Speaker 1: Hey everybody, It's Thursday, September fifth.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Giant BombCast Revengeance Still brought to you
Speaker 2: by NZXT. I am your host, jan Ashoba, and I
Speaker 2: am recharged.
Speaker 3: I'm ready to.
Speaker 2: Rescue all of my friends. We're all hanging out in
Speaker 2: the desert, climbing on top of each other, using each
Speaker 2: other as ladders, platforms and ropes. Speaking about the biggest
Speaker 2: rope because he ties us all together, Jeff Crubb.
Speaker 3: If I was an astrobought that you define on a level,
Speaker 3: I would be in the suburbs level and I would
Speaker 3: be under the shingles on.
Speaker 2: My roof, a roof connoisseur and all things home improvement.
Speaker 2: The handiest man in games media, Dan Record.
Speaker 4: These are all things that people frequently say about me.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's right. You have a tool belt on you, Dan.
Speaker 2: What's what's in the tool belt?
Speaker 3: Cheesed the greatest tool of them all.
Speaker 4: The block can make like a doorstopper out of it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, wedge, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Speak about cheese. We got the dairy man himself, the
Speaker 2: Milkman of the podcast. He's bringing milk door to door
Speaker 2: to door to door, straight to you. We only got
Speaker 2: two percent. We don't got all the men. We don't
Speaker 2: got out that costs way too much turbo Shawn Sean McDowell.
Speaker 5: And we sure it's all don't have skim because that's
Speaker 5: just water. That's nasty.
Speaker 4: What he's doing is every other type of milk. Dan,
Speaker 4: you have no taste buds.
Speaker 2: And we have you.
Speaker 5: No, no, no, no, hang on, Hey, I'm not laying this coach. Dan.
Speaker 5: You said that Baha Blast and Baja Blast zero sugar
Speaker 5: tastes the same, and that's just wrong.
Speaker 4: So every diet soda and shoot soda test the exact
Speaker 4: same as their counterpart.
Speaker 6: I had a dream last night that all Doctor Pepper
Speaker 6: got replaced with diet Doctor Pepper, and then someone tried
Speaker 6: to tell me that that was not the case.
Speaker 3: Nobody getting shooting gaslighting yourself and your dreams.
Speaker 7: Yes about diet doctor Pepper.
Speaker 2: We have the Master Dreams agreeing with me. By the way,
Speaker 2: we just finished introducing everyone Master dream This is a
Speaker 2: fool Jan Yes maybe wow.
Speaker 4: I didn't know. I think Will Smith is a smart guy.
Speaker 2: I like how okay find Will Smith is great. I
Speaker 2: also blame Will Smith for my coffee problem, so I
Speaker 2: got but no beef. Really, thanks Will uh. Nikki Grayson
Speaker 2: is also here.
Speaker 4: Hi, Hello, what do you think about milk?
Speaker 3: That's all right, but I can't you know, someone if
Speaker 3: someone said to you that they looked at you and
Speaker 3: they thought you probably drank milk with dinner, kid, would
Speaker 3: you be a f I'm upset y Yeah, yeah, that's okay.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I'm upset.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, because like, no, why would you do that
Speaker 2: to me?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and then like legitimately actually, and then I'd be
Speaker 2: upset further because like, oh, did you mean a milkshake? No,
Speaker 2: I'm too poor to for a milkshake shake ass Yeah.
Speaker 3: Come on. It's gonna be one of those shows.
Speaker 6: About we did all the good stuff before the ship
Speaker 6: started and now and now what Yeah.
Speaker 2: Just because I looked away from like my camera doesn't
Speaker 2: mean that we stopped talking.
Speaker 6: Touching the microphone arm I can. I'm watching it dangle wobbling.
Speaker 2: No, so, folks at home audio listeners, you won't be
Speaker 2: able to see this, but people watching you can see
Speaker 2: my mic stand here. Let me just focus on this
Speaker 2: bad boy. It's technically all of its hinge, like what
Speaker 2: are you doing? And it's like a belcrow strip holding.
Speaker 3: It up he's waiting for more things to break before
Speaker 3: he orders and new one of these.
Speaker 2: That's what he's right, that's right. The gogglers almost there.
Speaker 3: Folks's bab I can't break the doggsler. Yeah, hey, give
Speaker 3: me your address.
Speaker 2: It took me forever to get a new desk and
Speaker 2: my I figured out that my desk had a hole
Speaker 2: in the middle of it. But anyway, huh, I got
Speaker 2: I got COVID.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, he did have COVID, so does Mike Manatti
Speaker 4: and I somehow don't despite the last thing I did.
Speaker 4: And see, I was hugged both of you, and I've
Speaker 4: tested twice and I seem to be fine this morning.
Speaker 4: So yeah, Dan, what.
Speaker 2: Kind of hugger are you? When you're hugging?
Speaker 4: Like's not a big hugger, but most people seem to
Speaker 4: do it. So I just kind of do the bare minimum.
Speaker 4: I just do the one arm round, like, ah, there
Speaker 4: you go, you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, he's a hesitant hugger, which is you know,
Speaker 3: you don't do it.
Speaker 4: You're not going to protest it. But it's just like
Speaker 4: I'm not one of the was like I gotta get
Speaker 4: in there, you know, sure, Yeah, yeah, it's weird. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't like that. Yeah, I'd rather just do a
Speaker 4: firm handschick to everyone or a high five.
Speaker 3: Yeah, we did a high five and like at the
Speaker 3: last like gathering at people we had and Dan was
Speaker 3: very excited that we were doing high five.
Speaker 4: Like, why aren't we all just doing that? This is
Speaker 4: not actually easy in and out.
Speaker 2: You know. One of the best high fives I had
Speaker 2: was with Dan in Germany after we saw the Chipotle poster.
Speaker 4: That's right, and we almost woke my cup. That's my
Speaker 4: biggest regret. We should have woke him up. It was
Speaker 4: really funny. He would have thought it was funny.
Speaker 8: Uh, Jet's Well, we'll also talk about the Zelda game
Speaker 8: that y'all saw at packs West, but special shouts out
Speaker 8: again to everyone that checked out both packs panels at PAS.
Speaker 2: West, the BCR where we did the Mount rushmore of
Speaker 2: gaming fish, and the Blake Club panel. I watched all
Speaker 2: of it yesterday and that's uh man, the we as
Speaker 2: a console huh.
Speaker 4: Great Manati immediately spilling water all over my cross.
Speaker 3: Yes, the yea, just like cost water at us.
Speaker 2: You think that's like Mike's uh like opening move, like
Speaker 2: you know, like instead of a pickup line. It's like
Speaker 2: a oops, could you do that at EVO?
Speaker 4: Like, could you just immediately when the fight starts just
Speaker 4: throw water in someone's face? They're like, you know, Fuji disk.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I think you may be disqualified for really show
Speaker 5: me the rule.
Speaker 7: Yeah, we're in the book and on the.
Speaker 5: Rule book where it says you know, misconduct dan.
Speaker 6: But it does if it doesn't explicitly say that you
Speaker 6: can't pocket stand another person.
Speaker 7: Yeah, that means that it's a low after I give.
Speaker 4: Me in the moment for it.
Speaker 5: Do you two things judges do?
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 4: Are there judges at EVO?
Speaker 5: Yes? For what.
Speaker 2: Has? Like you are like, I'm gonna thank you if
Speaker 2: I don't pocket.
Speaker 7: What if it's just a little pocket stand into their stick.
Speaker 4: Or gummy?
Speaker 2: What if you got what if in between rounds, say
Speaker 2: your head gets itchy and you each your head over
Speaker 2: your bones stick and a bunch of sand comes out
Speaker 2: because you have an.
Speaker 5: I think you might just get punched at that point.
Speaker 7: That's fine, Okay, Sean for whatever reason, down to me.
Speaker 5: Because everyone complaining that it's so too loud.
Speaker 2: No, no, no, you you go up. I'll bring you
Speaker 2: up and down. I'll be I'll be your Josh Grobin.
Speaker 4: Let's do a future where I try to win EVO
Speaker 4: by cheating.
Speaker 7: That's really good.
Speaker 4: Delete that you're where a form relationships dance. Like what
Speaker 4: if we just burn everybody?
Speaker 3: I think they would like it.
Speaker 1: I think.
Speaker 7: Come out there to do Ocean's eleven.
Speaker 2: This, Yeah, Oceans eleven EVO, but instead of like stealing something,
Speaker 2: we steal a competition.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I want to be I want to be the
Speaker 3: little guy that goes in the box from the Ocean's
Speaker 3: eleven team.
Speaker 6: Please, there should be steroid Olympics, and there should be
Speaker 6: it's called sheeting ego. But like yes, but like no
Speaker 6: one's they're not. Like I want to watch someone do
Speaker 6: gear and then swim one hundred meters.
Speaker 4: That would be awesome. Yeah, you know the lift stuff,
Speaker 4: throw stuff.
Speaker 7: Barrels, Yeah, barrels exactly.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we're really lacking as barrels in our modern day society.
Speaker 3: I did We did do that mini game in that
Speaker 3: family party. Thirty great games for the Black Club that
Speaker 3: people should watch that we did at packs and I
Speaker 3: think my favorite one was at the end of the day,
Speaker 3: the barrel tossing one that you threw over the back
Speaker 3: of your head. It maybe want to go through throw
Speaker 3: shoot barrels, although I know that'd be way too heavy.
Speaker 3: I would just fail at that.
Speaker 4: The first time I threw one, it would land on
Speaker 4: my head and I.
Speaker 3: Would exactly, Yes, I would die.
Speaker 2: How do y'all feel about those the new slapping shows
Speaker 2: like where it's just two stuff.
Speaker 7: Yeah, data white slap slap off.
Speaker 2: Right, and it looks very stupid, very dumb, very explanation here, dudes,
Speaker 2: just competitive slapping, turn based slapping. Yeah, I mean I
Speaker 2: I do think it's taking too long for people to
Speaker 2: get CTE. So I'm a fan, like, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 7: Let's cut out the middleman.
Speaker 3: Yeah, don't get right to it.
Speaker 2: How do you feel about the car combat show where
Speaker 2: two people are fighting inside a car?
Speaker 4: What I was not aware that I was not.
Speaker 3: That's just a family road trips to my family. Like
Speaker 3: that it on.
Speaker 2: TBS, like people are arguing or like metal No, like
Speaker 2: fighting in a car is one of them driving? No? No, no,
Speaker 2: it's it's it's a stationary car and they're fighting.
Speaker 3: It's like bang bus, but but for fighting.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's just.
Speaker 2: What you're wrong and you're not wrong, all right, Okay,
Speaker 2: there's no Yeah, what's it called. I don't remember the
Speaker 2: name of the show. I'm going to go google it.
Speaker 2: But folks, PCR today we are talking about We'll talk
Speaker 2: about Zelda later. Astrobot is now out. The review embargo
Speaker 2: is up in a folks. We have all been playing it.
Speaker 2: Everyone on the team has been playing it, including Dibb,
Speaker 2: who I believe Jeff Becklart said. Dibb said he was
Speaker 2: the first kid to beat it.
Speaker 4: It's the only cool thing he'll ever do. And it's
Speaker 4: the only thing I've ever agreed with dib on is
Speaker 4: that this game is great. Yeah, yes, all right, he's
Speaker 4: right now.
Speaker 2: Initial thoughts boys.
Speaker 4: One of the best games of all time.
Speaker 3: Yep, it's my favorite PlayStation game that they've ever made.
Speaker 4: Good as good as like any Mario game.
Speaker 3: Yes that lightly Super Mario Galaxy three is they made
Speaker 3: it in PlayStation put it on their council instead.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like I think it's between this and Odyssey
Speaker 4: for best platformer ever. And the fact that it's even
Speaker 4: like in the conference, like if somebody told me, like
Speaker 4: definitively like I think this game is better than Super
Speaker 4: Mario Odyssey. I need some more time to think about it. Myself,
Speaker 4: but I wouldn't be like that's a crazy thing to say.
Speaker 3: Had he said it's his favorite platform ever made, And
Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, that is completely sound and reasonable position.
Speaker 5: Yes, Yeah, that's interesting hearing that from you, because I
Speaker 5: know how much both of you guys love Mario platforms
Speaker 5: as I do myself. Jane kind of framed it this morning,
Speaker 5: was like even Sean like, so, I'm like, chan I
Speaker 5: speed around sixty four, what are you talking.
Speaker 4: About saying that?
Speaker 2: Like everyone, it appeals to everyone's tastes here.
Speaker 5: It definitely does. Like my my little tweet this morning
Speaker 5: that we were all pointing out our initial impressions. I'm
Speaker 5: only through like the second world because this conversation was
Speaker 5: scheduled for Tuesday, but someone needed to talk about it.
Speaker 3: We're doing it now. I got COVID. We got to
Speaker 3: talk about.
Speaker 5: It one more time. But I'm I'm one hundred percent
Speaker 5: as I go. It's how these kinds of games. So
Speaker 5: I was through, gave up, Yeah, through the first two worlds,
Speaker 5: and then through half of a secret thing to do
Speaker 5: a butt check.
Speaker 4: Then, so I five hundred percent of the first four
Speaker 4: and I'm at two hundred and seventeen by.
Speaker 5: Okay, yeah, I'm ninety something.
Speaker 3: I think I got credits, and I'm at two hundred
Speaker 3: and thirty. Okay, I'm at like, yeah, I met like
Speaker 3: twenty five and then there's three hundred total. So yeah,
Speaker 3: by the time Mike, I decided I was just gonna go,
Speaker 3: I was gonna go finish the game. Uh So, there
Speaker 3: were a handful of levels in the last Nebula that
Speaker 3: I'd never touched, and then there's several secrets that I
Speaker 3: just passed it that I'm gonna go back to.
Speaker 2: For folks curious, not all of the bots are named are.
Speaker 4: Named, Yeah, Like sixty seven are like PlayStation characters, and
Speaker 4: there's a bunch of j brones.
Speaker 2: Yeah jobbers. This came up in our our meeting yesterday.
Speaker 2: But then I had asked the crew of like, is
Speaker 2: it bad that I start to carry less about the
Speaker 2: regular astrobots.
Speaker 4: Look, they're building in the PlayStation five at the crash site.
Speaker 4: The rest are like hanging out and dealing with their gimmicks,
Speaker 4: you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I still really like the asteroids, but yeah, it
Speaker 3: is special when you get a named one, for sure,
Speaker 3: and there are some incredible deep cuts. I don't think
Speaker 3: we're going to spoil any of them, really know, we.
Speaker 5: Can't not to spoil.
Speaker 4: Yeah, okay, I just want to speak in generalities here
Speaker 4: and not spoil things. So there's like five main worlds here,
Speaker 4: and when you beat the boss of each world, you
Speaker 4: go to like one stage that is themed around a
Speaker 4: specific game each world has, like so World one is like, oh,
Speaker 4: here's this franchise, and the world too.
Speaker 3: We rescued that bot and then that bought takes you
Speaker 3: to their special world and then you get their power
Speaker 3: and play an equivalent like you play as them. Basically
Speaker 3: you can get mechanics. Well, it was in the trailer.
Speaker 4: So the one I guess we could say is you
Speaker 4: know the God of War acts where there was a
Speaker 4: part where like after a certain world, you you there's
Speaker 4: a credos so God of War kind of like level
Speaker 4: and you get the axe and then you have the
Speaker 4: like you know, you have the.
Speaker 7: Action and then you're playing God of War.
Speaker 4: Yeah. And then there are other Sony franchise including like
Speaker 4: some surprising ones, some deeper cuts that I was like, oh,
Speaker 4: that's fucking crazy they're doing this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. We said on Game of Mornings that I think
Speaker 3: if you had if we had chat try to guess
Speaker 3: all five that I think there's five. I don't think
Speaker 3: they would get them all. I know we would probably
Speaker 3: miss there.
Speaker 7: There's two of them that not in a million years.
Speaker 4: Especially World four. I was like, no way, you're a
Speaker 4: whole level, right, So that's just like that game. That's
Speaker 4: the thing.
Speaker 3: You know.
Speaker 2: There's one hundred and sixty named PlayStation characters, and they
Speaker 2: go deep into the well oh yeah, right.
Speaker 4: And ones that are like there's like all the first
Speaker 4: party ones you would expect of course, then there's ones
Speaker 4: where it's just like, oh shit, I thought I thought
Speaker 4: Sony forgot about this. I don't. I've never heard anyone
Speaker 4: talk about this in years, you know.
Speaker 3: And there's there's a lot of third party partner ones,
Speaker 3: like close third party games in there as well, Like you're.
Speaker 5: Atressive some of them that they got, yeah, yet some
Speaker 5: of it.
Speaker 6: And I'm so desperate, right, Like I think in a
Speaker 6: different world where we're game development, I think like the
Speaker 6: pipeline is more open, desperate for the to read the
Speaker 6: email chain where they emailed some of these studios and yeah,
Speaker 6: hey can we so you I know that you haven't
Speaker 6: touched this guy in thirty years.
Speaker 3: But if we hang out with.
Speaker 4: Him for a little bit, can hang out in the
Speaker 4: desert next to a giant PlayStation five and dance occasionally.
Speaker 6: Is that okay, because like, yeah, some of some of
Speaker 6: the some of the some of the stuff they lift
Speaker 6: is is like wow, it's like we went in there.
Speaker 2: And they do something so interesting that I feel like
Speaker 2: a lot of media movies TV included, do very poorly.
Speaker 2: Is like preying upon nostalgia, right, like and it just
Speaker 2: feels like they're pandering. But here, for whatever reason, it's
Speaker 2: done with such a deft touch where well, yeah, sure exactly.
Speaker 5: Like everything is in context. Everything feels like, oh, they
Speaker 5: are having the character do something that they do naturally
Speaker 5: and build it into the level. Like again, I won't
Speaker 5: give a specific example, there's a level all about you know,
Speaker 5: you encounter shall we say, collectibles of a serve variety.
Speaker 5: You're like, oh, that's kind of like something else, and
Speaker 5: then you get to a thing of something else and
Speaker 5: you're like wait a minute, and then yeah, it's that character.
Speaker 5: It's like, oh, that's smart, that's really smart.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Reminds me of not in terms of gameplay obviously, but
Speaker 4: like the way Smash Brothers also kind of serves as
Speaker 4: like ant no museum of just like between all the
Speaker 4: stickers and assist trophies and all the little like references
Speaker 4: within the levels and stuff like that.
Speaker 3: Like this is that.
Speaker 4: Especially when you go back to the crash site. So
Speaker 4: when you rescue these bots, they populate this crash site
Speaker 4: where the big PS five, it is like that's like
Speaker 4: the main hub that you're kind of like building rebuilding
Speaker 4: this PS five and oh it's so good. There's almost
Speaker 4: this like pigman like quality. And you go back there. Yeah,
Speaker 4: because you'll go up to spots where it'll be like okay,
Speaker 4: you need twenty five bots for this, you need a
Speaker 4: hundred bots for this, And you hit triangle and seeing
Speaker 4: them all like this wave of Astrobots and a bunch
Speaker 4: of them are all gimmicked up, and it's like running
Speaker 4: there to like create a ladder or help you stand
Speaker 4: on a thing to break.
Speaker 5: It's awesome.
Speaker 3: Ye go ahead, And I'll just say like, uh, you
Speaker 3: know again, no spoilers, But I think the way that
Speaker 3: it all culminates in the end, I was I found
Speaker 3: it pretty moving. I think that I have a real
Speaker 3: attachment to Astrobot now as a character, his place sort
Speaker 3: of like the steward of PlayStation lore and what matters
Speaker 3: to PlayStation's history and how all those characters feel about him.
Speaker 3: They really do a good job with that stuff, and
Speaker 3: it's not overbearing. They don't overdo it. It's not some
Speaker 3: big elongated cut scene. It's just you're doing a lot
Speaker 3: of cool stuff with that character, and then you know,
Speaker 3: of course he's gonna do the big thing at the
Speaker 3: end of the end of the game to like make
Speaker 3: sure that everyone's safe. He with really good stuff, but.
Speaker 5: It's always like a wink, not it's ending.
Speaker 2: They're gonna do like that one Jetly movie where they
Speaker 2: all have to like off each other.
Speaker 7: Doubt it's it, Oh go ahead, Sean.
Speaker 5: It's just the kind of winking where everyone knows that,
Speaker 5: like you know that I know that you know, like
Speaker 5: we're both on the same page. It's that kind of
Speaker 5: reverence to it, which I was kind of gonna say
Speaker 5: this for the end, but since front of topic, it's
Speaker 5: almost like the one depressing thing about playing this game
Speaker 5: is that you'll come across a character and like, Hey,
Speaker 5: it's that dude.
Speaker 4: I love that dude.
Speaker 5: Man. PlayStation hasn't done anything with you in twenty five
Speaker 5: years ago and you get a lot of them. Oh,
Speaker 5: it kind of reminds me of when PlayStation was made
Speaker 5: of the spicy, take a bit more fun and kind
Speaker 5: of character, you know, when you you know, PS one
Speaker 5: was not just Metal Year Solid, it was Metal Year Solid,
Speaker 5: and you know all the different mascot platformers in Castle Vania.
Speaker 5: It was a good variety and that type of thing
Speaker 5: is reflecting looking back at the history.
Speaker 2: We were talking about this in game as mornings, but
Speaker 2: like I haven't been able to stop smiling as I
Speaker 2: play through this game. Yeah, that's like a unique feeling
Speaker 2: when playing a PlayStation game specifically because like everything is
Speaker 2: so dow or so Triple A feels so heavy, but
Speaker 2: this is so light and happy feeling, and that isn't
Speaker 2: just tied to it being like a platform er in
Speaker 2: that genre of game, kind of being negatively associated as
Speaker 2: a baby game even though it's not. It's a dumb association.
Speaker 2: Get that out of your head.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's the thing, is the I'm sorry, I feel
Speaker 4: like I was going to say that, Like I feel like,
Speaker 4: you know, you could be a young idiot like Dib
Speaker 4: and enjoy this, you know, because it's just it's Essentially,
Speaker 4: it's just x M square. You jump in your punch
Speaker 4: and occasionally you hold it in to do a spind punch,
Speaker 4: you know, occasion you'll get the powers we got to
Speaker 4: talk about like R two occasion and like it. It
Speaker 4: does the thing that Maria does where it's like there's
Speaker 4: enough easy ish levels where you can go through, you
Speaker 4: can see credits with some pretty basic stuff. You can
Speaker 4: skip the hard ones. But if you want one hundred percent,
Speaker 4: which I'm working towards the platinum, there are some there
Speaker 4: are some levels specifically in each world. There are like
Speaker 4: you know these four kind of like many worlds that
Speaker 4: have one bought each in it. And by the way,
Speaker 4: those are definitely going to be some like speed road shit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and those those are the start and retry levels
Speaker 3: that they promised when we're talking about this game. It's
Speaker 3: those those are the challenging levels.
Speaker 4: And they can be really difficult. So it's like I
Speaker 4: do feel like, no matter where you are and like
Speaker 4: the gaming skill spectrum, I think you can absolutely enjoy this.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think my five and seven year old are
Speaker 3: playing it, and you know, there's it's simply getting a
Speaker 3: little bit more complicated for them as they get into
Speaker 3: the second world, but yes, they are just charging along
Speaker 3: because it's just it. It is at the you know foundation,
Speaker 3: you know, two buttons and movement, which is like, which
Speaker 3: is why I'm like, for me, I'm like, I still
Speaker 3: like prefer some marios just because I like to have
Speaker 3: that complicated movement. But this game makes up for it
Speaker 3: by just having so many ideas constantly. You're always doing
Speaker 3: something new every ten minutes. I think that is why
Speaker 3: this game is going to get compared to Galaxy so much,
Speaker 3: because Galaxy is just a parade of ideas one after
Speaker 3: the other, and they never like keep those ideas around
Speaker 3: for too long. It's always going to be like, no,
Speaker 3: we're going to do that, and they're gonna do something new,
Speaker 3: and then something new and something new. And it feels
Speaker 3: like this is made by a team and like the
Speaker 3: first time a team that really understood that. That's what
Speaker 3: made that special. And it's like, if you can come
Speaker 3: up with a good ideas, just okay, you can probably
Speaker 3: come up with another good idea after that, do that
Speaker 3: and make a whole game like that, and that's what
Speaker 3: this is.
Speaker 4: Then they're so like as far as the powers and stuff,
Speaker 4: it reminds me of like, you know, in Mario three,
Speaker 4: you'd have stuff like the Tanuki suit or the Hammer
Speaker 4: Brothers suit, which only pop up a couple of times,
Speaker 4: and it makes it feel very special, whereas here there's
Speaker 4: all these different powers, and some of them are very,
Speaker 4: very like the fucking sponge. The first time, I was like,
Speaker 4: when I realized what I was and what I could
Speaker 4: do with that, I was like, this is fucking incredible.
Speaker 4: And so far I've almost some of the game that
Speaker 4: it's only been like one level. Yeah, I don't want to. I
Speaker 4: don't know if we want to go into each specific power.
Speaker 5: Okay, so Jan asked me for this before the show.
Speaker 5: The powers that have been in trailers therefore we talk
Speaker 5: about openly are Monkey Mouse, the two jet packs so
Speaker 5: bulldog and horizontal, and verkele Yes, the frog arms, the
Speaker 5: tie stop which I forgot that was the trailer. Yeah,
Speaker 5: that was great, the sponge, as Dan mentioned, and a
Speaker 5: penguin that we don't know what it does, just there's
Speaker 5: a penguin there.
Speaker 3: Let's uh, let's talk about that sponge real quiksuse. This
Speaker 3: is where I realized, like why the game is so good,
Speaker 3: because every like I wrote in the tweet. Yeahs sponge worthy.
Speaker 3: Jesus christ I wrote in the tweet, like every ten
Speaker 3: steps there's something playful to interact with. And why that's
Speaker 3: important is like you want to go punch a bush
Speaker 3: made out of little Voxley pixels because it's gonna break
Speaker 3: apart in a really satisfying way. And then there's gonna
Speaker 3: be a million little pieces on the ground and you're gonna
Speaker 3: do the spongea or the spin punch, and you're gonna
Speaker 3: knock them all over the place and they're gonna sound amazing,
Speaker 3: it's gonna look amazing, and it just feels so playful
Speaker 3: to the point where it's like you begin looking around
Speaker 3: the world and you want to interact with everything, and
Speaker 3: you see and you like, they'll just give an example,
Speaker 3: and this is the one example I'll give. And again
Speaker 3: I guess very light mechanical spoilers. Uh, there is a
Speaker 3: fire at the top of a chimney and I'm the
Speaker 3: sponge and I'm like, well, I'm filled with water. There's
Speaker 3: no way I'm not going to go up there. I
Speaker 3: got to figure out how to get up there to
Speaker 3: extinguish that flame. And you start looking around, you see
Speaker 3: some trees like maybe if I get up there, go
Speaker 3: over there, And it just makes you want to explore
Speaker 3: and do the fun thing because there are fun things everywhere.
Speaker 3: And I think that's where the game really just succeeds
Speaker 3: incredibly well, because everything is fun to do. It makes
Speaker 3: you want to keep playing it.
Speaker 4: But there are a lot of times where, like you mentioned,
Speaker 4: like a bunch of little things on the ground and
Speaker 4: everything like that. There's that kind of like dessert themed
Speaker 4: area that kind of snow dessert sprinkles. There's so many
Speaker 4: fucking sprinkles around and it serves no purpose but like
Speaker 4: to just charge up your spin punch and just to
Speaker 4: spin around spreading sprinkles and feeling like all the haptic
Speaker 4: feedback stuff.
Speaker 3: And that's because it's fun to do. Right, that's on
Speaker 3: his hair. Yeah, that's that's who made this game. People
Speaker 3: understand that is fun to do. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's the only PlayStation five game that feels like
Speaker 6: a PlayStation five. Yeah, like they they understood that. They
Speaker 6: were like, oh, you can the controller does what you
Speaker 6: can do? What on this It's like whenever, like did
Speaker 6: you did you know that the Nintendo Switch has a
Speaker 6: touch screen?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 7: I don't know if.
Speaker 6: Yeah, like Nintendo does not know that that thing has
Speaker 6: a touch screen. But it's like they understand the box fundamentally.
Speaker 6: They understand the things that it can do, and they say, Okay,
Speaker 6: how do we make play interesting in a way that
Speaker 6: we can Only the only place that you can do
Speaker 6: this is on the PlayStation five, right, Like it is
Speaker 6: of Astro's Playroom is kind of this, right, but it's
Speaker 6: like it's not a full game, it's a pack in,
Speaker 6: so it's right, but it's like, if you're trying to
Speaker 6: sell someone on a PlayStation five, it's this video game,
Speaker 6: and it is It's not God of War, it's not
Speaker 6: Last of Us, like it's not any of the other
Speaker 6: games that they have made, because they could conceivably run
Speaker 6: on a PlayStation four, and like you're gonna probably have
Speaker 6: the same experience. But when I was playing Astro Bought
Speaker 6: on my police station five, I was like, Wow, I'm
Speaker 6: glad I bought this box four years ago, which is
Speaker 6: the first time I think I've ever said that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Returnal is pretty good.
Speaker 3: Returns really good. Yeah.
Speaker 5: Like on that topic, though, Nikki, I will say that
Speaker 5: if you're like me and for like physical reasons, you
Speaker 5: turn off a lot of like the gimmicky duel sense
Speaker 5: stuff like adapted triggers and the because it's tiring. Well
Speaker 5: that's the thing though, because I have them turned off
Speaker 5: at a system level just because I can't deal with
Speaker 5: them in any game. In the game, you can turn
Speaker 5: on accessibility options that add visual feedback where there would
Speaker 5: normally be vibrations. Oh, you can change all the motion
Speaker 5: controls to being just the left stick. And something is
Speaker 5: lost in translation there, but does feel like a really
Speaker 5: good the does media is halfway for people who don't
Speaker 5: like that stuff or can't do that stuff. Like there's
Speaker 5: a portion where you need to like go down a
Speaker 5: tunnel and there's these tilting platforms, and clearly the design
Speaker 5: there is you're supposed to move Astro with a stick
Speaker 5: and then tilt the platforms independently to like open and
Speaker 5: close gates basically, And so that's a little awkward to
Speaker 5: when that's also on a stick, but it works, and
Speaker 5: so it's good that they have thought about this. So
Speaker 5: if you don't like that stuff, you can still get
Speaker 5: the most out game.
Speaker 7: Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 3: I so you listed all those powers a second ago,
Speaker 3: and it's not like Mario power ups where okay, those
Speaker 3: are gonna be sprinkled throughout the levels. Through throughout the
Speaker 3: rest of the game. You're gonna have like maybe two
Speaker 3: maybe three levels where you get those powers, and the
Speaker 3: levels will be built around that. But it's like, no,
Speaker 3: they are going to be sorting through those, and then
Speaker 3: they're gonna have kind of bespoke levels to have just
Speaker 3: like something but one where maybe you pick up something
Speaker 3: and you throw it, and then the whole level be
Speaker 3: built around that. They are churning through ideas so fast
Speaker 3: that they very rarely ever go back to the well.
Speaker 3: And even when they do reuse power yeah, they're doing
Speaker 3: it's all yeah, I.
Speaker 6: Mean recontextualized entirely right, Like you're you're using this power
Speaker 6: up in a place where you're.
Speaker 3: Like oh shit, yep, like oh how cool.
Speaker 6: Or like my favorite is when they will you will
Speaker 6: do half of a level vanilla and then you get
Speaker 6: the power up and you're like oh, gang, like hell yeah,
Speaker 6: like hell yeah, good video game.
Speaker 4: Yeah. The frog Hands I love so much because you
Speaker 4: start off and it's it's already super fun because they're
Speaker 4: like extendo boxing glove things that you can like just
Speaker 4: beat the ship out of things with and then all
Speaker 4: of a sudden he's like like swingy little red things
Speaker 4: pop up and you're like, wait, it's also like a
Speaker 4: cool grappling hook by on a commander thing and that
Speaker 4: fus awesome.
Speaker 2: Yes, yeah, it is definitely. Out of the power ups
Speaker 2: that Sean listed, I think the Froghands are my top favorite.
Speaker 4: There's one way, so can we not talk about ones
Speaker 4: that Sean didn't just list?
Speaker 5: I would say, okay, spoiler free.
Speaker 4: There's one that it just does a cool thing on
Speaker 4: a technical level with the things in the level, with
Speaker 4: like sizes things.
Speaker 3: I mean, there was the mouse one's trailer that's fucking incredible.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, it's it's just so cool to go
Speaker 3: from big to small and the.
Speaker 5: Mind blowing moment, the blowing moment when you go small
Speaker 5: and you go in a tunnel and you're like, what
Speaker 5: happens if I hit you burst out of the tunnel.
Speaker 5: It's so cool.
Speaker 4: You balk your head and it's like, yeah, I've always
Speaker 4: loved it. In Mario games, Mario three did the big
Speaker 4: small world, Mario sixty four did, but it was always like, oh,
Speaker 4: we're a small guy in a big level, or you
Speaker 4: have to go in a pipe and then you emerge
Speaker 4: in different You've never had a button where you can
Speaker 4: like the whole world is shrinking, but you can see
Speaker 4: it when you're big. You can see like, oh, there's
Speaker 4: like this little thing in the wall here, and then
Speaker 4: you just shrink down and it just live, no load time,
Speaker 4: no transition, You're just all of a sudden, the tiny guy.
Speaker 4: It's fucking awesome.
Speaker 3: God, yeah, I think my favorite power we can't talk about,
Speaker 3: so yeah, I'll just keep talking. The small Yeah. It
Speaker 3: is the kind of thing where you imagine like an
Speaker 3: ant Man game and it's like, oh, they just did
Speaker 3: it inside of Astro, all that effect of very rapidly
Speaker 3: becoming small and then the camera kind of zooming in
Speaker 3: behind you in a very smooth transition kind of way
Speaker 3: so that it doesn't feel disorienting. In fact, you begin
Speaker 3: building that into your platform and so you're like, you
Speaker 3: see a tiny little mushroom pedal there that you want
Speaker 3: to get on, Like you could shrink and then jump
Speaker 3: on from one to the next, to the next and next,
Speaker 3: or you could jump up while like big size shrink
Speaker 3: and just immediately land on top of it and feel
Speaker 3: very fucking cool.
Speaker 5: It's going to be so good for speed running levels
Speaker 5: that have this just being able to like jump and
Speaker 5: then hover and then shrink. It's like, oh, I just
Speaker 5: skipped an entire level that they want me to do
Speaker 5: is small because I thought to do this. And that's
Speaker 5: the sign of a good platformer to me, especially three
Speaker 5: D one, is when they think about the things that
Speaker 5: other developers might nod because they're like, no one's gonna
Speaker 5: do this, But when you get that wink in a nod.
Speaker 5: That's what this whole game is, winks and nods them
Speaker 5: telling you, oh, we know you thought of this, Like
Speaker 5: that's why Mario Games get this a lot is because
Speaker 5: you'll go up to a platform up there like there's
Speaker 5: no way they thought me being up there. They get
Speaker 5: there and like look, coin pops up.
Speaker 3: It's like a little because we knew you'd yeah that thing.
Speaker 4: It's not always a bot or a puzzle piece or
Speaker 4: an actual collectible.
Speaker 5: It's just like yeah, exactly, and before I gots I tried.
Speaker 5: That's what I was trying to say, is the tweet
Speaker 5: I did this morning was, uh, this is I think
Speaker 5: genuinely the first platformer that we don't need to compare
Speaker 5: to Mario because it's at the same level and also
Speaker 5: does enough of its own thing that it doesn't feel
Speaker 5: like it's just copying, because it is physically just Mario
Speaker 5: galaxy you're flying around to specifically, you're flying around a
Speaker 5: galaxy going to the level. The levels are all like
Speaker 5: floating platform structure.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's all like giant you know, basically gigantic islands
Speaker 5: floating in the middle of space. But they all feel unique.
Speaker 5: The power ups are laid out the same way where
Speaker 5: you get the power up, and the levels clearly designed
Speaker 5: around the power up. It just all feels so immaculately
Speaker 5: woven together. It feels fantastic.
Speaker 4: Then there are these big moments within levels too, like
Speaker 4: some of them are just really solid levels. And then
Speaker 4: I'll just say there's a tree. Uh, And there was
Speaker 4: a moment involving a tree where I just stopped moving
Speaker 4: and I just looked at this fucking tree for a while.
Speaker 4: I was like, I love everything.
Speaker 3: Inane.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I get it.
Speaker 4: And then like even then, it's like, oh, I wonder
Speaker 4: if it would react if this happened. And then you
Speaker 4: do something that's like, oh my god, there's like a
Speaker 4: trophy for it, and uh yeah, it's it's good.
Speaker 3: I want to go get it.
Speaker 2: The way that okay, okay, The way that it plays
Speaker 2: with scale, not just in including like the mouse power
Speaker 2: up where you shrink, but like when Astrobot is at
Speaker 2: its default size and just like the scale of everything,
Speaker 2: like the boss is just like, oh wow, this is
Speaker 2: maybe one of the best Little Guy games ever.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Yeah, there's a lot of those moments that, like
Speaker 3: the tree, but like the more subtle ones, like dancing
Speaker 3: mushrooms that are just dancing the music in the background
Speaker 3: and they're just feeling it and like doing their thing,
Speaker 3: and it's like I was just kind of watching them
Speaker 3: like for a little bit, and I realist, like the
Speaker 3: whole level is just all these mushrooms dancing like that. Yeah,
Speaker 3: and it just makes the game feel alive and have
Speaker 3: this like silly language to it that I really appreciate.
Speaker 2: I like that you said that the game does feel
Speaker 2: alive because despite being a single player game, it doesn't
Speaker 2: feel like a sorry I heard a beep.
Speaker 4: And I guess somebody needs to play right now.
Speaker 2: Yeah, despite being a single player game, it doesn't feel
Speaker 2: like an isolating experience.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's because you know, your whole
Speaker 2: thing is like you're rescuing all these bots, but like
Speaker 2: the fact that you are rescuing all these bots, and
Speaker 2: most of the time there's like a little here's a
Speaker 2: little easter you remember this, dude. No, it's fine, you'll
Speaker 2: get to know them anyway.
Speaker 4: It's every time you go back to the crash site
Speaker 4: and you just see everyone kind of like greeting you.
Speaker 4: And then when you buy a bunch of gimmicks on
Speaker 4: the Gotcha machine, then you see it all kind of populated.
Speaker 3: Gotcha those things like if you click astros, the named astros,
Speaker 3: a lot of those gotcha things are a little accessories
Speaker 3: for those those astros. So and then they get those
Speaker 3: in the world, so they'll just have them at the
Speaker 3: crash site and be playing around with them. And now
Speaker 3: sometimes it's added the context and be like, oh, I oh,
Speaker 3: that's who that character is. It's happen a couple of
Speaker 3: times for meum where like that's when I finally realize that.
Speaker 5: It's important to note that when you when you come
Speaker 5: across those PlayStation or PlayStation adjacent mascot robots, they don't
Speaker 5: have their name on them. It just has a description
Speaker 5: of them, so it's like, hey, do you remember this one.
Speaker 5: We're gonna test your memory a little bit.
Speaker 4: So one sentence like flavor text, yeah yeah, yeah, and
Speaker 4: that I think is where I do wish there was.
Speaker 6: And I wonder if it's not in there, because it
Speaker 6: would be more of a tacit admission that maybe they
Speaker 6: are not treating this stuff with the reverence that it needs.
Speaker 6: But like there should be a zone where you go
Speaker 6: in and be like.
Speaker 3: Oh, yeah, that's just the full history museum.
Speaker 7: Yeah yeah, Like that's.
Speaker 6: Who fuck Can I say, oh that crados? Okay, traders
Speaker 6: from God of War has appeared in God of War
Speaker 6: and God of War two, and.
Speaker 4: It's clever little things like I'll spoil one of the
Speaker 4: hundreds or whatever. It's Joel from the Last of Us,
Speaker 4: so it'll say something like, oh, Haggard, dude, and then
Speaker 4: the flavor text will be like might tell the occasional
Speaker 4: white lie and like it's like, Okay, they're doing like
Speaker 4: fun little references for each one, and some of them
Speaker 4: are like deep deep cuts.
Speaker 2: Yes, oh yes, absolutely, Nikki, you brought up a grievance
Speaker 2: any negatives of the game, and it isn't absolutely perfect
Speaker 2: I personally wish it had a run button, but that's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: the biggest.
Speaker 7: Thing slower jam.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm with you where it's like for me, it's
Speaker 3: like that's why, like I said earlier, I prefer Mario
Speaker 3: still just like the I feel like I have more
Speaker 3: control over Mario. But this game is built to be
Speaker 3: this way, so when I'm playing it, I don't really
Speaker 3: have any issues. This is the game it needs to be,
Speaker 3: and I'm very happy when I'm playing it. Honestly, I
Speaker 3: think if anything, it's like it's gonna sound safe. But
Speaker 3: it's like there's so much good stuff. Sometimes it's hard
Speaker 3: to like even realize, like, oh I just did this
Speaker 3: amazing thing. I know I'm moving on from that already. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I almost feel like I don't get the time to
Speaker 3: appreciate how amazing the thing I just did was. It's crazy. Yeah.
Speaker 7: The pacing feels good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, absolutely, it's it's TikTok.
Speaker 7: Yeah, like you are.
Speaker 6: There is something happening immediately next that is different. I
Speaker 6: think the music is good. Yesterday we had a call.
Speaker 6: We we had a meeting that was not about anything.
Speaker 6: It was a business meeting, and then it turned into
Speaker 6: a small podcast that we did about the video. Again,
Speaker 6: I think then and afterwards, I like, I said the
Speaker 6: thing that I said about the music, which is that
Speaker 6: it felt repetitive, and I do still kind of feel
Speaker 6: that way. But then, of course immediately afterwards, I like,
Speaker 6: play three levels that had unique music, and I was like, ah,
Speaker 6: the ship things. But it is a situation where I
Speaker 6: don't there's I sometimes am like, oh, the music does
Speaker 6: feel like the weakest link here.
Speaker 3: I think there are some I think there are a
Speaker 3: couple really good tracks, yeah, and then I think there
Speaker 3: are a lot of weaker ones. I agree. I think
Speaker 3: that's true.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think it like it levels out to being fine. Yeah,
Speaker 6: highs are high and the lows are forgettable.
Speaker 3: I think that this is the song that the Tree
Speaker 3: sings banger great.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, and the crash site.
Speaker 7: Is the song yes, the yeah, the yeah. Muse did
Speaker 7: a great job on the soundtrack for this one.
Speaker 4: You mentioned help the pacing, and you really noticed it
Speaker 4: when like, let's say you go back to one hundred
Speaker 4: percent of level. Let's say you missed a bot or
Speaker 4: a puzzle piece, and you know, like, oh, I can
Speaker 4: tell this is going to be near the end of
Speaker 4: the level because it's the third puzzle piece and you're
Speaker 4: just running through. They are so much shorter than like
Speaker 4: the first time you do these larger levels, you were
Speaker 4: looking at every nook and cranny looking for bots, trying
Speaker 4: to just kind of explore and see what it's interactable.
Speaker 4: But if you're just running to the end of a level,
Speaker 4: like you can get there pretty damn quick.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's I mean, they're condensed small spaces with very
Speaker 3: dense with a lot of stuff in there, and I
Speaker 3: think that's probably the right way to design this game.
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be the kind of thing
Speaker 3: where in that that that Pepsi Challenge style of like
Speaker 3: the first taste of you going in there and just
Speaker 3: oh my god, it's just hitting me with so much stuff.
Speaker 3: It's going to be very satisfying. And then as they
Speaker 3: dole out the additional content of these new challenge levels
Speaker 3: that are supposed to coming, and then the speed running challenges,
Speaker 3: it's gonna be like, oh, I'm glad that these levels
Speaker 3: are so short because it's like just quick, thirty second
Speaker 3: burst run through this space. I think they've kind of
Speaker 3: designed it best for both both of those kinds of worlds.
Speaker 2: This this feels like the game that Little Big Planet
Speaker 2: was always trying to be.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I think a lot of the platformers from PlayStation,
Speaker 3: I think we're trying to do their own thing, and
Speaker 3: then sometimes that was to their own detriment.
Speaker 4: And I think, yeah, Little Big and I always had
Speaker 4: very big ideas about the creation stuff, but the actual
Speaker 4: platforming was always the weak link of that series, where
Speaker 4: it's like, this is a platformer first and foremost and
Speaker 4: almost solely, and the platforming is as good as platforming
Speaker 4: has ever been.
Speaker 5: Yeah. Jan asked us like if we had any natives really,
Speaker 5: and I mentioned, like the so good it's almost a
Speaker 5: negative of reminding you of, you know, when PlayStation was
Speaker 5: a little more diverse. But I'm the two like actual
Speaker 5: they're not huge ones. But the actual negatives I would
Speaker 5: have is that I do think the game is at
Speaker 5: least again, I'm pretty early. I'm still in the first
Speaker 5: half ish, it's pretty easy.
Speaker 3: Like I have, I would that in the first half
Speaker 3: as well, you got to get to some of those
Speaker 3: challenge levels.
Speaker 7: The challenge levels, it's a different video game.
Speaker 5: Okay, Well people said that about Mario Wonder as well.
Speaker 5: I thought that game was way too easy. So I'm no,
Speaker 5: these are hard.
Speaker 3: These are hard Mario Wonder.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say the last level of Mario Wonder,
Speaker 5: I was like, that was easy. I don't know what
Speaker 5: everyone's talking about, So I don't know. Maybe that's just
Speaker 5: a me thing.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe you're such a.
Speaker 5: Well it's like of that is one of the things I
Speaker 5: like about Mario games is that you get to like
Speaker 5: that last world or a secret world, and it's like, oh,
Speaker 5: this thing is meant for you to take like a
Speaker 5: week or two on.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, odysty one and Champions Road in three D world,
Speaker 4: like those are like all timer hard mark.
Speaker 5: And that's that's the kind of thing I want, like
Speaker 5: towards the end of a game.
Speaker 3: But I like, yeah, what it is is like you're like,
Speaker 3: like Dan said, you're going to find this thing, right,
Speaker 3: and that's going to lock four challenge levels in many
Speaker 3: of these worlds, and those challenge levels are quick and
Speaker 3: much more difficult.
Speaker 5: That's well, that's the thing I was going to say that.
Speaker 5: That's why I'm like halfway through on the The other
Speaker 5: thing is I do think the presentation is like a
Speaker 5: little sparse sometimes, Nick, you mentioned the music. Sometimes there's
Speaker 5: a decent amount of tracks, but they do kind of
Speaker 5: all feel the same because they're all faying the same
Speaker 5: theme of robotic music. I think that's something that you
Speaker 5: don't like in other platforms. They have such wildly different levels,
Speaker 5: like the ice level, the fire level. They go out
Speaker 5: their way to have very different music. A lot of
Speaker 5: this feels the same, and I think other platforms have
Speaker 5: also gotten really good putting in NPCs that don't do
Speaker 5: anything really, but they are just there for flavor, and
Speaker 5: this game doesn't have a ton of that unless you
Speaker 5: are specifically doing again the thing they want to do
Speaker 5: and then you go on to the next thing you
Speaker 5: want to do. When you go off the bean path
Speaker 5: a little bit or something, it's like, oh, well, there's
Speaker 5: the coin there, but it's like along this path it's
Speaker 5: kind of just barren.
Speaker 3: Like sure, yeah, there's not like the little Captain toad
Speaker 3: waiting for you.
Speaker 4: I mean there's a god amount of like, oh, seals
Speaker 4: and penguins and they're like little. Yeah, there's little monkeys.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there's there's lots of monkeys.
Speaker 5: Yeah, these are can't have size enough, very minor.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, a lot of apples.
Speaker 4: There's so as you showered in apples at point.
Speaker 3: Literally like not hundreds and sometimes thousands are showering.
Speaker 6: Because you can have so many polygons on the screen.
Speaker 6: Uh huh, you can think it was possible.
Speaker 4: There's a lot going on there, all the jewels, all
Speaker 4: the like little gold bits and stuff. Sometimes they'll be
Speaker 4: like on ground that you can kind of saw it
Speaker 4: through with your laser, so you're just making them fall
Speaker 4: into a hole and it's just the most satisfying physics.
Speaker 6: There's there's one stage where there's a fountain of jewels
Speaker 6: and it feels like coming down here, yeah, and it
Speaker 6: feels like the PlayStation is not designed for it, and
Speaker 6: you look at it and you're like, this ship's gonna
Speaker 6: it's gonna burn break because like there's no way you
Speaker 6: can generate this many polygons on this box.
Speaker 3: Great, right, No, really, never there's and there's no performance mode.
Speaker 3: It's just is the game.
Speaker 4: It's just it's good.
Speaker 5: What Digital Foundery put their video up and what the
Speaker 5: headlines Astrobot virtually flawless ps five tech.
Speaker 6: Yes, Yeah, that's how it really feels, and that's what
Speaker 6: you get right when you make the box yep, yeah, right,
Speaker 6: like you understand it at a level that that no
Speaker 6: other studio is going to get and all.
Speaker 7: So if you're given the time to make.
Speaker 5: And I think that's video game that's more important. Here's
Speaker 5: that Tima Selbe does feel like they are in the
Speaker 5: same realm as say Insomniac, where they understand the hard
Speaker 5: ware they are working on. If they don't, they must
Speaker 5: have gone out of their way to understand it because
Speaker 5: the game is so well put together, it's so seamless.
Speaker 5: They're like, there are no cracks showing at any point
Speaker 5: in time where you're like, oh, this is this is
Speaker 5: someplace you cut back on no is art style and
Speaker 5: the tech coming together just to make a beautiful game
Speaker 5: that feels it and they want you.
Speaker 6: To look at it too, like like very clearly. There's
Speaker 6: there are these yeah, i'll talk about it whatever. There's
Speaker 6: there are these like photo stands that you can cover, yeah,
Speaker 6: and you go up to them and then they're like, oh,
Speaker 6: here's a very delicious like.
Speaker 7: Pastilo scene that we are going to make for you.
Speaker 6: Yeah, and it's going to generate it'sself in like ten seconds,
Speaker 6: and you're gonna get it and you're gonna look at
Speaker 6: it and you're gonna.
Speaker 7: Go that's a good looking video game.
Speaker 6: Yeah, that's then, and then you stop and then you
Speaker 6: go do something else in the video game looks just
Speaker 6: as good it is. I've taken so many screenshots in
Speaker 6: this video game because every time I look at it,
Speaker 6: I'm like, it is crazy that games can just look
Speaker 6: like this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, they kind of don't need to look better than this.
Speaker 3: I mean, no, I would.
Speaker 4: I agree.
Speaker 5: It's so sick when you walk out to one of
Speaker 5: those things and you're like, oh, what are they getting me?
Speaker 5: Looking at that thing in the background, and then, like
Speaker 5: you said, you stand in front of the picture, everything changes,
Speaker 5: and then you step away and earthing goes back. It's like, oh,
Speaker 5: that was that was a neat little thing you did,
Speaker 5: that little cute little thing.
Speaker 7: I think you can sleep with a cow.
Speaker 4: Yes, okay, I haven't seen that yet.
Speaker 3: Now you there. I think you'll if you play this game,
Speaker 3: you you'll know that you're going to be into it.
Speaker 3: In a very early level where there's a kind of
Speaker 3: a pyramid of balls and you could just like touch
Speaker 3: them and they start to fall apart and they go
Speaker 3: down the slide, and you go down this water slide
Speaker 3: with the balls. It's just joyous and if you feel
Speaker 3: that when you when that happens, you're gonna love everything
Speaker 3: about this game.
Speaker 4: I talk a lot about like, oh, thinking games and
Speaker 4: Dewey games and there's a bunch of reading and story
Speaker 4: and stuff, and like this is the most video game
Speaker 4: ass video game I could imagine, And like, look, I
Speaker 4: get it when people say, like, oh, games don't have
Speaker 4: to be fun. It's like, yeah, but they're a lot
Speaker 4: more than they are.
Speaker 5: What they were fun because they are games.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, this is a fucking video game.
Speaker 2: I was saying that this morning, that this somehow appeals
Speaker 2: to all of us and gets us to overlap and
Speaker 2: the vent diagram of like video game tastes a giant
Speaker 2: bomb because like this is also pulling subtly, like the
Speaker 2: heartstrings and making me sad and happy at the same time.
Speaker 4: They even made something that Jeff Bakler likes. Why they
Speaker 4: said it was impossible.
Speaker 3: There's two games was possible.
Speaker 4: It's like and his son's at the end of the Grinch, Right, Yeah, no,
Speaker 4: I literally thought of that, like Backler's heart growing.
Speaker 2: Man, all right.
Speaker 3: You want to answer some questions, yan, I'm looking at.
Speaker 2: All the questions and they're all too hyper specific where
Speaker 2: we would break an embargo.
Speaker 3: So yeah, I saw the one about like, yeah, their
Speaker 3: licensed characters, not just not just first party, there's third
Speaker 3: party licensed characters in the past.
Speaker 2: Yang. Let's go around the room here and uh, you know,
Speaker 2: we don't have to assign a specific score, but I
Speaker 2: want to.
Speaker 7: But yeah, all of it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well, before I was a Giant Bomb, I only
Speaker 4: used ten point rating scales and I gave out one
Speaker 4: ten and like literally over a thousand reviews and that
Speaker 4: was the link between worlds. This would absolutely I wouldn't
Speaker 4: think twice about giving it a ten.
Speaker 3: Wow, Okay, yeah.
Speaker 5: Ten, I would give a nine probably, like I like
Speaker 5: doing half points too, and maybe I would like answer
Speaker 5: up to like a nine point five. It's just like
Speaker 5: I have very minor issues with but when like your
Speaker 5: competition is like Super Mario Odyssey and you're like bumping
Speaker 5: noses with that, that's incredible game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, there, it does happen. Yeah, for for me, it's
Speaker 3: always like that. The four is uh, I love it,
Speaker 3: and five is this is one of the favorite things
Speaker 3: I've ever played. It's a five.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's the biggest size of Coldstones.
Speaker 4: Chats as the score higher than Mario Sunshine. I will
Speaker 4: say definitively Astrobot is better than Super Mario Sun on
Speaker 4: the box. Yes, I love that game.
Speaker 7: How many Mario games is this better?
Speaker 6: Then?
Speaker 4: I mean the only ones I would really have to
Speaker 4: like stop and think and give a little more time
Speaker 4: to are like Odyssey and.
Speaker 3: Galaxy two that I would It's like it's between Galaxy
Speaker 3: one and Galaxy two for me.
Speaker 2: This makes the mount rush more of platforms a much
Speaker 2: more interesting conversation.
Speaker 3: I mean, I mean, if like you were like not
Speaker 3: to do the oh there can only be one Mario rule,
Speaker 3: It's like, no, this now actually makes it on there.
Speaker 3: Even if there could be like three other Mario games,
Speaker 3: four Mario games.
Speaker 2: This is a gotta have it. That's the biggest. Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's how I review games, friends, you know, phrasing it
Speaker 2: that way.
Speaker 5: There were people asking the Giant Bomb chat for gm
Speaker 5: M this morning, like you know, I'm I'm thinking of
Speaker 5: game PS five just for this game, and I'm like,
Speaker 5: I don't know if I do it just for one
Speaker 5: game still at this point, But if you've been waffling
Speaker 5: because you want to play other PS five games, I
Speaker 5: think this is what pushes you. Over the end, you.
Speaker 6: Can return You can return a PlayStation five to Amazon
Speaker 6: dot Com within thirty days.
Speaker 3: True. True, you know, actually I think it's game should
Speaker 3: get a one because I feel like Dan has it
Speaker 3: in Medicare and the Fantasy Critic League.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I spent all my money on it, but it was
Speaker 4: a good investment though.
Speaker 3: It's like the highest one of the highest rated games
Speaker 3: of the year, if not the highest.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it might be. Yeah. I mean, if you're looking
Speaker 2: to get a PS five, there's games.
Speaker 5: Yeah, it's like if you're looking to play everything else
Speaker 5: that is still exclusive to PS five, like I need
Speaker 5: one more game. I think this is the one more game.
Speaker 3: You know already. If this game is gonna be it's
Speaker 3: gonna be five, you know. If this is the kind
Speaker 3: of game that you're into, Yes, it's worth a PSI
Speaker 3: is working for this, I think. But if you're like
Speaker 3: not sure, then yeah, look at the list of other
Speaker 3: games available.
Speaker 6: Yeaheah, or like ask you know someone who has a
Speaker 6: play Station five, they probably haven't turned to lean on Yeah,
Speaker 6: lean on your community, like like legitimately and actually, like
Speaker 6: I I do want people to be like oh, or
Speaker 6: to think about this, like if people. If you're like, oh,
Speaker 6: I don't want to buy a PlayStation five, ask somebody, Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 6: to borrow the play concord and yeah, like just go
Speaker 6: ask somebody.
Speaker 7: The library might have one.
Speaker 3: You like legitimately might have a PlayStation five.
Speaker 7: Like, go ask somebody.
Speaker 6: Yeah, you don't always need to go spend five hundred
Speaker 6: dollars on a thing to go do that thing.
Speaker 2: Yeah, still get a library card steal one. No, we're
Speaker 2: not card Jane.
Speaker 6: You're saying that you can't break a little piece of
Speaker 6: glass at a target a target jin, I mean, so
Speaker 6: you're afraid of a target employee.
Speaker 2: The thing that you gotta do is that most of
Speaker 2: those cases will open up if you just push the
Speaker 2: glass to a certain way, because you got to tilt
Speaker 2: it and then you slide it. I'm not from experience.
Speaker 2: I'm justlious as an engineer. You know, I see the
Speaker 2: Grand s caalculus of the universe, all right, you know
Speaker 2: this is.
Speaker 4: Going to get a whole second life. Like as I've
Speaker 4: been playing through this, like I'm seeing certain levels and
Speaker 4: like that's going to be a feed round level.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: The thing that I hate is that I'm not one
Speaker 2: of those people. But because of working with you freaks,
Speaker 2: I feel myself becoming it, and then I'm thinking like,
Speaker 2: all right, this is the line I gotta go through,
Speaker 2: all right, Yeah, and then like yeah.
Speaker 4: Those challenge levels where it's like some of them you
Speaker 4: are like even just playing it to beat once, I'll
Speaker 4: die ten fifteen times. And I start realizing like, okay,
Speaker 4: so if I go just around this thing here and
Speaker 4: then I make the oh, I can skip that jump
Speaker 4: here and you start style yeah, and.
Speaker 2: Then I'm all right, the apex of this jump, that's
Speaker 2: when I spitch. And it's an.
Speaker 5: Addiction you don't have to spend money on because you
Speaker 5: already have the thing exactly.
Speaker 3: It shows tears.
Speaker 4: That's good. You're just gonna hurt your hands.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hey, the dual sense sucks, right.
Speaker 5: No, finally you admit it.
Speaker 3: It hurts after this hour of playing this game.
Speaker 5: Okay, I can show you hold visually. I show exactly why.
Speaker 5: Because this you have the handles pointing straight down on the.
Speaker 3: Handles, it's that they're they're not they like force your
Speaker 3: hand into weird positions.
Speaker 5: And knows how.
Speaker 7: I think it's great.
Speaker 5: Your faces. Meanwhile, if you look at the Xbox controller
Speaker 5: is sloped outward. It's a more natural resting position for
Speaker 5: your hands. That's where that fatigue comes from. For people
Speaker 5: like me who feel.
Speaker 3: The get I get a pain in my wrist and
Speaker 3: and like the side of my hand here. Now, I
Speaker 3: did hate it when it came out, but that's because
Speaker 3: it literally did injure me and cause my finger would
Speaker 3: swell up because I played eighty hours okay week.
Speaker 7: So now I looked.
Speaker 4: I was comparing trophies with you, grub, and I saw
Speaker 4: that you played three hundred and thirty one hours of
Speaker 4: Astro's Playroom.
Speaker 3: Oh I did, yeah right, kay? Oh go ahead? Did
Speaker 3: they reprofile it.
Speaker 6: For the is the Elite the PlayStation Elite controller whatever,
Speaker 6: what's it called?
Speaker 4: Does it reach?
Speaker 3: I got that profiled.
Speaker 4: It's the same control never I've been playing with the
Speaker 4: Astropod controller because it seems gramatically appropriate.
Speaker 5: Nikki, the edge is the same controller with replaceable sticks
Speaker 5: and back paddles for one hundred and thirty dollars more.
Speaker 7: That's crazy, Yes, okay.
Speaker 4: One hundred and thirty more or hundred thirty more.
Speaker 3: Oh wow, So it's like two hundred and ten dollars
Speaker 3: or something like that.
Speaker 7: Oh wow, that's a lot for a controller.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that Astra controller looks real pretty.
Speaker 4: Though it does sexually it's cool too. It's gotten smooth
Speaker 4: like blue stuff, and it looks like the your ship.
Speaker 7: What does it tastes like?
Speaker 4: I have not tasted?
Speaker 2: Okay, all right, uh folks. That that is our Astrobot
Speaker 2: review podcast. You guys got it inya to talk about
Speaker 2: the game you saw at packs West.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, let's talk about it real quick. Hey,
Speaker 3: Zelda Echoes of Wisdom look shit hot? Yeah, oh yeah,
Speaker 3: it looks really good. Dan, I and Mike all kind
Speaker 3: of took turns playing a ninety minute extended demo that
Speaker 3: Nintendo invited us to, and I think what I was
Speaker 3: expecting was that the gimmick would be kind of a gimmick,
Speaker 3: similar to how a lot of Zelda gimmicks are. But
Speaker 3: what it seems like it will live up to what
Speaker 3: has happened in Tears of the Kingdom and Breath of
Speaker 3: the Wild, where it's going to enable that level of
Speaker 3: creativity that we've now come to expect from Zelda games.
Speaker 4: It over delivered. Like I was already very curious, you know,
Speaker 4: like anytime a k new to Zelda game is an
Speaker 4: nounce I'm curious about it. But the gimmick, the whole
Speaker 4: like echoes thing and making things with your wand and
Speaker 4: replicating them. I was surprised at how flexible it was.
Speaker 4: It kind of reminded me of systems driven.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like the first time I played Scribblenots. I remember
Speaker 4: on the show Florida, like that thing where you're like, oh,
Speaker 4: I need to get over here, and you're just like,
Speaker 4: I wonder what's possible. Let me test this? Oh cool
Speaker 4: they did that. I kind of had that feeling here
Speaker 4: where it's like, all right, I have all these echoes
Speaker 4: at my disposal. I got like a bed, I've got this,
Speaker 4: I've got that, and I'm the weird stuff and most
Speaker 4: of the time, if it doesn't work, it fails in
Speaker 4: like an interesting way or gives you a different way.
Speaker 3: And it was popping the whole room. We were all
Speaker 3: like watching each other play, and when things would fail,
Speaker 3: we'd all crack up because it really was legitimately funny
Speaker 3: how things were breaking.
Speaker 4: But at one point Manatti was trying to solve a
Speaker 4: puzzle and he's like, I'm gonna do this with beds
Speaker 4: and fire and just wound up with Mike Manatti in
Speaker 4: a flaming bed getting.
Speaker 2: Yes, that's my sleep paralysis. Dem yes, yes it does.
Speaker 7: Does it run better than links Awakening?
Speaker 3: It did it? It is so far as I was
Speaker 3: paying attention to this because I was mostly letting Dan
Speaker 3: and Mike playing. I played a little bit at the end,
Speaker 3: and I was kind of paying attention because I love
Speaker 3: Winks Awakening and I love that switch version, but it
Speaker 3: does have a lot of issues with what I think
Speaker 3: is an unreal engine issue of like streaming in parts
Speaker 3: of the world before you get there, and it like stutters.
Speaker 3: I think that's what's happening there.
Speaker 5: Dude, that's what it was.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know how much we saw maybe a
Speaker 3: little bit of an overworld area. Now.
Speaker 4: We were run around for a while because I was
Speaker 4: looking because it was like when you're outside in grass
Speaker 4: and stuff and links Awakening that's when it got really bad.
Speaker 4: And there's a lot of parts of bushes and grass
Speaker 4: that we saw and I didn't.
Speaker 3: Notice there was no issues.
Speaker 6: Yeah, okay, cool, but yeah, yeah, I can get good
Speaker 6: because that turned me off of links Awakening.
Speaker 3: Like I love the way that they never changed that,
Speaker 3: they never fixed it.
Speaker 6: Yeah, but it like even in trailers, like I was like, wowe,
Speaker 6: this game does not look like it runs well. Yeah,
Speaker 6: and then it came like that was like, wow, this
Speaker 6: is not really well but yeah.
Speaker 5: That's part of the example of a tech thing that
Speaker 5: we've been talking about a lot on these podcasts recently.
Speaker 5: Is I believe that is it would be double buffered
Speaker 5: v SNC, So if it doesn't maintain sixty FPS for
Speaker 5: long enough, Nikky drops all the way down to thirty.
Speaker 3: That's why it's so rough.
Speaker 5: And that's why that's why people. By the way I
Speaker 5: think that thirty looks so rough a lot of the
Speaker 5: time is because if you directly compare it to sixty,
Speaker 5: people switch between performance and fidelity modes. But if you like,
Speaker 5: look at thirty after looking at sixty, then sixty. Yeah,
Speaker 5: game like that. So I'm I'm happy if they fixed
Speaker 5: that then, because I was saying.
Speaker 3: We did not see that at all, which I think
Speaker 3: you know in Link's Awakening you would have saw it
Speaker 3: pretty quickly. So if not, if they've hidden it much better,
Speaker 3: there was uh. I think A good example of kind
Speaker 3: of how this is a little bit of an immersive
Speaker 3: sim is there are prescribed ways to solve some of
Speaker 3: these puzzles, and in TAM's demo, Tam became the Lord
Speaker 3: of Lord of Spiders. He asked me to go into
Speaker 3: our demo and say, hey, ask them about the Lord
Speaker 3: of Spiders. And I'm like, Tam, that's I'm not going
Speaker 3: to do that. I'm gonna sound fucking stupid and crazy.
Speaker 3: And then I kind of like suggested, like, hey, it's like,
Speaker 3: you know, our friend was telling us how he salved
Speaker 3: everything with spiders, and every Nintendo employee was like, oh,
Speaker 3: you mean the Lord of Spiders.
Speaker 7: Yeah, awesome.
Speaker 3: He was supposed to like do like a very specific
Speaker 3: thing about like attaching himself to like the bind gimmick
Speaker 3: or whatever, and it study. He's like, no, I'm just
Speaker 3: gonna use spiders to get across this gap. And he's like, well,
Speaker 3: we're trying to show you something. He's like, no, I
Speaker 3: don't care, I'm Tam. I'm doing it. And Tam just
Speaker 3: used spiders to get all the way across and he
Speaker 3: did everything in the demo with just spiders. And this
Speaker 3: was like you connect spiders through the ceiling and you
Speaker 3: can hang on their their webs and then they can
Speaker 3: attack enemies for you and.
Speaker 4: Stuff like combat. Yeah, platforming, puzzling. Yeah, there's by the way,
Speaker 4: there's a jump button. There's like actual platform.
Speaker 3: And it's jumping all the time, whether you're in the
Speaker 3: top down mode or the side scrolling mode. And the
Speaker 3: spider like web works in both as well, so like
Speaker 3: he works in the isometric kind of view and it's just, uh, yeah,
Speaker 3: you're gonna be able to solve everything to your heart's content.
Speaker 3: And I think that is very promising for me as
Speaker 3: someone who's like believe that Zelda has grown into this
Speaker 3: new thing. It used to be they would come up
Speaker 3: with puzzles and you had to solve puzzles their way,
Speaker 3: and then you got that sense of discovery that that
Speaker 3: aha moment, but it was really their aha moment that
Speaker 3: they were like lending to you. And then since Breath
Speaker 3: of the Wild, it has become no, you really can
Speaker 3: come up with your own solutions and feel like you
Speaker 3: are part of the creative process here, and this game
Speaker 3: is definitely in that lineage, and I think that's really awesome.
Speaker 6: They can try what's that they say, Yeah, they want
Speaker 6: the opposite direction. It's just like that's so.
Speaker 4: Cool, just total freedom with this stuff, Like you can
Speaker 4: try stupid stuff like when you make a bed you
Speaker 4: can sleep, Like you can press a on it and
Speaker 4: like tuck yourself in and you will slowly recover herds.
Speaker 4: So a somewhat viable thing you can do during a
Speaker 4: boss fight is like, I'm going to run into the
Speaker 4: corner and try to sneak in a quick.
Speaker 2: Nap on a bed, trying to sleep real quick. Again,
Speaker 2: That's that's what I do every day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's that's a good solution right there. Yeah, I am.
Speaker 3: I was already excited. I am way more excited now.
Speaker 3: I was kind of like being like, yeah, I mean, listen,
Speaker 3: I love Zelda, I'm probably not gonna be going to
Speaker 3: this game, and then coming out of being like, oh
Speaker 3: that should be a game of the year, but who knows.
Speaker 3: Now it's it really could be that good.
Speaker 4: When month, Yeah, you're great.
Speaker 2: Next did you.
Speaker 7: Say she already has it in Fantasy?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Fantasy? Okay, I thought you said you were playing it.
Speaker 3: I was gonna get really mad.
Speaker 4: And have questions.
Speaker 3: Yeah, later this month, it's coming out.
Speaker 2: Lovely Lastly, turns out there's a bunch of good video
Speaker 2: games out now.
Speaker 4: Huh, so we're all gonna die.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're all so.
Speaker 2: I don't want to alarm anyone, and I know I
Speaker 2: alarm everyone every single week of this website's existence.
Speaker 3: Uh.
Speaker 2: I think I might like Space Marine Warhammer a lot.
Speaker 3: I think it might be a listen. Saber Interactive is
Speaker 3: a underrated sleeper studio. They kind of do nothing but
Speaker 3: like really solid games, and uh, the fact that they
Speaker 3: came out and we were able to deliver on Space Marine
Speaker 3: two is very exciting. Exciting to me. Jam, we got
Speaker 3: to figure out a time to do that catch up
Speaker 3: stream because I want to play a whole bunch of
Speaker 3: these games on the website. Do it right now? Whose
Speaker 3: fault is that?
Speaker 7: Oh? Wait, is gonna be portrait? I hope?
Speaker 2: So?
Speaker 4: Oh, I was imagining landscape.
Speaker 7: It's both I holding my phone sideways not.
Speaker 6: Great, I hate, but you're right, like I don't like
Speaker 6: holding my phone period, and then like holding my phone
Speaker 6: landscape sucks. So I hope it's not.
Speaker 1: Thanks all right, folks, that doesn't For this podcast, Revenge
Speaker 1: turns out Zelda Echo Echoes of Wisdom Will seems very
Speaker 1: very good.
Speaker 2: Tam is the Lord of Spiders, and Astrobot is a
Speaker 2: burn You gotta have it. Uh, The biggest size of
Speaker 2: Coldstones that's too much ice cream. Maybe I don't know.
Speaker 5: Uh.
Speaker 2: Folks, thank you for joining us. We'll see you next
Speaker 2: week for another episode of the Giant BombCast. I've been channing,
Speaker 2: they've been Nikki, he's been sewn, he's been dan, he's
Speaker 2: been grubbed. And you at home, Go buy Astrobot Dog,
Speaker 2: or go borrow PS. Five from the library. Maybe they'll
Speaker 2: let you do that. Go check you just get a
Speaker 2: library card. In general, I love you.