Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Game Informer Show, a
weekly podcast covering the video game industry. To us every
Friday for a discussion of the latest gaming news, reviews,
and exclusive reveals, alongside Game and Former staff and special
guests from around the industry. I'm one of your hosts today,
Alex van Aiken. Today I'm joined by Wesley the Bank.
How you doing, Wes?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great.
Speaker 3: My daughter said her first words this morning. It was
Jeff Keeley? Where the hell is Final Fantasy thirteen?
Speaker 2: On ps?
Speaker 1: Five? Okay, you can't weaponize that.
Speaker 4: I can't believe you would start this podcast. I was
so excited to see you. Child is a bit.
Speaker 3: She's still actually doing She's still doing dadas and babazz
and mamas the Final Fantasy thirteen on ps.
Speaker 4: Five. Ye yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 1: That was good parenting right there. Charles Hart, how are
you doing? Charles?
Speaker 5: Heymit the frog here. I didn't want to go to
Jeff Keely's presentation because my ex was there and she
made it weird.
Speaker 2: She did make it weird.
Speaker 1: Did you know we're gonna We're gonna? I almost asked
a question that I shouldn't ask. Uh. Introducing Eric van Allen.
I at the show.
Speaker 4: I didn't know we were supposed to have incredibly unhinged
bits for this open listen.
Speaker 1: If there was a Shaggy game, I could be I
could be in on this. If there's a Winnie the Pooh,
I could be in on this.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: If there was a Goofy movie game, I could be
in on this.
Speaker 4: Donald Doug if there, I could be the donalds here
Goofy that.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Mostly you weren't there because there's no Kingdom Hearts. You
were invited exactly.
Speaker 4: I'm just concerned we're validating the French too much. I
think we need to the French.
Speaker 1: I think I was uncomfortable of being honest.
Speaker 4: Just all the stripes the French are becoming too powerful.
They're upsetting the balance. It's like when the fire Nation
took over an avatar.
Speaker 1: A lot of red stripes, red solids. This ain't a
poll table, y'all. You know what I'm saying. Anyways, welcome
to the show, everybody. This is our weekly podcast. As
we said at the top, I just want to say
real quick, the best way to support the show, if
you're interested, is to get a game. Informer magazine subscription.
Head over to Gaminformer dot com slash subscription. I thought
Eric was bending down to pick up a magazine to
show off on the video version. He picked up his
cat and that's even better. So of course, you can
listen to this on major podcast platforms. You're probably listening
there already. If you're on YouTube, Hello, welcome. If you're
listening to audio, hey, we have a video version on YouTube, YouTube,
dot com Slash game Informer. There you go. There's many
options to enjoy this show. But it's a big week.
Eric now now has his magazine by the way for
audio listeners. But we're gonna be getting into the Game Awards.
We're gonna be starting off with the winners, sharing our
takeaways from the show in general, before taking a quick
break and getting into our favorite announcements and trailers from
the night in terms of the future facing stuff. So, Eric,
I know that you've kind of been kind of keeping
a log of a lot of the stuff that that
you think is noteworthy, and I trust your judgment. I've
I kind of have my own little list, but I
think you've you've probably got it covered anyways. But take
us away, lead us into this into the night into
this Game Awards.
Speaker 4: Round up into into the biggest things of the Game Awards.
I mean, the number one takeaway is that Jeff Keeley
and Miss Piggy are an item now confirmed. This is
Gon Leave Kermit, the Frog, and Shambles.
Speaker 5: I can't believe that, like the Muppets thing has gotten
so far of Like, at first, it was like he
just really likes the Muppets and somehow got them to
show up at the Game Awards. I don't know if
he's got a friend that works there, but whatever. Now
it's escalated to him and having like self insert fan
fiction where Miss.
Speaker 4: Piggy's obsessed with him.
Speaker 5: It's so I saw someone say that, like the correct
version of that bit is that Jeff is obsessed with
Miss Piggy and she wants nothing to do with him.
That would have been a great funny bit. The fact
that Miss Piggy's like we went to Bora Bora but
it wasn't Bora boring.
Speaker 1: Is like that was crazy.
Speaker 5: Can I say I've never done Miss Picky Frenchman before.
Speaker 4: I kind of scared. That was a pretty good one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, him and that puppet were intimate.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm gonna say this is
kindly as I can. I think the writing for some
of the bits this year were not great because I
because the best Muppet thing happened when Jeff Keely was
not on screen for it. Like the the Rolf song
was really good. Like it was a little bit like, oh,
we all love the Game Awards, don't we? But it
was fun and it was goofy and it was it
was like what you would kind of expect from a
Muppet thing. Uh yeah, did Yeah, she's aware she miss
Piggy said Discourse and log on the Blue Sky, Rolf
said tomadaci life, which I like to follow reflect on
is that Rolf knows what Tomadocci life is. I yeah,
I don't know. As far as actual takeaways from the
Game Awards, I mean, I feel like this year was
maybe the most subdued Game Awards we've ever had because
there was a lot of I don't know, like frustration
going into it, the same frustrations I think we have
every year with the game which is what is this
representative of what do we consider as valuable from this?
What is the Game Awards doing for us as an industry?
Like are things going to be addressed. Obviously, there was
all the stuff of the future class and all that. Yeah,
and also kind of like a weird resignation going in
of people already being frustrated with the idea that Claire
Obscurity is going to probably win a lot of awards,
which it then went on to do. But I felt
like as the night went on, even if the game
awards were probably pretty mild this year, it was a
pretty good show, like good trailers, and I liked the
speeches that were given, and I like the time was given.
I think there was a genuine There was the moment
when the composers were up on stage and one of
them walked away and the other one went up to
the mic as the playoff music was starting, and they
brought the music back down so they could talk, and
I was like, that's great, that's fantastic. So in that respect,
I think it was a It was a good show.
I think it was just it was kind of what
we all expected it to be, and so it just
didn't surprise anyone. And it was like Claire came in
sweat the whole thing. Everybody like clapped and jeered and
all that. There was some cool trailers, some surprises, some
we saw coming or got rumored, some we didn't, you know,
really see coming. And we all went home after three
god first saken hours. I don't know why it's three
hours long, man, that's the big one. I really it
was like an hour shorter.
Speaker 1: I'm curious. You know, we've kind of heard Eric's take
on it. What's what's your takeaway from from the show?
Speaker 5: You know, I I think I liked it, but I
couldn't tell you why. I so I do think it
was it was interesting how Clipskire just kind of swept
every category. I was gonna quiz you guys quick, little
gia to No, what's the one category it did not win?
Wes's correct his audio design.
Speaker 3: And I'm glad because I was worried it was going
to just because it's.
Speaker 2: Clear, but in no world should clear have gotten that?
Speaker 4: Yeah?
Speaker 5: No, yeah, uh anyways, right correct?
Speaker 2: Which is yeah, Wes?
Speaker 1: What about you?
Speaker 2: Oh, Charles Redone.
Speaker 4: I was just.
Speaker 5: Gonna say, like, outside of the Claire of it all,
like I it's nice to I've been kind of we
were talking before the show, being like Claire obscure a
good game that we're kind of sick of everyone talking
about all the time, like it's it's good and we
get it. And I think just being in the game
space when someone's talking about when the community is talking
about one game for a while, we get kind of
like tired of it. But it is nice to be like,
you know what, these are real people that are getting
these awards, and of all the ways to see one
game win award after award after award, it is nice
to be like, oh, that guy wrote the music for
Claire Obscure, like a few years ago, he was just
the SoundCloud composer, like he had never composed were a
game before. And if you were like, hey, we want
to hire you on this game in a few years,
Landy Kravitz is going to hand you a game Award
for Best Score Music, Like that's that's absurd and that's
it's cool to see people achieve stuff like that. And
it kind of brought me back around, I guess, on
just the spirit of the thing that's fair.
Speaker 1: I feel like I was with you on like going
into it. I I was like, Okay, well this is
gonna be a Claire sweep. And as somebody who doesn't
necessarily Claire wasn't on my I enjoyed other games more,
not that I didn't enjoy it, I just didn't finish it.
And going into it, I think I was a bit
like I wish that there were was more competition this
year in terms of like broad sweeping, Like oh, it's
one of those years where it's like it's gonna be
Tears of the Kingdom or Baughterer's Gate three or you know.
It is cool, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is cool that
like several indies we were up for like Haities to
a Silk Song and you know, but I think we
all knew kind of going in that, oh, this is
gonna be a sweet and it does make it a
little more you know, boring if you're just like if
you don't care about the people, right, And that's not
what I'm saying. I do care about the developers. I'm
happy for them, But I.
Speaker 4: Think there's a drama.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, there's a drama. Unless you're like really rooting
for that team and like this is my ride or die,
then it's like, oh, it's not that dynamic. But I
think it was cool. I enjoyed seeing how many of
them got to get up there and and give a
speech and and yeah, so that was cool to Also
the fact that they flew their whole team out there
was was very sweet and it was cool to see
that representation in the crowd. But Wes, I think I
cut you off.
Speaker 3: Go ahead, no, no, yeah, kind of like what Charles mentioned,
like I was someone who really enjoyed Claarbscare when it launched,
and I kind of got jaded just because of all
the hyperbole around it. I actually watched someone play like
the final hour before the Game Awards last night.
Speaker 2: It kind of reinvigorated my love.
Speaker 3: And then while they were winning, I was like shocked
to buy some of the I knew Claire was gonna sweep,
but it was still kind of crazy to see like
Hades and Death Stranding and like these other amazing games,
like they just really had no shot, Like Claire was
the clear winner of the night. And like post show,
Charles you posted on Blue Sky, Claire Obscure has the
most Game Award wins at a single show ever and
that record was previously held by the Last of Us
Part two, And I think it's really cool that the
now record holder is Claire Obscure, which they revealed in
a recent interview.
Speaker 2: Like yesterday.
Speaker 3: I think that the game costs ten million, which is
probably how much they spent on Ellie's model in the
Last of Us Part two. And so I think it's
really cool to see a game like Claire not only
like do really well, but also take a record from
you know, something like the Last of Us Part two,
a great game, but like Sony's tent Pole fran Tis
half a billion dollar budget game types of situation.
Speaker 4: It was cool.
Speaker 3: It's cool to see. I mean, there's a lot of
big names on these lists. You know, I would have
you know, Hades two and Silk Song and stuff great games,
but like Donkey Kong, Bonanza got like shut Out that's
a Nintendo first party game, Death Training too, Kajima that's
you know, Jeff's best friend. Like it's I'm not like
happy these games lost, but it is kind of cool
to see a smaller game punch above their weight and
come out as like the winner of the class, which
I think is is really cool. And yeah, as far
as the show goes, I've kind of put aside this
as like an award show, like I do it is
an award show, but I also treat it as like
a I mean it's a lot of work for us.
It's three hours of covering. Yeah, and so, like I
was excited by a lot of the announcements, Like, to
be honest, there was a lot of that leaked, which
is kind of how it goes, but there was still
some big surprises for me.
Speaker 2: Cadence of the awards was poor.
Speaker 3: Again, Like I remember there was one point near the
beginning and I was like, I can't it's been like
forty minutes since the last award, But I'm kind of
over even trying to affect change in that regard because
like it's just not gonna happen.
Speaker 1: It just like it will, yes, yeah, awards dice, Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm not saying we shouldn't hold Jeff's feet to the fire,
but like at a certain point he is just not
concerned about the fire and it just drop.
Speaker 1: The vision, right yes, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And he's made it very clear.
Speaker 3: Ultimately, I think this was probably one of my favorite
shows in recent years as far as that goes. I
think the pacing was was nice, nicer. I mean, it's
still super long, but a couple of weird ads Battlefield
six for Red Sex, you get like the Red Sex
ad the worst ad. It felt like I was like,
are we in the Spike Awards again?
Speaker 2: Like what is it was?
Speaker 4: I might have been head down in a righte of
Oh it's bad. I muted it too.
Speaker 1: You should pull it up on YouTube. We're talking just.
Speaker 3: It also has like really bad animation, like reminiscent of
like twenty ten's YouTube.
Speaker 2: And then it was.
Speaker 3: Just a sex joke the entire time, and not even
like a sex joke, just the word sex, like oh
my god, so raunchy.
Speaker 1: Were saying, oh, I believe, and then when red sex
came up on screen and they crossed it out, I
was like, yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 3: Couldn't believe that was their go for their big battle
reale ad, Like truly terrible.
Speaker 4: This looks like the was it the jib jab or
whatever from Yeah, Like that's what reminds me of the
Like it looks like.
Speaker 1: Like a student project tried to like emulate South Park.
Speaker 4: Dude grounds is so bad?
Speaker 1: Yeah exactly. Yeah, it was horrible. I it was shocked.
Speaker 3: And then I think we went right into whatever game
was shown next also had a similar raunchy. I think
it was that Toxic Commando maybe John Carpenter's game which,
to be fair, that's the vibe of that game. But
I was just like, what is happening? Where are are
we in junior high again? This is crazy?
Speaker 2: That was my low red sex.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's fair. I think there are there
were a lot of ads like that that I just
tuned out. We are also all all of us, I
think this year juggling writing, Yeah, and so I would
kind of peek my head. I had like, you know,
a quarter of the screen showing the stream at all times,
even if I was, you know, writing, And I just
remember there were a lot of ads where I was like, oh, okay,
I can just check out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, I do want to gotcha games that former
editor Blake Kester, I know, is like obsessed with and love.
Speaker 1: Speaking of Blancaster. Speaking of Blake Caster, look what arrived
in my mail?
Speaker 4: Yes, y.
Speaker 1: Of Guitar Hero rock band and the music game Boom
by one. Blake Kester. Also, look at this book they've
got they've got the Guitar Hero style tabs to mark
the individual parts of the book and they actually actually
like die cut so that Yeah, it's so cool. That's awesome.
Shot out Blake, Yeah, shout out Blake. So proud of
him for putting this book out for.
Speaker 4: Read only memory.
Speaker 1: I know it was a beast to come together, and
I can't wait to dive in. I haven't had time
to dive in. I literally came in yesterday evening and
then we worked all night.
Speaker 2: But it's a beautiful shout out.
Speaker 1: Go pick up a copy the oldal history of Guitar
Hero Rock Band in the video music video game Boom.
Speaker 4: One quick thing I do want to say about Clear
Winning is that I think of maybe all the Game
of the Year winners that I can think of stretching back.
It's not only nice that, like Wes said, it was
this team, this studio kind of representing maybe a broader
shift in games, you know, alongside stuff like like Larry
and Winning two years ago, but also like the the
aesthetic of Claire, the sound of Claire, the look and
music of Claire felt really like like fun to see
over and over again. Like this was not just a
bunch of people walking up in suits and being like, well,
thank you very much, we want to thank the team
back home. It was like a bunch of really earnest,
eager people dressed up in there like super like French
outfits and starting the show, you know what, kind of
almost like forecasted the whole wind, having the performance and
the gamage coming down, and it's just like it's a
fun game to see win over and over again and
to see up on the stage like that and and
elicited and just kind of like I had a bell
curve where I was like, Oh, Claire's really going to
win all these and I was like, Oh, it's getting
kind of cool that like, yes when when all of them,
that's awesome, and like all of them, you know, always
saying like for those who come after tomorrow comes, like
all that kind of stuff, and I was like, yes, yeah, yeah,
I don't know, it's like a hopeful fun win. It's
it's not like, yeah, oh the corporation is walking up
to get another award for the millions and millions it's
spent on gaming. I was like, Oh, this this scrappy team,
like really got it done. That's that's that's a narrative
I can get behind.
Speaker 2: And it was quaking.
Speaker 3: They brought the whole team because every time they won
an award, the person that should be holding that award
was up there. It wasn't just like the director every
time and all that kind of stuff. I thought that
was really cool.
Speaker 2: And Jennifer English's speech.
Speaker 1: All be good.
Speaker 2: Shout out to her.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and Ben Starr, he's such a gentleman.
Speaker 2: He deserves an award.
Speaker 3: He's fantastic and he has been he does not get
an award every year because his coworkers or something like
that win it. And he's so nice and kind about it.
And yeah, shout out Jennifer English.
Speaker 1: And Star Well cool. Any any other takeaways guys before
we kind of move into the more trailer focused topic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Eric, you mentioned they started the show with the
Expedition thirty three musical thing.
Speaker 2: Was that kind of like odd?
Speaker 5: Though?
Speaker 2: It was cool, but like.
Speaker 4: I felt like it set the Like when it started,
I definitely in my mind thought, oh, Claire is definitely
gonna win it all tonight, isn't it like that's.
Speaker 3: I thought it was gonna be a montage of all
the games, and then it was just Claire and I
was like, okay.
Speaker 4: And it's the first time they've done something like that,
but and especially with claireub Scare, it was like, Okay, well,
they've got an incredible soundtrack, like a really well done soundtrack.
Totally deserve the win and they get to show it
off and it's gonna sound really good in a live
orchestral performance and all that. But it did feel like
it set the tone a little bit.
Speaker 2: Yeah a little spoilerler.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah, well go ahead.
Speaker 5: I just wanted to real quick just just a fun
fact about the the awards just again.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So the ones, So claireb scar got nine, the Last
Was Part two had seven. They mostly overlap. Interestingly, the
two that put Claire Obscure over the top is Indie
game and debut Indie Game. So that because it got
both those two. Otherwise they would have theoretically been tied
if this wasn't an indie game. But Claire Obscure got
best Music. Uh, but Last of Us Part two got
best Audio Design and Innovation and Accessibility.
Speaker 1: Oh that's fair. I remember it did have a lot
of options.
Speaker 2: Pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, audio design makes sense to Last of Us is.
Speaker 4: Yes, surprised Last of Us didn't take soundtrack that year,
did not? Well?
Speaker 5: Uh, we talked with this was this is one of
the quiz questions on right, and that was on it,
which is why I know there's never been a oh
this is the first year that a game has won
Game of the Year and Best Score slash Music. It's
never happened before been a game.
Speaker 2: Who won Last of us is year.
Speaker 1: I'll give you multiple.
Speaker 5: Choice, doing Maternal or in the Will of the Wisps
Final Fantasy seven remake where it's remake.
Speaker 4: I think I think remake won it. Yeah, correct, Yeah.
Speaker 1: That's fair. That's fair, especially the same year. Yeah well
yeah yeah man that year too, Yeah yeah, oh it did.
Speaker 5: Yeah, not for music. Anyways, I thought that was interesting.
Speaker 1: I do want to say, I I'm sad that as
much as I get why, you know, if it takes
Indie best, Indians can take best to debut Indy, I
do wish other games like Blueprints or Peak or you know,
remember that those are the two that I really was behind,
would have gotten some Flowers would And I guess you
could say their flowers was being nominated or being nominated.
Speaker 2: There was Despolotane, Dispatch or the other choices.
Speaker 4: I would have loved it nominated Peak was.
Speaker 1: Dispatch, Yeah yeah, And I think what Arc Raiders did
our Raiders take that?
Speaker 4: Yes?
Speaker 5: Yes, that was Yovich who I wish they had like
maybe they do like and this doesn't make sense. It's
kind of a good spirit of it. But it'd be
cool if they were like Claire up Scar you got
the Runaway Award, you get the award, where like you
basically win everything and then we just see what everyone
else gets. I just think it's just it'd be more
interesting if it was more varied.
Speaker 4: But I don't know.
Speaker 5: It's also like if you if you do a good job,
you should get all the trophies. So that's fine. Yeah,
I think it'd be interesting to see like like we
we didn't as an outlet, we voted were like among
the voting jury. We did vote claiup Scear for a
number of categories, but some of them we gave to
other games to be like, well, not necessarily like the
best at all of them. It's just is like a
good game. Like I think we put Erica for best
performance for Ghost of Yote.
Speaker 4: I think we.
Speaker 1: Put Prince as best Debut, didn't we?
Speaker 5: Or I think so.
Speaker 4: I probably fought a little bit for that one because
I'm a Blueprints siko and.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Blueprints was my number two game. Spoilers for upcoming stuff.
Speaker 4: I That's the other weird part is that this is
I think the third outlet. I've participated in voting for
the TGAs with over the course of my career, and
you always end up because you know, we are already
a group of people that are coming to one decision,
and then we all submit a vote, which is then
part of another group of people that are coming to
a decision, and all the they're they're pretty transparent about
how all this stuff works. It's all online, and actually
I think Post Games did a whole episode recently about
this about how like the nitty gritty of how the
Game Awards breaks down, how it's structured, how people vote
and stuff like that. So I'd recommend you go seek
that out if you want like really good details. But
I think all of his is also like on the
Game Awards site as well, like what the voting body
is and how the votes like like get broken down
and all that, and it's I guess when you look
at it that way of what is just going to
be the common denominator, it's like, well, a game like
claib Scarer did come in and basically up end the
industry to the point that we haven't stopped talking about
it for like six months at this point, I joked
last night that claib Skier is one of my three
favorite games of the year full stop, and then talking
like discoursing extensively in the wake of claib Scere has
been one of my three least favorite topics of discussion
this entire year, because everybody is just it's constantly stacking
levels of like it's the greatest thing ever. It changed
the game forever. It's the worst thing ever. It changed
the game forever. And by the way, it's back and
back and back and back, and I was like last night,
I was just like, Oh, what a good game. That's fun.
Great good year.
Speaker 5: Strategy is if I care about a game, I just
mute all the words related to it on social media because.
Speaker 1: That's so smart.
Speaker 5: Just poisoned me. I went into unmute Clair Obscure because
I also muted it for spoilers. Because I finally finish it.
I was like, oh, I muted every every word related
to the last of US. I guess when season two
was coming out, because that's like, that's the most insufferable
discourse to me. But I was like, man, I hope,
I hope no one was trying to tell me about
a person named Abby because I just had Abby muted
and I didn't see anything representing that. But yeah, that's
my that's my suggestion. If you love, if you really
like a game, just mute it everyone. You can find
your own opinions and keep them sacred. You can finally,
unmute the nation of France. You can do it, unmute,
unmute mime.
Speaker 3: As gis resident French person. Last night was a big
win for us. You know, we have a lot of
we have a chip on our shoulder. People will make
fun of us for surrendering a lot, but we did
it last night.
Speaker 2: I'll forget we.
Speaker 1: We we we we all know history. We don't need
to brag about it. We all know.
Speaker 3: You know, we got the guillotine and we got Exhibition
thirty three.
Speaker 1: That's it. That's smart. I like that.
Speaker 2: And stinky cheese.
Speaker 5: You let's call it the Nintendo.
Speaker 1: Yes, Okay, we're gonna take a quick ad break and
then we'll be right back to talk about our favorite
trailers of the night. And we're back. Thanks for sticking
with us. Guys. Let's dive into our favorite announcements of
the night. You know, the the more forward facing part
of the show where Jeff Keey and team get a
bunch of trailers show him off and everybody reacts. I'll
start I think one of the one of the games
that really kind of it was a big surprise. You know,
I think we going in we all have, like you know,
we hear things, we we kind of expect things, we've
in some cases we've pre written news because we've gotten
briefed on it. But one of the surprises for me,
at least, I know, I know there were some rumblings
I guess prior, but I hadn't heard them, was the
almost aid Fate of the Chicken Foot, Fate of the
Old Republic. Yeah, Star Wars Fate of the Old Republic,
and you know, it was just a cinematic trailer. But
Casey Hudson is back, of course. Casey Hudson prominent prominently
known for his work in directing Kotor Knights of the
Old Republic as well as the Mass Effect trilogy, has
kind of had a lot of it's kind of bounced
around in recent years, and you know, following various studio
closures and that sort of thing, and sounds like he's
he's been picked up for this, but I would love
to hear y'all's reaction to seeing this.
Speaker 4: As a Mass Effects super fan last night was really
weird because it felt like we're seeing it already. Kind
of felt like this in previous years of here are
companies that in the wake of what Electronic Arts has
done with BioWare in the last decade. Let's say at
this point, a lot of you know, developers have left,
a lot of talent has left, and a lot of
studios have sprung up in the wake of all those
layoffs and departures that are trying to rekindle it. And
they should try to rekindle it, because like Golden Age,
there's arguably multiple Golden ages of biowear, and people want
games like that. I think that is just de fact
though I was happy that two different games both it
was Exodus, I always want to call it something else.
It's Exodus and Star Wars Faded, the Old Republic popped
up as here are two Mass Effect successors. Here are
two games that are really trying to capture the vibes
of that, or even just the vibes of BioWare of
that like Xbox to Xbox three sixty era that so
many people like cherish now and feels like whimsically nostalgic
at this point, and I'm happy for it. And also,
I don't know, Star Wars games can be very hit
or miss for me. I'm not a huge Star Wars fan,
but if any of them are really going to hit,
I will always remember. I was on a plane traveling
I think for the holidays, maybe at some point a
couple of years ago, but it was the year that
Kotor got revealed, and I was sitting behind a group
of dudes who, you know, a group of just probably
college aged dudes who I would not expect to be,
you know, maybe play some video games, but not be
deeply into them, not like playing the super niche stuff.
They were all chats, you're saying a little bit, a
little bit like stereotypical jocks, just being frank, And I
am typecasting and exposing my own body on the plane,
you know, I'm exposing my own biases to be like
they were. They were excited about Kotor. They were talking
about did you see the Knights Deal Republic? Do you
remember that game? Do they're making another one? And I
was like, dang, these games have reached the look they're
happy now they're happy before.
Speaker 1: They took Eric to the playing bathroom and gave him
a weggie.
Speaker 4: Yes, yeah, look, we didn't need to talk about that.
We've for me there.
Speaker 1: I'm not a band kid.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, wow, No, I'm happy. I think this is
going to be a pretty big one to watch in
the coming years because that that seems like a lot
of things teed up for success and years too.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I haven't read our story on it because it was
in the midst of everything, but Casey Hudson started that
studio in July, so like that game is probably not
going to come out when Star Wars Eclips comes.
Speaker 1: Out twenty thirty one.
Speaker 4: I still I still think it probably arrives before Mass
Effect five is the thing? If it? Yeah, yeah, yeah
big if But yeah, looks good. But yeah, do we?
Speaker 1: Okay? Can I ask?
Speaker 4: Is this the dumb question?
Speaker 1: Are we? And I'm sorry if I'm I'm forgetting it's
early in the morning? Are we getting this? And Nights
that night's the Old Republic remake or whatever?
Speaker 4: Tours?
Speaker 5: So they're different, they're different studios, different projects.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's what I thought. Okay. Also, I guess I
guess the KO tour one a is a remake, right,
It's not a it's not a proper follow up or anything.
So I guess there's a room for both. But I
was I was like, huh, that's interesting to have kind
of both of those in play.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 5: I feel like the what Aspire is making the Nights
of Republic remake, I feel like kind of a hot mess.
Speaker 4: I think they I'm checking that right now. I think
that got shuffled because I think it's by Saber. Yeah too,
which is.
Speaker 2: Wild because Saber it has so much.
Speaker 3: They're doing the tur Rock Revival, Jurassic Park Survival, which
I'm surprised you didn't see last night Nights of the
Old Republic. I know Saber is huge and they have
studios all over the world, but like that, that's a lot.
Speaker 4: Game file Steven Tazilla's game file most recently got info
that the Koto remake is in development at mad Head Games,
which worked on the Hell Raiser revival project and Saber.
So that's kind of where it's at right now.
Speaker 3: Okay, Hell Raiser isn't even out right, that's like upcoming.
Speaker 4: Hell Raiser revival. I don't know. I'm not a hell
Razor guy. I just wouldn't open the box personally, but.
Speaker 5: Yeah, they're different. I guess it's the moral.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that one's not out. That's a twenty twenty six games,
So yeah.
Speaker 5: I was gonna say that. Uh, Like I I am
extremely excited as someone who I don't know how I
first even played Knights of the Old Republic because I
was like I was just too young for it when
it came out, and then kept like trying to play
it on modern consoles. I remember buying it on Steam
in like twenty fifteen or something, but my computer couldn't
run it, and I just had like a laptop and
I didn't I couldn't figure it out. And I eventually
finally like started to play through in earnest, like three
or four years ago. But it's always been like a
really exciting game and concept to me, and crazy that
it's it's often cited as like the best Star Wars
game of all time. It's in a lot of like
best RPGs of all time lists, like it's a game
that people really love that just like got kind of
pushed to the wayside. And then I'm kind of surprised
that they're doing a new entry given like Disney kind
of upending the canon of you know, the Old Republic.
I think that was one of the things, is like
none of this is the Old Republic doesn't exist anymore.
So I don't I don't know what like the continuity
is going to be, if they even care about it.
Maybe they don't care about it. I don't know. Maybe
it'll just be a side thing.
Speaker 3: But I Star Wars is in a throw spaghetti at
the wall and see what sticks.
Speaker 5: That's fair. I'm I'm just excited. I never would have
guessed that this would be around. Also, I didn't know that.
I didn't know it was the same director as Mass Effect,
which is wild. Never never put those pieces together.
Speaker 1: I'm also really excited. Are you guess cool? If I
move on to another game, absolutely, I'm done. Yeah. Star
Wars Galactic Racer. It was just a cinematic Yeah that's fun.
But I I love pod racing. It's it's one of
my hobbies, you know, Criterion like yeah, yeah, X need
for speed people.
Speaker 3: So, like, I don't think this is just going to
be like a licensed quick hit. I think this is
going to be like a full scale racing game where.
Speaker 1: You, yeah, and if the the tone of the cinematic trailer. Uh,
you know, is to be believed. It's more, it's a
little more gritty. Maybe I don't know, it's a very
what what did you just say?
Speaker 5: I said gritty? So bol Bah, you know Bulba the
main villain in the pod racing sequence and stars up
so one of the phantom enace him, but like him.
Speaker 4: Pictureba hitting the gritty and that was Can we make
Bulba hit the gritty in the.
Speaker 5: Fortnight? That would be that'll be great.
Speaker 4: If you dislike gritty because it's you're thinking of the
tactile nature of the the word gritty. Would you prefer smooth?
Would that be more palatable for you? You can't? Smooth?
Speaker 1: Sounds like? What what is the stuff in your nose?
Your pores? Sebum? Excuse me, nom that's in the nose?
See it's sebaceous film is natural waxy oil produced by
the sabacious clans. So I just think of gritty nose.
It's honestly the correct vie for the kind of aura
he emits.
Speaker 4: Alex, Why do you have that information loaded into your
Because I.
Speaker 1: Take care of my face. I do skincare, all right,
and I got I got a deal. I have an
oily nose.
Speaker 4: Okay, so when you're putting the mask on, like this
is really going to hit the sabacious game Informer announces
Alex has an.
Speaker 1: Oily nose that you have to take in my nose.
I'm just submin it right now. So gritty s bolba.
I do not like that, okay, and I'm sure there
are listeners out there who agree with me. I got
a lot of things.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Uh but yeah, Galactic Racer looks cool. I mean it's
just a cinematic trailer. We don't know what it actually
looks like. But you know, I color me excited.
Speaker 4: I think subacious color another one of mine.
Speaker 1: Sorry, I'm I'm taking the reins here and I'll pass
it off after this one. I do want to talk
about probably my favorite game of the show out of
out of announcements. It might be I'm setting aside layering
because it's a cinemaag trailer. I am Orbitals, which is
a Nintendo Switch to exclusive coming in twenty twenty six.
It is a I guess you could kind of liken
it to like Haze Light Productions and in there, you know,
at this point, signature, you know, split screen experiences such
as a Way Out and it takes two and split fiction.
Orbitals is being developed by a studio called Shape Farm
that's based in Tokyo, and it is a anime style
or an approach to that kind of genre, in like
an anime aesthetic, and they've partnered up. I know it's
been developed an Unreal Engine five, which I do have
some worries about with with that in the switch, I'm
curious how that will play out. But yeah, it's it's
it's this really gorgeous, you know, animation style. They're partnering
with studio Masket, who worked on Blue Lock and I
was reincarnated as Seventh Prints so I can take my
time perfecting my magical ability.
Speaker 3: Thank you for reading my story, because I was, I was.
I had a good chuckle putting that.
Speaker 1: It's got it's got one.
Speaker 4: It's got super nineties like game X vibes to it,
like yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 5: Want to say, yeah, Alex said anime aesthetic, and I
wanted to clarify it's like it's like a nineties retro anime.
Speaker 4: Like almost like it's got some ranma to it. It's
got like some uh oh my gosh, I can't think
of it. It's a magical girl anime from that era.
But yeah, it's it's very like early nineties no no, yeah,
and industrial like space, like you're there in space right.
Speaker 1: It's called Orbital, but it almost reminds you of like
Romo Tech or something like a lot of like the
big like space structures and ships they're.
Speaker 4: In Yasha I was thinking of, which is not a
magical girl anime.
Speaker 1: But yeah, anywash, I could see that with the characters. Yeah,
even like style of it. Yeah, yeah, it looks really cool.
I'm I really want to play it, hoping that maybe
we'll get a chance to preview the game sometime soon,
who knows. But it's been published by Kepler Interactive, and
it really just that was one of those games. I
was in the middle of writing another story and I
was I was just like, oh, whoa, I've got a
bookmark that to come back to in the morning to
check out and watch the trailer all the way. But yeah,
it looks it looks great. I cannot wait for that.
And that one's called Orbitals. I'll pass it to you, Charles,
any any any any picks. Uh.
Speaker 5: Yeah, there's a little game called Lego Batman Legacy of
the Dark Night. That's probably just my most anticipated game
period right now. If you've never heard me on a
podcast before, I love Lego games. My first few game
was Lego Star Wars I played. I don't know what
game I have the most hours in. It's probably the
original Lego Star Wars, but Lego Batman two is up there.
It has like a free roam Gotham City that me
and my brother would just like we weren't even doing
like completionist stuff. We would just play tag in Lego
Batman and I would always pick the flash and it
was stupid.
Speaker 6: Yeah it's yeah, and like like just a putting more perspective.
I started watching E three coverage as a kid because
Lego Batman three was coming out and I wanted to
find out if Green Lantern was gonna be able to
like shoot projectiles in the Lego games because Lego Batman
two he's like really lame. All he does is fly
unless you're like in a level and you can solve
Green Lantern puzzles. But it's like I wanted to be
able to do fun stuff with him outside of the
context of a level. Yeah, I want to shoot my brother.
Speaker 5: With Green Lantern.
Speaker 4: Lasers.
Speaker 5: Anyways, this game doesn't have green lantern, but it does
look really cool. Uh, it's like, you know, combination of
it's not like one adaptation. They're just kind of like
mashing a lot of Batman together. It's the one, yeah,
a super cut, that's a great word for it, of
just all of all the Batman's greatest hits. And then
this trailer showed off like a bunch of more characters
that are going to be in it. So now we
know that, like we got Catwoman, we got mister Freeze,
we got the Penguin, we got Batgirl, We've got Poison
Ivy I think appears at one point at least there's
a giant venus fly trap, so I assume that's Poison Ivy.
There's like one shot I missed last night of night Wing,
like night Wing.
Speaker 3: Baine and somebody doing a t Already esque bane voice.
Speaker 5: Yes, wasn't that we're talking last night? Because it's like
it's most like I maybe they'll pull from comics or something.
I don't know, but they're generally pulling from like film
inspirations and some like video game inspirations. But we were like,
what what is the context that bat Girl and Firefly
would show up.
Speaker 2: And because.
Speaker 3: The canceled Back Girl movie was supposed to be Batgirl
versus Firefly, I can't imagine that release that this is
in the game. Yah, but like, I don't know it
is it is. Maybe it's just a wink to people
to like DC fans, like, hey, we we know.
Speaker 5: There's no point where it's like like they're not going
to a section You're like, miss is the section based
on the Dark Night. It's just like if you're paying attention,
you can pick stuff up. So I do wonder if,
like when they were developing the game, the bat Girl
movie was still coming out and they were just like, well,
we designed this whole Batgirl Firefly encounter, like maybe it'll
seem like the winner's apart.
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 5: They're also in other stuff like Back Girls in y
uh What, Batman and Robin, and then Fireflies in the
Arkham games in various appearances.
Speaker 3: They're also pooling from animated movies and stuff too, Like
there's definitely phantasm inspiration in there. I played this game
of games Calm, which I don't know if I ever
spoke about it here, but it is just an Arkham
game and I mean that the best way possible, Like
it is a Lego Batman game with Arkham's everything the
opened Lego wait Arkham.
Speaker 1: No, no, which which Lego Batman?
Speaker 4: This? This one? Oh? This one? Oh?
Speaker 1: Oh I forgot. Yeah, I'm sorry, I'm so sorry. Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like it's a Lego Batman game but with
Arkham mechanics. And I mean that in terms of flying
around Gotham, calling your batmobile, calling your bat cycle, fighting
it like and the developers aren't trying to hide it
like they love they love Arkham, they know people like Arkham,
so like this is highly anticipate, like, yes, this is
going to be I played an hour and a half
and it is so good. And I think that the
story mission I played mixed Mask of the Phantasm and
then very smoothly went right into nineteen eighty I'm Batman.
In terms of creating Jack Nicholson's Joker, and at some
point that Joker transitions into a Heath Ledger style Joker,
for example, because we've seen both. I'm the most curious
thing about it is like, how do you juggle all that?
How do you transition? Because it's not like like you said,
Charles it's not You're now in the Batman and Robin mission.
It is all like one coagulation, and I'm it's gonna
be interesting to see.
Speaker 2: How they do that.
Speaker 3: But it's coming out and we've got to release me last.
Speaker 2: Night, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's also arriving amid all this Warner Brothers stuff
happening on the periphery. And I mentioned that in my
write up, but it is, y'all. We're talking about how
weird the Batgirl situation is around it, and it's also
in a weird situation where people were joking like, here's
lego Batman Legacy of the Dark Knight theoretically still a
Warner Brothers game, and yeah, it's it's it's in a
weird limbo because of all that, and it might be
the one game that is doing that, because i mean,
Nether realm's been pretty quiet, you know, Suicide Squad, Rock
Steady like that, that whole situation kind of fizzled out,
and so this is like the one weird game that
could get caught in the limbo as this big potential
shift happens in the entertainment industry that would then affect
Warner Brothers. So Warner Brothers Games.
Speaker 5: So I do think that, uh, based on how these
things go, I don't know who's gonna buy it, Warner Brothers,
which which are the big companies gonna do it? I
think this will come out before that because those usually
take like months to go through. But I am curious of, like,
you know, do we do we see a post post
launch update to like the opening credits where they changed
the Warner Bros.
Speaker 2: Logo or something like desa Netflix Games.
Speaker 4: Yeah, maybe that's a pretty they put good seller stuff there. Yeah,
Lego Party is on the Netflix app. I believe, so
that already makes a pretty good fit there. Soflix My god.
Yeah we got.
Speaker 1: To play that because Eric, Eric came over to play
Lego Party. Uh we play that.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was that was a little while ago. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I had brought down my laptop to the
living room and hooked it up to the TV and
then had four controllers connected via blue.
Speaker 4: Kind of a kind of a nightmarish set up for sure.
I will say Lego Party on my list of my
favorite ten games of this year.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's good. Yeah, I kind of regret now putting
it on mine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, No, it's it's a it's a really really good one.
As somebody who has been a Mario Party siko for
about as long as I can remember, I was really
happy with this, and I think it was the thing
that this genre needed was some some good competition.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, it's not the best family Game of the year,
because that's Mario World.
Speaker 2: Oh really.
Speaker 5: Racing game of the year.
Speaker 4: Not to not to move back into category talk real quick,
but like split Fiction and any Haze like game, being
in best Family Game is still kind of crazy to me.
Like I get that it's a co op game that
you could play with family members, but when I when
I hear family game, I assume parents and children.
Speaker 1: Like that is just my way out.
Speaker 4: Yeah yeah, yeah to me, let's play the game that's
about divorce.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so we're soft. We're soft launching our divorce by
showing me it takes two. Also, the reason I got
lost in that conversation when you're talking about the comparing
legacy of the Dark Knight to Arkham is in my
head I was daydream is like, we should bring out
the team to Minnesota and take them to the Giant
Lego store at the Mall of America for a video
and then and then I came back to the conversation.
That's why I was a little lost.
Speaker 4: We should we should do legos as a team building exercise. Absolutely, yeah, yeah,
who's next, Who's got one?
Speaker 2: I'll go next.
Speaker 3: So Remedy Entertainment revealed the sequel to Control, and it's
called The Control Resonant. It's a melee action RPG set
in an open ended distinctly not open world. The director
told me, it's not open world Manhattan. And you are
playing is Jesse Faden's brother Dylan, seven years after Control.
I'm not surprised Remedy is doing something bonkers with the sequel,
but I'm still shocked that this is what Control too is,
And I'm curious. I saw this game behind closed doors
before the Game Awards, and you can read some of
the some of my interview with the director on an
upcoming magazine issue. I'm curious how you guys feel, because
at first I kind of had a little bit of
like shell shock when they revealed all this because it's
so it's still very Control, but it's so different from Control.
Control to me is Jesse. It is the gun, it
is the house, and now it is not Jesse. It
is not a gun, it's a melee weapon. It's an
RPG with skill trees and stuff and set in an
open ended Manhattan. So I'm curious. I guess I'm presuming
that you guys are all Control fans. How do you
feel about this as the sequel to Control?
Speaker 5: I am not a huge Control fan the whole remedy
versus one that I have tried in earnest to like
get into and for some reason it just like has
never really clicked for me. And this was one that,
like the direction it went, I was like, Oh, I
didn't realize this was this would look so cool because
we just saw Yeah, I think I think this is
something that other people would have freaked out about more.
But we all knew it was coming because West got
pre briefed on it. But like super exciting that this
is finally like seeing the light of day. But I
was fully expecting to be like, oh, it'll be more Control.
Speaker 4: I gave.
Speaker 5: I played a lot of and then never finished because
I didn't really connect with and instead because it was
so different, like I'm kind of pulled back in It's
kind of my take.
Speaker 4: I definitely had the moment of feeling, oh, it's not
Jesse and then I saw Dylan air juggling someone and
I was like, wait a minute, hold on, let him
cook like they're on.
Speaker 3: I was watching with the friend last night and he
was like, Yo, this looks like Double May.
Speaker 7: Cry, and I was like, hold on, yeah, yeah, my
brain went to There was a couple scenes in this
where I'm like, this looks like Infamous Second Son.
Speaker 4: I could see, I can see that. I can see that.
Speaker 1: Ye yeah, specifically when he like some of the air
juggling stuff, some of the there's a there's a scene
where his arms are They've got a gift of it
on the steam page that I'm looking at actually, and
his arms are like lit up red like orange, and
he's just like the animation and him flinging. It's like
very anime like where like there's these big like pauses
in between the action or like right when the hit,
when they hit, there's like a brief pause.
Speaker 3: Where like Monster Hunter Crush like animation.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but then the weapon has like Final Fantasy fifteen
vibes almost. I love in the cut scene or in
the cinematic, uh, he's like walking up the stairs and
you see he's holding two and then he like lets
go of one and it snaps into the other like
a magnet, and then he like goes into a hammer
stance and it starts just getting larger, larger and then larger,
And I was like, yeah, yeah, how big can the
hammer get? And like I I look, I have two
brain cells and I was clapping the whole dime.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's that.
Speaker 3: That weapon is called the Apparent, which is the sole
weapon he'll have, similar to Jesse's service weapon, which shape
shifted to what she needed. Uh, this is a melee
weapon that will shape from like dual katana like swords
to a single sword to hammers, which is really cool.
And also the trailer shows I putting get in confirmation.
I asked the director if it was the same thing.
But Jesse's like stabbing her brother in the Oldest House
with what appears to be this weapon. But this game
takes play seven years after Control, Jesse has disappeared, and
so I guess slight spoilers for the end of Control.
The Hiss are able to escape the Oldest House and
that's why Manhattan goes ari and uh and uh, yeah,
it's it looks like inception and no way home and
but still very Remedy and I just, yeah, it's crazy.
Speaker 5: And this is getting a little bit too in the
Remedy weeds. But where does Alan Wake two take place
in terms of the timeline with control. Is it happening
at the same time it's happening after.
Speaker 4: It's after control, after control, because I think the event
the director, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I part of control, she becomes a director,
and then then some Alan Wake two stuff happens. No
indication at all how this could connect to Alan Wake too,
I'm sure it will. Somebody in the yeah asked about Yeah. Yeah,
they said this is definitely the Remedy verse obviously, but
they didn't say anything more. I'm trying to look at
my ride up if there's anything different. They yeah, again,
I'm distinctly not an open world game. They said it
is an open ended side stories melee action RPG. They
made sure to say it is not an action adventure game,
which you know, who knows what Remedy thinks what that
means as a genre, meaningful progression and real choices, distinctive builds.
So like, it is an RPG for sure, and I'm
excited to see what Remedy does with that, because I
really love remedy, but not their ideas don't always hit FBC,
for example, was them kind of stepping out of their
typical genre and it didn't really turn out the way
I think anyone expected. So I'm a little wary of
this being an RPG. That's a big step. But it
looks awesome. I mean it's and it comes out next year,
so we'll see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, h I think another one Wes that we were
talking about before the show recording was covent on the
chicken Foot.
Speaker 3: Yes, that is from Wildflower Interactive, which Bruce Strayley, who
co created The Last of Us. Emphasis on co creator
because that truly has been lost in the discussion of
Last of Us, and it has been intentional naughty dog
Neil Druckman like even the credits of the remakes and
stuff like don't really mentioned Strayli. He co created Last
of Us. He was the game director on it, and
you wouldn't know that these days. Even last night on stage,
Jeff Keeley said from one of the developers of the
Last of Us, which yes, he was a developer, but
like he directed it. Yeah, he directed the dang thing.
He co created that universe. Anyway, I'm just in my story,
I called it the Last of Us co creator Bruce
Stralia because I it does annoy me how much he's
been erased from that game, and because he took a
sabbatical and left Naughty Dog. But anyway, his new game
is a witch adventure called Coven of the Chicken Foot.
It is kind of like a cell shaded animation esque
Last Guardian type game. You're a witch who finally has
the chance to prove herself to the coven. You're an
old lady and you've waited all your life to do it,
and now you have the chance. And you come across
this oddball companion who's kind of like a big dog
frog thing. And that companion is completely AI and it
can learn and adapts to your play style, all the
kind of stuff that we heard discussed with Last Guardian.
But it's been a decade, so I'm assuming the companion
will be much more adept to what you do.
Speaker 2: And yeah, it's a cute trailer.
Speaker 3: You would not know this is a Bruce Strayley game,
I guess you could say from looking at it, because
all we've known of him for years is uncharted in
Last of Us. But I mean the dude has talent,
and he created the studio and he handpicked the devs there,
so like, I'm very much looking forward to seeing what
this is. And it's their debut game, so really cool.
It's no release date at all and it's only in
development for PC, so I suspect this is still a
little early and they only got founded in twenty twenty two,
so it'll be a minute.
Speaker 2: But looks cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it really The art style really captured me, and yeah,
the references to the last Guardian spot on. It looks
really fun and it looks like it it is going
to be one to pay attention to. But Eric, do
you have do you have one you want to you
want to shout?
Speaker 4: Shout out the one I never could have seen coming.
Like legitimately, we joked earlier about you know, sometimes it
get pre breathed or you know, you hear some rumors
and stuff like that, this one, zero clue, zero idea
was happening. Genuinely surprised. Ace Combat eight. Baby, we're taking
back the skies. We're we're getting in there. We got
first person story segments, we got a crew around us,
and we're getting back into the plane. Like if you've seen.
There's there's a fantastic TikTok by a game developer as
All Nelson Junior that's about like before and after seeing
Top Gun Maverick where walking in you're like, well, I
don't know, you know, this is a lot of you know,
glorification of really violent acts that can happen, and then
walking out like we need fifth generation fighters, we got
to take to the sky, we gotta beat on and like, yeah,
I'm sorry. Ace Combat is genuinely i'd sincerely mean this
one of the best series on the PlayStation two. I
love those games. Ace Combat four, Ace Combat five, as
Combat zero, Ace Combat seven, by the way, on sale
right now five dollars on Steam. Go play it. If
you have not played it, it's a good time right
now to be an ace Combat fan. We are so back.
I love this series. If you if you hear me
talking about this, you're like, Eric, it's it's a jet
fighter game. What are you talking about? This is metal gear,
solid jet fighters. This is intense, huge world building and
big weird names, and then all of a sudden you're
in a jet plane and the enemy has like a
super bomber and you're having to fly around and take
out different parts of it and all this kind of stuff,
or you have this moment where everything suddenly changes in
the mission. You have to adapt on the fly. It's
an ambush all of a sudden, and all these fighters
are coming in on your mini map and you've got
to suddenly be like, we gotta pivot, we gotta turn,
we gotta take out these bogies. We're surrounded. It's I
love ace combat games if you can't tell, like a
good Ace Combat hits and like, look, I like Microsoft
Flights and it's a fine game. But that's if you
want to fly a plane. If you want to fight
in a jet, you play Ace Combat.
Speaker 3: Two things on this you mentioned Zaalavar, Yeah, yeah, strange caffolding.
Speaker 2: I'd mentioned it earlier.
Speaker 3: But he's writing the pod racing game.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, he's writing on the pod racing game, which
gives me high hopes for the vibes of that game
for sure.
Speaker 3: Yes, And after the reveal of ace Combat last night,
I was reading about the world of Ace Combat because
I didn't understand the title, and I learned that it's
in a completely fictional world, which.
Speaker 4: Is the strange real I believe.
Speaker 3: Yeah, very cool there's like different nations and all this stuff. Huh,
because it looks so realistic that I assumed you're fighting
like you know, real world countries and other enemies. But
it's like, no, it's a whole like you said, metal
gear solid esque fiction type thing going on there.
Speaker 4: There's a very deep lore to ace Combat, the same
way that Arbored Core has an incredibly deep lore if
you decide to start digging into it, Ace Combat has
the same thing going on. And I forget, I see
I'm being a bad fan. Now, I forget whether it
was four or five has one of the most incredible
story setups, so or I think you're playing as like
prisoners who have been turned into ace combat pilots who
are like taking to the skies, and they all have
like really, you know, it's a little bit suicide squad
in a way that's really fun. Like it's not something
you have to take a deep dive on you got
to watch a YouTube video essay to understand, but consistently
it's it's a game where the more you pay attention
to the story and what's going on it, it's going
to reward you by being like, oh, this is like
some really cool texture to all these air battles that
we're having right now, and then the actual design of
the fights in Ace Combat are just always so surprising,
so fun, so interesting. I'm so glad to see this
game back. It's been a while since Ace Combat seven
came out, and genuinely thrilled to see this series thriving again.
Speaker 1: That rules.
Speaker 4: I also real quick want to shout out Total War
forty K, which is maybe not the most unexpected thing
considering that we've had Total War Warhammer up through three.
At this point, number one looks really sick. I'm not
a forty K tabletop person, but I do enjoy forty
K games quite a bit, and I think they're already
showing really great The forty K world is just so
fun yeah to play in, and already the idea of
just taking like a space Marine chapter some Orcs fingers crossed,
some Tao or some Tyrannids or some Necrons because I
love the weird space factions in this game, uh like
like and doing sort of the galactic conquest type stuff
already sounds like a winning formula. The weird part is
it's Dono War four is also on the way, and
I also love the Dono war series, and I'm like,
that's that feels like you're really kind of crossing the
streams a little bit. I'm not going to complain, you know,
too many two cakes is still two cakes, but that's
a lot of cake to eat in one year, so
I don't know.
Speaker 3: I feel like Warhammer fans eat every cake.
Speaker 2: Y I texted it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I texted a buddy of mine, Luise. He's freelanced
for a game informer. He's spends all his money on
everything Warhammer, like, he loves Warhammer.
Speaker 2: It's his thing.
Speaker 3: And he was saying something very cool about this game,
which I didn't realize from the trailer and I was riding,
so I wasn't maybe paying attention. But you get to
like wage wars on multiple planets simultaneously, which is really cool.
He said, that's super exciting that you're gonna like switch
between planets to like control different armies and stuff, and
it looks really cool. And David Harbor revealed it at
the Game Awards, which is.
Speaker 2: Kind of crazy.
Speaker 4: Crazy timing too. Yeah, yeah, that guy, do you want
to use Google? Yah?
Speaker 5: Both his peak and at his rock bottom. I feel
like season five.
Speaker 4: It was it was a real night for that. When
it came to some of the celebrity appearances, let's say, uh,
I wow.
Speaker 1: I was shocked he was out on stage album That's
all about him?
Speaker 5: But yeah, we had this was a good I remember
the one year I went to Summer Game Fest in person,
there were like no celebrities and I was so mad.
And now I feel like every time I see them,
I'm like, man, I didn't get I didn't get Lenny
Kravitz when I was in that theater. Like this year
we got the whole cast of the Street Fighter movie.
Just like a lot of a lot of big J
J Abrams. Was there a lot of big celebrity appearances
this year.
Speaker 1: I would have rather seen Grazie Abrams there performance.
Speaker 5: That would be cool. I as Alex, Huh, what game
do you want to in? Why is she no?
Speaker 1: I just I just want her to do a soundtrack
for a game.
Speaker 5: I understand. I'm saying. Now, make up a reason that she.
Speaker 4: Would be there.
Speaker 1: Let's say the next Life is Strange. Yeah, they they
had they had daughter produce a the game. What uh?
What was that? The second one? Not Life Stranger too,
but it was like the first true Colors, No, the
one before True Colors that did really well. It was
a spin off one though they've had so many Life
of Strange games. Tell me, why no, God.
Speaker 4: Are you are you talking about? Sorry? I spaced out
for it because I was looking at the list of
games for the storm.
Speaker 5: Yeah, oh gotcha, got gotcha.
Speaker 1: One of my favorite band's daughter the whole soundtrack for that.
It'd be cool to see another artists do that. But
digress shout out the daughters Chata Daughters.
Speaker 5: I actually there was this one Daughter song where I
listened to. I'd never listened to the band before, and
it was like, uh, final Fantasy thirteen on ps five confirmed.
I think those were the first words that daughter said.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, actually, what's sad is you actually got me excited?
Speaker 5: I was like, or something like elaborate, elaborate throwback.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was good. Just some other like quick hit
ones that that we didn't mention, but we just probably
want to bring up. I mean, the Divinity trailer looked
really good. We can't like show that. So if you're
watching the video version, I have placed an artists rendering
of the trailer to the side, please enjoy it. Because
we can't show a single frame of that trailer on
our YouTube channel.
Speaker 3: That might have been a single most gruesome trailer I've
ever seen for a video game at a showcase like this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was.
Speaker 4: That was gruesome a lot.
Speaker 3: Hayes Matt's in it in verse he's written for us
before too. He put on Blue Sky said, I knew
it was a Larry and game the second I saw
two people having sex while a man burned alive above them.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's full of orgies and blood and.
Speaker 5: It was very close. In midsomm it was like midsommer.
Speaker 4: What I will, Oh, don't say that word. We're really
bad for words today that have bad mouthfeel.
Speaker 5: Satious puss guys.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, I will say. I'm excited they're going back
to Divinity because Divinity has one of my favorite things,
uh in any fantasy world building, which is that elves
in the world of Divinity can read people's memories by
consuming their flesh, and that's super sick. Elves in every
other fantasy world are all like high falutin, like we
are the elves. We are here to discuss the terms
of your plans, and and like here, it's like the
elves are like, we're eating flesh so we can read
your memories, and I'm like, yes, dude, so that looks
sick really looking forward to that. We also had Stupid
never Dies. I want to shout out because that was
like pop punk Warm Bodies Brawler and that's that's fantastic.
That's a great mashup of words and ideas that wouldn't
do much for me.
Speaker 1: I proven wrong.
Speaker 2: The reveal was too long.
Speaker 3: It took too long to get the gameplay because I
was like, what is this? It was like two minutes
of Warm Bodies and then ten seconds of the brawler
Devil may cri esk action.
Speaker 4: They took too long, just kind of showing the characters
and doing them like singing and dancing and stuff, and
I think once they got into the action, I was like,
I'm sold. Somebody I know referred to it as this
looks like a new high fire Rush, like this has
like high fight rush vibes, and I'm with them. That's fair. Yeah.
Anthos from Frictional Games makers of Soma also looks really good.
I think Soma is insanely slept on as one of
the better stories in gaming. It's it's a very very
good narrative. Highly recommend checking it out. So if Antos
can hit some of those same notes, going to be
very excited about that. Uh, And I don't I don't.
Speaker 1: Know any thinking star Jonathan Blow's new game, which is
a sort of top down puzzle game.
Speaker 5: So I did see Uh let me, let me pull
it up again.
Speaker 1: Mm hmm.
Speaker 5: It's that game is apparently, uh like a compilation of
a bunch of other games that I didn't realize.
Speaker 3: Kind Yeah, so we have a really good preview. Marks
has a very depth preview. We wrote Jonathan Blow did
not like C plus plus the coding language, so we
started writing a new language in his own.
Speaker 1: I forgot about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, GI started making a game to test. Gy made
various games, all puzzle games because it's Jonathan Blow, and
then decided, wait, I'm actually kind of cooking something here,
and this is that game now, And it's a top
down game to explore four different biomes, and then in
each biome you go into puzzles like each it's a grid,
and each grid is a different kind of puzzle, and
they can be three D puzzles, first person puzzles, two
D puzzles, isometric puzzles, Like there's over a thousand puzzles
in the game, and it's his biggest game by far,
he says, according to the interconnect right, yes, there.
Speaker 1: There's a line trailer where they kind of insinuated that
when two puzzles would merge, so would like their rule set,
like the rules of their world would come together.
Speaker 3: It has like it has I don't want to say
metroid vania, but he Jonathan Blow says, like once you
learn the logic of some puzzles, you now have a
better understanding of how to go.
Speaker 2: Tackle these puzzles.
Speaker 3: So it's like not a mechanically, it's not mechanically a Metroidvania,
but like.
Speaker 2: The knowledge learn knowledge yeah, yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Is like sometimes you plays like a rogue who has
different rules attached with them. I think a rogue or
a thief. They grab any object that's near them automatically.
There's like a wizard. There's all kinds of different like
archetypes that react differently with puzzles.
Speaker 5: We're not doing that, No people are making You're not
making it up.
Speaker 4: I'm just saying we're not doing it. Like you can't
say you can't just say like metroid Brainia, that like
like just because it's like you just did just because
it's like like you can't just do that.
Speaker 5: It makes it makes more sense for like animal, Well,
it's like at where it's like a real dense puzzle
kind of but that it's like actually a metroid vane
as opposed to this.
Speaker 4: I'm going to crash out. This is like metroid vania
is already a bad term. It's already just not a
useful term because most people use it to just refer
to a Metroid style game in the first place, because
the vanya part it's often the part that's left out.
But man like like it's just a puzzle game. It's
like I don't know, it's like like The Witness is
just like missed and and like we've had games like
this since the nineties, so we don't need a new
genre for it.
Speaker 2: The Witness was.
Speaker 3: Far above my brain capacity back when it came out
in twenty fifteen, and I'm already assuming.
Speaker 1: You're still developing your frontal a little bit, yeah.
Speaker 3: Exactly, it's still developing today. And I don't think this
game is for me. I don't when you say like
thousands of puzzles, I'm like a medium.
Speaker 2: I don't got it. I don't like games. We have
to have a notebook by my side.
Speaker 3: And that's what he does is create games. We have
to have a notebook. But this is going to be
a game for the people that liked Witness. I can
already tell mode.
Speaker 4: I'm curious if this doesn't work for you, does Professor
Layton work for you? Because I find that that's like
the puzzle game for people who don't like notebooks, because
that's when we just could get bite sized puzzles that
are like contained.
Speaker 3: I haven't played Professor Layton, but I've always wanted to
because that was like a lot like a lot of
peak games on DS, right yeah, yeah, yeah, And I
kind of like missed that, but I'd like to go back.
I like puzzle games. I just like a little bit
of puzzle, or like a decent amount of puzzle. But
once you're starting, like like even Blueprints, where people are
like you got to put one hundred hours in to
get like to the to get the juice out of
that game, I'm like, I don't, I just don't know.
Speaker 4: Thirty yeah, yeah, I think my Blueprints is maybe like
twenty thirty thirty yeah, And and some of that is.
I think if you have somebody who can kind of
who knows and can kind of give you like the
hint towards you know, confirming or denying or being like yeah.
Speaker 5: It'd just be like that looks weird, doesn't it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, you're correct that this is weird.
Speaker 5: Keep looking around that.
Speaker 7: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I think those games are like, do not play them
in isolation, do not play them by yourself. Like even
people who were playing Blueprints early access review and all that,
we're talking to each other because you kind of have
to do that because there's so much to just uncover.
I'm trying to.
Speaker 1: Come up with your own code language to talk about
things without.
Speaker 3: Supports dropped out of I have twelve hours in Blueprints,
but I just wasn't got to continue after that.
Speaker 5: Yeah, with my fiance, I think that's like, even if
even if it's someone else that hasn't played it before,
just having someone to bounce ideas off with. It's just anyways,
I don't know if this game is anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you go check it out.
Speaker 1: I want to play it. I want to play it.
I'm going to give it a shot. Looks interesting to.
Speaker 4: Say, at least other quick hits just real quick before
we bounce. We did have Turm Raider Catalysts was shown
off as well as Turm Raider Legacy of Atlantis I
believe is what was called yes, and then Mega Man
Dual over Ripe, which was I think maybe the biggest
surprise of the night that Mega Man's back, first Mega
Man since twenty eighteen, I believe, from Mega Man eleven
and that's that's huge. Also, Pragmata got to release date
April twenty twenty six. Can't wait for this too.
Speaker 5: There's a demo today and it's coming to switch to Yeah,
I forgot to look and see what the demo.
Speaker 3: I think is what the demo is what people have
been playing at Summer Games Fest, and sure games come.
Speaker 2: Very good demo.
Speaker 3: If you've been reading about this game and you're like,
I don't understand what people mean where you're solving the puzzles,
the puzzles on the fly, Yeah, yeah, the demo does
a really good job of keeing you into that, and
it's a really it's a really cool game.
Speaker 2: I'm excited.
Speaker 4: I legitimately am very excited for that game. I've been
enjoying it more and more the more I've played at
Capcom's like in their three sixty era and I love it.
Speaker 3: Also, the Mega Man theories around that game kind of interesting.
They just announced a new Mega Man.
Speaker 5: What theories oh around Pragmata.
Speaker 3: That's clearly it's like secretly a Mega Man games now
that you've announced now they're bringing Mega Man back.
Speaker 2: I wonder, you know, is that a.
Speaker 4: Te up bring back Phoenix? Right? Dang it?
Speaker 5: Yeah, Ace Attorney. I'm like Ace Attorney though.
Speaker 4: Yo, Ace Attorney, Ace Combat would be kind of sick
missile log.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's awesome. Yeah, Well, I think that's gonna do
it for for the show this week. Thank you everyone
for listening. Don't forget the best way to support us
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the first issue you can get is the Dragon Quest
seven Reimagined that is on current newsstand and uh, yeah,
I'm I'm excited. It's very cool. It's very very cool. Uh,
so go go consider checking that out. If you do
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Speaker 5: Wes West just smelled the game reform so hard he died.
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Speaker 2: Blue Sky is just Wesley LeBlanc.
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, just Wesley the blonk Blue Sky. You follow
me at It's van Ache And uh, that's going to
be it. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next time.
Bye you