Speaker 1: Hey, everyone, Welcome to the Game Informer Show, a weekly
podcast covering the video game industry. Join us each and
every Thursday for a discussion of the latest gaming news, reviews,
and exclusive reviews with Game and Former staff and special
guests from around the industry. I am one of your hosts,
Marcus Stewart. I am joined by Kyle Hilliard. How are you, Hey,
I'm doing pretty good.
Speaker 2: I am not rushing to finish my death Stranding to
review right now, so I feel a little bit of
a weight off my shoulders. That's not to say the
game is like, was it bad or anything, but it's
always like you know, when you're when you're reviewing a
large game, it's always a little bit like I gotta
get do this thing.
Speaker 1: It's like, much like Sam delivering a review. You unloaded
all of your work and turned it in and then
we judged it for its quality and said, hey, that's
pretty good. Huh, here's a great I took a shower.
I've watched I've watched Sam shower so many times. I
can't skip that cut scene fast enough. But you know,
he's a good looking man, so it's all good. Yes,
And joining us for the first time, since we've relaunched
a Game Informer show one. Brian Shay, how are you.
Speaker 3: I'm doing pretty good. It has been extremely hot, and
I know I'm talking to somebody who lives in Florida,
so I'm not gonna like, like, you know, complain too much.
Speaker 1: I want to hear your whining. Brian.
Speaker 3: However, it was like ninety eight degrees on Saturday, and
I hosted a party at my house and my responsibility
was to stand in front of the grill which reached
upwards of five hundred degrees. So I was there for
about six hours while it was upper nineties outside. So yeah,
it was. It was not a I was very dehydrated
by the end of that day. But yeah, overall very good.
You know, we have a lot of exciting stuff that
is happening at Game Informer and Game Informer dot Com
right now.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And you know it's similar to Kyle. I am excited
because a large project is off of my plate, and
that project was our cover story.
Speaker 1: Yes, you you are the man of the hour right now.
I run it in because that's going to be the
first thing we talk about, our newly announced cover story
of border Lands for you and Alex Van Aiken took
a trip down to Gearbox in Uh, where are they in? Texas?
Is Austin or.
Speaker 3: Frisco, Texas, which is just outside of Dallas. I think
it's technically still a part of like the Dallas metropolitan area,
but yeah, it's where the Dallas Cowboys have their practice facility.
I actually got a workout in at their their gym.
Wait what Yeah, So there's a place right it's like
attached to their like like practice stadium called Cowboy Fit
and you have have a membership, but you can go
in and like buy a day pass and I got
a fifty percent off discount and it was like really
really nice, Like it was like a super nice gym.
I went and did the cryotherapy afterwards and realized that's
not something I want to do again.
Speaker 2: It felt like that's is that where you just go
stand in like a really cold room for like a
short period.
Speaker 3: Of Yes, I did for about thirty seconds, and I
was like, Nope, not for me. I did the beginner
thing and it was like I think it said, like
it feels like negative one hundred and forty five with
a light breeze. Us and this is fresh after my workout,
so I was like, Nope, listen to this guy.
Speaker 2: It's either too hot or too cold. He just can't
It's like you can't get it.
Speaker 1: It's like I thought, like, I'm living in Minnesota getting
used to those winters, would have prepped to you for but.
Speaker 3: I thought that too. Honestly, I was like, Oh, these
Texans don't know cold. And then I got in there
and I'm like, nope. And as somebody, as somebody who
has lived in both Texas and Minnesota, I've experienced the
highs and lows of both places, and yeah, the weather
is definitely going to give you a problem no matter
where you are, depending on the time of the year.
How long how long were you in that room? How
long are you supposed to be in that room? And
is it a room? It's like a it's almost like
a walk in freezer with a window, and you're They
recommended three to three and a half minutes, and I
went for about thirty seconds, and I was like, not
for me. My cryo therapy was I went and got
a smoothie. That's good. That's good.
Speaker 2: Can we do that here in Minnesota? Like I drive
by the Vikings Training facility pretty often. Can you just
go in there and be like, can I train in
your gym? I don't, I'll buy a day pass.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think that the Cowboys are just like
they they're just a monetization machine because, like you know,
they have everything, Like you go to like a Cowboys game,
they have like just like the most over the top amenities.
From what I understand, I've never been to Cowboys Stadium,
but like I from what I hear, it's like one
of like the more over the top fan experiences. And
I I'm pretty sure you have to pay for each
and every little perk that you want, So it would
not surprise if this is something that is like specific
to the Cowboys like training facility, or maybe it's just
like an offshoot of that, but it is attached to
their training facility. So yeah, it's been a fun morning
there before going to Gearbox, which is why we're here right. Yes, Yes,
it's important the entire podcast.
Speaker 1: Yeah you need the train.
Speaker 2: I was fascinated by this cold room. Well, Brian, I'm excited.
I liked Marcus's comment better in case we talked to
over each other.
Speaker 3: Marcus that you had to train to go visit your US.
It's very good. It's a good joke. Mark, thank you.
Speaker 1: Well, yes, I'm excited to hear all about your time
at Borderlands for Studio Gearbox. Before that, of course, if
you want to read this upcoming cover story, you can
do so by subscribing to Game and Former magazine. How
do you do that, you ask, Well, you go to
Gaminformer dot com slash subscribe and you can sign up
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just one, but ten, sent straight to your home every
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better than it was before. Better paper. We've got Kyle,
you know what we wrap them in now, they're like
special polybags. Have you heard about this?
Speaker 2: I have, and it's one of the things I was, like,
weirdly the most excited about when we were talking.
Speaker 3: Through all this stuff.
Speaker 2: And it's because so often we would get emails about
for the previous issues or people be like my issue
got messed up, and our response is always like that
sucks man, But like I we just got to talk
to your mailman or something.
Speaker 3: We don't.
Speaker 2: I don't know what we could do, but we have
the poly bags now, which I think is going to
make a huge difference.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yes, And of course the membership or the subscription,
I should say, acts as a membership to the website,
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the best. And yes, so you can go subscribe now.
I believe our early early bird has concluded this week
by the time that this will go go out, so
the and please correct me if I get this in correct, guys,
but I believe our pricing should be back to standard
now yes, I think so, yeah, okay, which would be
you know, for the print and magazine or excuseity, the
print and digital version of the magazine. It'll be seventy
dollars a year. But however, you can also get a
digital only subscription for forty five dollars a year, which
is also great for our international readers. And yeah, it's
a great way to support us directly, keep us, keep
the lights on, keep us from get blipped out of
existence once again, and we greatly appreciated. And of course,
the very first issue that will be hitting your doorstep
will be emblazoned with some cover art for Borderlands four. So, Brian,
tell us all about it. You went to Gearbox, you
played a bunch of Borderlands four. How is it shaping
up so far?
Speaker 3: Well, first, let me tell you about this really cool
freezer that I stood in for like thirty seconds. Not well,
so Borderlands four. You know the way that the series
has like kind of grown with me. It's interesting because
like I got into games media kind of just before
Borderlands one came out, Like I started writing about video
games in two thousand and eight. And yeah, so like
I've kind of come of age with this franchise in
a weird way. But like I have covered every single
Borderlands game aside from I think pre No. I did
a preview for pre sqel for OXM, I think, but
like I didn't cover three very much. And it's interesting
because that is the one that like I did not
really care for much, like I loved one and two,
like obsessed over both of those games. Presequel wasn't really
for me. Tales from the Borderlands got me right back
into that universe. I thought that was phenomenal, maybe Telltale's
best game, But since then it's kind of been tough
sledding for me with the Borderlands franchise. I think three
was a little bit too referential to like outside like
like cold pop culture stuff, Like it's like, okay, this
it's really hard to accept that this is a self
contained universe when they're referencing like memes and stuff from
our world.
Speaker 2: A kind of probably, Yeah, it was kind of charming
in two because it was unique at the time, like
you didn't really see that often. But yeah, by the
time three came around, I don't know, I just it
was a little exhausting at that point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it and also like I don't know, it
almost felt like this is gonna sound very disrespectful. It
almost felt like the we you to Borderlands for's switch
where it's like a half step towards what we want,
and then Borderlands four feels like the switch where it
was like, oh my god, this is like what they
were striving for, like in some ways with their previous thing,
but now they're actually giving us what we want, and
what that is is a giant, seamless open world, so
like very minimal loading screens. You just it's not like
kind of like the hub and spoke design where it's like, oh,
just a big open area in the middle and then
you go off into these tiny little corridors off on
the sides, which is how a lot of Borderlands areas
have been designed. To this point. It really does feel
like just this massive open world that has like activities
scattered throughout it. The writing is a lot more, I mean,
it's kind of it's a little bit darker in some regards,
kind of going back a little bit closer to like
what Borderlands one was, but there's still a play like
there's so many like hilarious moments and like, I don't know,
like there there were a couple moments especially there was
one with clap Trap during a side quest that I
was doing where I've never really found clap Trap super
funny I've always thought it was entertaining, but not like
laugh out loud, but like there was a moment where
I laughed very hard at something that happened. And then yeah, So,
like the traversal is also a huge upgrade. So you
can still like mantle and everything, like you up on
ledges like you could in borderlandes three, but now there's
like you can double jump, you can glide, you can
there's a grappling hook, so it's like like a kind
of a rope that they throw out that they can
like attach to like grapple points and swing over or
like kind of repel up. And then you can also
use that to grab items in the environment, like explosive
barrels and pull them to you and then toss them,
which is really cool. And all of the Vault Hunters
have three distinct action skills they're called which are basically
like subclasses that like operate on a cool down. Like,
so every every vault Hunter kind of has similar movement,
it's like, and they can all use like guns, the
guns that you pick up, which you know would be
weird if you couldn't in a border Lands game.
Speaker 1: Well, just one of the Vault Hunters, like didn't Batman
Real Quick, Brian, which Fault Hunters did you get to play?
Speaker 3: I got to play all four of them. So Vex
is the Dark Siren, Rafa is the Exo Soldier, Aman
is the Forge Night, and Harlow is the Gravitar. So
uh Rafa is kind of like more of a straightforward
like like soldier type class where he has his three
action skills. One he like kind of grows like a
like an arm cannon kind of like Samus and can
shoot like piercing shots, which is cool. And then he
has another one that like if you activate it, it
like activates like auto turrets kind of where it just
automatically fires at anybody like in on his screen and
then as I slam my elbow into my desk and
then yeah, I'm very excited. And then he has another
one where it's like he just grows two blades out
of his arms and goes and can do like melee attacks.
So it's yeah kind of so they're all very distinct.
I don't I'm not going to run through all of
the abilities because they all have three, but like Aman
has a Mon's actually he's like a seven foot four tall,
like Viking looking dude, and he has these axes that
they make him like the most elemental character in the game,
which is weird because like the Siren isn't the elemental
character in this game. She has some elemental areas, but
like normally the Siren is kind of like the elemental
damage dealer, in this case, the Siren is actually kind
of like a summoner, Like she kind of summons like
these phantoms for one of her action skills, and like
you can choose to have it be either a melee
character that will run around and like like use a
lot of agro so like the character, the enemies will
focus on them, or you can do like a turret
style phantom that will provide like cover fire for you. Otherwise,
she also has like this like cat Minion that she
can summon that will attack enemies and like teleport around
the battlefield. So but the elemental side of her is
that when you switch your gun to like say I'm
using incendiary AMMO, that means that all the phantoms are
going to have fire based attacks, but if I switch
it over to cryo, they will all have ice based attacks.
So based on what weapon you are using, your phantoms
or summons will have that same element with their attacks,
which is kind of cool. Yeah, so you can play
with the elements a little bit that way. But Aman
is way more elemental, Like he has these axes that
he throws, so like that he has like a projectile
where it's like he'll throw the axe and when you
bring it up, like as your action skill, he holds
up two actses, one as a fire one is an
ice axe, so you can choose which one you want
to throw, and then there's kind of like an like
he had one of his his like passive trait is
that each one of his action skills has an extra
action skill looped on top of that. So his other
action skill for the dual wielding axes where he can
throw one ice in one fire is that it turns
that he forges those two axes together and throws it
and on the way out, I think it's fire and
the way back it is ice. So it's kind of
like a dual element at the end. And then there's
another one where he he has like this like flaming punch,
and I think the secondary trait for that is he
like can line up a wall of fire that you
can run through and everything but enemies can't run through
or shoot through it, so it's like a really good
like way to place down like a little bit of
cover for either you or if you're playing co op,
your teammates. And then maybe my favorite I don't know
this is so I told this like because every time
I finished, they were like, oh, so, what'd you think?
Almost every time I stepped away from the game, I
was like, I think that's gonna be my main I
think that was my favorite Vault Hunter. And I wrote
this in the cover story where I was like I
felt like a child where it's like whenever they ask
you like, oh, what's your favorite, like candy, and it's
always just like the candy that they ate last, Like,
oh yeah, I just had eminems, So Eminem's are my favorite.
That's how I felt with like the Vault Hunters. Like
in the past, I feel like I've always like gravitated
towards like one or two of them immediately and be like,
oh yeah, that's totally my guy. This like I could
see myself playing any of the four and being perfectly happy.
And the last one that I played was Harlow and
she's kind of like this tech like kind of like
tech Wizard. It's almost like a Jedi, but like more technical.
Speaker 2: So is that was the wasn't your class in one
of the other ones, like tech Nomancer.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, it's a little bit different from that.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: So she has this passive trait called entanglement, and what
that does is when she uses her action skills on enemies,
they become entangled. They start glowing like this rainbow like
holographic look almost like a you know, like a Pokemon card,
and when they are in that, they kind of split damage.
So like if like there's five enemies and I entangle
four of them, and you entangle them through like just
by touching them with your action skills. So one of
hers is she can lift one enemy up almost like
a Jedi and then like slam them into other enemies
or like walls or ground or whatever to do damage.
But if you keep touching other enemies with that enemy,
it entangles all of them, and then if you shoot them,
it kind of hurts all the other entangled ones as well,
So it's really good for crowd control. And then the
other ways you can entangle her. Other action skills are
like she shoots like this kind of like disco ball
looking bomb forward, and it has this massive area of
effect explosion and anything that it touches. In addition to
dealing damage, it also entangles. And then there's another one
that's just kind of like a pulse mind that she
throws on the ground and like reverberates out, and as
that happens, it entangles all the enemies. So it's really
really good if like there's just like hordes of like
monsters or enemies running at you, And that's good because
like they've also upped the crowd sizes pretty sicknificantly in
this game. They're they're really making good use of Unreal
Engine five with both the I mean, the graphics look better.
The world loads so much faster, and I'm sure that's
thanks to like the tech of like the PS five
an Xbox Series X as well. I was playing on
a PC, so I can't really comment on like the
performance on the other platforms or even the switch to
but yeah, do you know, off the top of your head,
is it day and date switch too? They're saying a
later date in twenty but they're still saying twenty twenty five,
So yeah, I do.
Speaker 2: I do think one of the highest compliments you paid
to the game, Brian, like we've already said, was was
that you you at the end the cover story you said,
I don't know who I'm going to be playing as,
which I think I think is like that says a
lot about the game. That like there wasn't one that
you were like, well, I didn't really like this one.
They were a little too technical or something like that.
Speaker 3: You know, Yeah, And I mean the other thing is
like on the other side of the spectrum, like this
is an all new world, right, It's not Pandora anymore.
It's not Elpis, which you know it is the moon
above Pandora, or it was above Pandora, or the whole
story is like in at the end of Borderlands three.
Sorry for spoilers for Borderlands three, Lilith, who was the
siren in the first Borderlands Yes, Kate Blanchet, Yes, Kate
Blanchett has to teleport Elpis away from Pandora because it
was about to like reak havoc on Pandora, and she
teleports it to what I seemed like an empty part
of space, but it turned out there was a veiled
planet there and it smashed into the planet when she
did that, and it shattered the veil, so now like
there are like people know it's there now, so that
that happens, and then like it causes all kinds of
problems in this planet. And it turns out this planet
was kind of ruled by this like dictator called the Timekeeper,
who I guess has been alive for a very long time.
But he values order above all else, so like he's
really like controlling of the people. He's installed like these
like bolts on their their bodies to prevent them from
disobeying orders and everything. So he's basically enslaved an entire planet.
And once the moon crashes into it, it actually rains
down some of like the psycho masks from Borderlands from
the Borderlands franchise, and one of his like underlings, the
Timekeeper's underlings, picks it up and it's like, oh, what's this,
And then they realize like, oh, there's more out there
than just this planet, and they start questioning it. So
like another faction forms called the Rippers, and what they
do is they realize that they're like kind of under
control of the Timekeeper by these things that are like
surgically implanted in their heads. So they start ripping them out.
But what that does is it often mutilates their body,
but it also mutilates their mind, so they also are
very they can be hostile as well, So you have
like those factions. There's another faction in there that I
didn't really get to interact with very much. But the
Timekeeper is kind of like the main villain, and the
bar has always been I think this isn't really like
controversial to say, but the bar for the Borderlands franchise
in terms of villains has always been Handsome Jack. And yeah,
so like.
Speaker 2: I don't even I don't even remember the the Borderlands
one was the one I played primarily the most.
Speaker 3: I don't even remember, so uh, I don't know if
the Timekeeper is going to reach the heights of Handsome Jack.
Like that's a very high barred set. But he does
feel very menacing, very powerful, and he almost he definitely
believes in his cause, like he thinks he is doing
this planet right by maintaining order. Kind of similar, I
mean similar, like like all good villains are that way. Like,
I mean, you know, Thanos was a great villain in
Infinity War and Endgame because he believed in his cause
and like he said, he talks about it in such
a way that you're like, Okay, yeah, I understand why
you think that, even though it's clearly.
Speaker 1: Wrong, Like you could snap your fingers and create more resources.
I mean, that's the other way you.
Speaker 3: Can go exactly. But oh yeah, so eagles could fly
you to the mountain and Lord of the Rings. But yeah, so, like,
I think that the possibility is there for the Timekeeper
to be an incredible villain. So I want to learn
more about him, and I will have an article on
game Informer dot com that dives a little bit deeper
into who the Timekeeper is through the words of the
folks who you know, created him. But yeah, like I
I didn't really encounter him like all that much. I
fought one of his underlings and like a big boss
battle that took like twenty five minutes to finish. It
was a very long battle. It was very cool too.
I faced off against like one of his Like I
think he's like a scientist or something, so like I
thought some of his like I don't know, for lack
of a better word, direct reports, But I did not
really encounter him. There's only been a few times where
like he would just like talk to me over like
I guess like headset or whatever Jack style.
Speaker 1: Yeah, taunting over in or cooms and stuff.
Speaker 3: Like why do you resist? Like you know, like that
type of stuff. It's like nothing like substantial, just him
kind of like pontificating, and yeah, he seems like he's
going to be a very good boss or very good
like main antagonist. So I'm excited to learn more about him. Yeah,
So start off in the Fade Fields, which is very
different from like a normal Borderlands like starting area because
it's almost always like a wasteland when you start a
Borderlands game, whether it's like sandy or icy or whatever.
This is like a lush green field and like there's
all kinds of vegetation and like it's bright and sunny.
And that was intentional because they want you to get
there and be like, oh, this is actually a pretty
nice place. And then the more you delve into this world,
the more you realize that like there's kind of like
some other stuff going on, and like it really juxtaposes
against like the starting area of that that almost feels
ripped from like kind of like a lot of RPGs
like where it's like, yeah, we're starting in like the
beach environ or like the forest environment, and now we're
going to the apocalypse environment. Okay, that's kind of how
it feels. Because the exclusive area that I got to
play around in was Carcadia Burn, which is one of
the other After you complete a few missions, the world
opens up and you can go to Carcadia Burn or
if you get what the other name of the other
zone was. I didn't get to see that one, but
it's it's much more of like a desert y wasteland environment,
and it's it's the Rippers that I talked about earlier that,
like you know, are the other faction outside of the Order,
which is the Timekeeper's faction. That's where they kind of
have set up shop is in Carcadia Burn. And the
reason it's a wasteland is because when the moon smashed
into the planet, it's that part of the world that
it hit, so it it took like the brunt of
the force. So yeah, that was really fun. There's so
many side things going around, like there are Rift Champions
they're called where it's like you'll just be going through
the open world like they do such a good job
of like, hey, here's like the mission marker, like you
can go there. Like we'll even have like they even
have a little robot called Echo four that will like
navigate you, like it'll put like almost like Forts of
Horizon style like draw a line on the road and
you can follow that line. But there are so many
diversions all throughout the world, so it's like, Okay, well,
there's this giant like kind of like foggy bubble in
the middle of the world. You're like, what's that And
you go in there and there's a there's like a
world boss that you can fight in there.
Speaker 2: Come like like kind of like a like a Destiny
style like this thing just shows up and yeah, it
seems like the encounter, I guess, or.
Speaker 3: It's like a it seems like it is at random.
I don't know like how they programmed it, but it
seems like it's like, oh, one of those events is
happening right there. Let me jump in. But you have
to stay within the bubble, like they won't come out
of the bubble to attack you. You go into it, and
like in order to stay in the encounter, you need
to stay in like this little area this radius.
Speaker 1: Which is like a very life service y kind of thing. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So and then there's also like what was it
called I can grab my notes here? But there's one
where you are basically you're charged with getting a battery
to the top of this area. I think it's is
this the silos, but basically like, yeah, there's a battery
down at the bottom of this this area. You have
to get it up to the top somehow, and like
you can take it and throw it, but you can't
like use like your grapple or anything or mantle while
you're holding the battery. So it's kind of like a
puzzle type element of like, all right, I've got to
get this up there? How do I do that without
most of my traversal skills? Yeah, and that for that one,
I think the one that I completed, it gave me
like a new skin for my my vehicle.
Speaker 1: Little speeder bikes in this now.
Speaker 3: Right, yeah, digi runners, and they do control very similar
to like how the kind of the bikes in Destiny
control the sparrows.
Speaker 2: Individual because wasn't it like the other vehicles and borderlands
are always like a bunch of people can load up
onto them, right, yeah, usually.
Speaker 3: Yeah, these are individuals at least what I saw their
individual But yes, that that is how it worked as
far as I remember. It's cool. So uh yeah, I
completed a base that I assaulted. There's and that was
where there was this guy in Horace. He was like,
uh just he was like one of the first battles
I did. I also did the uh primordial vault. So
when you there's this other side activity where you have
to find a terminal, So like you open up the
terminal and it opens up like this thing that brings
you a balloon and it pops up and you can
use that balloon almost like the launchers in like Tiers
of the Kingdom, because you have a glide ability and
you can glide just as far as you want basically,
And so what you can do is you can like
grab that balloon and it'll throw you up in the air,
so you can glide around a little bit easier. But
also from what I recall, and this is kind of
off the top of the dome, so apologies that this
is inaccurate, but I think they also give you like
hints or or like to where vault keys are. So
it gives you intel to like fragments of your vault keys.
And then the vaults are kind of like these multi
stage like almost like Horde mode style, but like not
with you don't set up anything. You just get there
and you're fighting waves of enemies and you just have
to survive for as as many enemies as come, and
then you move on to the next platform, and then
move on to the next platform, and at the end
there's this big like set piece boss waiting for you.
I thought a boss called Inceptis, and basically he's like
this kind of like giant like almost like lizard like creature,
and he has like these giant claws that'll slash at you.
He has a big tail that he whips you with
and then like I got him down. Basically it uses
all of the traversal stuff that they put in the game.
It was a really good showcase for that because like
not only did you have to like double jump over
the tail when he whipped and like dodged to one
side or the other for when he slashed at you,
but also you had to use your grapple rope to
like grab him like almost like Spider Man style, Like
he had like these like like almost like pustules, if
that's the right word for it, and you have to
grab those and open them up to make a point
of vulnerability, and then you can shoot like the sore basically.
And then when I got him down to half health,
he jumped up into the ceiling and like formed a
little bit of a cocoon and then he flooded the
arena with acid and I had these like mushrooms were
up on the ceiling. You basically have to grapple from
like mushroom to mushroom while shooting at the thing. It
was very Spider Man esque if Spider Man used guns
that like ricocheted when you got a headshot.
Speaker 1: Then when you shot the postules, were any equips that
you remember from your characters.
Speaker 3: Oh man, that's gonna leave the mark. I don't know, no,
something like that.
Speaker 1: That was a sore spot. That's a free one for
but yeah.
Speaker 3: And then another thing they've done is they've added the
ability to to like replay encounters without having to like
do like these weird workarounds that you used to have
to do. And so like you go to this like
vending machine that pops up after you beat a boss
and you can just basically instantly replay it. So it
used to be also very life service, Yeah, because like
you can also do that to grind loot. Like the
bosses obviously dropped like a lot of loot. Same thing
for those Rift champions I mentioned earlier, they drop a
lot of loot, and so like it's maybe worth it
to replay that boss battle.
Speaker 1: Yeah see, And you can just replay a boss battle
like as many times as you want.
Speaker 3: I think there is like a currency attached to it,
but I don't I think like it. They didn't seem
to indicate that it's like a rare currency or anything
like that. And then they've also made changes like rather
than having like finding health packs in or health kits
in like lockers and stuff like that, now it's just
a cool down that you have, So you have rep
kits and it operates on a cool down and it
not only heals you, but it also buffs you in
certain ways, and there's different rep kits that you can equip.
Speaker 2: So and then do you like that, like I've oh, yeah,
as opposed to like the lockers, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Definitely, I definitely prefer it. And then they also made
some improvements to co op, like you no longer have
to like just spawn at like a nearby checkpoint or
a SPA. Now you can spawn directly on your co
op partner and you can split because it's like I said,
it's a giant, seamless open world and you can explore
as far away from each other as possible, and it'll
only like start like auto teleporting you once somebody enters
another biome, Like if you're in Fade Fields and then
go to Carcadia Burn, it'll be like teleporting you. And
you know, I don't know what the countdown is, but
it's like five four, and you can push a button
and cancel that, so it's not like automatically going to
teleport you. It just like initiates the sequence, but you
can stop it from doing that. So that's nice.
Speaker 1: Can explore separate biomes.
Speaker 3: Then it sounds it sure seems like it, like I
did not do it, but they said, oh yeah, it'll
auto teleport you want. Because like I was talking to
one developer and playing co op with another and he
was like, oh yeah, hold on right here. For a second,
he was like telling me about something, and then he's like,
all right, your co op partner is over there, and
it said like eleven hundred meters away, and he's like
you could try to catch up with him, or you
can auto teleport to his location at any time, which
is also very cool, so you don't have to wait
for like any kind of auto teleport. But they were like, yeah,
you can cancel that if you want to. So it
does seem like I could explore one part of the
world and you know, Marcus, you could explore another part
of the world, so that is also very cool. They
are also one of the big things that they've done
is they if you've played Borderlands three, like the manufacturers
of the guns became even more important in those games
in that game, and basically those manufacturers have different traits
so that that gives them like a more identifiable characteristic.
So it's like, oh, I had this gun that means
it's gonna you know, ricochet if I shoot somebody in
the head, it's gonna get to a crit hit it's
to ricochet to another enemy automatically. Or this one shoots
sticky bombs or something like that. Now there is a
component of mixing and matching those traits, so like if
you have the ricochet off the crit shots and you
pick a gun up that happens to have a licensed
part from the manufacturer that does the sticky bombs. You
will get both of those. It'll get the best of
both worlds in that or this one on like you know,
you'll be like, oh, it has it's this gun, but
it has a license part from this, so you get
the both of those characteristics in that gun. So A
really up the number of combinations there are, like they
I mean, they have always had I think, like over
a billion guns in every Borderlands game, just through like
procedural generation. But like I think they were talking and
this I believe at one point, Again don't quote me
on this, but I think they said upwards of five
billion combinations.
Speaker 1: M that's several more billions.
Speaker 3: That is that is many guns at least. Yes, So
and yeah, like I like they've nailed the tone of
the writing. Again, I didn't play too many story moments,
but like they they definitely feel more rained in with
the humor and they kind of described it the way
I when I interviewed Negoshi, the guy behind the Yakuza series, originally,
he explained it as like, Okay, well, you know, if
you play the main like the main critical path of
the story, you will get this very serious drama type story.
Action focus drama basically, but if you go off the
beaten path, that's where you get the comedic stuff, like
the side quests and everything. That's kind of how the
Borderlands writing team explained, like how they're like balancing the
comedy with the kind of serious action stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, awesome, but it's.
Speaker 3: Still seasoned with that humor though, Like even when you're
playing the main stuff, there's still gonna be the little quips.
There's still gonna be funny moments. But yeah, the funniest
moments that I expect were definitely when I was doing
side stuff.
Speaker 1: Okay, what's the uh, what's a funny line that you
can remember?
Speaker 3: The clap trap one that made me laugh because you know,
clap traps always like kind of very like happy go
lucky in a lot of ways and sometimes a little menacing.
But he was like telling me to go do something,
and like I was like, I don't want to spoil
too much, but I was like going to from like
area to area, grabbing these mementos that like I guess
crashed down on Cairos, the new planet when the moon
crashed into it, and clap traps like, oh, I guess
it's not there and then like you killed one more
guy and I guess he drops it and you find
it and he's just like, oh it was there, never
questioned me again, like a real deep voice on my woe.
So that was it was pretty funny. I don't know,
like it was just out of the blue car. Yeah,
it's completely co It's not going to do it justice
when I explain it like that.
Speaker 1: You had to be there.
Speaker 3: Basically, Yeah, the game of tell there a game of
telephone with something I experienced almost a month ago now,
but yeah, because I did play one day, I traveled
to Nevado, California before this trip to Frisco, Texas, and
went to two K's offices out in Nevado, California and
played a day of Borderlands four there. And then two
weeks later I went to Texas and spent two whole
days at Gearbox doing interviews, playing hours upon hours of
Borderlands four. And I mean, I've got to say like it,
I went in with caution. I was like very hesitant
to like allowing myself to be excited for this game,
and I stepped away being like, Okay, I think they
understand what they needed to do to course correct in
talking with Randy Pitchford, like I talked to him a
little bit about, like, you know, what lessons did you
learn from Borderlands three, Like where did you want to
carry into Borderlands four? And he was like, you know,
like he gave me this whole story about the reason
it's called Borderlands is because it exists in between multiple things.
Like you know, it's a it's a shooter, but it's
also an RPG. It's a comedy, but it's also a drama.
So it's like all these different things that exist like
in the borders between these different things. And he was like,
I think that with like some of our recent games,
we've gone off too far one way or the other,
and we wanted to get back to that Borderlands region
where it's like we are kind of like in like
that gray area between those spaces. And I was like, Okay,
that that does make sense, and that does seem to
be in line with what I have experienced so far.
And I've got to say, like it has made me
feel the excitement that I felt when like Borderlands two
was coming out, where I was just like Okay, yeah,
a sequel to a game that I absolutely adore is
coming out and everything I've seen has told me it's
going to be amazing, And I think Borderlands four is, uh,
you know, up there with my most anticipated games for
the rest of this year.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm excited. That's that's impressive.
Speaker 2: Yeah, because I mean, I, like you said, it's not
like you went in there expecting to be blown away
or walk out with like this is I'm really looking
forward to this now. You were just like, yeah, let
me see what this is. Let me see what Borderlands
is today, and like that's that that gives me that
That's that makes me optimistic too, because I'm not really
a big Borderland but like I did play one, and
I liked one quite a bit, but then I kind
of fell off on two, and I don't think I
even booted up three. But like, you know, those games
are cool. I'm always open for an excuse to revisit them,
you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm kind of in the same boat as you.
Like I love one and two. The other ones just
didn't hit the same way. It's it's it's been very
hard for me to get excited for a new Borderlands
like since two pretty much. But yeah, hearing your enthusiasm
for it's definitely like I was just kind of like
indifferent to four up until this point pretty much, but yeah,
I am more likely to give it a shot now,
and it does it does sound like they're doing some
cool stuff.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to it. And it
was fun because, like I also got to know a
lot of these developers and like they most of them
have been there for like at least a decade, if
not more. Like the creative director was like a level
designer on Borderlands one, and like the art director has
been there, like working at Gearbox since before border Lane,
Like he was involved with like the the art direction
change and everything like that. So like it's really really
like they had that institutional knowledge that I think that
like a lot of studios unfortunately don't have too much
of these days, with like the state of the industry
and everything, where it's like people being you know, laid off,
studios being closed. You know, Gearbox has been around for
a while now, and a lot of their more senior
people have been there for almost as long as the
studio has been open, at least as long as they've
been working on Borderlands. But there's also a fair injection
of newer talent as well that I was able to
talk to. So it's cool to get both sides of
that of like some of the people being like, oh yeah,
Like I got into the industry because I love playing
Borderlands one and two when I was like in high
school and now here I am working at the studio,
and then like you know, other people, it's like, oh yeah,
I was the reason that we changed the art style, right.
I worked closely with Randy when we were changing the
art style for Borderlands one. And you know, if you
don't know the story behind that, I will have a
story on why they did that. If you recall, Game
Informer actually had Borderlands one on the cover back when
it had a completely different art style, it almost looked
more like, I would say, like closer to what Rage
was like if you looked at like in Software Rate. Actually, yeah,
so it was like a kind of more a straight
laced style, which I don't think would have gelled well
with the writing and like tone of the game overall.
It was called Pandora originally, and they changed it to
Borderlands before they launched, and when they changed the art style,
and I talked to Randy, I talked to Graham, who
was the creative director of Borderlands four.
Speaker 2: He was.
Speaker 3: I asked him the little teaser. I was like, hey,
what was your thought when like, you know, Randy came
in the room, was like, hey, guys, I know we're
like getting closer to finishing this game, but we have
to change the entire art style. And his first answer
was and I'll censor myself here, effing insane was was
what he thought of that decision initially, but now like, yeah,
it's absolutely the right choice because like look at where
the series is now. So yeah, I'll have a story
on that in the coming weeks as well. Over on
Gaminformer dot com got some other more in depth stuff
stuff on like the Timekeeper, stuff on the seamless open world,
in depth hands on impressions of all the Vault hunters.
So lots of exclusive coverage coming this month to game
Informer dot com.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Yes, keep an eye out for that cover story
when it gets those mailboxes. Thank you so much, Brian,
And moving on, Kyle Hilliard. For a long time, I
was the coolest person in this office because I had
gone to Kajuma Productions and played thirty hours of Debt
Stranding two for a big preview event, and I knew
so much about this game that you guys didn't know,
and I could flaunt that on you, but you have,
much like Sam Porter Bridges, you have ascended the mountaintop
and have kicked me off of it because you have
finished Death Stranding too. You know way more about it
than I do now at this point, and you have
boasted your review. I know it all. Yes, you know
the secrets of the beach and the dooms and the
Kyriellium and all the other weird words that written that game.
Speaker 2: A pass and APAC and the UAC. Yeah, all that stuff,
lots of acroning that game.
Speaker 1: Hung out with a talking doll and a mannequin for
hours an hour.
Speaker 2: I know why that guy that Hydeo Kojima insists is
important and keeps showing us.
Speaker 3: I know why he's important.
Speaker 1: All right, Well tell us all about a desk randing too,
your review now live on the side. What did you
think of a game? Where are you at with it?
Speaker 3: Which, by the way, Marcus, you're still cooler than me,
just like in general.
Speaker 1: Yeah I was.
Speaker 3: I was actually gonna point that out that Marcus fact
cooler than Kyle.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, and you've also you know hung out with
Hideo Kojima in his purgatory room.
Speaker 1: I think I hung out. I think it's stood.
Speaker 3: Next to him for a photograph. Is that is that
room truly as bright as it looks the picture?
Speaker 1: It is blindingly bright, especially because the rest of the
office is pitch black, like black walls, black carpet, black doors.
So when they do the double door reveal, it is
literally like you have stepped into through the gates of
heaven and your soul is being cleansed as you step
into the room.
Speaker 3: So it's like whenever it can when when like the
video game has it, so like the door opens and
like it's outside and there's like that white effect for
a second while your eyes adjust.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I was literally like for the first few like minute,
I was squinting my eyes standing in a room like
we were outside. It was very much like, oh, the
this is brighter. This is even brighter than it looks
in all those pictures and videos.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, we're spending a lot of time talking
about rooms that we entered before actually talking about the
thing people want to hear about. Like that's kind of
the theme of this episode. Brian going into the cold
room Marcus going into the white room that like you
have to go into that room to enter Kojima Productions, right,
Like that is that like the entrance, you know.
Speaker 1: It's like it's own, it's like down a hallway, but
you do have to go to it. There are secret
doors to get to, like two secret conference rooms that
are like basically the same but different colors and maybe
slightly different furniture. And according to the tour guide, it
was just saying like it's just kind of mood base
whenever one Kajima wants to use for like a meeting
or if he has to take a call with some
celebrity he's trying to scan into the game. He's like, yeah,
this is the this is the white lounge room. This
is when he's just feeling contemplative today or something. We'll
come in here and we'll do our thing. But on
the other side there's a black one, and that's when
he's in a different mood. It's like that's the.
Speaker 2: Room he goes to when he tries to figure out
how many things the word kyrillium can be applied to,
and it just sort of like.
Speaker 3: Wave off just.
Speaker 1: Writing down every variation of kyrill Kyrol Network, Chirole Animals, Kyrol.
Speaker 3: You know, I am so happy that he is enigmatic,
or as enigmatic as he is to us, to his employees,
like it sounds like they're like, yeah, Kojima's doing Kojima,
Like let him be Yeah.
Speaker 1: But yes, death Stranding too. Is this a good game
with all of the weirdness they get into it? Is
this a good game? Kyle?
Speaker 3: Yeah?
Speaker 2: I like Death Stranding two on the beach. I gave
it an eight point seventy five, which the way I
described it when Matt Miller most recently asked me is like, yeah,
how would you land on that?
Speaker 3: It didn't quite crest.
Speaker 2: You know, once you hit that like nine sort of zone,
Like this is like they're getting knocking this out of
the park. There's like I have very little complaints. I
was enraptured the whole experience. Like I was just south
of that string it.
Speaker 1: Was almost a nine. But then you lost your balance
and sort of tilted to the right and sort of
like stumbled.
Speaker 2: And fell a little bit and just tumbled and lost
all my packages. Yeah. Yeah, death Stranding overall is kind
of It's an odd one for me. Like I love
Hideo Kojima. I'm part of the problem, I like to say.
You know, like I know that people have their qualms
with him, and it's like it's all so there's also
that issue of like him being like a self proclaimed
kind of a tour and you know, arguably not giving
like the larger team enough credit, you know, because he
does work with writers and stuff like that, and obviously
these games wouldn't exist about a larger team. Like I
totally agree with all that, but like there is there
is there's like a tone, there's an emotion that comes
from a Judeo Kojima game, you know, and I and
I love it, Like I love the Metal Gear Solid series.
I said as much in my review, Like Metal Gear
Solid two is like even not even just like one
of my favorite games, but like one of my favorite
pieces of fiction, like truly, like I just adore that
game so much, and like I it kind of perhaps
unfairly made me go into Death Straining two with all
really high expectations because it's like they are good as sequels,
you know, they are good at iterating on like a
core idea and then like twisting it on its head
and like really surprising you in in in unexpected ways,
which was kind of like, I mean, that's what Malgar
Solid two is. It is a game. It is a
game about being sequel and also about just playing with
your expectations to no end. Like every hour in that
game is like making you like suddenly be like, oh
my gosh, I didn't what is happening here?
Speaker 1: You know?
Speaker 2: And you know I didn't really get that from Death
Stranding too, right, It's it's it is iterative on the
first game in surprising ways, like there are you know,
the sequences where you are gosh, I'm trying to be
careful with spoilers for both games, but there's those sequences
where you kind of get you leave the world in
the first game and you're fighting Marcus helped me. The
actor's name? Who oh, Troy Baker's No, not Troy Baker.
The oh he's talking about not Solid Snake. Yes, yeah, yeah,
band gay guys. Yeah, why can't I talk? Why can't
I think of the actor's name? You guys know how.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm talking about it in the first.
Speaker 1: Game, Okay, I just the second game? Uh oh wait,
hold on, Matts Michaelson losing.
Speaker 3: My mind when man game Now, Mad's mechs. So I
actually have not played Death Straining one and I haven't
played Death Straining two. I knew Mads Michelson was in
the first game, and I almost shouted that out, and
then I was like, no, I'm gonna let the people
who know what they're talking about talk. So I could
have saved.
Speaker 1: But Matt Michelson is always the right answer. Brian just
shouted out, whenever you're in doubt, when you know something,
just say his name.
Speaker 2: I mean, obviously, but he like those sequences in des
Strating one, I think I think most people consider to
be kind of a weaker part of the game gameplay wise,
when you go and you have to sort of face
Mad's Michelson's character, and there's a lot of interesting story,
you know, implications that come from all those sequences. And
I was surprised when Destraating two actually has like a
new version of that, right, Like it's like an iterative
version of that where it's like, oh, I'm kind of
doing this again with different characters, Okay, Like I was
sort of surprised by that, and like the sort of
structure of doing deliveries and stuff feels very similar but
is improved in many ways.
Speaker 1: Can I also just real quick the first again without spoiling,
the first instance of doing the thing you just described
where you go to a different place to deal with
a person is incredible. Like it's the only one that
I saw during my thirty hours preview. But it's like, yeah, visually,
in presentation wise, it is like unbelievable.
Speaker 3: It's it's very let me ask you, yes, so when
you're talking about that, and you may be able to
get into this a little bit more once we talked more.
But is this the game that's going to make people
want to upgrade to a PS five pro. I played
on a standard and I thought it looked amazing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it looks a yeah preview, the preview was on
a standard PS five two when I went to the office. Yeah,
it looks, it looks and runs. Well, it's the it's
the Death of Engine too, which powers the Horizon games,
and those look fantastic on DACE PS five. Okay.
Speaker 2: The game opens in a way that's very like and
there's there's in the beginning. Uh, it actually has real
life footage right of like environments that look like they
could belong in Death Stranding, and the transition into gameplay
is like barely noticeable, Like it took me a minute
to be like.
Speaker 3: Wait is that real footage? Wait? Is this gameplay?
Speaker 2: And it like it like it took it takes a
second to realize in a complimentary way that it's like
when you shift over to gameplay, like the game looks amazing.
I mean to answer your question, Brian, I guess the
answer is no, because like it looks great on PS
five that's how That's how I played it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, even on performance mode, which is what I personally
recommend playing is you get the smooth sixty, but like,
at least for me, the like graphical quality like takes
a minor hit, Like I think it's worth worth switching
to that just to get the extra frames.
Speaker 3: You're among friends here with that, Marcus, because Kyle and
I think are very aligned on that as well, Like
it's almost always worth doing performance mode over like the textures,
I'll always go performance.
Speaker 2: Absolutely, Yes, scrudles textures. What we say, who needs textures? Yeah?
But yeah, I mean you've got me out of like
another sidetrack. You're like thinking about how visually interesting that
whole sequences, Marcus, that you'll see when you play the
game when everyone will see But like that's a big
thing about this game. It's like it's so imaginative and
dream like and it's like visuals, like it doesn't really
and they do define things right, It's it's not like
I'm not like waving my hand and be like this
doesn't make any sense. The weird thing about Death Stranding
is like characters just monologue at you endlessly and explain
everything about its world, to the point where it's like
I would argue that Death Stranding is actually like it's
not that it's easy to understand. It's just that it's
like they just tell you everything, and especially now that
you have the resource where you can like read everything
that you've like maybe potentially like the interactive encyclopedia that
they basically took from Final Fantasy sixteen's like taking, which is.
Speaker 3: A good idea.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Yeah, Like I every time someone would say a
word that maybe you like, like I kind of vaguely
remember that, it would be like, do you want to
like read about that word? You can hold down pause now,
And I took advantage of that almost every time, Like
it was nice to just get a.
Speaker 3: Little little thing.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so it didn't feel as as different from
Death Stranding one as I expected, which was maybe an
unfair expectation on my part. It does feel iterative in
a way, but like everything is like better, right, Like
I think the package delivery feels better. I like Australia
more than the than the United States. I think it's
like easier to travel through. You get a vehicle very
quickly in Death Stranding too, and like I rarely traveled
on foot again after that point, yeah, which is like
I think it's just kind of a choice that you
can make because I mean the game is very much
designed around like you can walk everywhere, and that's part
of the fun of like building ladders and like pulleys
and stuff, but as like you can also just get
on a motorcycle and just drive there quickly.
Speaker 1: Again, it's like that stingy about vehicles either, like they're
like no, no, no, we're not going to be like you
should be walking. Really, it's like no, no, you want
a big old truck. Here have all the trucks you want.
Speaker 3: So so, Kyle, I mean, there's a lot of mission.
Let me ask you this. I know you and I
have a shared love for Breath of the Wild when
you play Breath the Wild, because I've heard some people
compare Death Stranding one to Breath the Wild in terms
of like the exploration and everything. How do you get
through the world and breath the world? Do you walk
or do you ride a horse? I teleport, but like
you if you're just if you're exploring, do you like
walk and run around or do you do you get
on a home?
Speaker 1: I rarely used a horse, and a lot of it
is just because the horse controls aren't super great compared
to other games. Otherwise I probably.
Speaker 2: No, Marcus, they don't hit trees. I don't know if
you know that they're very smart. Okay, they're geniuses. This
is a very that's a very old reference to like
a version of Breath of the Wild that doesn't even exist.
Speaker 3: Three people understand that reference. One of them is the
other one is me. You know.
Speaker 2: It's it's interesting that people compared to Breath the Wall
because I really wouldn't because it's like it's so it's
so point A to point b right like, and it's
like it's to go off and explore. You don't really
get a lot from doing that, Like if you stray
from your there's not a ton of reason to do
it other than to maybe find packages that you could
deliver somewhere else, so that it Yeah, I don't know
if that that comparison holds up to me, other than
it's like an open world and you have a lot
of weird tools that you can use to get through
it in different ways however you want. But like a
lot of the time, it's like you're barely making it
to your destination right, like you're the battery's almost out
on your car, or you're like your robot legs, or
you're like your shoes are running out. And like I
did like much less so indestering two than one. I
would still hit points where I was like one of
the ones that really frustrated me was I was driving
a car through a river which wasn't very deep, but
and you know this is on me, but my battery
died in the middle of the river, and so like
what I had to do was like, okay, let me
get I got out of the vehicle and it was
like you know, you know, walking through the water, and
I got to the coast and I set up a
battery so I could charge my car. But because my
car in like the middle of the river. I just
had to lay down on the ground and rest, and
I literally walked away from the system for a while
so that the solar panels on the car could recharge
it enough just for me to back up and like
recharge my car. And those moments were kind of like
those are that's just kind of annoying, Like it's not
really fun or makes it more like intense.
Speaker 3: It was just kind of obnoxious.
Speaker 2: Interesting, then you do you do also have those moments
where it's like where you do like your battery barely
makes it to the destination and it's like and like
I had a couple of just amazingly close calls and
I was just like, man, this this does feel good.
And you're like covered in dirt and blood and you
drop off that package and you go take a shower
and you rest, you know, and then you're back at
it again. It's like those moments feel really.
Speaker 3: Good and cool.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, I almost disagree, but it's a
personal taste. Where like the times where I had, like
I when I was playing the preview build, I had
a similar instance where I crashed my truck and it
got stuck on some rocks, and I couldn't dislodge it,
and it had a bunch of stuff in there, so
I was like, oh, I need to go get a
tool to get these out, and I kind of liked
and also it ran out of battery, so I needed
to rest first. And I kind of like find that
charming because there's something about like the Delivery Boy fantasy
of like, oh, things like this are going to go
wrong and you just kind of have to either deal
with it, but like, yeah, I kind of like improvise,
and there's it's like a vibe whereas like I kind
of like just sitting around here and just wait for
the sun to go up and waiting for my thing
to recharge and then I'll keep resuming. Like but I
think you also have to be like if you're not
in a big rush, like this is a game that
is like and I don't know, you had to play
it for a review embargo, so you kind of have
to keep things moving. But I think if you don't
have that over you, I think is one of those
games are like I think you do yourself at the
service if you try to just blow through it. Because
I think a lot of the best feeling of the
game in between the crazy story moments and the cool
like firefights are just like vibe in the world, Like
I'm just gonna put some woodkid on and my sound
little playlist. I'm just gonna just take my time just
getting through this world. I'll get to my destination when
I get there, and whatever weirdness happens along the way happens,
you know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And I kind of like not really, I'm just
not really that kind of player though, sure, No, Like
I just and you're right, like it is just kind
of player preference and personal like like I I kind
of approach every delivery like I gotta get this pizza
to this like this this cartoon scientist lady, Like if
she doesn't get this pizza, like, the world is like literally,
we're gonna go extinct. Like that's kind of the stakes
of death stranding.
Speaker 1: It's a really important pizza.
Speaker 2: You don't like genuinely extinction events are like right around
the corners. Like but but I mean there is like
undeniably those moments where like the music swells and you're
like just walking up to these like really beautiful sort
of settings and it's like that game. The mood of
that game is crazy the like like the vibes of it,
that's the design of everything. It's just like it feels
like almost like a music video or something where it's
like it's just really interesting visuals for the sake of
interesting visuals, and like I think it really is cool.
And you know, that's to say, like it's there's a
big improvement over sort of the mechanics of Deus Straining
one in my opinion, right, Like, I think the game
is a little like easier. I think it's like more
fun to play. It's like there's less hurdles in your
way to get those things done, which I like. But
in a weird way, I think some people might see
it as like the the you know, the heart edge
is being shaved off of death Stranding. But I quite
appreciated it. Yeah. And then and then the sort of
like I don't know, I my my negativity starts kind
of with the story, but not not to the point
where I'm saying, like I wouldn't say it's like bad
or not engaging, right, Like the sort of the narrative
of the game is still much more interesting than I mean,
bluntly like most video game stories, Like there's just a
weird universe that's been established here, but it's weird in
a way that it's like it makes sense until there
are occasions where it doesn't, and it really does like
it's just being weird for the sake of being weird, sure,
which is like metal Gear has a lot of weird
stuff in it. But the thing I've always loved about
metal Gear is that like there's almost always some kind
of explanation for why these there's a reason there's a
vampire in metal Gear solids. But I'm not saying it's good.
I'm saying it exists, right, But there were at least
and like I'm I'm excited to have like spoiled discussions
with people in the future. I'm not going to spoil
any story stuff or deaths running too here, but there
are at least like two or three moments where I'm like, talk,
let's talk about this and you and I try to
figure out what why this happened this way? Yeah, you
know what I mean, Like, I'm looking forward to having
those discussions. And there are like a lot of there's
a lot of like big twists and revelations that just
like just didn't do it for me. Really, you know,
and I was like, there's there's some cool ones, and like,
I really like the last couple hours of the game,
the last couple chapters are really engaging and like just
visually really impressive, and like, I really it does. I
was joking with Brian as I was working on the review.
I was like, yeah, here's here's where I feel about
it right now. But I haven't gotten the ending, and
Hideo kojim is really good at endings, so like we're
gonna we'll see how this goes. And like Death Stranding
two as a great ending, like which isn't very surprising,
but I just like I just never felt quite as
like like surprised or emotionally invested as I did in
previous co Gama games or even Death Stranding one. Sure
if I'm being honest, but there is there is some
really great stuff.
Speaker 3: And like also, like performances are kind of inconsistent from.
Speaker 2: The actors because there's a there's this weird thing where
there's like they have actors like Ellie Fanning and of
course you know, the the leash was that LEAs say
do they are They're they're sort of captured for the game,
and they're doing the performances and those characters are good,
but then they have someone like George Miller, who they scanned,
you know, the director of Mad Max. He plays like
a primary character in the game, but his performer or
just feels not I mean, I don't mean to be rude,
but they just like doesn't live up to the other
actors in the scenes usually sure, right, it's I don't
know if it's because of that separation where they're having
an actor portray you know, someone else visually and it
just doesn't fit or well. I feel kind of the
same about Dead Man as well. Even in the first game.
I kind of felt that way. Who was like Germo
del Toro's body with someone else's voice. Yeah, Like that's what, Like,
does it sound like George Miller if you listen to
like interviews with George Miller and cause, oh yeah, no,
I'm yeah, they got like an Australian Because George Miller
is a really fascinating guy that I adore and I
was really excited to see him in the first row.
Speaker 3: It's like, oh my gosh, that's George Miller.
Speaker 2: Because he's like this, like he's like a former doctor
turned film director. He's like everyone who has ever talked
about it and says he's a real sweetheart, and like he's
just this kind of like grandfatherly figure. Like here you
always seem interviews he's wearing like glasses and he always
has like the chain oh like around like he's always
had that like his whole life. Well, it's like and
like they have an Australian actor playing him, or there's
someone who's doing a pretty good Australian accent maybe, but
it just there's there's a disconnect there that I just
kind of pulled me out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean because like I've interviewed Sam Lake multiple times.
I've had lunch with him, and when I was in
Remedy for the Control cover story, I've had a drink
with him after the Game Awards. So like I've had
multiple conversations with Sam Lake in person. So when I
play Alan Wake two and I see Sam Lake in
that game, but you know, or I play Max Payne
one or two and I see Sam Lake in that
game and a different voice is coming out of his
mouth and it's not even like a finish accent. It
is just like a flat out American accent. It's like, Wow,
that's jarring. So I didn't know if they just tried
like a completely different voice, or if they went for
something that was approximating what George Miller sounds like.
Speaker 2: They tried, they tried to find someone, and they did
the same for Gammel del Toro. And you know, honestly,
I mean, this is a whole separate conversation, but I
don't really love an Alan Wake how they have voice
actors and performers and then they meshed the perform I
don't really like that either. I don't think that really works.
But yeah, then there's stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, I I.
Speaker 2: Don't like Higgs in depth stranding one. I think Troy
Miller is an amazing Troy Baker. Yeah, Troy, this is
Troy Baker's character. I think he's a fantastic actor, and
I even think his performance as Higgs is good. He
makes some really strange choices for Higgs, and I'm sure
Kojimo was like, yeah, let's do it, you know, but
he doesn't.
Speaker 3: I don't like him.
Speaker 1: It's like, at least he's like, I mean, I don't know,
you've seen more of him. It was like I could
not stand him in the first game. I just thought
he was just insufferable and also just not interesting, whereas
in this game, at least from what I saw of
him during my preview, but I was like, well, at
least they just went crazy and we're just like, what
if he's just a weird cyborg like ninja clown guy
with a guitar, And it's like, maybe just the sheer
silliness of it will just carry it FORGA Is like, yeah,
that's that is I guess more interesting of a at
least surface level wise like villain to deal with.
Speaker 2: But it's a note that I've always loved that you
gave me once, Brian, that I have totally I think
maybe might have given it to you. But sometimes the
word interesting just means like you just don't want to
say the word bad, you know, sure, I mean I
like it's just a way to kind of be like
it's like I don't have anything good or bad to say,
but I don't, you know, so I'll just say interesting.
And that's kind of how I feel about Higgs Man,
like I kind of I just don't I feel similarly
about him as I do in the first game. But
he there's more more to the game than Higgs, right,
There's more there's a lot more going on than him.
Speaker 1: That's good. Do you like the before you wrap up?
The other big thing with this game is just the
combat improvement. So how do you feel about uh fighting
and destrating two compared to the first game?
Speaker 3: Yeah, it felt a lot better.
Speaker 2: Like those those mad Michelson sequences that we're kind of
talking about, you know, which which have there's a version
of those in the new game. Those are a lot
more fun and interesting getting stopped by you know, the
evil Porters or whatever you want to call them, or
like coming across their their their locations is a lot
more like it's it's less of a burden because in
Death Straining one, you're just like, I gotta deal with
this again. Yeah, in two, it's like it's a lot better,
like all the none of the guns kill people, like
which is just text, right, that's just like coloring that
They just right in there, but it just makes it's
just a little thing that's like okay, well all right,
then now I feel like I can just unload and
have more fun and there's just a lot more options.
It feels close. I'm not it's not as a high.
It's not as high bars Mell you're solid five, right,
But there's it's at least closer to that in the
sense that, like you have a lot more tools and
combat options and things like that. But I I still
just enjoyed kind of going in guns blazing all the time.
And I had a good time doing that, Like it
was fun and like and fighting the sort of the
bosses and stuff that like will pounce on you in
the in the middle of a delivery and stuff like that.
Stuff's a lot more fun too, because the guns just
feel a lot better. Yeah, So yeah, I mean that's
like mechanically, I think it's like it would be really
hard for me to go to ever go back to
death stranding one. But and and so like there's definitely
improvements there. The sort of the shortcoming for me is
like though I like the narrative and I look forward,
I'm gonna be thinking about it for a long time
and I look forward to sort of the larger discussions
about you know, what it's trying to say and what
are the potential meanings and like the weirdness of it all.
It just it did underwhelm me a little bit, sort
of sort of the narrative and the big the big
moments and twists. Just did not like hit super hard
for me. But yeah, I gave an a point sim five.
You can read the review on the website right now.
Speaker 3: It's I like it. I do like it more than
the than the first one for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Awesome.
Speaker 3: Not the story though. Wait, I'm trying to think back.
What did I say?
Speaker 2: I do prefer death Stranding one's story, but mechanically I
prefer Death Strainding two and the stories there's a lot
of there's a lot of fun stuff in Death Straining too,
for sure.
Speaker 1: Awesome. Well, yeah, go check out Kyle's review on Gameeformer
dot com right now, real quick, because we promised this
last week. I've been playing I guess for the last
few months really Lost in Random The Eternal Die, which
released last week. This is the sequel to Lost in Random,
which was a third person like kind of supernatural almost
like Tim burtany adventure game.
Speaker 2: It looks it looks cool. Yeah, yeah, do you guys
ever play it? I've never finished it. I ice scare me.
Speaker 3: I don't want to. I don't want to throw dice.
Speaker 1: That's a good bit of war and want to find
out about you. Yeah. So this is a well, I
don't know if maybe you'll like this one better because
it is a completely different game in almost every way.
It's it's a completely different developer this time around, and
instead of being like the first game was a lot
more of a just a traditional third person sort of
like action adventure game that kind of blended card based
combat with dice rolls because you had a sentient dice
buddy that you could throw and like basically do different
effects depending on what you roll.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 1: Now it's basically at Hades, it's the game. Hees, Yeah,
which I it's it. I I hate to sound reductive
like that, but it really is, like you know, like
I think the preview I wrote like a month or
so ago, I called it like the Hades effect of
like that game has been around long enough now where
we're seeing a lot of its best ideas sort of
like appear in other roguelikes, whether it's like how they
tell their story or just the sort of like the
boons that Haiti does like using that it's sort of
like a template for how they dish out powers. I
think Lost in Random the Eternal Die is one of
the more sort of like I guess, like blatant sort
of like examples of like yeah, we really like Hades,
and not necessarily in a bad way like it is.
So the premise of the game is that it's technically
built as a standalone sequel, but you're playing as the
antagonist from the first game, a queen Alexandra who gets
betrayed by the Black Dice and is turned into a
child and so, but she also has her own dice
buddy named Fortune, and you're pretty much just trying to like.
Speaker 3: Regain Fortune for Metal Gear Solid too.
Speaker 1: Yes, she's back as a dice. It just is just yeah, yes,
and you're just trying to kind of reclaim like everything
that you've lost. So you're going on it's like this
isometric you know, top down view. You're going around these
like like the villain you're fighting has kind of dropped
you in this ever shifting sort of like world that
challenges you that kind of like contextualizes why you're It's
a roguelike thing that like, oh ever room changes you
go every time you do a new run, and you
know the enemies will respawn. You're fighting the bosses over
and over like it, and it's doing the haities thing
of like in between runs you're going back to a
central hub called a sanctuary, where you're filling it out
with these characters that you're meeting during run. Some of
them are from the first game, most of them are
brand new, and you're getting like bits of new story
every now and then when you talk to them, and
then every time you reach a boss that you beat before,
there might be some new dialogue exchanges where you're like, oh, yeah,
I'm back. I remember when we fought last time, and
I would say, like for to its credit, the combat
and the movement feel pretty good, Like it's very quick.
You're like zipping around just like doing hacking slash combos
with your sword, kind of like the first game, you're
throwing the fortune the dice buddy at enemies, and the
big difference is like instead of having all of your
combat options dictated by cards, instead, the cards are now
basically serve as the sort of like perks or boons,
where you can only have one card at a time
and each just have a specific effect of like oh,
you know, now you can activate a separate attack unless
you shoot fireballs or you have lightning powers. Now it's
just sort of just like you have one powerful attack
that can be upgraded over time, and you can switch
out cards as you find them, but you can only
have one. I'd say like the like the it feels
good to play overall, but it does feel like I'm
a huge Hades and like I the first game was
my game of a year when it came out, and
I've loved what I've played of Hades two, which is
still an early access right now. It I've not ben
or even gotten like totally halfway through Lost and Random
the Eternal Die, but it does feel, I guess, like
lacking compared to how much just how much sheer content
there is in the Hades games of just like all
these this the insane amount of power ups and weapons,
and and also like story stuff like the just these
sheer amount of just dialogue and conversations and just like
sort of like story moments that you can find. There's
a bit of that in this game, but it just
feels like maybe like a degree or two less just
because of like the game just has a smaller scope,
which is fine, but I think if it, like if
you're coming from Hades to this, you might feel like, oh,
this doesn't feel like nearly as robust as what I'm
used to playing that game. The thing that I think
is the most unique about it is sort of the
there's a uh, I don't remember what they call it,
but there's a progression system where you're finding these sort
of like relics and they basically like boost up your abilities.
And the way you do it is that you get
these relics and they're all color coded, and you're placing
them on a board like a grid, and you're basically
when you get one you don't like immediately get the ability,
you have to do like a match three where you
have to find two more relics of the same color
and do like either three across or three horizontal, and
when you mash them all up, you get all of
the sort of perks tied to those relics. And so
since they're being doled out randomly, you're kind of having
to try to decide whether what you want to hold
on to of like, Okay, I've got two red, I
should probably get the next red if it comes up.
But if it doesn't and I get like a maybe
the next best one I have as a yellow, maybe
I should put the yellow further down to grid so
it doesn't get it a way of the match three.
I'm trying to build my reds, and some of them
are dual colored, so you can like work on two
different types of power ups at the same time if
you match them correctly. Like that's like a more like
that's a pretty cool thing. Like I'm still like wrapping
my head around it, but like just sort of the
strategy of trying to plan ahead and sort of create
like somewhat of a specialized build of your character just
based on sort of like the luck of the draw
of whatever you get with which colors, which hasn't been
too i guess disruptive maybe because there's not like there's
only like four, four or five different colors, so it's
like you don't really go too too long before you
find the one that you need, but just long enough
to worry you do have to make adjustments if you're
just getting every other color but the one you're trying
to get, and then maybe you'll match up and wind
up creating a different build than the one that you
were gunning for revisionally, which might still be fine, But
other than that, it's been for me, like it has
been a like totally fine incompetent like action rogue light
that maybe this might be an indictment or a goblin.
I guess it depends on how you want to take it.
Like it's it feels like an appetizer because I'm not
playing Hades two right now, Like I've played enough and
I'm just sort of waiting for it to go one
point zero before I really dive back into it.
Speaker 3: But in the meantime, it's like a good appetizer though, right, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh this is like here's like just a
finished one of these that is totally like it's fun
on its own merits. It's you know, it doesn't it
does not hit so far the the heights that Hades does,
but it's doing like enough of what that game does
well to sort of you know, still be like an
enjoyable time. And yeah, that's kind.
Speaker 2: Of where I'm at with it, Like, oh, this is
this is totally solid, totally solid, like little weird shake
up for this for this series.
Speaker 3: Well, the good news is that I don't know if
you saw the news last week, Marcus, but Hades two
is like kind of in the final phase of development
before one point zero.
Speaker 1: I believe that I did not see that. That's good
to know. I mean they said that that was coming out,
I mean, or at least imply that it would be
out before the end of the year, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it seems like they are like, yeah, we're
getting ready to like basically launch this thing, is what
they were saying.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, it's good to know soon and hopefully yeah,
Lost and Random fans, I guess, but yes, that's that's awesome.
Speaker 1: Yeah and Lost in Random. The Eternal Die is out
now and launched last week on pretty much everything PlayStation, Xbox,
in PC. Yeah. I think it's we're checking out if
you're maybe need something like need something in between, uh,
waiting for Hades, or if you just want like a
totally solid action roguelike.
Speaker 3: Yes, cool, real.
Speaker 1: Quick before we wind down the show, Uh, Brian, I
want to talk to you about the Switch too, because
I heard that you're you like Nintendo.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I mean there's yeah, and you know, yeah,
there are some evidence to suggest that I keep up
with the comings and goings of Nintendo as a company.
So I have been playing a lot of Switch to
not as much as I would like to, because I've
been busy with life and also a review game. I've
been playing The Alters for review and have been getting
stuck on multiple game breaking bugs, so.
Speaker 1: That Yeah, I know, we want to talk about it
this week, but we're so it's a save time. We'll
have to have you back on when you finish your
review and get your complete thoughts on it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm waiting for one of my second progress stopping
bug to be resolved. So saw that TBD on the
Alters review. But in the like the interim, I am
playing a lot of Switch to Mario Kart World Fantastic.
I think that that game, I don't know if it's
quite enough to surp Mario Kart eight Deluxe is the
best Mario Kart game. I think the uh the free
Rome stuff is a little bit lacking, but like the
courses themselves are top tier. The I mean, Rainbow Road
is I think the best Rainbow Road ever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I still haven't played. Actually I still have not
gotten to it. I've been working my way through the
Grand Prix, but I guess I haven't gotten to the
cup with you.
Speaker 3: You do have to unlock it, yeah, it's I just
kind of was doing it anyway.
Speaker 1: Oh it's not like in the existing.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you unlock it. That you you unlock the Special
Cup after you beat the other Grand Prix.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, good to know.
Speaker 3: I think I have two left, Okay, So yeah, that
Rainbow Road is phenomenal. And the music itself though, might
be my favorite part of this game, which sounds sounds
like maybe I'm like, you know, kind of docking the
rest of the package, but like, no, the music is
that good that, Like, I don't know if there's going
to be another game that comes out this year that
I'm going to like the music as much. And there's
been some good music so far. This just because you
haven't played dest Training too.
Speaker 1: Yeah, can you can you a wood Kid when you're
doing Knockout Tour?
Speaker 3: I mean I'm sure you could, but like you just
have to have your phone set up instead of But yeah,
like I'm really liking that. I thought that coming into
the Switch to, I was going to be like, oh,
I'm because I've been itching for the past few weeks
to play Breath the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom,
like replay them, and I thought for sure, like that
would be the thing that I would do with my
Switch Too. But what I'm finding myself doing instead outside
of Mario Karte World is starting a replay of Pokemon
Scarlet and Violet, and that is because it, like Breatha
Wild and Teers of the Kingdom ran fine on the
Switch one, they run better on Switch too by a
long shot, Like it runs fantastic on the Switch too.
But Pokemon Scarlet and Violet is almost a completely different
game because of how much better it runs. And it's
almost to the point where I feel like I want
to like re review the game, because I reviewed the
Switch one version gave it a good score even though
like the tech problems were were really bad. But I
maintain that, and I have maintained that since the Scarlet
and Violet came out that underneath all of those awful,
awful tech problems that you know they are, they border
on inexcusable, that's how bad they are. Oh yeah, there's
one of the best Pokemon games ever underneath all those problems.
And it's like, I want to go through that again
and see if it really does hold up to that
level of scrutiny, or if maybe I'm like kind of
you know, blowing it up in my mind of like, oh,
it would be so good if not for these tech problems.
I want to almost like you know, take the Pepsi
challenge and go in and see, like, all right, is
it actually that good? Or am I like kind of
like misremembering or like, you know, was I too like
caught up in wishful thinking? Back when I reviewed it initially,
I suspect that I that it was quite a good game.
It's just you know, on the switch one not so much.
But so that's actually what I've been spending the majority
of my time when I'm not playing Mario Kart World
on my switch to. But I've also been looking at
other stuff. Played a little bit of Street Fighter six.
I'm excited to have a version of that on the
go that isn't my steam Deck because the steam deck
takes up so much space in my backpack that you know,
it's gonna be nice to if I just am going
to be traveling light, like I'm going on a trip
this week, and I am excited to just bring my
switch to because it's a much lighter. It's a much
easier proposition to just bring your switch to than it
is like your steam deck, your switch, your laptop, all
that stuff. I'm excited for that, but also I've been
playing fast Fusion I've been, which you know is more traditional,
straightforward kind of racing game than Mario Kart World. But
I'm having a good time with that. There's there's plenty
of awesome third party games, but the problem is, I
don't know if you saw those headlines of like third
party games are not selling particularly well outside of Cyberpunk
twenty seventy seven on the Switch to well.
Speaker 2: And I don't even know if it is selling well
as much as it was the best selling you know
what I mean?
Speaker 3: Yeah, because like the early sales, Matt Piscatella over at
Sarkana previously NPD said that the sales were like Mario
Kart World number one. Unsurprisingly, these are these are physical sales,
by the way, Mario Kart World, Cyberpunk twenty seventy seven
and then Tiers of the Kingdom switched to edition, and
I could see why that is, Like there's multiple reasons.
Like the first reason I would say is like a
lot of these games are older ports. They like you know,
I think a lot of like people who bought the
Switch to Rite at launch, like lined up at Midnight
are probably the more dedicated gamers and they have probably
played games like Cyberpunk or Yakuza Zero if they wanted
to on like PlayStation or Xbox, and so I think
that that's hurting it. Also, there were no early reviews,
so like, I don't know about you, but when a
game came out on multiplatforms and it was a switch
one game, I was like, should probably wait for a
review for that specific platform, otherwise who knows how it's
going to run. I think there's more confidence instilled in
the Switch to by everybody at this point in terms
of like performance, but it's still a wild card, right,
Like you don't know, Like I from what I've heard,
all these games run well, but like does Sonic X
Shadow Generations? Is that going to perform well on switch Too?
And it does if you switch it over to performance mode,
I found, But there was that uncertainty for a lot
of people. So I think a lot of people were
just like, oh, I'll just get Mario Kart World and
then wait to hear after some reviews come out, or
you know, watch some YouTube videos of the performance or whatever.
So I think there's multiple reasons for why they're not
selling so well. But there are a lot of great
third party games, and you know, CIV seven is a
great example of that using the mouse controls and everything.
But yeah, I'm really enjoying my time with the switch too.
I'm just waiting for, you know, the next big games
like Donkey Kong or like Pokemon Legend Za or Metroid
Prime four. Those are gonna be the ones that I'm like,
really get me full on into, Like the Switch to
era right now, it just feels like, all right, I
have this device that can play a bunch of other
games that I've already played, but also Mario Kart World,
Like it's just basically a Mario kart World device if
I and I guess Pokemon Scarlet and Violet at this.
Speaker 2: Point, but I think that I think they renamed them
to Pokemon Functional and Working.
Speaker 3: That would be the perfect.
Speaker 1: Name for the next got a picture of that stupid
motorcycle looking Pokemon, but he's got like a thumbs up
and a bandage on his head, like it fixed me.
Speaker 3: I'm okay now, Yeah, So I'm very much enjoying the
Switch to so far. But it's like, all right, just
in that waiting period for more games to come out,
and you know, in three weeks, four weeks or whatever
it is, we'll have Donkey Kong Bonanza, so that is
looking very after after that direct, I am full steam
ahead for that game, absolutely, and of course I'm playing
what I know you guys are also playing.
Speaker 2: We're all playing this. It was like one of the
first things we all downloaded, which was of course say
with me anime it Evil six. Yeah, the Resident Evil
six on the Switch.
Speaker 1: Six.
Speaker 3: This is this a cloud version or is this like
a name?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: No, no, no no.
Speaker 1: I think I knew it was on Switch to begin with.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I bought it a while ago because I've never It's
the one that I the one like modern resid Evil
that I didn't finished when like half it the one
that got away, and I was like, if I have
it on Switch, I'll beat it. And I played through
Chris's campaign a couple of years ago on Switch one, and.
Speaker 3: I was like, and I was like, you know what,
I wonder if this feels.
Speaker 2: Better on Switch too, And it does actually, like it
does look and run a little better, And I was like,
do I just want to play this game just for
the completionists? And in me, you know, it's like it's
not it's the weakest Resident Evil arguably, but it's like
it's the one that I haven't checked off.
Speaker 3: So I played a little bit of Reseal six and
it's pretty good.
Speaker 1: Are you gonna stick with it?
Speaker 3: I mean it's not a good game, but it runs
pretty good, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: It's like, do you think you're gonna stick with it?
Are you gonna finish? Are you going? Because you need
to know the story?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Right right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, I I it's I'm jumping back and forth beween,
Yakuza zero and that, but much primarily more Yakuza Zero
cause I never played. Yeah, I was like, this will
be a great excuse to play it on my new system,
Like this will be the so I've been I think that's.
Speaker 3: Pretty securely my favorite Yakuza game. Yeah, it was actually
you telling me that.
Speaker 2: That kind of made me go like maybe this is
a good a good time to because I'm not gonna
if I'm being I'm not going to go back and
play the PlayStation version or whatever like it's but if
I have a new system, you know, it's like I
kind of have that fire under you to maybe do.
Speaker 3: You reviewed Yakaza Pirates in Hawaii or whatever it's called
Pirate yak Dragon Pirate yak so you're well familiar with Majima,
and he is the star that version of him, at least,
he is the star of yakas Zero by far.
Speaker 1: He's pretty great in that game.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean he's he's an amnesiac in Pirate Yakuza.
So like, I kind of don't know him, you know,
like I know a new version of him sort of.
Speaker 3: So I'm excited to meet him, assuming his personality traits
are very similar to how he is in every game
but Zero, I'm sure, yeah, probably, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can I say as we wind down? I had a
a commercial moment this weekend where I was on a
date and I took my We went to Barnes and
Nobles to do some book shopping, and I brought my
switch to because my date had not seen it.
Speaker 2: I was like, oh, we can play Mario Kart. So
we went barn at Barns and Noble. Yeah hell yeah,
and like and.
Speaker 1: We went to the you know, the little Starbucks it's
like in every Barns and Noble. We sat down in
one of the tables, popped up little switch too. Got
to use the little kickstand. First time I've gotten to
use the kickstand. H and played some like Knockout Tour
split screen. Uh. And as we're playing, having a good time,
and I guess business was slow because all of a sudden,
I feel a presence behind me and I turn around
and the like elderly barista is standing behind us, just watching.
And I don't know how.
Speaker 2: Long he was there, but the moment that I acknowledged
his existence, he looks down and goes, is that the
switch too?
Speaker 1: And I'm like I knew it, yeah, and he's like,
is that Mario Kart? And I'm like yep, and then
he just goes He just folds his arms and just
looks very quizzical and he goes, huh, I've heard about this,
And I didn't know if he meant like, have you
heard about Mario Kart specifically or the switch specifically or
both as a package. And then he proceeded to stand
there for like the next file like I thought we
were done, like oh yeah, it's such a h and
then and then he did not leave for like the
remainder of our race, and I had the moment of like,
this is a switch to commercial. This is every dumb
switch to commercial of like the people using a switch
to in a place that would seem probably improbable or
like not likely, and then like a stranger just being
way too interested in what the people playing the switch
are doing, and you go like, ah, nobody does that.
Speaker 3: And you're like, yeah, is this a switch to Yeah,
the all in one entertainment console from Nintendo.
Speaker 1: Pretty much like just just shive of masking, Like and
how much should you pay for that?
Speaker 3: Oh, a very low price of FO ninety nine.
Speaker 1: And then he takes off running in the other direction.
But yes, I thought i'd share that. Unfortunately I didn't
capture it, so I cannot send it to Nintendo's marketing department.
Speaker 3: Now, question though, is there a follow up date?
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it'll be all Yes, that was the coredition
you guys again.
Speaker 1: Relationship? Should I go back there and invite him? Do
you think he's the reason that there's a follow up?
Speaker 3: This guy has some impressive technology. The barista's blown away.
Speaker 1: Man, I gotta hang with this guy. He get random
strangers and talk to me about that.
Speaker 3: That really is though, the Switch one commercial where they
had the infamous rooftop party where they person brought ga
was it Mario Odyssey or whatever? Yeah, I thought their
single player game. Hey, everybody can watch me play video games.
Speaker 1: That reminds me. I wrote a feature a couple of
years ago where I went through every Nintendo Switched commercial
and I wanted to see every intens of a switch
being used outside of the house and did a checklist
of have I actually done this with my switch? And
like did a tally of like have I played it
at Elena rooftop? Have I played it at the gym?
Have I played it at like at a weird music recital?
Speaker 3: This is just green eggs and ham.
Speaker 1: You can say that. I recommend everybody go look that
up because I might have to do an updated version
for the switch to in like a year or two
when they make new commercials.
Speaker 3: I have not played game Chat with Paul Rudd.
Speaker 1: Well there's still time.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, pretty hold up. But yeah, that will do it.
Speaker 1: This week for the Game Informer show, thank you all
so much for watching and listening. One more time, I'll
reiterate you know. We've got our first issue of the
magazines as we came back, coming out. You can go
to GameInformer dot com slash subscribe to get your magazine.
Subscription is a wonderful way to support us. As well
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and who knows what we're gonna have on our next
cover coming up? We know, Oh but you got it? Yeah, yeah,
you can put your hand secret. Yeah, it's a big
secret at least for the next several weeks or so.
But promise is a good one and the only way
you're gonna find out is if you get a magazine subscription.
Darn it, but yes, we will be back next Thursday
with another episode. We will. Also you can follow us
on various social media channels such as Twitch. We're streaming again,
switch dot tv, Slash Game Informer, I was streaming FBC
Fire or Break last week. We're probably streaming something this week.
I'm probably doing desk trending. Maybe. Actually, now I think
about it, it might be a good one. Should yeah, yeah, so,
And of course we'll be relaunching Replay in the near future,
so keep an eye out for that. So excited, yes,
very excited. And of course you can find us individually
on social media as well. You can find me on
Blue Sky at Marcus Stewart seven, which is the number seven.
You can follow Kyle at Kyle H. Hilliard, I believe
still just just.
Speaker 2: Kyle Hilliard them for Blue Sky. Yeah, I'm able to
grab Kyle without them.
Speaker 3: It's very excited that M out of there.
Speaker 1: And you can also follow Brian Shay at Brian P. Shay.
The P is still there for you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I focus more on synergy across platforms. I did
have the opportunity to get Brian Shay and then it
was like, Nope, it's already been well established that is
my handle, so I'm gonna keep it. Keeping spell Brian
Shay without a P's true. I always say yes.
Speaker 1: And until next time. Thank you so much for watching
and listening to try to suscribe to us on YouTube
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podcast every week YouTube dot com slash game Informer and
we'll see you next Thursday with another edition of the
Game Informer show. Bye bye you