Speaker 1: Welcome back to the Game Informer Show Everyone, a weekly
podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every Friday
for a discussion about the latest gaming news, reviews, and
exclusive reveals, alongside Game Informer staff and special guests from
around the industry. I'm one of your hosts today, Alex
van Aiken, and today I'm joined by Marcus Stewart.
Speaker 2: Are you doing?
Speaker 1: Marcus?
Speaker 2: Doing good? Here? In physical form? You can't revoke my
license at least until I die. I guess. I guess
that's like the that's like the human version of that, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do have, I think, permission to make holograms
out of it. I think it was in your contract
when Gamingformer got brought back.
Speaker 2: Honestly, I might actually sign that just because.
Speaker 1: You also might appear on a Yaka's a game at
some point. Who's to say, I don't know. They're they're
bringing a lot of people back from the dead.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's okay. Let me hang out with Snoop Doggs
all I ask.
Speaker 1: Okay, all right? Also joined by Kyle Hillier and how
are you? Kyle?
Speaker 3: Hi? I don't bring me back from the dead, Let
me live, Let me rest peacefully. You do not have
my permission. I don't want to be in it. Accusa
game posthumously.
Speaker 1: And rounding out the show, a very special guest, returning
host of this very show, Ben Reeves.
Speaker 4: Hey, Ben, Hello, welcome, welcome, welcome everybody, it's my show now.
Speaker 3: He took it back.
Speaker 1: What do you want to talk about today, Ben, I.
Speaker 4: Would love to talk about fashion. I'm changing the podcast,
I'm changing the whole show.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. If you could be posthumously brought back to
life and put into a video game IP, which would
it be?
Speaker 4: Zelda? I guess just pick my favorite. I was trying
to think of something like.
Speaker 1: You open a door and it's a just pop out.
Speaker 4: Of the chest. They don't really have that other franchise.
They don't have anything that pops like a person that
pops out of the chest. You think that can know
they don't.
Speaker 1: That could be one. Yeah, oh wow, yeah, posthumous tingle. Anyways,
welcome back to the Game of Former show. Everyone. It's
good to be back. I missed last week, but it
was a great episode. I managed to have some time
to listen to it because I edited it. But yeah,
thanks thanks for having me back on guys. I do
want to say Before we get into the show, it's
gonna be a big We're gonna be talking about all
about this PlayStation mess with the physical media, the PS
three Vita store going away, and like the people's movies
being stripped from their libraries. We're also going to be
getting into our review of Rhythm Heaven, as well as
talking about our favorite games of twenty twenty six so far.
And then we'll be rounding out the show with a
mini a slew of listener emails and listener questions from
our discord. But before we get into that, I do
just want to say, please, I almost grabbed the wrong thing.
Speaker 3: Pleasetairs, It's okay.
Speaker 2: I'll help you out. I've got it right, hereating.
Speaker 1: What happened was I normally have my Game in Former
Magazine very easily to grab off screen, but my room
has been getting messy, guys, my office, and I've got
these Magic the Gathering Scene boxes the top. I do
have my Game in Former magazine right here below the
Magic the Gathering cards.
Speaker 3: Which I believe inside that issues if that one has
a feature from our our friends, that does, doesn't it?
Speaker 1: From me? Oh and Ben Read I have a feature
with with the creator of Magic Ben about his new game,
mood Swings. But yes, Ben Reeves, I.
Speaker 4: Talked to some very magical Yeah, there's a feature in
there about it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, plug it.
Speaker 4: Video game moral panics, just the history of why we
all have, why we why society has sort of like
every so often uprises and just like start shouting at
video games. There it is actually late at night like that.
I don't have my copy of the issue yet. That's cool.
Speaker 1: Oh well, sorry, you know you could get a copy,
Ben gamefore dot com slash subscribe. We ship ten issues
a year directly to your mailbox, of course. Ben. If
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in the Amsterdam airport.
Speaker 4: Okay, I'm glad I subscribe. I've been going to Amsterdam
for my issues, so it's yeah.
Speaker 2: That's it's gonna save you a lot of money.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you'll be very happy. Yes, we are available
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You are the backbone of our community and you help
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All right, let's get into the news. Fella's PlayStation is
done with physical media in twenty twenty eight. PlayStation will
seize production of physical discs for new games in January
twenty twenty eighth. This story comes from Marcus Stewart, a
Game Informer, whoa we have, we have the man himself,
Marcus tell us all about what's going on with PlayStation. Yeah,
I mean it's pretty clear. I've laid it out, But
what are the nitty gritty details. What do we got
going on?
Speaker 2: Something with the way you framed it as being for
me makes it sound like I'm responsible for this.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yah, broke that, Marcus. I like discs, I like owning games.
Speaker 2: Well, sorry to tell you that. PlayStation Yeah, as you
mentioned January twenty, twenty eighth, they say that all like
after that date, no more physical games for titles that
are going to be released on PlayStation. They are going
digital only for again games released on their systems. And yeah,
they also added in that I guess before that date,
existing physical media will be unaffected. So any games have
come out before that date, if they're going to get
a disc, they're still going to get a disc. But
after that, we're donezo for good. And people are not happy,
believe it or not, because that's a that is a
seismic shift in just it is.
Speaker 1: It's the one that we've kind of been kind of
making strides towards. But it's always been there's always been
a pretty significant contingent of people that are pretty outspoken
about I like owning my physical media, you know.
Speaker 2: But apparently, according to Sony, not enough because they're in
their thing. They were saying like, listen, yeah, we've been
looking at consumer trends over I guess presumably a long
period of time, and they even say that digital sales
significantly outpaces sales of physical disc from what they have seen,
and they were just like, this just makes sense. I
think they said. Their wording was like, this is just
the natural trans.
Speaker 1: Yeah, this is a natural direction for Sony Interactive Entertainment
to adapt to consumer trends as the general preference for
digital media significantly outpaces physical discs. This transition, this transition
will enable us to align more closely with how most
of our community prefers to access and play games today.
Speaker 4: Part of that sounds like a pairent just trying to
assure their kids, like when their pet dies, like, hey,
this is just natural, It's just a natural course of life.
Speaker 3: I'm sorry at at at at a what the what's
the phrase where it's like they're they're at Grandma's like
farm in the country or something that's.
Speaker 4: Running around their Grandma's landfilling didn't run before? Why are
they running now?
Speaker 2: PlayStation's just the move Fasa to our Simba exactly. Yeah,
I think I.
Speaker 4: Still because like I don't know, I'm it's fun to
like get games from libraries and like bar stuff from friends.
I said, it's a bummer. Part of me thinks so too.
Speaker 1: It's like.
Speaker 4: How many movies come out in DVD anymore, or how
many how much music comes out on CD at this point,
Like it does feel like there's a lot of market. Well,
that's part of my point. It's like there's still a
market for some of that stuff, like the criterion of movies.
They'll probably be a version of that for games at
some point, right, you.
Speaker 3: Know, like Limited Run. But I mean if if PlayStation
six doesn't have a disc drive, right, it's like.
Speaker 2: Which it almost absolutely won't at this point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, it's like Nintendo going to be the
only physical like like companies like Limited Run who like
which I appreciate, and they make physical versions of games
that like may not usually get like a release in
like a target or whatever. Like is that just that's
just totally out the window for PlayStation God knows what
Xbox is going to look like in two years, you know,
like is.
Speaker 4: I'll just carve my own slot for a game in
the Yeah.
Speaker 2: I yeah, I was wondering. I almost put this in
the in the news article. It's just a bit of
an editorial again, like it's like, okay, so the PS
six will almost certainly be an all digital console. The
only way that they it would ever play disc would
be if they did the external disk drive again, But
then that would have to mean that the system would
have to be backwards compatible with at least the PS
five generation, since that's going to be the last one
with physical disc and you know that it could be like,
you know, like Sony has a pretty good track record
with backwards compatibility. But that's unless they, like I know,
there's already I've seen petitions already kind of get started
from people trying to find a way to tell Sony
to go the other way on this. I don't know
if it's cynicism, is like, I don't see that doing it.
I don't know what it would take in terms of
like the outcry to make Sony's reverse this, because this
is such a big, a big move that I'm sure
has been on the table for years and years now.
I'm sure they considered like the pr hit that they
would be taking, and again just looked at the charts
that just said digital sales. Whoa way up, We have
the data to back up what we're doing. We know
you're not gonna like it. But at the end of
the day, and this is like the part that makes
me feel old. It's like, yeah, I mean we're kind
of the only generation, like Millennials and Gen Z to
a lesser extent, that still cares about physical media that much.
Because I so over the weekend, I was reading with
my girlfriend just like just different summaries of just different generations.
Like we were on a weird tick of like like
what's kind of like the history say about Millennials and
what we have to go through? And what did to
say about Gen Z? And we're reading about Gen Alpha
and it just mentioned like, yeah, they're the first generation
to have fully grown up in a world that has
social media, digital media, and I think that that's just
you know, like that's a big demographic that like does
not care about physical media as much because they have
not had to grow up with it being the de
facto way to play games. Or consume any media. It's
always been an option for them at best. So like
not saying that some of them don't want physical media
or I'm not grown to love it, but they don't
have that Like there was a time when this was
the only way to do it, you know, and there
was no such thing as scarcity of media for like
my daughter for example, right like there was like you
like we all grew up and like there were games
that I just couldn't play because I couldn't find them,
you know what I mean, Like, yeah, like cartridges and
discs and stuff that's like I or movies. It's like, well,
I'll never watch that movie or I'll never play that
game because that's like I can't find it nearby. I
don't have a friend who owns it, so I guess
I'll just never play.
Speaker 3: Like this. For the for the current generation, like that
has never been a thing, you know, Like there's never
been a limitation on the accessibility of media, And.
Speaker 2: It's just a more acceptance of the idea of like
not truly owning your entertainment. Like they they have grown
up in a world with that, they've accepted that or
maybe are just oblivious to it. Like they don't maybe
understand that, like, yeah, they could take that away anytime.
How much they cares a choice. Yeah, it's like how
much they care is probably almost certainly less than we
would care coming from an era where you did own
your your media.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I'm saying it was interesting in our like
the comments of our website articles, I saw a lot
of people and obviously, like you know, people are just
finding out, they're saying things that they might not follow
through on. Some might, but in terms.
Speaker 2: Of people say I'm done with I'm done with PlayStation
after this.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, Like I think I'm gonna find a new
hobby because they want to own their things.
Speaker 2: Since I don't blame, right.
Speaker 4: I hobby they're going to And it was just like movies, music,
and there's like a lot of that stuff like board games.
Speaker 2: Yeah what AI is taking over the knitting market pretty hard.
Speaker 3: But yeah, any moment, I I don't know how you
guys felt, but like I have such an adoration for
like the Super Nintendo and cartridge games, right, Like those
were so special to me because like those little gray
superin Nintendo boxes they just like and like I'm not
being hyperbolic, so it's like how I felt when I
was young. It's like a world was contained in there
in that little box, you know what I mean, Like
like it was like a physical thing, Like I could
go visit High Rule because I had the square that
I had to insert in my Nintendo sixty four, And
I like even though discs like don't feel as magical
for whatever reason, I don't I don't really know why.
Speaker 1: Maybe there's because they're so thin.
Speaker 3: Could you put a hole? Yeah? Yeah, But like I
it's just like I don't know. That's such a I
love having something on the shelf, like I have my
physical copy of like Reternal and just like knowing that
that's like there's a whole freaking adventure in that little box,
you know, And it's like I'm gonna I'm gonna miss that.
Speaker 2: You know. It's weird for me because I like, I'm
technically part of the problem because I've been almost strictly
digital since the PS four generation. Like I have a
handful of physical PS four games. I have one PS
five game physical, and it's Demon Souls because it came
with my console when I bought it near launch. So
it's like I've I have made the personal choice that
I just prefer digital. And also a lot of games
I get are from this job, where like we only
get exclusively digital download codes or review games or preview games,
so that has like that's a big part of it too.
But between like personally me and getting games through my job,
and then with how expensive games are, I just have
very little desire to go out and spend money on
a physical game if I already own it. So and
also for me, it becomes a space issue tubes. I
already have like a pretty big physical question just from
previous generations, and I kind of recognize like sooner or later,
I'm going to run out of space if I just
keep buying games, and I it's a pain to keep
moving all of these the kind of make some decisions here,
but it sucks to not have the choice because I
say all this, but I was still adamant about getting
the PS five that had a disk drive in it
because it's like, well, you never know, like maybe I
get a disc from like maybe a friend lets me
borrow game, or maybe a game that I want winds
up being cheaper physically, But like, I just like having
the options. It just makes me feel better.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, I think it's also like the preservation angle,
like you know, yeah, so many, I mean how many
Nintendo DS is? You know, I mean all of them.
They can't access the E shop anymore, so you're looking
for games and you're just kind of getting into the
hobby and you happen to pick up, you know, a
DS secondhand. You know, I guess they could leave the
games on it, hopefully for you. But isn't that stuff
Like I'm getting into the semantics, my point being like
for me, physical has always been away for me to
get into a console or an ecosystem that I never was.
I didn't I couldn't afford at the time, and I
could buy a used one years later when I have
the means, yeah, and kind of check out that library
of games because there are physical you know, relatively from
that time, and that's how I get to access it.
But when those those means are taken away, I mean,
once the place that you know, in ten years in
the PlayStation five store shuts down, just like I remember're
going to get into a second, they're shutting down the
you know, the PS three and the Vita store. I
mean I've got my Vita literally right here, and Okay,
I can't access if I want to buy new games,
because there's thousands of games available, maybe hundreds in the
case of the Vita. I don't know, there's a lot,
you know, there's a dozen or so, you know, I have,
I have the physical I can always go and find those. Yeah,
and I don't know, it's I don't. I still I
have when I bought with my own money my PlayStation
five when it came out, I bought it with the
disk drive. Even though for work, I almost always get
digital codes, unless it's like, hey, the game's out, we're
sending out some some you know, collectors additions to uh,
you know, for consideration or whatever for various coverage. But
other than that, it's all it's all digital that we get.
But if I was buying, if I was still you know,
if I wasn't in the place of privilege I am
with getting a lot of games for free through work
through codes, I would still be buying physical and uh yeah.
So for me, I you know, it's a huge bummer
that that's going away, because that was how I for
many years was able to afford. That's honestly the reason
I have this job, and that I was able to
do all the work prior that I did to get
this job and build a portfolio was because I was
able to keep up with the games because I was
buying them physical. I'd play them, i'd do my coverage,
i'd trade them in, i'd sell them on eBay and
be able to get the next one. But when they
just become like paperweights, when you're done with them, because
they're just digital and like they are you know, yes,
they're part of your library for now. But what happens
when that store shuts down, because sometimes sometimes you're still
able to redownload your stuff. Other times, you know, you're
not able to download your stuff once it shuts down.
It really kind of depends on the ecosystem, and it's
just like a lot of uncertainty and like I don't
feel like I own my stuff, or I don't feel
like I have the option to even own games that
I don't own in the future, and that that sucks.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean that feeling comes from pace is. It
doesn't have to be a feeling. It's a fact you
don't own the games. You're renting licenses, you know, which
rolls us right into like this the next topic, like Reeves.
I don't know, you said, you've been kind of heads
down on video game news and stuff.
Speaker 2: But like the.
Speaker 3: Other side of this, like literally that that the announcement
of like abandoning physical media was this morning, but yesterday
or it was it? Maybe it was the.
Speaker 2: Same in terms of like the store closures. Are you
talking about the movie thing?
Speaker 3: The movie thing that was?
Speaker 1: The movie was a couple of days ago Friday where.
Speaker 3: They just Sony if you bought certain movies on your PlayStation.
They don't really sell movies anymore on my understanding, but
they was like they just revoked the licenses for like
dozens and dozens of movies without you know, any intention.
Speaker 1: Yeah, under we can get to the story and we'll
link it in the show notes. But Marcus also wrote
this one PlayStation will remove hundreds of purchase movies and
TV shows from users libraries in September. The story says
quote Sony has announced it is removing hundreds of what
I just said, this will begin to the temper first,
with Sony citing seemingly expiring content licensing agreements as the reason.
You can view the full lengthy list, which again and
will be included in the show notes, but apparently Sony
released a post and it read from September first, due
to our content license in agreements, you will no longer
be able to access your previously purchased content from Studio Canal,
and it will be removed from your video library and quotes.
Some of the movies included Apocalypse Now, The Evil Dead,
Evil Dead two from Dust Till Dawn, Hot Fuzz, Moonrise, Kingdom, Paddington, I,
Pan's Labyrinth, Shark Canado, Trained to buson Terminator to American Gods. Yeah,
it's movies and TV shows the train pulling into the station,
the train pulling into the station.
Speaker 4: Yep, ye, that sucks. That happened to me once too,
Like a bunch of movies just disappeared from my shelf
because guy broke into my house and took him this.
Speaker 3: It feels like, right, at least there you you, I mean,
the cops wouldn't do anything, but at least you could
call them and be like, can you take some notes
on this? You know?
Speaker 4: I don't know, Yeah, like everybody should.
Speaker 2: I guess it's a class action lawsuit that I'm sure
people are trying to literally find ways of, like is
there a case here? Can we because this is kind
of messed up. Yeah, I mean to your point Kyle earlier,
like whether or not they still sell movies, they actually
so like Sony has stopped selling movies on PlayStation for
like four years, Like I think it was twenty twenty
one that they remove that service from the PlayStation store.
So it's this is more just like if you've just
you know, like if you did buy or a mass
of library, you're just sitting on it basically, but regardless
that sucks. Oh yeah, it's like, hey, I gave you
my money. I would like to watch Terminator two on
my PlayStation anytime I want, and now you're taking away
Terminator two for me. And again, like I said that,
I think that the big kicker is so like no
refund or any compensation getting kicked back, Like I'm.
Speaker 4: Sure you got sure the agreement, Yeah wasn't. I was
going to say, like you didn't own it to begin with,
but we almost needed a new word for that. It's
like instead of buying it, you're leasing it into something. Yeah, yeah,
long term rental.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it'd be like if I didn't they didn't Steam
change its wording in that regard, like it actually says
on the page. Now I think, right, like, hey, heads up,
you're actually not buying this your services or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I feel like a lot of games have changed that
to say, to reflect that in their end user agreements,
like if you if you know where to look, says like, yeah,
you're this is a license. Yeah, which is the best.
Speaker 3: It's great for consumers because like if you know where
to look, you know whether or not you own the
thing you bought.
Speaker 1: I mean, at this point, the place that I would
be if this is like my top concern of like
owning my digital media gog dot com because it's d
r M free. Uh, and like there's a lot where
Steam is does not you know, Steam has its own
DRM and stuff, just like I mean the consoles do
now like everything does. But uh yeah, I don't know
it's this just I know it's I I guess my
initial reaction is like number one, horrible pr like what
are you doing?
Speaker 2: Uh?
Speaker 1: Like why would I ever buy a movie from on
a PlayStation?
Speaker 2: Again, Well, I guess you can't technically, Like, like I said,
they took that away like four years ago, so you can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, wait what do you mean they may? Uh?
Speaker 2: Well, I mentioned in the story because I linked to
a previous story. But four years ago, I think it
was twenty one, PlayStation took away the movie and TV
store from PlayStation, so people have not been able to
purchase movies on PlayStation for years now.
Speaker 1: Okay, well I wasn't there anyway, I guess my point.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, because like I use do you guys, there
was a service called Voodoo which got bought by yes
uh Fandango at home now and like.
Speaker 1: I buy a ton of movies for your physical yes,
they would get like the digital copy in your.
Speaker 3: Which is great. I took advantage of that, like crazy
because I was a big Blue ray guy. But like lately, yeah,
like we were talking about The Devil wares Prada too
before we started, which I recommend, good movie, but like
it's it was. It was available for streaming as of
you know yesterday as recording this, and like I bought it,
like I always I buy. That's how I watch movies
that I missed in theaters. And I have my library
is like four hundred movies or something at this point,
like because I've been using it for ten years and
it's like I just live in fear of that just
disappearing one day like someday, you know, Voodoo went under,
but I got picked up by Fandango at home, so
like they all my licenses went over and stuff. But
like you know, any day now they're gonna be like, sorry, yeah,
that library that you've been like I amassing for years,
Like man, it's gone, Like I just it's I just
I'm gonna be real sad the day that happens, you know.
But I have started buying Blu rays again. I've sort
of like I got away from it and now I'm
sort of reacclimating it. I guess you could say it's like, well,
I'm gonna try to start owning these again. I think
it's like I just I live in fear of it,
you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, the whole thing sucks. I think, really bad
move on multiple parts by Sony. But I mean, hey,
if that's what they need to do to there's also
a piece of like, well, well this move somehow lead
to less layoffs or something. I don't know, like what
that math looks like, how does it save them a
ton of money? I don't even know. If I think
that's when you're kind of looking for a silver lining.
Speaker 2: It was like I press to doubt on that. I
think the only silver lin is like I don't know,
I guess less plastic waste for landfills. I guess I
could find something tangible.
Speaker 1: But other than that Xbox try. I mean, the Xbox
is just also right now, just.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're in their own circle of hell right now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they are deservedly so.
Speaker 3: I wonder I was wanting to say, I want the
one thing we're not talking about is like the retail
aspect of it, right, It's like, what what does that
look like?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: Does does Target and Walmart not sell PlayStation sixes at all?
Like what they don't have an aisle for PlayStation games anymore?
Speaker 2: That I mean, they can sell the console and accessories, but.
Speaker 4: Like work with gift cards in a box, right, So
it'll probably be.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, I was gonna say, do games. And I
wondered that tubes that you know, GTA caught hell for
announcing it was a digital only title, what like not
barely two weeks ago, and then now you got this
larger wave of like hey, GTA eight title. Yeah, GTA
is just almost like blowing the concorn for what is
a wave of this is just going to be the future,
at least on PlayStation.
Speaker 3: So it was like, to be clear, GT is not
the first to do this, Like people know codes and
boxes for a long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, And honestly, I think it's always
been unpopular.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and I would say, like if you want to
go down that rabbit hole, eg and further, like games
on disc, like a lot of them, we're just activating
and downloading a license. Like how many physical games over
the last five years actually had the full game on
a disc? Probably very few, especially from Triple A Studios.
So it's like that was kind of like the soft
version of this, because like how many of those can
you put in used and get everything? When having to
download a giant file there's.
Speaker 4: So many, or at the very least you need to
download the day one patches just for it to like
work properly exactly, which is its own thing.
Speaker 2: Similar, But they also have to say, I wonder like
once this goes into effect, like do some developers still
try to put out a physical box and just put
codes in it just to create the illusion of like.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I don't know, it'll be weird. And this doesn't
affect like circuit cities too much. Because I know they
saw a lot of games.
Speaker 1: I think also just like the larger effect on websites
like fan gamer and and like Limited Run and you know,
these very much physical video game media companies. What does
that do for them? And also those people are the
ones who are showing up to trade shows like packs
and all that kind of stuff and buying booth space
to sell those physical games. But if they don't have
physical games to sell, are they buying that anymore? So
are those shows still around? You know? Or you know
obviously you know things will adapt and change, but like, yeah,
I think it has like a lot of effects, kind
of a lot of kind of butterfly effects.
Speaker 2: I just wonder how, like I think, like I think
they had to announce this as early as they did
to I mean, one, to give retailers an enough of
a heads up of what's coming. But also I always wonder, like, man,
I now you have to deal with like this negative
pr for any announcement that you make for the next
year plus of like any PlayStation showcase, any new game
you announce, There's going to be a course of people
be like screw you guys, give us our disc back,
Like I don't care about Intergalactic anymore because I want
to be able to own it. I don't care about
God of War aloft. I want to own it. Like again,
I would imagine they thought about this of like we're
going to bite the bullet and way through this storm
until the PS six comes out, and honestly, just knowing
how some things go, like, I'm sure the moment they
unveil that console, some people will suddenly just forget and
be like, oh no, I actually want that. I want
that PSA at least until maybe until they say it's
fifteen hundred dollars.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I'm sure they were prepping. I'm sure they
were prepping this announcement ahead of time. They've been prepping it,
I'm sure. But I do wonder if they like saw
the announcement from GTA last week and they're like, all right,
maybe now is a good time to release this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, honestly maybe, yeah, I mean right, because it's like, well,
they're setting the they're setting the sort of guys doing it.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean see how that game sells, which I'm
sure will be. It'll do just fine, I think, yeah,
but it's it sucks. It's like again, as someone that
is a primarily digital gamer. I still lament people having
the choice to own physical meedia. Yeah, and again the
preservation aspect, it's.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's huge. I mean, this is why I like,
even though PC has some of these problems I have,
like my family members, my friends, I just push play
on PC because at least if they take the game
away from your library on there, there are other ways
to still find those files and access them through community
spaces and that kind of thing. There's emulation. You know,
of course, if the games available for purchase, you should
go and purchase it. Don't pirate games if they're available
for purchase. But in terms of preservation, there is more
flexibility there if those games are removed taken from you
and can't be acquired elsewhere, those platforms are more flexible
to be able to do that kind of thing, whereas
you're not going to get to do that if you
just have like a console that's kind of integrated into
one ecosystem and is very unflexible in those ways.
Speaker 2: Do you think that Do you think the PS six
comes out before this goes into effect like next holiday,
or would this be something that we write into with
the PS.
Speaker 1: I think this is I don't think it, so yeah, yeah,
I think that we won't see the PS six for
a little while.
Speaker 2: Earliest.
Speaker 1: I think, I know, I know.
Speaker 3: Right, I think it'll come out in the better than
your GTA at Summer Game Fest prediction.
Speaker 1: Yeah, No, I think I think like twenty twenty eight minimum.
Speaker 3: That's I'm with you there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that would be the earliest when all the ram
gets back down to normal and everything goes back to
that it was and we just forget this whole nightmare
hellscape never happened, right, Everything's affordable again.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the covid art.
Speaker 3: They post selection, so maybe yeah.
Speaker 1: God, well, let's take a quick break. We'll come back.
We're going to talk about Rhythm Heaven. We're gonna talk
about our favorite games twenty twenty six way less Bummer
conversations incoming. We'll be right back right after this. Welcome
back to the game and former show, Kyle. We want
to get into your review of Rhythm Heaven, the new
rhym Rhythm Heaven game. Is there? What's the what's the
subtitle in this one?
Speaker 3: Groove Rhythm.
Speaker 1: Rhythm Heaven Groove? How is it? Also? What is Rhythm Heaven?
I think like this is a series that I got
into way we were talking about earlier in the show,
like me going back and experiencing games through physical means
that I didn't play. Rhythm Heaven is one of those
things for me. After the three DS or when the
three DS store was closing down, I went and got
a copy of Rhythm Heaven because I knew probably yeah, yeah, exactly.
But so I'm really curious now that I've like I've
got this sort of like introductory experience to those games,
and now I kind of I'm excited to play them.
How is Groove?
Speaker 3: Uh, It's good, It's really good. I like Rhythm Heaven
Groove a lot. I like the Rhythm Heaven games in general.
I don't think Groove is my favorite, but like that
should not dissuade you, like if you have any even
a passing interest in Rhythm Heaven, like absolutely like Groove
is great. It's also like a game, I think I
said in my review where it's like it's a Switch
one game, which I think might be the final like
proper Switch one game from Nintendo.
Speaker 1: Maybe.
Speaker 3: I don't know if there's anything else that's like not
dual platform, like there's Switch Yeah, but it's like I
will always have it on my hard drive, right in
the same way that like I have Rhythm Heaven Megamix
on my three DS and will never delete it, you know,
because because of everything we're talking about in the previous segment.
You know, like it's a game that like I will
I just will pick up periodically and be like, I
want to play that little game again. That was cool.
But if you're unfamiliar, like it's been around since the
Game Boy Advance, but that first Game Boy Advance game
did not come out in North America. It was Rhythm
Heaven for DS, which was just titled Rhythm Heaven was
the first North American Rhythm Heaven game. And then there's
a Rhythm Heaven Fever for WE and Rhythm he Ben
Megamix for three DS, and now Rhythm Heaven Groove. And
what they are is they are collections of mini games.
It's like a lot of The Warrior where folks like
making these like smaller games. There's like a hundred total
games I think in Groove across like single player and
multiplayer games, and some of them are like sequels, right,
there's like different versions of the same game and stuff
like that. But you know, each one takes about two
two and a half minutes to play, and it's like
you are pressing usually a single button or maybe two
buttons in time with music. Right, it's not rock band.
You're not like trying to hit the different color buttons
in time with the music. You are like truly focused
on the rhythm. And in that way, it's it could
it probably is my favorite music rhythm game, Like it's
I don't know if I like, I'd have to think
about it. I really love Beat Saber and stuff like that,
but like the thing I like about Rhythm Heaven is
how your success is more based on you paying attention
and listening to the rhythm and pressing the button in time,
rather than having to worry about pressing three different buttons.
You know, the challenge of a rock band or even
a Beat Saber is like hitting all the things as
they come at you from different angles. Like Rhythm Heaven
is like you might just hit a button like six
times over the course of a minigame, just like trying
to stay with it, and it's like it's really engaging
and it will pull you in and like you do
get into this like this, like lost in a game
where it's like every game can be played without looking
at the screen. Like it's just like it's all like
audio cues and stuff like that. It's harder if you
don't look at the screen. Yeah, but it can be done.
And then the stuff and the reason that you kind
of don't want to look away from the screen, it's
because it's always like a weird stuff that's happening on there.
Like it's just like the weirdest things. Like sometimes you're
like a little monster, like trying to open an umbrella
on like a Paris street. One of my favorite ones
is like you're hiding behind a fence and there's like
the scary moon in the background and you have to
like jump between an opening and the fence by just
pressing a and and you can only do it when
the moon is sneezing because that's when it closes its
eyes and it like it does it like inhales in
like to set you off, to let you know when
you can press the button. And it's like it's so
they're all so weird like that, And yeah, I I
really like it. It's groove is good. I think Mega
Mix is still my like favorite favorite and and uh,
the Wee one might have my favorite game overall where
you're interviewing a wrestler and like you have to press
buttons in time to remember that one. Yeah, and it's
it's all gibberish. It's like rub a dub dubba that true,
and then you press a to go uhuh and then
it's like that one's like the weirdest, funniest one. And
there weren't any in group that really stood out to
me as being like that was like the weirdest one
I've played in a while. But there's a ton of
good ones, I think, to Groove's credit, there there aren't
any that like I disliked, Like there, I don't think
there was a single game that I played where I
was like glad, I don't have to play that one again,
you know, which is like a high compliment when you
have like a hundred minigames.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so but I gave I gave it an a
two five. It's it's really good. I like this series
and I and I hope it's like I would love
it if we got a new one like every couple
of years, as we have, and I hope it's not
a franchise that like Nintendo Abandons and like the switch version,
Like you know, the switch version of a franchise lately
has become the runaway success you know of that instance,
if that makes sense, like the best selling I don't know,
I don't have an example off the top of my head,
but like the best selling you know this Nintendo franchise.
Speaker 1: Was the Switch version, you know, like New Horizons.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, exactly. Yeah, And and I'm hoping that's the
case for Rhythm Heaven here and yeah. And there's also
the other thing to talk about is there's a there's
a game on here called beat Spell, which is kind
of like it's like pitched sort of as an RPG
where it's like turn based combat kind of and it's
it's like kind of like pad Upon. I don't know
if you guys have played pad Upon in Rhythm Heaven
we're talking about, right, Yeah. It's like a side mode
and as you unlock metals, you can do more levels
in beat Spell, and it's like you do you have
like a a four to four rhythm that's constantly playing
over the course of the battle, and you have like
you know, maybe your fire attack is like a B
A B, but health is like a A B A
A B right, and so you have to kind of
like just keep like hammering those attacks and like is
restoring your health and stuff. And it's like it's a
cool mode that like, honestly I would take as like
a standalone game if they were taking Do you think.
Speaker 1: This is kind of like a like a let's test
the waters with this idea? Could this be expanded upon
in like a you know, I mean stand alone maybe.
Speaker 3: Because they did like the Street Pass RPG for three
DS and then they turned that into that game meverse
is that what it was called. I think my daughter
loves that game because you can make your own ambo
or not a mebo, but you can make your own
me characters and then you take them through an RPG
basically just and this kind of feels like that in
the sense that like beat Spell is like a really
substantial experiment that even after I finished it, I was
kind of like, well, you could do a ton more
with that and that'd be cool, you know.
Speaker 1: So, like I eat Smell is also a good name
just for a game, Yeah, yeah, yeah, good name.
Speaker 3: Yeah, But I mean yeah, it's rhythm happens great, like
if you like music or music games like it's unique.
It's like it's it's like nothing else out there, and
it's like it's really engaging and will make you laugh
and we'll make you tense and angry because like you
are you just missed that one button press and like,
but it will also be sort of euphoric when you
get it, like perfect because it just feels so good.
So like, yeah, Rhythm and oh there's a free demo too,
so like you yeah, if you're not, even if you
don't understand what I'm saying, which I completely understand because
I'm being sort of ambiguous about how this game works,
go play the demo and like you will understand and
uh and then you can. It's it's a it's a
game like in need of a demo, which I don't
think it's ever received one, so like I'm glad that
that exists as well. But yeah, good game.
Speaker 4: I like.
Speaker 3: I like Rhythm Heaven Groove a lot.
Speaker 1: Ben, Are you a Rhythm Heaven guy? I feel like
I haven't heard of you talk about that series?
Speaker 4: Not really, I was just thinking about Elite Beat Agents
remember that, And I was trying to think, like, yeah,
connection to the two because like that first and maybe
there's only been one of you Beat Agents, but I
think I reviewed that a game Informer, and it's so
similar to Rhythm Heaven and in just it's like absurdity
and like warrior ware style just gonzonus. Uh that if
you've played all the Rhythm Heaven and want to go back,
Leap the Agents would be another good go to for you.
Speaker 3: I think I do a Leap beat as is really cool,
but it is it is more in the school of
like there's like five or six things you have to do,
you know, like you have to slide and tap and
like rotate and things like that, where Rhythm Heaven is
like the most you get is a second button press occasionally,
which is cool.
Speaker 1: Yeah, hell yeah, Well I want to play it. I
I hope to make some time for it.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It seems like something Nintendo would have done a mobile
version of because it's it's such minimal inputs, right, Like
this seems made for phone.
Speaker 3: I mean the three the DS version was like, you know,
a touch screen game where you would swipe kind of
to do rhythms, and uh, you kind of need the
stylus for it. I don't know, yeah, I I don't
I'm not like Over the Moon for Nintendo experimenting too
much in mobile, the mobile game space. I don't want
to rhythm. I have to buy extra games and just
give them all to me, you know what I mean,
and only you and only me. Yeah, I deserve them.
I worked hard.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Uh, well, that's gonna do it for this topic.
I think. Thank you for getting into your view, Kyle.
I do just want to kind of transition us into
talking about our favorite games of twenty twenty six. We
are going to start off with Ben here in a second,
since he's our guest and I want to know what
he's been playing. But yeah, I think we do these
once a year usually, you know, Game of the Year
so far or favorite games of twenty twenty six, however
you want to bill it. But Ben, yeah, I guess
enough said, like, what is one of your favorite games
that of twenty twenty six so far?
Speaker 4: Yeah, my favorite game so far. It's probably a boring
answer if you know me at all, but it's Resident
Evil Requiem, which I loved it and I thought from
top to bottom too. And I know there's like some
complaints out there about the second half, like not being
as strong and I don't.
Speaker 1: Know that that right be for me at all.
Speaker 4: Yeah, well, and like that's a common complaint for residinal
games in general. But it just did a really good
mix of the Residevil seven style first person horror and
the Resident Evil four style over the shoulder more action
y stuff, and it's a good, good blend of both
of those types of Resident Evil, both of those like
flavors of Resident Evil and the they do a fun
like nod to classic resieval stuff, classic Residentval locations, which
is really nice. And if you're a fan of the series,
it's definitely worth playing. And if you've never played the series,
it's actually kind of a cool way to experience everything
that that series does.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's it's in the running for Gody right now.
It's got like two other things kind of bumping up
against it, but it's it to your point then, Like
I think, especially the the oh my god, what's her name? Grace?
I almost kept want to call her Claire for some reason.
The gray sections alone, I think are worth the price
of admission. The first half of that game is just
so so good, And even though I think the Leon terrifying, yeah,
like absolutely terrible.
Speaker 1: I haven't finished it because I'm so scared. I'm in
a part where I'm just I'm like, I don't know
if I can do this.
Speaker 2: Have you played it since you and I streamed it, Alex.
Speaker 1: The you know the part where a hole opens up?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, so you have to go into a hole.
Speaker 2: Yeah you're pretty okay.
Speaker 3: Wait you're still in the hospital though, right, we think
about the holes.
Speaker 1: Yeahs in the hospital.
Speaker 3: Okay, you're not.
Speaker 1: You got a ways to go, man, Yeah, but it's terrifying.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Also check out or like hype myself up to even
like consider starting it up.
Speaker 2: If you want to see what He's.
Speaker 4: Scary.
Speaker 1: Perfect.
Speaker 2: There are less distractions, There are less things that can
scare you in real life if you can't see them.
Speaker 4: Yeah, your cat won't jump up and scare you.
Speaker 3: I will say for Alex too, like I think, and
maybe you guys will maybe agreer disagree with me. I
do think Resident Evil Requiem the scary factor gets like
less and less as you go along, right, like.
Speaker 1: The Village too. Yeah yeah, and I beat Village and
really loved it, so like I know I can do it.
It's just this is very much the types of horror
in like Resident Evil number one. I hate being stalked,
and so luckily in Village you know that that whole
segment was like you know, three hours four hours of
the Lady D stuff, and then I was like okay,
and like the yeah, but like dolls aren't that scary
to me? It's the other thing in that house that
is terrifying you. But yeah, yeah, but the creatures in
Resident Evil Requiem from the Jump are not only are
they stalking me, but they are horrifying, Whereas like Lady
D wasn't horrifying. She was just like intimidating and was
like unrelenting and chasing after you. And you felt got that, right,
You've got that plus cargos chasing after you and Requiem.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but I mean to his point, like Requiem made
zombie scary again, Like I don't think zombies and scaring
Resident Evil in a really long time, and this is
a return to like traditional just good old fashioned ari
zombies and they're horrified.
Speaker 4: That's part of what I like about it. And also
there's it feels like Resievil always needs to introduce like
here's the new enemy type. It was always like here's
a new virus that creates a brain it's not zombies anymore,
it's X and it's nice to just have classic zombies.
And I'm not a huge zombie guy either, but it's
just nice to have like a normal enemy type and
like these are the monsters I'm with.
Speaker 3: I also, I don't know if it would if I
if and when I revisit Requiem, which I actually do
revisit resievil games. I don't like replay a lot, but
because they're so compact. But the thing that I don't
know if I would ever be able to be recreated
is that I loved was the first time you get
to play as Leon in the hospital after playing through
it as Grace and like Leon serving as the like
the cleanup. You know, it's like it was such a
cathartic experience to be like avoiding zombies and conserving AMMO
and being really careful and like leaving a bunch of
zombies behind, even though it's not like I don't like
to play games that way, where you'd like leave enemies
and then to like hop in there as Leon and
just and it's just not a problem, right, You're just like,
all right, let me go take care of all the
things that Grace was able to take care of, Like
I just love that sort of dichotomy, like that sort
of like that that yeah, that reward for how you
played earlier, like was so cool, and it was like
I was so worried that it's like I'm not gonna
want to play as Grace, I'm only going to play
as Leon, and like they did such a good job
of like making both interest in different ways. Like yeah,
it's it's definitely like for me, like up there in
terms of like game of the Year, it's like it is. Yeah,
it's potentially number one for sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Marcus, you mentioned some other games kind of competing
for your goaty slots. What what what's one of those
other games.
Speaker 2: It's a game that I think I'm still the only
editor as of not it's played it. But Neo three.
I reviewed that game. I gave it a nine. That
game's awesome. It's uh. I think it's the best Neo game.
It's a series that I've always like enjoyed and had
a lot of respect for. Is like the earliest souls
like but also still feeling very different from from software,
Like it's kind of crazy when you think about it,
Like they were one of the very first quote unquote copycats,
but they are still one of the most different of
the bunch because it's still got the team that to
speed and to focus on like loot. But like with
this game, expanding it to an open world, it's it
does the Elden Ring thing where it's like, maybe that's
the best way to make your Souls like franchise better
is to make it open world because it makes it
easier to manage the difficulty because if you get stuck
on something, you just move on to something else. The
combat is still phenomenal. You've got the Ninja style now
that you can switch to, so you essentially have two
completely different character builds that you can switch to at
a button press, between the traditional samurai style and then
the Ninja style, which is so fun, Like the Ninja
style became my default style. It's like the closest that
you can get to playing like a ninja guiding game
as a Soul's like between all just like how much
faster you are, like the bespoke abilities that are tied
to the Ninja class, but also just having the strategy
of like switching between the two like mid combo and
during like these big Boss fights, like it's just it's
never not fun to go fight things in this game.
And then the way that it constantly, like the way
it's open world constantly rewards you for engaging with it,
Like everything you do in the world makes your character better,
and not just in a traditional sense of like oh,
if you kill a thing, you get stronger, you find
a chest, it's literally like there are multiple like meters,
like like either in your face or invisible that just
reward you for Like, hey, you know, we're not instead
of littering the map with a bunch of icons, We're
gonna keep it pretty sparse so you still feel like
you're discovering things on your own. But if you discover
enough of the map on your own, we're gonna reward
you discovery bonuses that not only make your character better
in like little ways, but also we're gonna reveal the
things that you missed, So if you want to go
clean up later on your own, we're gonna make it
easier to do that. But we're gonna let you find
things on your own. And I think that's like such
a smart approach of like kind of like walking the
line between like not telling you anything and like eleen
Ring versus like the stereotomica Uob's off game of putting
too much information on the map, and it's something I
help other open world games kind.
Speaker 3: Of like borrow from.
Speaker 2: But you know, like the story's fun, like the time
travel story. You're jumping around like multiple eras and going
from like giant map to giant maps, a giant map
in different time periods. And yeah, it's just like it's
just a kick ass action game. And I hope you
know it came out earlier in a year, so it's
one of those games I kind of have to like
periodically remind you guys and other people to like, hey,
don't don't sleep on Neo three.
Speaker 1: Check this out.
Speaker 2: It's really good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's on my hard drive. I want to spend
some time with it for sure.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Kyle, what's the game for you that you've been
really dig in this year?
Speaker 3: I well, there are two that are kind of head
to head to me that aren't Resu Requiem, but I'll
talk about Pragmata first. Pragmata was like a game that
I was optimistic about. I liked this sort of the
premise of like I always quote Jacob Geller, who talks
about resume four. Uh, but it was really good at
just like you making you do two things right, shooting
bad guys in the knees and then walking up to
them and kicking them in the face, which was like
I think, I said quoting Jacob Keeller because he once said,
like that is the most fun thing you can do
in a video game, and I don't know that he's wrong,
like truly, Like there's something so satisfying about that process.
And I feel like Pragmata figured out that sort of
where it's like, yeah, you have to hack a little
bit and then you do the shooting and it's a
cool that's a great mechanic. But I also just really
liked the premise. I liked how much of a dad
game it was. I like the look of it. I
like the sort of a linear structure of it. It
has kind of like residival sort of like vibes in
the sense of like how the game is structured and
how you move through it, and like how you unlock everything,
and like the way it gives you upgrades and stuff.
It was just like a really cleanly designed game that
just like really worked for me. And it's like the
reason I hype it up so much is because it
was also unique, like it also felt new, which is
like not a feeling I get a lot with video
games these days. Even games I love are mostly familiar
or building off an idea of something previously, or just
doing a really good job at a genre. Like even
a Resual Requiem is just like a great survival horror
game with a like like a lot of mechanics I
played from previous resual games I like, but Pragmata felt
like truly something different but also kind of throwbacky in
this at the same time in a way that I'm
hard to put my finger on, and like, I got
engaged in the story in a way that I really liked,
and I like, I like the characters, and yeah, Pragmata
was like a game that I was like, but like
before I started it, I was kind of like, this
looks cool. I bet this will be like a solid
eight you know, good first try at this new franchise Capcom.
But like, it exceeded my expectations in that way, and
I really like it.
Speaker 4: It.
Speaker 3: It is a game where if they were to announce
like DLC or something I would I would jump on
it and be like, oh, yeah, I would love an
excuse to play more of this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, did you play that?
Speaker 4: Oh you go, Ben, if you're seeing your time, I
it does look interesting. It's on my list for sure.
I'm curious. What does pragmata mean? It seems like a
weird nonsense word. Is that a spoiler? Is it the
name of a ship? Is it? The name of the
little girl?
Speaker 3: Is a pragmata if I remember correct? Right?
Speaker 2: Yeah, Like it's like what they call her the robots,
the human the humanoid robots or pragmice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so it's like not really a spoiler. And I
believe it is not a word, right, I believe it
is a word invented for the game.
Speaker 2: Right, I know, Type it into Google and see if
you get a red isn't.
Speaker 4: A mash up of two words? Like where are they
getting this word?
Speaker 2: It is because she's pragmatic, because she's like a machine,
so she's very imagine because because like I mean, honestly,
one of the things I love about pragmat is like
I think Diana is like one of the best characters
of the year. Like I love her so much. She's
just the most precious child. She's the closest thing hang out. Yeah, Oh,
don't don't make me write fan fiction, Kyle, But it
was like the close thing ever made me think, like, man,
maybe I should have kids, but only if they end
up like Diana, specifically, because she's just precious. Every time
you go back to your little hideout and she presents
you another crayon drawing that she made for you're like,
he's too.
Speaker 4: Time and never throw a fit.
Speaker 2: And on one hand, it's weird that your cram drawing
looks like objectively bad because it, like you think it's
like an advanced machine. You could just make this look
like the Mona Lisa. But also I appreciate that it's crappy.
That's funny. Did you get an answer, Kyle? Is it
a word?
Speaker 4: No?
Speaker 3: I don't think. I think it's invented for the game.
But which is weird because like, I do find it memorable.
I'm never at a loss for pragmata, you know, like
it's like, I don't know, it feels like it feels
like a real word. I sooner remember Pragmata than I
do Disclosure Day.
Speaker 2: I too remember that game more so than that not
great movie is okay?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, Pragmata a big one for me, will
definitely be in my top five. Well yeah, who knows,
maybe maybe a bunch of amazing games will come out,
but I'll be.
Speaker 1: Shocking right now. Yeah, right now, I haven't. I haven't
finished Double A seven. I'm really liking Double A seven.
But Po Copia, Pokemon Po Copia is probably my number one.
That or or Cairn, but Po Copia is. Yeah. I mean,
I feel like we've the Internet has talked about this
game to death, but yeah, I think it just really
kind of was expansive in a way that I wasn't expecting,
and the end game just continues to I've continued to
like work on my my, my sort of island. There's
I don't want to spoil it because it's people still
might be working through it, but there's like a schedule
island you can get to, you can go to.
Speaker 2: But to your point, Marcus, right now, the Giachi events happening,
I've been I've been diving back into Pocopia to hang
out with Jaachi and you do like wishes for him.
Oh but you can get Girachi to move into your town.
Speaker 1: Okay, that's cool. I'll have to check that.
Speaker 3: Out now that you're saying, there, Marcus, is that a
pragmatis situations.
Speaker 2: It's cute. It's like a little star person like I've seen.
I've always seen it in art. Like I'm not a
huge Pokemon guy, but I've always seen it.
Speaker 1: Garai is a legendary from my Gen four three or four.
I believe it's a star feet Yeah, it's a it's
like a it's a star. It's like a living star
kind of legendary. There's a whole movie about Geraci. But yeah,
I I really really have been digging Pocopia. I think
I definitely have fallen off, but it's still one of
those games that I think I'll actually probably go back
to it and put some more time in throughout the
year once we get past the I think Onslaught of
August and September. But yeah, I think it's just like
a really creative you know, back before I even worked
a game before, where I pitched this Pokemon city builder
to my friends and it was if you like, what
if you like were in charge of like building a
city to attract Pokemon and then to attract trainers to
come and like bring business to your town. And while
Pocopia is not that. It was like cool to see
a lot of the things I thought to myself and
my friends, like like eight years ago, there's some of
those ideas in Pocopia, and so it's cool to see
to see that kind of playing out. And obviously it
went it's not a city builder, it went a different direction.
But I want to see more of that and more
spin offs of Pokemon that aren't just like a puzzle
game or a uh, you know, a mystery dungeon. Right, Like,
I think like giving developers that license to make something
cool that they're really good at is awesome. And like
the fact that the Dragon Quest Builders team you know,
got a crack at this and they just they nailed it.
So yeah, that's that's po Copia. That's one of my
picks round.
Speaker 4: I was just gonna say another like weird word game
where it's like po Copia. It's unlike Pragmata, where I'm like,
I don't know where you came up with that word.
It's like, okay, it's Pokemon versus Utopia. But that's not Yeah,
that's not like a super clever pun or anything. It's
just sort of like together, Yeah, they should have made.
I think they could have done better. I feel like
half the people who say it stumble over it.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Maybe pokemon it as a name. Yeah, they could have
called it Pokemon Builders.
Speaker 1: Maybe.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 2: I like po Copia because it sounds silly. It's fun
to say, like, I'm going to play some po Copia.
Speaker 4: Yeah, pokem Manhattan.
Speaker 1: Hmmm sports thinking philip Adelphia thinking, I don't think that fallibility.
Speaker 3: What did I say, Philadelphia or something which was just
as good?
Speaker 1: Frankly, Ben, what's another game that's kind of been on
your playlist year this year that you're really really digging?
Speaker 4: I yeah, I mean, I'd love to give a tip
of that. You mentioned James Bond. I think it's really
worth going back to you if if you at all
liked it. It's I'm a big fan of James Bond,
you know, the non chauvinistic parts of the character. He
the either the cool spy stuff.
Speaker 1: I thought you were telling me off camera that those
were actually your favorite parts.
Speaker 4: Yeah that was off camera, do you understand?
Speaker 2: But it was one We're on camera now.
Speaker 4: So yeah, it's I just like the cool, you know,
murdery stuff just goes nuts with a gun. Uh, you know,
it does like a really good job of bringing It's
like a really cool action spy set piece thing. And
I remember when they announced it, I was like, Okay, cool,
the hit Man guys doing James Bond feels like peanut
butter and jelly, and I like hit Man. I was like,
even if it's just like hit Man, that's fine. But
I didn't know they were gonna go this this hard
on the action and it works. It fits the character obviously,
and they did a really just bang up job on it.
It's it's I miss Uncharted in a lot of ways,
and this has some elements of Uncharted in it, which
I really like. So if you're at all into that
single player action cinematic game, I think it's definitely worth
diving into.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it feels a lot like Uncharted for.
I don't think it quite hits like the same. I
felt like Uncharted for puts you in control in a
lot of the big set piece moments, or is the
thing double seven kind of away at times? And I think,
you know it, it kind of feels a little like
not quite doesn't quite reach the same peaks for me.
But I think all in all, like James Bond and
Double seven, Like those missions really feel like they embody
the character in the world and like you said, kind
of leaving behind a lot of those like chauvinistic characteristics,
and it's just like this really well rounded experience that
also has like a really interesting and well, really well
paced story.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I was gonna say, like I haven't finishing His
Bondie either, but I'm I would imagine I'm over halfway
through it, but I already I think it's my favorite
narrative of the year so far, and I haven't even
seen me yet yet, but I'm just so engrossed in it.
I think the performances are pretty fantastic almost across the board.
I think that like this is one of my favorite
versions of Bond, like even including all the various film
incarnations of him. Like I just love this young Bond,
Like he just feels true to the character but still
gets across the you know, the young kind of like
rookie aspect of him, Like he's not annoying, Like he's
just seems like just like a genuinely good do that
you would just want to like actually just hang out
with and then maybe go punch dudes in the face
with two. Yeah, like I just it's just like a
really good Bond story and you know, we haven't had
one of those in a long time, especially if you
when you thought about the last couple of films. But
so yeah, like, yeah, this is like purely in terms
of narrative, this is my number one so far.
Speaker 1: Really that's cool. Yeah, I I I really need to
get back to it. I feel like I've kind of
like that. It came out right before all the SGF. Yeah,
it was cyclone of SGF, and yeah, when I definitely
want to go back to it. I feel like I've
been so kind of burnt out on games lately though
that like the only thing I've made time to play
is Deadlock, the Valve, the Valve Mobile that's not even
officially out yet.
Speaker 2: I don't think you're allowed to tell us about that.
Speaker 1: Oh, I definitely am allowed. I'm definitely think.
Speaker 3: There's now a Valve sn Sorry, Marcus, I think he
meant say he didn't want to hear about it, is
what I think.
Speaker 1: Marcus. Oh got it?
Speaker 4: Got it?
Speaker 1: Yeah, Because Marcus, I've put eighty hours into that game.
So if you want to talk about it, you just
let me know.
Speaker 2: Okay, I could say something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Deadlock would if it was like out, it would
be on my list, but it's not like publicly available yet.
I hope that changes this year.
Speaker 2: Because it's the weirdest thing.
Speaker 4: It is.
Speaker 1: It is, but it's still you thought that'd be invited,
even though like, yeah, I could invite all of you.
Speaker 3: Like two months, two months, Valve is gonna be like, oh,
well we didn't release that. Oh crap, okay, yeah, let
me just go hit that button real quick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and then it comes out and I can't I
would not be shocked if that thing got a lot
of tens from from sites, like even in the state
it's and now it's incredible, but I can't talk about
that it's not out.
Speaker 2: So yeah, scrub from the record, this is not valid.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, rewind. Yeah, Marcus, what's another one of your
games that's that's really high on your list.
Speaker 2: In terms of what we haven't talked about? A game
that we we talked about a bit, but I really
liked re Animal, which is the.
Speaker 1: Target would talk about this, Yeah, yeah, I I love.
Speaker 2: Tarsi here, like I really like the first two Little
Nightmare games, especially the second one, So I was really
amped for Reanimal, and I really enjoyed my time with it,
like I I it might be I'm still deciding if
I like it more than Little Nightmares too specifically my praise,
but it's it's up there, like I love that world
a lot, Like I like how much darker it is
and how much it just feels more like a pure
horror games. Like the Little Nightmare games are scared, but
there's there's still a little bit of whimsy to it,
whereas this Is it kind of takes that little bit
of whimsy and just throws it out the windows, like no, no, no,
this is everything hair is messed up all the time there,
Like you know, it's it's got the same you know,
like two point five D platforming, but actually it's got
a little bit more of like just free form exploration
of the levels. You're not just running from left to right.
But like, I think the puzzles are good. I think
the chase sequences are fun, and also the like I
don't know if any of you guys have finished it,
but like the last sequence of the game is insane,
Like it's a moment of the year contenter, like that.
Speaker 1: Last really big thing I haven't played it all playing spoilers.
Speaker 3: I want to play it. Yeah, I switched to Yeah.
Speaker 2: It ends strong, like it's what they were like, what
am I looking at? Okay?
Speaker 1: I had to edit the video review and there are
certain scenes that Wesley captured and I literally sent a
chill down my spine. I was like, oh, yeah, this
game is weird. I mean it's creepy, but it's cool.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: It keeps a gameplay variety pretty well throughout, like you're
always doing different stuff. It's it's it's cool like if
you if you love their their previous stuff, if youre
a limonni Res person, you should absolutely check out Reanimal.
Speaker 4: Marcus, did you play Replaced? No?
Speaker 2: Not yet?
Speaker 4: How did you play that?
Speaker 2: A little bit?
Speaker 4: It's like a same side scrolling it's kind of like
Limbo or Inside esque, but the art style is amazinggous.
It just reminded me of that where it's like a
really cool side scrolling platformer with some Batman arcue me action. Right,
I thought it was worth playing. It's on my ten
right now, but you know, let's be a little bit
further down by.
Speaker 3: The ways, as a weird a side you have my
quest three right now? Right?
Speaker 4: I do really.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the Little Nightmares VR game is on there and downloaded.
I started it. It didn't grab me in a big way,
but it does exist.
Speaker 4: I was going to ask you about that because is
it just a port of two in VR or is
it a different game?
Speaker 3: It's a completely standalone Little Nightmares game that kind of
takes place around two. I guess I don't know. The
Little Nightmares lowre is kind of funky, but no, it is.
It is a completely individual game. In fact that if
it had been sort of just like a VR version
of Little Nightmares one or two, I think I might
have been more interested, honestly. But you're in first person exploring,
like solving puzzles in a Little Nightmares universe, which is unexpected.
It kind of came out of nowhere. That's a weird thing.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I might check it out. Oh you bounced off
of sounds worth checking out?
Speaker 1: Kyle? Do you have Do you have a last one
besides Reanimal?
Speaker 3: Yeah? I need to play re Animal, which is crazy
because I love Little Nightmares one and two. It's like
a big one for my daughter and I. Weirdly like
we loved playing Little Nightmares one and two, but Reanimal
one of the reasons I haven't played it is because
I was kind of like, hey, we should play this together.
But my understanding is it's not nice to animals, which
would be a big deal breaker for her.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a yeah thinking about saying yeah, it's like
it's it's it's some messed up stuff happens.
Speaker 3: So it'll be one that I play on my own,
and I do want to play it because I really
like I like those I like that genre, and I
like tarcier. But the game I'm gonna talk about from
my final one is you know It and Pragmata are
probably like my one and two with the Residu Evil
kind of like those three are sort of like shifting
as my number one. But Sorrows. Sorrows is so good.
It is the highest review I've awarded this year. I
got the Platinum Trophy in it, which is like I
I offer that as like sort of a critical analysis,
not because it's like, look at me, I'm so cool
I got the platinum, But I just didn't want to
stop playing. Like that's what happens when I go for
like all the achievements or all the trophies. It's like
I just want an excuse to keep playing, because I
don't want to stop playing this thing. I'm so invested
in this world and the action is so cool. Yeah,
Sorrows is so good. It I it's it. I still
prefer Returnal ultimately, which is like sometimes I'm weary of
saying that because I think some people might be like, well,
I didn't even like Returnal, likew I'm gonna like Sorrows.
It's like, if you didn't like Returnal, there's a good
chance you might like Sorrows more because it's like friendlier.
It's less rogue esque rogue esque, you know, like there's
more opportunities to get stronger, and like every run you
do feeds into your improvement, like on a on a
sort of statistical scale, which is nice, more so even
than just learning the game. And and then you can
like jump to specific levels, which like seems minor, but
it's like really opens it up in terms of like
letting you see everything there is to offer, and it's
like it's it's got an interesting sort of dark like
narrative that's like hard to parse. It's not quite as
opaque as Returnal. I think it's one of the reasons
I prefer returnal narrative is because it's like you're kind
of left with more sort of like questions about what happened,
Like you have fewer of those in Sorrows. But like
it looks great, it plays great, it's it's got an
interesting world. Sorrows is awesome. Like I highly recommend Sorrows
if you like like twitchy action and if you know
and like if you like rogue games, and if you
if you like cosmic horror, like it's it's really cool.
Soorros is very good.
Speaker 2: Yeah. I mentioned last week that I've made my way
to the third area and I've hit my stride with
the game and it's yeah, having a blast with it. Yeah,
it's great.
Speaker 3: A special shot out to men to the hollower. Thanks Alex.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was literally gonna say, Okay, well, Mina is
not my pick because I have I solve a lot
to play, but I think if I had sunk more time,
have had sunk more time, and I mean, it would
probably be the one to talk about next. But I
do want to kind of give it to Cairn see
a I r in the climbing game from the game Bakers.
It's incredible, like it is it took me about fifteen
hours to summit the mountain and beat the game, but
like the ending of the game, so it's so good.
And I think like just like the fact that this
is a rock climbing game where kind of like quoppy,
where like one hand controls, you know, you're kind of
switching between your multiple hands to kind of and your
feet to place them on handholds. And you've got like
this sort of invisible kind of stamina meter that you're
kind of always working against and like using items to
like give yourself, you know, more resilience and more you know,
energy to make it up these really these these climbs,
and you've got to manage your thirst and hunger as well,
and it's it's really incredible. And I think like the
cherry on on the top with a cherry on the cake,
cherry on the first thing. Yeah, I don't know why,
it sounded very strange and form you.
Speaker 2: Could cherry at the summit to stay in with them.
Speaker 1: Very Yeah. Yeah, the cherry on the summit is that
the game hoards your entire route because it is sort
of like this open ended here's this mountain that you
need to climb, figure out how to get to the top,
and yeah, there are like there are certainly incorrect ways
to go up the mountain, but like there are a
lot of correct ways to make it up, and it's
kind of up to you to kind of forge your
own path and depending on what items you have and
if you you know what you picked up, what you found.
It's definitely a game the weather too, like the weather. Yeah,
it's certainly a game that if you don't explore thoroughly,
you will miss a lot of very beneficial items, like
very kind of like game changing items that if you
just you know, don't look around all the way, you're
gonna miss.
Speaker 2: And it's easy too. So I'm playing this game. I've
been making my way through it in earnest, and I'm
having a great time with it. But it's like the
climbs can be so arduous. Like I had a point
where I ran out of food and water and poor
girls like dying basically, but I managed to hit like
a milestone and found this little cave that was just
full of like food, and it was just like felt
so good, Like oh my god, this is exactly like
food and water just all in one place, and it's like,
all right, I can go higher. But then the moment
I look over the ledge, I see a whole little
location down there where it's like, well, there's definitely stuff
in there, And like I'm like, the next time I
play at the decide like do I want to climb
all the way down there to see if there's something
like there has to be something useful in there, or
do I keep going up? But I love like just
making those decisions, and yeah, it's every climb feels earned too, Like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, depending on the day, this might be
my game of the year right now. It's between this Pocopeia.
Speaker 3: Matt Miller, who reviewed it for Game and Former. He
also was like singing its praises.
Speaker 1: Like he I think I liked it more than Matt did,
even but yeah, it's just it's really really well crafted
or well baked, you know, that's the game Baker's And yeah,
the soundtracks great, that there's so much heart and the
characters and like you really get attached to Ava and
also the side characters, and it's like it's really grueling
narrative about kind of isolation and kind of comparing yourself
to your past self and like where you find your
worth and like your accomplishments or yeah, it's it's just
a it's it's really poignant. The performances are excellent, and
the gameplay is so novel and so deep. It's man,
I might, I might honestly do a second playthrough this year,
which is I never do. I really want to try
to do the free solo mode now that I've beaten
the game, which is, if you're familiar with rock climbing,
if you're if you aren't, rather free solos when you
don't have any any like pitons and you're just like
going up on your own. That sounds hard as I Yeah, yeah,
it's a it's possible, I think. I mean they've they've
said it's possible, they've done it, and it's I think
there's achievements in the game for it.
Speaker 2: You know what you should do, Alex is reload your
finished safe fileway at the top of the mount and
and then just climb back down.
Speaker 1: I could, I could, and I got I got distracted.
Earlier I was saying one of the really cool features
you can see your entire route and you can pause
and essentially just follow, and you can the whole map
is rendered, so you can like literally just like pan
the camera down along your path and see everywhere you've been,
where you died, where you fell, where you know, where
you saved. It's really cool. I can't say enough good
things about Karen. I probably would have scored it higher
than Matt, honestly, and he gave it.
Speaker 2: If I remember correctly, Yeah.
Speaker 1: I might have. I might have gone nine to five
maybe high. I don't know, I don't know. It's very good.
Please play it. But with that at we are kind
of at time, we need to get into our listener questions.
There's plenty I know we didn't talk about. So if
there's a game out there that you were like, why
why did you not talk about this? Send us an
email podcast at GameInformer dot com. That's also where you
can send your listener questions. Uh and uh Yeah, we're
gonna get into those. We've got about I think eight
eight of these, and then we'll kind of round out
the show. Matt Storm asks, what's a game that completely
caught you off guard this year? I think the one
I just talked about Karen is my answer? What about
you guys?
Speaker 4: It is interesting because we just talked about but like
a mixtape was up there for me, it's a game
that I was not expecting to enjoy. Really, it doesn't
really seem like my kind of game, and even playing it,
I recognize there's some like things you could bump up
against like those. The characters are very amusing to me,
but also they're like not the most like if you
knew them in real life, I think you they would
rob you the wrong way, Like I think, but I
think that's the point. They're supposed to be pretentious high
schoolers and uh but anyway, but I thought they like
nailed the ending of that game, and to the point
where like I almost cried playing it, where I was like, oh,
it's like this really cool moment of like this is
the last moment in this person's life and everything changes
after this, and I it just does a good job
of like making you reflect. I'm like, yeah, I know,
I have those moments in my life too, where I'm
like just hanging on and like I recognize even in
the moment that like, yeah, this is this is it.
After this, my life is different, and it's it does
a good job of putting you in that moment and
making you feel it in a way that is sure pretentious,
but also like poignant in a cool way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I really have finished that game. It's embarrassing that
I haven't because I played half of it. Like it's
not that long.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like three hours, so it's like so easy
to play.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, to your point, I think that mixtapes ending is
up there for me as another moment the year too,
Like I had a similar reaction of like kind of
tearing up in a way where I was like, I
was not expecting this the hit as hard as it is.
Oh second, well, can I say because I was it
was a good transition from hitting you harder than you
expected and tearing up freaking starfockx, Like I I didn't
realize like how much that game meant to me, and
the remake was so well done that like when the
music was really hitting, I was just like, oh my god,
this is like this is a sniper shot at my
childhood right here. Like I did not realize how much
like that remake was going to hit for me like
it and the weird thing is like totally met my expectations.
They remade Star Fox sixty four and it's good, but
like something about like just the way it like pulled
me back to being like a twelve year old or
whatever however old I was, and I played the game
shocked me. I was like, oh, I didn't realize how
much I love Starbucks sixty four oops. But anyway, that
please Marcus, I want to hear what you have to say.
Mine was Pucopia. Like it's someone that is like not
has not been a full time Pokemon fan since really
Gen one, but has always kind of had a soft
spot for it because I was so into it as
a kid that like, I love the idea of it.
Like when I announced it, I was like, oh, ditto,
that wants to be a person. That's so stupid. I
love it, Like I want more weird, stoved stuff from
the Pokemon franchise. But also like I'm like decently into
like cozy, like I don't know life sim animal crossing
style games, like I got some new horizons during the pandemic,
but I'm like pretty hot and cold on them. But
this one like like that was my life when that
game came out, like obsessively playing that game, like bringing
into bed every night, Like I racked up like over
eighty hours in that thing by the time I hit credits,
And yeah, I don't think I expected it for it
to seize me the way that it did, so that
one's probably my biggest surprise.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, Ben, what was yours again?
Speaker 4: I was mixtape?
Speaker 2: Ye whole emotional money whom ride?
Speaker 1: Sorry, guys, there's something happening off screen.
Speaker 4: That I had. It's like, you never listen to anything
I say.
Speaker 1: Alex, Welcome, welcome, welcome. That's that's not what you say, right,
isn't that what you say?
Speaker 4: That's no, I say goodbye?
Speaker 1: Catchphrase? That phrase. Cal writes in Hey guys, love the podcast.
Here's a question for next time you do them. A
genie appears and says, you can make one movie based
video game. What movie do you pick? What developer and
what genre of game would you make? Wait?
Speaker 2: A video game based on a movie?
Speaker 1: Yeah? A movie based video game? What movie is it?
What developer and what genre?
Speaker 2: Okay?
Speaker 3: The develop Sucker Punch Open World? Yeah, I just want
to ride around on a motorcycle in in Neo Tokyo. Yeah,
that's what I've wanted that for a long time.
Speaker 2: Oh, Sucker Punch, that's good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like Infamous kind of has some Neo Tokyo vibes. Frankly,
it's like a post a pot, you know, like it
literally they start the same way and explosion racks a city. Like,
just throw a red motorcycle in there, baby, we're in business,
you know? Is that simple file? Insert red motorcycle in
infamous right, and then job.
Speaker 2: For so many movies, I don't know. This is like
I don't know if this is my real answer, but
out the top of my head, this is like half
the answer, like Kingdom Hearts four. Finally put a Goofy
movie as a world Dammit, you've used up all the
other like obvious choices and you're not gonna do Brother
Bear any of those like movies from like the dark
era of Disney. But you've.
Speaker 3: Treasure Planet though, that'd be cool. I mean to be clear,
I would take Goofy movie over those.
Speaker 2: I just yeah, I would not take those over a
Goofy movie. It'd be like, oh, you did this, but
you couldn't do this actually good movie that you guys
act like. It is like the Redheaded Steps child of
the animated classics, even though people love it.
Speaker 3: I want, oh questions, is Goofy is your party member?
Goofy is he like, oh, this is my world, or
is he like, what is this ultimate dimension where I'm
just like a contemporary father raising a teenager as a
single dad.
Speaker 2: I think the most fun is that at some point
he mentions like, guys, I gotta get home, you know,
and they're like, what's your home? Goofy, And he's like,
let me show you, and then you wind up and
then like if you're a fan, you're like, are they
gonna do it? And then he shows up and he's like, Hey,
this is my son Max. And then it's like I
forgot that we were supposed to go on a vacation
like a fishing trip.
Speaker 3: We got to go do that a thousand spinoffs, and
I forgot to mention that I got to check on
my teenage son at home. That'd be incredible, Mark, because
I would love a Goofy movie in the Kingdom of Hearts.
The Highway sequence be like the Matrix reloaded.
Speaker 1: I'm so I've got the movie picked, I've got the
genre picked. I'm trying to figure out like the perfect
developer for it. But I think a spirited away game
where you are.
Speaker 3: Like the light touches, don't touch it, no, no, no, just.
Speaker 2: Don't try it.
Speaker 1: You are you're managing a bath house and it's not
like tied to the story. It's non canon, okay, Kyle,
non canon, just like the imagery of the bath house
some of the guests you might see. But I think
it could be maybe like the the people who made
Airborne Kingdom or or the people who made like, uh,
I don't know, Fair.
Speaker 3: I mean yeah, Spiritfair almost like that premise to a
small like the tastes.
Speaker 1: On a smaller scale. Ye, Spirits And that's a good call. Yeah,
I like that.
Speaker 3: I like that great animation.
Speaker 1: That's my pick. Yeah, Well, there's that wandering village game
like I don't want to get I think the like
I don't want to give to like a city Skylines
dev because I think like that's like it's a different scope.
Speaker 3: Right hold on, Alex, I'm googling real quick developers who
have described their video game as gibliesque. Just let me
do a quick google here. It looks like the vast majority,
if not all, of them, have described their game that way,
So there's plenty of options for developers.
Speaker 1: Perfect perfect.
Speaker 3: Yeah, gibli inspired is like if I search that in
my inbox, it's like ninety percent of my emails I swear.
Speaker 2: To God, yes, have we just we should just call
them Ghibli likes?
Speaker 1: Oh I have such a bet. Why did I not
I posted about this online? We need a Marty Supreme
movie with the watch Star table tennis engine.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, there we go?
Speaker 1: Yeah, perfect, all right, let's.
Speaker 4: I was coping.
Speaker 3: You just move on. But I should have brought it up.
I should have brought up how dare you?
Speaker 4: No? I was just thinking, like, I love Indiana Jones
and Bond, but I'm like those have been done pretty well,
and yeah, what what else would be? I swear was
what's that? Well, yeah, Marvel, maybe the Avengers? What of
Crystal Dynamics and an Avengers? Great? No, but I swear
I was thinking about this before you brought up Ghibli.
But like Princess Mononoke. I was like, if if the
Zelda team did a Princess Mononoke, that could be interesting.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's called Breath the Wild. I was going to say, yeah,
the game freak game that kind of has Mono. The
reason I make that joke Greaves is because on a
few occasions interviews with Auman and stuff like that, he'd
be like, well, yeah, we were inspired by you know
some anime, but we don't want to say which ones.
And it's like, guys, it was clearly mononoke, like you
don't have to dance around this, Like there's literally, like, uh,
a spiritual deer that you can find in breadth of
the lot.
Speaker 4: It could have been the Goofy movie.
Speaker 3: You know, you know, you're right, You're right, fair Fair
I described as anime the Goofy movie.
Speaker 4: They talk about American animation.
Speaker 3: Out there, that's the anime to them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Adam Wrights and asking what's this most scared You've
ever been playing a game? For me, it was Resident
Evil seven and VR was one of the most intense
experiences I've ever had. I love horror games, and I'm
just curious what really got you?
Speaker 2: Oh, this is easy for me mine it was PT easily,
Like I love horror games and I love horror in general,
but PT was the first horror game I'd ever played
that actually made me scream out loud because I don't
do that. I don't have that reaction. I'd be terrified
playing horror games, but I just keep it. It's internalized.
But I remember downloading that thing when people still didn't
know what it was like, I just saw the headlines
of like mysterious game popped up, but people hadn't beaten
it yet, so I was like, oh, let me check
this out. And I played this like broad daylight, windows open,
like sunshining in the room, and like the first Lisa
jump scare just like scot me so good. But everything
up to that, like it's just such a masterclass and
just build up, build up, build up. But and then
that jump scare happens and I just like just screamed,
and I was terrified playing that thing, and it made
it worse that it was a puzzle. So you're like,
I can't even just like end this by like I
have to be smart to make this nightmare. Yeah, while
I'm terrified the whole time trying to figure.
Speaker 1: Out is probably my answer to I quit that game.
I have never beaten it. I never will.
Speaker 2: I was absolutely You sold your PS four with your
copy on it, so you're like, I could never have this.
Speaker 1: Uh, I hate it.
Speaker 2: It was horrible And now we have so many like
to your point about Ghibli likes, like every horror game
is like a PT. Like I feel like I give
those press release of like, hey, we really like PT.
This is basically like pt yeah, old.
Speaker 4: Yeah, silence is great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you want to say more about it.
Speaker 4: There's an old uh Sega Saturn game called Enemy zero
and this is totally a time and place thing. And
I was like young, and it's probably impressionable and that's
probably part of it. But you were wandering through this.
I think it's a space station, but the enemy. There's
an enemy hunting you on the ship and it's invisible,
and it's like one of the first games where I
remember you have to like listen for the enemy to
like sense where it is in the world, and it
starts can start attacking you, and you you don't know
where it's coming from. And I just remember being so
cooped out by this idea that it's an invisible enemy
that I can't see coming, and it's It's also one
of those things where you can't really go back and
play it now. I mean, you can probably find it
out an emulator, but it's just not it's not scary.
It's like a kind of a not a perfectly designed game.
It's not fun to play, but time and place that
was terrifying.
Speaker 3: Did you guys ever do that on replay back in
the day or anything Reeves.
Speaker 1: Did you ever play that one?
Speaker 4: I think we did, which was not a good replay.
Speaker 3: I also like you're like, yeah, the enemy was invisible.
It's so scary where it's like that totally had to
have been like limitations of like what if we just
don't animate anything.
Speaker 2: We ran it, we can't fit a character model in here,
what if he's invisible?
Speaker 4: I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Kyle was to you just kind of yeah, it was, yeah,
the original like playing it like near release. Yeah, especially
like the sequence where you go deeper and deeper and
deeper underground and like you're way deep underground and then
you just find a graveyard like underground and there's a
couple of the graves are open, but there's one that
has James's name on the gravestone, and that's how you progress.
You have to walk into your open grave after you've
been traveling like what feels like miles underground. And I
was like, I remember having a moment of just like
I don't want to go in there. I don't want
to go in there. I don't I don't want this
game to progress because I don't want to walk into
my own grave.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, and attack Corky asks when it comes to DLC,
which ones add the most value to a game and
which ones took the most away. As a Gears fan,
the ram DLC sticks out. It added an entirely new
perspective on the Locust, which become a major component of
future games.
Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of DLCs that takes stuff away.
That's an interesting like thing to say about DLCs. I mean,
these are expansions, are DLCs, but like Shadow of the
Ur Tree for elden Ring is an incredible expansion. It's
basically as good as the base game, which.
Speaker 1: I still haven't played it, which is wild because I
loved elden Ring.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you will love this, like it's a whole other map,
like all new enemies, it's a little harder, new weapons,
like it is incredible. It's one of the best expansions
or pieces like DLC I've ever played. So yeah, that
one's probably my, off the top of my head, my
number one. I'll also give a shout out to those
Witcher expansions, uh, Witcher three, because those are great and
I'm excited for those, the one that they're making.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do like the expansions or DLCs however, you
want to hear of them that are like like elden Ring,
And a recent one was the Sea of Stars DLC
throws of the Watchmaker, which was like play that. Yeah,
it's cool because it was like the one was so
good about the Sea of Stars one is they were like,
we know, you haven't played this game in a while,
you probably don't really remember. And and even though you're
not starting from zero, we're putting you in a new
area where you have to unlock like new abilities, and
like your currency won't work here, so you have to
earn new currency. So it's basically like Sea of Stars
condensed into like a four hour game, right, like you
still had this sort of joy of upgrading and expanding
and stuff, and uh, it also knew that you were
starting like kind of at zero. And I feel like
the elden Ring DLC was kind of like that too.
It's like we're gonna take you over here, and we're
going to give you a condensed version of the larger game.
I like that approach. I think that always works. Well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I've heard really amazing things about the Marvel's Midnight
Suns DLC.
Speaker 1: That is just.
Speaker 4: Yeah, especially and Morbius. It's just top notch, is what
I've heard, Kyle.
Speaker 3: Do you want to actually you know?
Speaker 1: I was actually gonna say proper actually away so.
Speaker 3: People know why you're why you're saying this, But he
doesn't know.
Speaker 4: I worked on those hyah. When I was at Fraxis,
I worked on Midnight Suns and did the DLCs for
than a Man Morebious specifically, and.
Speaker 2: You're morevious DLC it was better than the Morvious movie.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 4: I was working on it around the same time as
the movie, and we worked in some Morbon time references
and I made it in the game.
Speaker 1: There you go. Mash start button asks. Suppose do you
have access to any I P and any genre of game?
What's the mashup you're creating? Personally, I would love a
Mortal Kombat Tactics game.
Speaker 2: Oh I want that now too, as a Mortal Kombat
and Tactics fan, that'd be really funny.
Speaker 1: I'm I'm I'm taking one of my answers from earlier
Pokemon city Builder. M hmm, that's what I want.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So specifically, like Style, it is not not the
one one of your favorite games of the year. It's
not a city builder I mean you do build a city,
like literally, but it's not a city builder. I want
a non dystopian city that is.
Speaker 3: I mean they're a city, right, like, yeah, like a city,
but you're building.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I know, like humans have to exist in my game.
Speaker 4: Wow? Yeah human Yeah.
Speaker 2: Anyways, uh m hm, I feel like I've had these
fantasy mashups in my head. I'm trying to pull one
from the ether.
Speaker 1: Now.
Speaker 2: Ah, Kyle, you go first. You look like you got something.
Speaker 3: I was hoping we would skip me because I don't
have a great answer. Yeah, do you want to give
us a mediocre answer? I don't know, a Zelda turn
based rpg.
Speaker 2: There you go, I don't know.
Speaker 1: It seems really passionate about it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that was a pretty mediocre answer. How dare you
give us that?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 3: Then I nailed it, I guess.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I'm kicking myself because I know I think about this
a lot for different games. What if you did this
but it was this?
Speaker 1: I actually would I have another one if we just
want to go through my ideas, sure, because I would
love an overcooked style game, but I want like a
instead of like doing overcooked stuff, I want everyone to
be like running a hotel, So like somebody's on cleaning service,
somebody's on on looking, somebody's on like baggage duty, and
you're all like the it's like really complex kind of
systems interplaying with each other and instead of like everyone
just being in the kitchen or whatever, it's like all right,
you know, and what would the IP be?
Speaker 2: I don't know, the Sweet Life of Zach and Cody.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there we go.
Speaker 3: Wasn't there a recent Suda game that was like in
a hotel? Or am I thinking?
Speaker 4: Or was that?
Speaker 2: Are you talking about the one I reviewed last year
that was bad?
Speaker 1: Yeah? What was it called? Do you remember?
Speaker 2: Oh?
Speaker 3: It wasn't even it was in Suda? Actually no, he wasn't.
Speaker 2: No, it wasn't Suita.
Speaker 3: It was sweary, sweary. Yeah. What was a hotel?
Speaker 2: Hotel, Barcelona hotel.
Speaker 3: There's a hotel for you, Alex, there's a hotel you
can use that franchise.
Speaker 2: Your your idea is better than what that actual game was.
Speaker 3: Apparently I overhold it in a huge way.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I feel like Kyle, if I choose to revisit that,
you have to revisit Blades of Fire, because apparently that
got a huge Overhall. We both got to reconvenience Marcus.
Speaker 3: I downloaded it on my steam deck when they released
the update with the intention to play it. I haven't yet, though,
So let's do it how a gentleman's handshake.
Speaker 2: I don't think you will, probably not call you out.
I just had one in my head.
Speaker 1: You do.
Speaker 2: Uh. We talked about this Star Fox as a roguelike,
like a proper roaguelike, because the structure already fits a
roguelike of like there's multiple routes you're you're working away
up a web of like levels. Just add like, oh,
your ship gets damage along the way, you have to
maybe choose to like you have to find upgrade to
fix your ship because the damage just carries over from
level to level.
Speaker 4: Different weapons and stuff. Yeah, it wasn't Star Fucks too.
They kind of flirted with that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and command as well a little bit. I didn't
play a ton of command the DS strategy one, but yeah,
I think they a little bit with it.
Speaker 2: But yeah, yeah, and also so like permanent upgrades that
stick with you, So like if you find like, oh,
I've got like super missiles, I have that for the
rest of my run and I can keep snacking. It
kind of like Haiti style of just like just gaining
more and more abilities and have like a really satisfying
like power escalation.
Speaker 3: Cool.
Speaker 4: I like it.
Speaker 1: Us asks when will we see a spiritual sequel to
Drink Eat A knife Eat Mystery, which was an amazing
sequel to Knife Eat I think property. Yeah, Mashups, you're
asking the wrong people.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think you have explained what knife eat is
knife eat?
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well we did well. Again, this is a MIDMX show.
But I guess Kyle, you're part of mid Mix, right
you can?
Speaker 3: You can?
Speaker 4: They It was a joke that started a game Informer
in the Game and Former days when the layoffs happened
layoffs Kyle was a part of. So the joke was like, hey,
what if we just like whatever we want and let's
film ourselves trying to eat food, but it's all stuff
we can only eat with a knife, and like so
stuff that would like grapes or something that whatever would
be super hard to eat with a knife, which ended
up filming two years ago at ninmax and as I'm
sure up on their site, and then we did a
sequel about what nine months ago, almost a year ago
now called Drink eat where me and Reovader blended stuff
up in a blender and tried to guess what was
in it, which was like, weirdly easier than I thought
it was going to be, or we were better at
it than I thought you would be, and it was
also as gross as I thought it would be.
Speaker 1: So Hansen, that's right, Duke Fason asks, is replay dead?
Speaker 2: No, dude, it's not dead. Candidly, we've just been busy
because we were at least I was away at SGF
for a while, and then also a lot of SGF
sort of magazine stuff had to get done, and then
the next issue had to get done. So it's something
that I've had in my mind of like getting back
to actually have a couple of ideas, one specifically for
Charles that I have yet to pitch him, but I
will execute something you would play. But no, it's not dead,
Charles or Charles Duke and whoever else might be wondering.
Speaker 1: So stay tuned, y'all. Ever want to do a World
of Warcraft super replay.
Speaker 3: You let me know you endlessly World War No, No, no,
it'll be the.
Speaker 1: Classic one to sixty we do. We do the dungeons
and then we're good.
Speaker 3: Apologies for the inconsistency, but Charles and Marcus and you know,
I popped in there occasionally and not not so much lately.
But yeah, I love I love that we play holder
games and stuff like that. Yeah, I want to keep
doing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we still have.
Speaker 1: Also want to be a World of Assassination hit Man
super replay.
Speaker 3: That'd be cool.
Speaker 2: That would be fun.
Speaker 1: That would be fun.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Anyways, it's not dead, stay tuned. Final question, tom asks,
this is a much for Ben. Do you have lots
of bensuh? At your new job? I was working with somebody.
What's so weird working with somebody Ben's at GI? Ben questions.
Speaker 4: Lots of There was only one other Ben at g I,
which was I had never worked with another Ben until
that point. Actually, growing up, I didn't know that many
other Bens. And then I started working with Hanson and
somebody else around that time. Was like, oh, Ben's a
super common name, which was weird to me because growing
up again, I didn't know that many others. But I
feel like I've met a lot more since then. At
the Araxis we had like two other Bends as well as.
Speaker 3: Benjamin. Was it all Bens?
Speaker 4: We all did. We all did well, oh wait, Benjamin
rather Ben?
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, we all went by Ben.
Speaker 3: Yeah, didn't you say that? You so you started a
game informed before Ben Hanson. But once Ben Hansen was hired,
everyone started calling you Reeves even though you were the first.
It's Ben.
Speaker 4: That's not rude because we had so many Mads, and
like the original Mad, we had like multiple andyes, and
there was like an Andy got to keep his name.
But for some reason, as soon as like there were
multiple Bens in their crew, it's like, oh, nobody gets
to be called good Ben anymore.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's curse name.
Speaker 2: Grateful to have it, Yeah, I'm grateful to have a
name that's like just uncommon enough where I don't see
it too often.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I feel like I know some Marx, but I
don't know. Don't you're the only Marcus I know, I think.
Speaker 2: Knowing marks and games media that I know of too,
if not, If you're are media, I was gonna say,
Marcus Letto, Yeah, I don't even know who that is.
Speaker 4: That.
Speaker 2: Jared Lettle's like brother.
Speaker 1: Marcus Letto, one of the creators of Halo.
Speaker 2: Oh I'm not a big Halo guys.
Speaker 1: Fair enough, Well, maybe when it's coming to PS five in.
Speaker 2: July, that'll change everything.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well cool, I think that's going to be the
end of the show. Everyone. Thank you for listening, Ben,
thank you for joining us. Coming back on what you
got going on?
Speaker 2: Ben?
Speaker 1: Where can people find you?
Speaker 4: A good question. I'll probably have word to promote maybe
in a few months, so if you want to be
back on then it'd be great. But for yeah, go
play Midnight Suns, go play Civilization seven, and stay tuned
for some some cool new stuff coming down the pipe.
I do have a website you can look up if
you want to follow me there or follow me on
Blue Sky.
Speaker 1: I enjoyed your narrative game you put out a couple
months back.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, I have a bunch of stuff up. Yeah.
So I have a couple of things that are free
to play if you want to check out my Itch page.
I did a thing for Game Developer a couple months
back where I spent thirty days building stuff and GOODO
like learning the GOODOT engine and that game game. It's
like ten twenty minutes to play, but it's like a
clicker basically with some narrative. Is free to play on Itch,
so you can go. You could read the article on
Game Developer and go play the game if you want.
What's the game called. You'd think i'd know that, Kyle,
But last lamp right right, the last Lamplighter. There you go.
Speaker 1: And then I was talking about standard operating procedure, which is,
oh sure, really cool. I really enjoyed that. I played
that at the airport on my phone.
Speaker 4: Oh cool, that's fun. Yeah, that was I've always loved it,
and it was kind of trying to tap into cosmic
horror a little bit. And I've always loved this Antarctic stations,
the idea of like working on an antarch station where
you just kind of this like hub city in one place.
So I blended those two things together. It's got some
cosmic horror in it, and you're a researcher on a
Antarctic station and things go awry.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I thought it was really cool. Yeah, so check
all that's about Streetcomedian dot it do I if you
want to play those games, but yeah, otherwise, follow the
crew here. You can follow me at It's van Aken
on Instagram Blue Sky. You can follow Marcus at Marcus
Stewart seven, and you can find Kyle at Kyle Hilliard
dot com on Blue Sky Correct that correct correct correct
Yeah awesome. Well, hey, thanks everybody for listening. We will
see you next week. Goodbye,