off for you, and it's just a really
fun time. Like it's it's a unique feeling take on
the battle royale genre, which is like such a tired
sentence to say, I guess, but it is what it is, like,
it's it's a battle reale that is doing something different
and something that is enough to stand out for me,
and I had a really good time with it. It's
I can tell that I'm explaining it terribly, and that's
because it's just a really hard game to explain. Even
the first question I asked him my Q and A
is like to the director, I was like, can you
give me the elevator pitch for this game?
Speaker 1: Please?
Speaker 4: And he was like, that is a really hard question,
and I was like, I know, I want to know
what the elevator pitch is because.
Speaker 1: Well, he's like, the circle hasn't closed in yet, so
I actually the elevator is not working, so I cannot exactly.
Speaker 4: Yeah, go back to your sewer.
Speaker 3: Who are you?
Speaker 1: Oh?
Speaker 3: Wow, Leonardo for his own brother's name. That's crazy.
Speaker 5: I think we're slowly learning respect disrespect.
Speaker 4: Into the sewers with you. Yeah, So, like, what is
is this.
Speaker 1: Going to be a free to play game when it
comes out or.
Speaker 4: They didn't or no, they did say they didn't announce
a price, but it will be a premium paid game,
which okay, you know, I don't even I don't even
want to like talk about pricing markets these days because
if we've seen anything. It's like being paid doesn't necessarily
guarant tea success. Being free to play doesn't guarantee success.
Like I'm not there's nothing that guarantees this game is
good to survive.
Speaker 5: Exactly like the Parks and thing like good games somehow
also also not successful.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, so it's just a game where it's
like if you look people, we we all like, you know,
pause at hearing Battle Reality yet again. But like people
really like Battle Royale genres. That's why these games keeping made.
That's why they're some of the biggest games in the market. Like,
if you like those types of games and are looking
for something that is not pick up an assault rifle
and shoot. I think Our Carrot is probably one of
the most promising of that ILK I've played in a while.
I was I was thoroughly impressed for a game that
I was like, I hate this on paper, There's no
way I'm gonna like it.
Speaker 1: Awesome, Well you Charles has been jumping around trying some
stuff anything leaping out page at you. Yeah.
Speaker 4: I had one game again, Makart.
Speaker 3: Nothing.
Speaker 2: Nothing made me fart. It's just that's crazy us. Maybe
I didn't like any of them.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Uh. There is one game called The New Barometer.
Speaker 5: You can't but it's just West Cone.
Speaker 3: There's a game I played.
Speaker 2: Called Glad Eye Eaters. It's like Gladiator but the word
eat is in there and it's a fun weird I'm
trying to pull up the developer real quick, uh, made
by Milk Bubbles Games, and it's a weird kind of
mix between a turn based RPG, kind of Pokemon.
Speaker 3: Esque and like a cooking Mama.
Speaker 2: So the way it works is when you go into battle,
all of the monsters are food, and before you can
have them in battle, you have to cook them. So
different characters have like different sets of ingredients they can
start with, and in the the amount that I played
only unlocked one character named.
Speaker 3: Eggie, who can only make eggs.
Speaker 2: But you can like boil an egg and then I
have a hard boiled egg on legs, or I can
fry an egg, and then I have this like hovering
Starmy if Starmy was an egg a fried egg. There's
just like different different steps you can do, and there's
like a whole tree of all the options you can
make for all these different egg based monsters. But then
there's also other guys who can plays as well, and
so you'll do like a cooking Mom esque minigame where
it's like I'm boiling the egg. I have to keep
tapping it down to make sure it stays below the water,
and that's like a timing mini game, and then I
have to do a thing where I crack the shell correctly,
and depend on how well you execute that, that determines
the stats for the food monster when it actually goes
into the thing. So you can have like, oh, this
is a really good team comp except I really messed
up the egg boiling process, so my guy isn't as good,
or he's got like you know, this issue or that issue,
and it's just an interesting like dynamic to oh, yeah,
there we go. Lest Less put a picture of yolk beam,
which is one of the moves you can do in
our discord chat, and yeah, I thought I I thought
it was a really interesting concept. I liked the cooking
part a little bit more than the combat, but I
don't know if I just like didn't unlock all that
much of it yet, but I really.
Speaker 5: Liked the music.
Speaker 2: And then I played a little bit of like this, Uh,
I guess like story mode, you can do like the
stories behind some of like the characters that you can
play as.
Speaker 3: So I played a little bit of Eggy.
Speaker 2: Story in her like obsession with eggs and she grew
up on the egg farm, was picking eggs as health
the market and whatnot. But I thought it was just
like a cool it's always it's always fun, a very
indie game thing where it's like, I'd like these two games,
I had never thought of combining them before, and someone
combined it into like a cool new third thing of
the first two things. Yeah, I found I found it
very charming. I don't know if it's like a perfect game.
It's also, you know, just a demo, so it's not
like done yet, but I'm curious to go back to
it at some point when I'm making more foods and
being a little bit more like intentional about like the
teams I'm making.
Speaker 1: I don't know, this remind are you guys familiar with
an old anime called Fighting Food ons Yep?
Speaker 5: Yeah, fighting Food.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it just reminds me of that randomly. I don't
even know if that's like a completely like apt comparison,
but it just reminded it unlocked a core memory that
I've not thought of that show in a very very
long time.
Speaker 5: The thought of losing like to the elite for because
I didn't poach an egg correctly is honestly like kind
of awesome.
Speaker 3: It was.
Speaker 2: It is cool, And there was one one like there's
also a time limit in the cooking, so I made
one guy correctly, and then I tried to make a
hard boiled egg, dude, but I ran out of.
Speaker 4: Time on the shell cracking minigame.
Speaker 2: So I go in with my fried egg and then
I also have an uncracked hard boiled egg, and he
has a move he can use that cracks his shell
and then turns him into the hard boiled version. So
it's not like I was even like fully stuck with
the worst version. There's wasays like get out of it
or play around with it, but they all have like
different move sets in different abilities. There's one where like
I didn't even get to fry the egg in times.
It was just kind of like a loose yolk in
a cup. But it has all these like self destructibilities
where it's like, we know this guy sucks, you don't
want to keep him around, but he can like take
someone down with him, or he can debuff someone else
on the way out.
Speaker 3: It's like some like thoughtful design there.
Speaker 5: Raw yoke does make me self destruct. Uh. I have
a weird question and not really sure how to phrase this,
so I'm just gonna ask it. Does the food want
to be cooked? Like is it excited about the fact
that it's going to be cooked and then sent into
gladiator battle?
Speaker 1: Or like what does the food have thoughts?
Speaker 3: It's a good question.
Speaker 2: There's there's a scientific advancement in the like intro cinematic
of this game where scientists have discovered the col particle,
and when that is put onto food, it comes to
life and gets powers and can fight and stuff. So
food is not all alive. It's just once you have
the cal particle, you can make your cooking.
Speaker 5: It's like some MSG that you're sprinkling in there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it's like the world building, it's
basically Resident Evil.
Speaker 2: If it worked, it's kind of like, Uh, they start
off and they're like the cow particles discovered, and then
the whole world went to war because everyone had all
these like superpowered things, and then they decided, actually, we're
just gonna have colisseum matches to decide, you know, inter
international conflicts, and then it becomes more of like a
Pokemon battling thing, so like some people have it and
they can use it for sport or whatever, but it's
not a thing that like everyone has.
Speaker 1: All the time.
Speaker 5: I do think the world would be a better place
if we settled our differences with culinary battles. Uh, truly,
I think that would honestly just be a net positive
for humanity's advancement. So I can support that everything's Iron
Chef just for yeah, you know, over policy and stuff. Man,
this game sounds like I don't know if they have
like gym leater equivalents, but it should be like a
celebrity chefs are the gym like Gorgon Ramsey is in
the Elite for yeah, Bobby Floyd DLC.
Speaker 2: They It has honestly more of like a fighting game
energy like to the world, where it's less of like, uh,
you're journeying through and trying to do all this stuff,
and more like pick your fighter.
Speaker 3: They each get this set of X twice and the
foods they can make.
Speaker 2: So I and again this is me, I didn't play
all that much of it. I played like half an
hour but I was unlocking new eggs, specifically for the
one character I had, Eggy, because she always starts with
an egg and then it's up to you what you
want to do with it. After you do something with it,
there's a lot of like directions you can go because
and Egg honestly is a perfect, perfect tutorial food because
it's like there is a lot of the thing which
is cool, like I don't even get scrambled.
Speaker 5: Learn stupid that it's a game that makes.
Speaker 2: Me excited, like, ooh, I wonder if I can make
eggs Benedict one day that process will.
Speaker 1: Would boiled egg just be the egg character from Garfield
and Friends.
Speaker 3: Sheldon.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, what's his name?
Speaker 3: Was it Sheldon?
Speaker 5: Sheldon?
Speaker 1: I think was it Sheldon? Okay, it's been so long.
That's a weird.
Speaker 2: I retained a show that is way too old for
me to have watched, but I really liked.
Speaker 1: I was so surprised.
Speaker 2: I thought I got all the DVDs from Netflix and like, yeah,
you were like right on it in a way that
shocked me.
Speaker 1: But I'm proud of you. Also, I guess real quick.
A couple of other demos I played, called The Elder Gods,
which is the sequel to Call of the Sea, which
is a twenty twenty first person sort of like puzzle
venture game that I really liked, actually reviewed it.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, it was.
Speaker 1: It was actually my second game in Former review. It
came out not too long after I started. Yeah, sequel
to that said, like twenty years later. You're playing as
a college student. It's got two protagonist, it's her I
believe her name is Evangeline, and then you're also playing
as the husband of Nora, who is the protagonist of See.
So it's like in the nineteen fifties, like late fifties,
maybe like early sixties, and you're just then roped up
in a new sort of like vaguely Lovecraftian supernatural horror.
The demo it covers the game's prologue and the first chapter,
like a big chunk of it is exploring this like
the husband's like mansion and like this big storm. So
you're like exploring the interior, you're exploring the like grounds
and like greenhouses, just doing a bunch of you know,
finding clues, jotting down a journal, interacting with little gadgets
like oh, like if you play Call of to See,
I really liked how like it's like a well designed
puzzle game, and it's also had like a a just
a cozy vibe to it, cause it's not like I
didn't find it like overly challenging, but it was just
like enough bite to like to be stimulating. And at
least this first chapter I kind of hit that where like, oh,
I've played harder games, but this is still like still
got to pay attention, like you know, observe, try to
like like if I miss a clue, I'm not going
to be able to to solve a thing. But it's
a nice media chunk. And if you're a fan of
Colon to see, I think you should keep an eye
on Call of the Elder God. Seems like it's hitting
a lot of the same kind of like cool notes.
So I like that. And then I also played a
game called soul Quest, which is like a two D
action game that's got basically like Double May Cries inspired combat.
He plays this warrior name Alice, who was trying to
rescue her husband that was kidnapped by Celtic gods, and
it's like a kind of like two D kind of
like sixteen binish like pixel Art game and the combat
is very very fun. Like you're doing things like you're
popping people in the air, You're doing air juggles, you're
like following the era. You can like keep them airborne
for like really long periods of time. As you get
your like combo and timing right, unlocking a bunch of
new like moves that all have just you know, specific
combos tied to them. But that's kind of like the
main event with this game. Like the combat's really good.
Like the platforming and some of the dialogue stuff is
just like fine, but the moment you get into a fight,
it's like, okay, this is this is pretty fun. Like
there's a little bit of sort of like pre release
jank in there, but for the combat to be like
as enjoyable as it is now, it does make me
excited to see, like it's supposed to come out this year.
I don't know, like if it's supposed to be later
in a year, but just like with additional polish, how
much better the game can be. But if you're like
a stylish action sicko, I think this is one of
the like I had not heard of this game until
next Vest and now it's on my radar. But oh,
I kind of want to play more of this, Okay,
but yeah, soul Quest check that one out.
Speaker 5: I have a few quick plugs if you don't mind
on on the vein of action games, might Raia is
one that folks should check out. It's about superheroes that
kind of get employed to fight Kaiju. It's very Double
May Cry, very spectacle action. It's it's a fun one.
If you like the idea of what if my hero
game played like Double May Cry, you probably enjoy this
quite a bit. So that's one to keep an eye on.
Titanium Court is a really cool match three puzzler that
has a lot more going on than you think it does.
It is surreal and playful and Shakespearean in really cool ways.
Speaker 1: Really really like that, and.
Speaker 3: It's by one of the people that, yeah it works
on consume me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And this game has has has a sauce to
it where it's a game that you play and it
the thing I'm always looking for when I play a game,
specifically an indie game is like a clarity of design,
a clarity of purpose. And this is a game that's like,
oh we I it's a game that knows what it
is more than I do right when I started up,
and I'm like, that's very exciting that I will. I
will know this game more the more.
Speaker 3: I play it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I've got that one downloaded. I'm excited to try
that one.
Speaker 5: And Vampire Crawlers the new one from Punkell.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 5: They made Vampire Survivors, and I joke in the blurbs
that you will probably read eventually. Uh in a Steam
next vest awash with Survivor likes, Punkel said, We're gonna
make a dungeon crawler and uh it is a very
traditional blobber I think you would call them first person
dungeon crawl run based. Uh you even have the buttons
where you turn. Yeah, that is what blob Yeah blobber,
I believe is what you would call this, like.
Speaker 1: Traditional dungeon crawl.
Speaker 5: Yeah, blobber teal Actually yeah, no, like like games like uh,
your your party based dungeon RPG. I'm trying to think of,
like like Wizardry that sort of thing, or like for
a more recent example, like Legends of is it grim Rock,
I think it's the game or things like that. Uh,
first person dungeon crawl run based, run into an enemy,
bump action into them go into a fight and you
kind of play a little slave the spier card game
where you have all these items that are from Vampire Survivors,
but they each have man of cost. You have a
certain amount of a man of per turn enemies advanced
towards you, and you have different ways of knocking them
back to prevent damage or give yourself armor or things
like that. It's a cool reinvention of what Survivors is
that I think is deceptively deeper then it seems at
first blush. The first time I played it, I was like,
it's all right, it's got some ideas I don't know.
And then this is the one the other game that
I went back to, and when I went back to it,
I went deeper on it, went further in it, got
more upgrades, started to see some of the things they
were doing with what that game is, and I'm actually
like very interested in it. There's a lot to do
in the demo too. There's only two stages, but there's
a lot to unlock if you want to go looking
for that stuff. So that's a real bang for your
buck on the demo there. So I think Punkol is cooking.
I don't know if they are there. There's been some
early like is this as good as Vampire Survivors. I
think it's just it's very good. You should check it out.
It's worth checking out. And then Esoteric Ebb is another
discolesium like that is about a cleric and you are
in high fantasy. You do D and D instead of
discolesium stuff. So the voice is talking to you are
like strength, dexterity, constitution, things like that. It's very funny.
It's maybe a bit too talkative at times for my taste.
But I think the first moment I laughed out loud
was when I wanted to go for a charisma character,
and the embodiment of charisma as it talks to you,
wants you to be an apolitical people pleaser, in which
it encourages you to tell somebody that you're not political
because then everybody will love you for it. And I
was like, that's such a funny way of embodying what
a charisma place style is. Like, it's very clever in
that way. It's very sharp, and I like that. So
if that sort of thing appeals to you, I think
Esoteric Ebb is worth checking out. I think that one
is a you can start it in the same file
will carry over whenever that game comes out too, So
that's a that's one.
Speaker 3: To note, does it Does he use a D twenty
instead of the D sixes.
Speaker 5: Yes, it actually says like uh, success in like seventeen
or something like that, and you have like the character
sheet you fill out is very much like a traditional
D and D sheet. It is like the the framing
you are a cleric who's investigating a T shop that
has exploded, like five days before this big election that's
going to happen in the fantasy city is a very
dis Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, you can come out of the sewers for
that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, thanks.
Speaker 4: Thanks, Donnie Charles Charles, Donna Tello. Those are the decisions
I make, So go to the sewers. You don't get
Leo Leo.
Speaker 3: You put people in, I can let them out.
Speaker 4: Donnie the voice.
Speaker 5: Donnie Leonardo used the voice.
Speaker 1: More. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Those those are all cool games. Check them out.
Speaker 1: Also.
Speaker 4: Also, just want to know all three of you are
based on the podcast that we have been through. All
three of you are in the Sewers. It's actually just
me not.
Speaker 5: That's the sewers.
Speaker 1: Yeah, pizza and.
Speaker 4: Stuff, No, no, No, you guys are like in the
sewer like offshoots. You guys aren't in like the main
hub where we play in the sewer sewers, yes and stuff. Yeah,
like you guys are in the sewer sewers. I basically
sent you back to the the canal from which you
were born, a reverse birth. If you will and if
the if the if the I'm talking back keeps up,
I'm going to remove the mutagen from you, and you
guys are just gonna be turtles again.
Speaker 3: Sorry, sorry, guys, one say Master Splinter.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I'll tell bro tell I don't apparently has
to come down in the sewers now, Master Splinters, tell
that old rat to I got.
Speaker 1: I feel like we I think West you have a
fundamental misunderstanding character. I heard leader. That's it.
Speaker 4: That's it went straight to.
Speaker 5: My West with drunk with power. After about five minutes,
immediately give it, give me magic cards with Leonardo was
just drunk with power.
Speaker 3: Drunk with power.
Speaker 1: It's just like all of you. Give him du Katana
becomes a shot.
Speaker 5: For every batman trying to put me in the sewers.
Speaker 1: But yes, uh steam next best. Everyone's still ongoing. If
you're listening to this said lasts until March second, Monday,
be sure to check out. We'll have a written feature
with all of Our and probably a few other editor
picks for the demos that we enjoyed, so be sure
to give that a read, and yeah, shout out to
all the awesome devs putting stuff out first. The next
fist one of my I think All of Our is
one of our favorite sort of like I don't know
events that we call an event every.
Speaker 2: I've really engaged with it and it is like a fun,
fun little sample platter.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, speaking of getting to sample things, guys, it
is my time now and I've I've cueued up a
little ditty here. It's a signal what's coming next?
Speaker 3: Did hold on?
Speaker 1: Wait? I don't know if it came through.
Speaker 3: Eric as the person that's going to edit this podcast,
is clenching sort of.
Speaker 1: Yeah, time for the.
Speaker 5: I don't want to have to deal with copyright and
stuff worked out perfectly.
Speaker 4: Oh wait, it didn't come through, Okay, in your is
it in your headset?
Speaker 1: I'm holding it up.
Speaker 5: A speaker put in I'm going to edit out, So I'm.
Speaker 1: Just gonna tell you that right now for radio watchers.
You see there it's Cody Rhoads theme song. I couldn't
you see him pop using an actual license song, So
that's probably no, that's John c you know Wesley, it's
not that's a different person.
Speaker 5: He is retired now.
Speaker 1: You know. Fun fact wrestling Ninja Turtles there is crossover
because in the nineties, very briefly in w F at
the time when it was ultra cartoony, they did have
a tag team that were straight up ninja turtles, Like
they put two guys in turtle suits. I forgot what
they were called, but they were blatant ripoffs, ripoffs of
ninja turtles. I don't know if they were ever on TV,
but there was YouTube footage of like house shows, you
see two guys in turtles the turtle suits in a
tag team match. I think they were called like the
Awesome Turtles or something barely different.
Speaker 3: Good they I like that.
Speaker 4: Fun fact, Mike come out of the sewers.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you, thanks, thank you, Leo.
Speaker 5: They so bad at that because they end up on
their bags and they can't get back up, like they're
just pinned when they fall.
Speaker 1: They do do that during the match. They they they
are they get knocked down and they do the whole
I can't get This is like peak movie era and
they were just really commit. They were trying to get hired.
I think it's when they were they were nobodies are like, well,
but if we can make this turtle gimmick where maybe
we'll get hired and get real gimmicks. But yes, that's
all to say. W B two K twenty six, I
got to play it. I went to WWE headquarters in Stanford, Connecticut,
which is pretty wild in itself because they don't just
let people in there. If you're a wrestling fan, you've
probably seen videos of this because they've done things on
like w social channel. They've had you know, a so
just had like celebrities co or wrestler show up there.
But it's like a new facility. The buildings only three
years old. You know, the original Titan towers that was
WB headquarters forever has gone now and now they got
this fancy new building with a giant championship belt outside
the building that acts as their sign, like it's it's
literally guys, the WWE Championship, but like bigger, and it's
just the like, hey, this is this is ww headquarters.
It's kind of wild looking. But I got to go
there alongside some other journalists and influencers and like wrestling media.
There were like twenty wrestlers, like superstars there hanging out
with us. Paul Haymon was there, Oba Fami, Drew McIntyre,
Blake Monroe, Tris Stratus was there, Legend. God, I could
just rattle them off. I know all your favorites, guys.
I can see alder reactions. You're like, my god, he
can't stop naming the people I know and love. CM
Punk was there, Okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, there.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Talk When you talk wrestling, it's it's kind of like
I have a family member who speaks Spanish and I
don't speak Spanish, but if you speak enough Spanish in
front of me, eventually I'll be.
Speaker 3: Like, boy, yeah that's onion. I know onions.
Speaker 5: Now you start to pick it up a little bit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's funny like all the wrestlers you guys
probably would know in terms of like the big mainstream people,
none of them were there. That there was in the lobby.
There is a like literal like three story tall picture
or painting, I should say, of Andre the Giant. I
assume you've heard of Andrew, you've seen Princess Bride, right,
your Andres better than your Leonardo, I'll give you that.
I didn't say it was good.
Speaker 2: That Andre the Giant has said before, and that seems
to be the bar.
Speaker 5: I like Wes's commitment to just doing a voice, like
like not doing a voice of somebody, but just a
voice and then saying a line from a character.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I got to play a few hours of
two K twenty six. Long story short, and maybe you've
already read my I've got a full written preview on
the website right now. But my sort of like brief
verdict is, Yeah, it's a w B two GA game. Yeah,
they made another one of those, I believe it or not.
There's some new gameplay tweaks. There's new like stamp, They've
reworked the stamina, They've reworked some weapons, physics. You can
do more barrier like throwing people into the barricade, like
more interactions there. You can stack two tables on top
of each other for the first time, or at least
the first time.
Speaker 3: In a long term.
Speaker 1: Love that, Uh, that's cool. And you can light them
on fire if you watch the New Gameplay Today video
of W two K twenty six that Eric and I did. Eric,
you had a very visceral reaction to just the image
at two tables stacked and being on fire, because.
Speaker 5: It was literally two people wrestling in a ring and
then they kind of like roll to the side in
the camera pans and you just see two tables stack
the on fire like with no no like understanding of
how that happened, and like there's something about seeing tables
stacked and on fire. It's like there was this was done,
This is deliberate, This is not a happened. Stance that
is occurring, and it was very jarring. So yeah, go
watch me be frightened for forty minutes and that MGT and.
Speaker 1: He's and guys, he didn't he won't tell you this,
but after we filmed that, he DM me asking when
WW was coming to his town so he could get tickets. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Absolutely, that was the first thing.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 3: It was like two tables I'm trying to get rid of,
to have an outlet for it.
Speaker 1: I think I might. I think I know what I'm
gonna do with these now.
Speaker 4: Now I would go to I saw I saw John
Cena and Jacksonville, Like when I was way younger. I
still have the shirt that my parents let me buy.
Speaker 1: I mean that show.
Speaker 4: No, like got a show I saw WWE and oh,
I don't know if it was WWE was whatever wrestling
he was.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, okay, you got a John Cena shirt. You
still have it.
Speaker 4: It's green. I don't ire it obviously because I am
much larger. It is green and it has a hand
like that hand yellow on it.
Speaker 1: Might say it does a little bit of this.
Speaker 4: It says you can't or no, it says you and
then it has the hand and it has the red
like crossout logo, so it's like you can't, and then
it says see me.
Speaker 1: It's classic.
Speaker 5: Is that his whole thing that he's like invisible. I've
never understood that bit. So like is it like he
moves too fast for the human eye to follow. It's
you'll never see me coming or whatever, or eric.
Speaker 1: You can't if you want the brief, brief, brief history,
you can't see me. It basically when he got when
he was there's a long history.
Speaker 5: You can't see me.
Speaker 1: He's been doing it for twenty years and he only
just retired last December. Like for good, but like he
he got big because he had a rap gimmick. He
was a rapper. He had basically a marketing parody and
that's okay. It was ad of the Tony Yayo g unit,
like the like hand in front of face.
Speaker 5: That certainly was an era. Yeah, yeah, mid.
Speaker 4: Two thousands some of his raps. And there's some other
w W wrestlers that joined him on his album, right
if I remember correctly.
Speaker 1: Oh, like the one album he put out You Can't
See Me in two thousand and five, but you can
hear anyone else joined him, like he has other rappers
on it. I don't think he has other wrestlers on it.
Speaker 4: Oh, I don't remember. I'm not going to say that
it's it's good in twenty twenty six, but I do remember.
I have memories of listening to it and being like
this kind of goes.
Speaker 1: Wait, you had that album, You're like coming out it's
like a closet and seen the fan. You're like, I
saw him at the show. I had a T shirt.
Now you're staying, I haven't listened to his album.
Speaker 4: I have a dormant like WW, I don't even know.
It might have been a sena specific WWE period in
my life for me, and my brother got really into it,
and my parents like took us to see WWE and
Jacksonville here and it was awesome. I just don't I've
never reconnected with that part of me. But now that
i'm it's not being brought out of me. It's it's
I feel a history there.
Speaker 3: It's like you took Spanish in high school. I feel
like this is what's happening.
Speaker 5: Yes, and now yeah, yeah, actually no more you're ordering
and you're like.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, Like hold on, actually I kind of know.
I'm thinking enough.
Speaker 1: I remember to see a chapter. Yeah. God, we were exciting,
but yes, uh anyway, W two K twenty six it's
largely that game again with some subtle tweaks. I say
that with a grain of salt because I only played
it for a limited time and I had to hop
around a bunch of different modes because there's a lot
of modes in these games. So you have to wait
for my review, which shouldn't be that far away because
the game comes out March thirteenth, which is not far
from now. I got to try the four new match types,
as I mentioned up top. The new gameplay today video
you can see my gameplay kind of like showing them off.
But they have Inferno match, which is pretty it's fun,
it's cool. You know. The idea to match is that
the ring is surrounded by fire guys and you have
to light your opponent on fire to win the match.
This is a real thing that WW has done before.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it seemed really dangerous, you know, I'm just going
to put that out there.
Speaker 1: Well, the first time they get lit on fire, that's
how you win, the only way to win.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's there's literal fire around the ring and it's
just like torching everything and you like roll into it
and stuff. And I was like, I know that there's
probably safe ways to do that, but that still seems
like a really bad idea.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, the first time it happened.
Speaker 3: Just you know, yeah, go go on, Marcus, break it
down for me. I have so many questions. I assume
your answer was explained to things.
Speaker 1: If you get lit on fire and then you get
immediately extinguished by the ref but that has a fire extinguisher.
But you know, the idea of the match was born
between the Undertaker and Kane, whose storyline Kane was the
Undertaker's brother who died in a fire and you thought
he was dead, but then he came back into as
an adult rest but his face was horribly burned, so
he wore a mask and he could manipulate fire because
Undertaker also has superpowers because he's a dead man. So
Caine was basically a pyro version of Undertaker, And at
one point they had a match where the ring was
surrounded by fire, because that's what kicked off the feud
was Undertaker burd in their house down and presumably killed
Kane when all he did was scar his face horribly.
Does that make sense? Do you understand now? What doesn't
it make sense? That's how you would settle this?
Speaker 4: Did Cain go to Hell? And is drag me to Hell?
Which I think stars Kane? Is that relevant?
Speaker 1: I'm not saying he's depending on the era. He's implied
that he's been to hell. He calls himself the Devil's
Favorite Demon. And there was a very funny like promo
years ago where he was talking to a guy named
jbl who is just like his character was that he's
a Texas billionaire basically, and he has a finishing move
called the clothesline from Hell and has nothing to do
with like, there's nothing supernatural about him. It's just like,
I hit you so hard comes from Hell, is what
it comes from. And Kate walked up to him and said,
I'd been to Hell and I didn't see your clothesline anywhere.
And it's the single greatest thing that Kate has ever said.
Speaker 4: That would make Leon Kennedy blush. That's really good.
Speaker 1: There's the I Quit match. The idea of that match
you beat him down to where you have a microphone,
you put it to your opponent's mouth and they have
to willingly say that they quit. It's like really humiliating.
That's in the match or in the game. Now it's
a decent match time. It's it's it's basically a lot
of these match types, and that's true the real version.
We're like, oh, you're still doing the regular wrestling, but
you just win slightly differently, you know. So whether you're
a lighting your opponent on fire, or you're putting a
microphone in the face and you're doing like the little
mini game where you have to stop the meter into
the green section to escape that, that's pretty much the same.
There's the God the Dumpster match. You guys are gonna
love this. So a dumpster match, there's a giant there's
a literal dumpster at ringside, and you have to throw
your opponent in the dumpster and then close the lid
so that they're trapped into dumpster. And then if you're
New Aging, yeah, and if you're the New Age Outlaws
in nineteen ninety eight, you take it the next level
where you trap your victims into dumpster and then you
push it off a stage through a bunch of tables
and probably really mess them up. Good.
Speaker 3: Are the tables on fire?
Speaker 1: Not in that specific instance. I don't think they would
feel it because they're into dumpster, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, It's just like I just thought that's what the table.
Speaker 1: But it would look cool, I know.
Speaker 5: If that's how that works.
Speaker 1: I don't know what else. Last match type three stages
of Hell the other new match type, which is basically
a two out of three falls match where every fall
it's contested under different rules. So the first match can
be a regular wrestling match, but then the second match
could be a ladder match, and if you get to
the third match, assuming that they each score one fall,
it could be a different stipulation like a cage match.
It's a very popular match type. We don't get it
very often. We actually got one a month ago for
the first time in like a decade. That happened between
Cody Rose and Drew McIntire. But as another highly requested
match type that is now in the game. The other
modes are still there. My Rise, which is like the
story driven sort of like choice driven adventure. It's as
from what I played. It's the same as it always was,
just with a different narrative. Same with Showcase, which is
kind of like the playable documentary that usually centers on
whoever the cover star is. In this case it's CM Punk.
You're playing through CM Punk's greatest hits of his career,
where the every match is like a real historical match
from his career recreated and you can do like optional
objectives in the match where it's like, hey, in this match,
he hit a clothesline at this one point, so you
got to do the same, or you don't have to
to win, but if you do the unlock rewards that
can carry you through the rest of the game, Like oh,
here's another version of CM punk, Like here's two thousand
and eight Punk or twenty eleven Punk and you get
like live action kind of like video as well as
like Punk himself is narrating it where he's just like, yeah,
it's crazy, how that one time I had that matchup
you just played man? Pretty crazy, that's a that's a
you guys might have not realized that that was not
see him Punk just now. That was actually me.
Speaker 3: Oh okay.
Speaker 2: I was just so used to Wes's impressions where it's
so clear he's trying something and then it's something else
that it just ended up.
Speaker 3: Curry to me that yeah, okay, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well if I had said best in the world, you
would have done percent.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, I did want to ask of So I
did an editing past in your preview and was just
a think about this game as a concept.
Speaker 3: It's one of those.
Speaker 2: Things where it's like annual sports game release where it's
like they're just trying to they're doing another one, and
they're like trying to iterate a little bit, but they've
kind of figured it out, so they're just sort of
doing it again and updating the roster and stuff. Is
there anything that you in this game you're like, if
they had this thing or if they changed something in
this way, then I'd be like very excited for it,
or do you think it's kind of just like, is
this as much as you're like hoping to get from it,
just that it's more the same.
Speaker 1: I mean, kind of the most exciting things you can
do for this franchise is just keep adding match types
that haven't been introduced yet. Because there's so many different
wrestling stipulations, there's wild stuff that they still haven't touched
on that even maybe not even necessarily stuff that WBE
themselves haven't done, but other wrestling promotions, like in Japan,
a very famous match type, especially back in like the nineties,
is like the exploding barbed wire death match. That is
exactly what it sounds like. Like, Man, what if they
just added that randomly? Even though I as far as
I remember, I don't think that it's ever actually been
contested in WWE specifically, but as a wider wrestling fan,
that might be fun to have. But other than that,
it would just be sort of like more refinements to
the gameplay like the Mono two K games. One thing
that they've done that people have liked is that they've
made them a little bit less dense in term of
the controls and a little closer to I would never
say it's truly arcade like, but it's like closer. But
people are really like the more arcadi games of like
you know, going back to like the N sixty four
or like WBF No Mercy, WCW and w O Revege,
like considered some of the best games of all time,
especially in the wrestling genre. And then you get to
the two thousands, like SmackDown Versus Raw, which are also
like a very beloved series, or even the Just SmackDown
series before that. There they will probably never go straight
to like the pure arcade style of those games, because
they're a little bit more semi, a little bit more
refocused on realism.
Speaker 5: But I find that so strange though, because like those
games are, like, I'm not a wrestling person. I don't
go here. And I know that if you talk about
the wrestling games everybody loves, it's always an N sixty
four cartridge. It's always plugging that thing in and playing
whatever those games were. I can't even remember the names
of them. I could just picture them in my head.
And I find it interesting that modern iterations are so
driven to not do that. I mean It's kind of
the same in the sports games world writ large, where
a lot of the fondly remembered sports games are also
very arcadie also like maybe don't have as much of
the sim elements. And it's weird that the most popular
version of it tries to straddle that line rather than
either go one way or the other. And I wonder, like,
why do you think that is? Like why why not
just give the people what they want in that moment.
Do you think there's still a contingent that really does
like the way that the two K is doing this.
Speaker 1: I think there is, because these games always sell like
gang Busters every year, kind of like the way Madden
always sells NBA two K always sells, Like I think
there is that large portion of fan base that does
want something that is closer to what the real life
product is, and for wrestling in particular, because wrestling is
so theatrical, like the two K games do do a
good job of sort of like emulating some of the
very specific nuances and like tropes of like in ring wrestling,
of like oh, there's a mini game for the classic
thing where like two people just punch each other and
they just take turns punching each other really hard until
one of them goes down, Like that is a very
wrestling or specific thing that you can't really just do freely.
But there's a bespoke mini game to initiate that, so
you can you see it and go like, ah, okay,
they're doing the boo yay boo yay punch is the
good guy and bad guy trade blows with each other
like that stuff. You didn't really have any older games
because again it was a lot more just arcadie, like
you just went in Aaron did moves to each other.
This one there's a lot more like scripted sequences that
like have mini games tied to them that I've always
been sort of like depending on what they are on defense,
like the modern games of scaled back. There was a
time when they were like all over to place the
mini games to where it just felt clunky and just
got in a wave just trying to just play game.
Now I think they've kind of found like a pretty
decent balance. But I mean, to your point, I will
always prefer to more arcadie stuff like I grew up with.
Like I said, it was n sixty four PS one
era games. They like SmackDown, Here Comes the Pain for
PS two is also one of the greatest wrestling games
of all time. Like, I have a fondness for that era,
and I didn't really like the early two gay games
up until the famous disaster that was two K twenty
back in twenty nineteen. But since they came back with
like two K twenty two, I think they have gradually
kind of like found like a decent middle ground. I
think if you still want those arcade games, you're not
gonna like these games no matter what, because it's just
not that. But I think if you want like a
decent ish middle ground, this is like a fine option
because the games play pretty well and can be very
fun when you're in there, especially against other people that
are like semi good. Like there's still a lot of
fun goofy back and forth when you're just throwing weapons
and like thumb tacks and lighting two tables on fire
and all that stuff. Yeah, the other modes, like I said,
they're more or less not crazy different from the other
from each other, like the island, which is like the
big explorable hub thing. The big thing with this game
is they they're ditching their DLC packs and they're doing
a battle pass now that they call Ring Site Pass,
Like that's new. So they have like a premium tier
and a free tier and you're unlocking new wrestlers, cosmetics
all that stuff just by playing, and you can earn
XP in any mode, which is like nice. That is
kind of like a wait and see in terms of
like how well it's implemented. I think if you, I mean,
if you don't like battle passes in general, like nothing
they do is gonna be happy or great for you,
You're gonna probably miss the old DLC pack model. I'm
I'm on the fence, and for me, I don't play
a lot of multiplayer games, so I've not really engaged
with a tunnel battle passes. But there is still like
a satisfaction and just like, oh I played a few
rounds and I just got like five things along. That's
kind of cool, just like a passive progression. But it
just depends on how quickly, how long does it take
to get to the end of a tier, how much
does it feel like they'd be like, hey, you know,
you can pay us real money and skip these tiers
and get Stone Colts nineteen ninety eight, right now, you know, like,
can I get this on my own in a reasonable.
Speaker 5: Amount of time, you know, as someone who's been getting
back into Overwatch in my spare time. It is a
blessing and a curse in a lot of ways. Where
it can be a really nice thing where he gets
some nice free progression and oh look I got loop boxes.
Oh that's fun, and then all that, but then you
start looking into the details of like, oh, what is
this mythic shop? How does this work? And you're like,
oh God, And there's there's kind of a balance to it,
and so I'd be curious to see where two k
ends up on that side of things.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Also, guys, I think I know a wrestler that
I think, maybe even especially you, Charles, is someone that
appreciates improv theater that's in this game. Because Triple A,
which is one of the biggest loocha libre companies in Mexico,
so w wwe acquired them last year and so they
have representation in this game. So there are Triple A wrestlers,
there's Triple A iconography, there's just Triple A stuff in
the game, which means that one of the hottest Triple
A wrestlers that kind of like took the world by
storm on a grander stage when he started appearing in
WB is a guy named mister Iguana. Now would you
hear the name mister Iguana? What do you what do
you think? What do you think he's all about.
Speaker 3: A guana mask?
Speaker 4: Maybe he is from South Florida where iguanda's fall out
of trees and he dives from trees to attack enemies.
Speaker 3: That'd be fun. Brings a treaty, methach.
Speaker 1: I think he was.
Speaker 5: Bit by a radio actor of iguana and is now
part man part iguana.
Speaker 1: You know what. You might actually be the closest hold
on mm.
Speaker 4: Hmm, well more. Oh never mind, I thought never mind.
I was gonna say, is this the guy from Spider
Man one? No, the fight the LUCHADORI fight that Spider
Man goes to.
Speaker 1: Both saw.
Speaker 4: That was because you said you and you were like,
you're the closest, and I'm like, oh, bit by the animal.
I see you're saying Spider Man Spider Man movie.
Speaker 3: I see, I see, I see the paths.
Speaker 5: Your I don't see the neuron pathway. They got you there, Donnie,
you can come out of the I was almost gonna ask,
I didn't want to, I respectfully stay down here.
Speaker 2: So much better on the sewers. Now I'm actually out
of here. I don't have to I don't have to
pretend it's actually better down there. It's actually really cool
rockst pizza for you Rael.
Speaker 1: It just which maybe maybe it's just Leo gave himself
to the dark side. Now it's just basically Balfatee. So
he's I highly recommend looking up a photo or a
video of him. But he's a guy in a green
jumps suit. He paints his face green and black. He
has these cool little glasses and he comes out with
an iguana puppet named I think it's La Esca, and
he draws the ring with it and it's He has
the puppet in his mouth and the puppet is alive
as far as he's concerned, Like he does, it is
not a puppet. It is a real iguana. It's kind
of like the Muppet rule or like they're not puppets.
It is just a real iguana. And he incorporates it
into his matches. He like tries to fight people with
the puppet iguana and he's the most precious thing on earth.
He gets knocked down on his back and he plays
dead like an iguana does. He's just.
Speaker 4: The more that I feel like society is wrong for
saying like it's all fake, Like it feels very much
like WWE wrestling in general leans into it being fake,
like it is a enjoy.
Speaker 1: This documentaries now straight up showing you like, yeah, they're
talking about the matches and stuff, like they don't even
hide it anymore.
Speaker 5: It's it's theater. It's you're you're attending theater like sporting theater. Uh,
and like it's it's appealing in that way. Also, didn't
mankind have a sock puppet or something like that? My
am I inventor Socco. Yeah, mister Soco, okay cool, that's
one of the other Thank you thirty.
Speaker 1: Rock for pu put it on his hand and then
didn't know.
Speaker 5: That part like red red hot chili pepper, mister Socco,
that's kind of crazy. He pulled it out of his
sweaty cross during matches, put it on and then shoved
it in your mouth, so he just he just full
like red.
Speaker 1: Hot and then oh and he put it on after
that and had a little face. He drew a little
face on it with sharp bays because it was a
person a strange man.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that that's not like theater. They're like tasting.
Speaker 1: Oh no, you can't w like wrestling hurts. Like wrestling
is real, Like the things they do to each other
is real. You just as a wrestler, you sign up
and say, I guess I'm taking that sock tonight. I
see take this sock.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, Like you have their morning stand up with all
the wrestlers are like, all right, guys this weekend, man,
who's gonna take the sock?
Speaker 1: This one?
Speaker 5: All right guys Wednesday?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you're taking it.
Speaker 5: You're taking the sock?
Speaker 1: Is it?
Speaker 5: Is it your turn on the socker rotation? And mankind
just sitting over there.
Speaker 1: I'm like a lot of times, if you get tours
like the House Show Loop, you were paired with one person,
so you wrestled them multiple times in different cities, so
you would take it every night. If the ending's the
same of like, hey, you're losing to him via sock,
then you're going multiple knights in a row taking.
Speaker 3: Just pull them aside.
Speaker 2: You're like, hey, man, I got these these uh these
little scent pods. You can put it in the loudry
just when you watch the sock just for my sake.
Just if it didn't fit smell like roses and crotch like,
that's fine. As long as we're adding something that's not crouching. There,
I feel a lot better roses.
Speaker 3: With horrible disease.
Speaker 1: Are you guys familiar with Rakishi? Have you ever heard
the name Rakishi? No, big Samoan guy. He wore like
a suma wrestler, kind of like thong. But his gimmick
was that he had a move called the stink face
because he is a big man, big Samoan guy, big butt,
and when you got knocked down in the corner, he
would pull his throng up even more so he basically
give himself a wedgie, and then he would shove his
butt into your face and rub he basically just like
rub his butt in your face. And it was called
the stinkface, and it was the most popular moves during
like the ninety nine two thousand, thousand and one era,
And you can find compilations of that.
Speaker 5: That's called conjunct the vitis is what that's called.
Speaker 1: Sometimes he got people, sometimes he got people real good
with it where their face would disappear between his cheeks
and again that was something where if you listen to
interviews with wrestlers that have taken it, they're like, just
you know, show must go on, man, you just take it.
I think they said if he liked you, if he
didn't like you, he would make sure his ass was
like not clean. But if he did like you, he
would like powder up down there and stuff like that.
Speaker 5: Dude doing the like Flintstones bird it's a living but
about like getting your face shoved into wrestler's butt is
kind of crazy.
Speaker 4: The thing is like the you can do all the
prep you want, but if like, if this is happening
in the match, after the match, like his butt is
gonna be sweaty, his watch is gonna be sweaty, Like
there's no running from it. You're just you just gotta
take that.
Speaker 5: And if he gets scared, God help you.
Speaker 1: Hey. You know what they say about wrestling, it ain't balad.
Yeah do it. I mean you're already agreeing to get Raphael.
Speaker 4: I know what's happening in the sewers tonight.
Speaker 1: You're either gonna get You're either gonna get lit on
the HR. I think the shell would get in the way,
but oh my gosh, probably hurt more.
Speaker 5: I knew there was a reason I didn't like episode.
Speaker 2: We need to have to be somewhere West, I did,
but I forgot.
Speaker 1: So we're good. He's so drunk with power he lost
his memory. But yes, w B two K you can
read my preview now, I will say real quick on
like game Aside, it was cool, like we got to
tour the headquarters, like they took us on like a
little tour. We couldn't take pictures or anything because they're like,
you know, it's a workspace, but we got to see,
like you know, where they film all. They're like little
YouTube contents and they're like fancy production rooms and stuff
like that. All their bronze. They have bronze statues in
different areas of different legendary wrestlers, Like here's a bronze
statue of the Undertaker, and here's one of Triple H
and Roddy Piper. And they have a full size and
they're like kind of like almost communal area. They have
a full size wrestling ring set up, like and they
were like, this is the same ring we use in TV,
Like it is fully ready, like you get in there
right now and and do stuff. And I guess. Occasionally
they're like, yeah, we'll have wrestlers come by for like things,
and sometimes they'll get in there and roll around like
they don't have to, but don't get in there and
like just roll around round in there. Hit the ropes,
take bumps, which take momps like hitting, falling on your back,
grab a sock, stink face someone in hr you know
all that stuff. So how it goes over there? Man,
wrestling's whack you guys. I don't know if you guys,
I don't.
Speaker 3: Know why you guys pick it up? We picked it up.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I'm more interested in Yeah, I've ever been. Now
I feel like I need to find a way to
get into the ring.
Speaker 1: Give me. It's not too late. Batista. Dave Batista got
into wrestling in his mid thirties, which is really late,
and he became a Hall of Famer and now he's
a movie star. So you could be the next day
Batista wrestling.
Speaker 4: That's what I hear that often. Actually you're not, you're not.
Speaker 1: Often compared to Dave Batista. But yes, everyone go visit
w B dot com, w dot com, oh my god,
advertising for the wrong company game Informer dot com. It's
where I preview.
Speaker 5: It's going to be like an event for the podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah. God, Triple H is on the phone right now.
He's like, are you plugging him? You plugging the website? Yeah,
you're plugging a site. That's that's my trip, that's Triple H.
That's that was great.
Speaker 5: Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1: I'm the game Yeah, yeah, great great. Anyways, Yeah, gamee
for dot Com W TWOK twenty six preview there live.
Go to our YouTube channel. Check out the new game
play Today video of w w TWOK twenty six that
Eric and I did about forty minutes showing off the
different matches and modes. And yeah, the game comes out
March thirteenth. It seems like it will be at least
it will be fine. If you enjoy those games up
to this point, you will probably like this one is
kind of my takeaway from it. But yeah, let's get
the hell out of here. I guess it's time for
all of us to get out of the sewer now
because we got to go home. Is that okay? Leader?
Can we do that?
Speaker 5: Can we leave me and I feel safer.
Speaker 4: Stake?
Speaker 5: I don't want to be up there with with whatever
is happening upstairs. I'll stay down here fair enough, I'll
be in Plato's sewer. If you would like to support
our sewer dwelling adventures, you can do so by going
to Gaminformer dot com slash subscribe once again, get yourself
a Game Informer magazine subscription ten issues a year, print
and digital. We just announced our Invincible Versus cover story,
which I wrote, and I'd like to say it is
pretty good. Happy with it, but it's got cool cover art,
dual covers for the first time. Go check it out.
Speaker 1: Subscribe now to make sure that's the first issue you
get fine Game Informer and bookstores and news stands all
over the world. And if you would like to follow
all of us on social media, you can find me
at Marcus Stewart seven. You can find Charles at Chuck
Duck three sixty five, Eric is at c Mussy, and
Wesley LeBlanc is at Wesley LeBlanc Easy. Let's see anything
else to plug streams, check out our streams Twitch, dot tv,
Slash Game Informer. We do live streams. I couldn't tell
you what we're streaming this week, but it's probably.
Speaker 5: Something cow I think On Friday, the plan is we
might have Alex Van Aiken stream Resident Evil Requiem, which
will be very funny because he is the most easily
frightened person I have ever met.
Speaker 4: And he said, he said he played fifteen minutes of
Requiem a cord fell from the ceiling in game. He
got too scared and he turned it off.
Speaker 5: So literally screamed, yeah, so this should be really good.
Speaker 4: I have an insider info that he may or may
not have tooted we got star.
Speaker 1: I was just going to say, he's going to part
so much on that stream.
Speaker 3: Because we'll double mic him. We'll have one mic up here,
one mic down there, just to catch.
Speaker 4: And yes, episode.
Speaker 5: I can't wait to delete all of it. Since we
didn't make an episodels had almost nothing to do with
anything we talked about. I just brought up as a
bit and it became the whole through line plot of
this foundational framing for the entire episode. We had world
building for our own personal DMNT show and it's actually
nothing to do with the residue. Will rect me of
a game that any other podcast would be dying to
spend as much stop as possible to talk about.
Speaker 1: And that's why you guys love supporting gaming former.
Speaker 5: Right, absolutely, just like absolutely, this is what you signed
up for.
Speaker 1: So yeah, go watch, go watch, I'll explay suffer rather
suffer through residue for REWA up on our Twitch channel
and YouTube on Friday, and yeah, be sure to tune
in next week for another episode of the game and
former show. We will see you next time, Calabunga