Speaker 1: Hello, and welcome to side Quest. This is our weekly
video game show here at Geek First, and I'm your
host elmus but I'm not alone. I've got the We're back,
Kirkland Pats are back on side Quest after a not
even a hiatus. It's just that way, you know, switch
to coverage a little like Xbox Show cause that you
missed here and there. But it's good to have you back.
How are you doing tonight?
Speaker 2: Uh, doing very good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the the temperature of the air is nice. And yeah, no,
I'm I'm happy. I'm happy.
Speaker 2: It'should be a good time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think me and you are both pretty excited for
this episode, just because it's one of those classic Like
me and you've both been playing a lot of games
last few weeks. We haven't had a side Quest together
last you know, a couple of weeks. Been a lot
of switch to things, like I said, those showcases and whatnot,
and so it's just been like a samis like charge
shot here, like building up the beam a little bit.
And I feel like this is like the episode where
we unload just an absurd amount of games we've been
playing over the last few weeks here, So some things
I'm very excited to share with you, but really that's
all all this episode is about. The news is like
this week there was a Donkey Kunk Bananza direct, which
is great and got me really hyped for the game.
But I didn't feel like putting you through watching a
twenty minute direct for a game that you are probably
not going to be playing. So maybe it would have
shown that interesting, but it suffice to say I thought
it was really great. I am very excited for that game,
but I was orader going to buy it, so it
didn't really change anything in my life. But yeah, looking
forward to that game. I just quick shout outs here
is death Raining two on the Beach is coming out
this week, and so yeah, the next week's episode of
Sidequest will be kind of probably more impressions because I
first game as long as hell, so there's no way
we're playing through that whole thing in a weekend. But
I did also release the dest Raining one review back
in the feeds there for people who want to listen
to that, because that was freaking six years ago. Now
that that that game and review therefore came out, so
it's been a bit, so you can go back in
and check that out. It's a long one, and you
know it's two and a half hours long. Is a
long review as well. It does not encompass because I
know quickly you've talked about destraining a lot in side
Quest the last year or two. I just kind of
put the original one out there, didn't like do a
mega edit super out of all the discussions that we've
had on it, because those ones are still in the feed.
Those ones are still in side Quest. If you want
more desk randon after that, you can just search desk
stranding on podcast player, or if you are struggling to
do that, you can do it usually on Spotify that works,
but Spreaker as well. You can search like desk stranding
as a tag in there and it'll pop up popu
all the episodes that we've talked about it in there,
so you can do that, and then all this stuff's
usually timestamped as well, so you can do that if
you want. Anyway, let's get into today's talking about some
of the games we been playing. I'm gonna bring back
a segment that I was doing for a little bit there,
but it's been a couple of months. I'm bringing back
my UFO fifty Game of the Week. As I've been
back in UFO fifty, probably put another like ten fifteen
hours into the game in the last couple of weeks
here kind of because there's a podcast that was to
The Eggplant Show and they they are dedicating a whole
year to UFO fifty. Since games come out every week,
they do one the next game in the collection, and
they've just been going through and you know, up until
like a recently this last few weeks, there were still
like three or four games and I had never even
opened up yet, and they're now in the podcast like
part of the year where they're getting to the episode
of the games I hadn't played yet, so I'm like, oh,
I want to catch up. Make sure I'm playing these
games before these episodes come out. That's been really fun,
So you fifty's kind of been an ever present think
of my mind, just listening to that podcast every week,
revisiting games and now playing some new ones that I
never even got around to by the time I already
gave it my Game of the Year award last year.
So the one I'm really excited to share with you,
Kirkland is there's a game in there called Rock on Island,
which is a tower defense game. So I know you're
a big balloons head, oh yea, and yeah, I And
I feel like I've not played a ton of tower
defense games in my life, like maybe four or five
different ones in terms of like series and then played
like a bunch of balloons games, and I, you know,
it's I feel like there's never been a tower defense
game that's missed, like every time. It's just a banger.
I love it. You know, I usually only go to
one if it has like some unique new mechanic to it.
It's that probably as well, not just like playing like
cheap o games that are kind of not bringing anything
new to the genre. But it is still all these
years later, still like pretty niche. And there are definitely
like more roguelike ones and other interesting ones that have
come out from the indie world these last few years,
but this one is has an interesting mechanic to it
that I haven't seen another game, which is that you know,
it's kind of like a top down view of course,
but instead of you just being like an omniscient view
where you can just click on a tile and like
put a put a tower there, you are like a
little character you're a little guy and you have to
walk around the map and click on you know, go
to a tile, click on it, place a tower there,
and you also have like an attack of your own,
so you're kind of like a mobile tower at the
same time. And then the game is really built around that,
Like the first two or three waves, for sure, before
you get any infrastructure up, like you really got to
plan out where you are on the map, like I'm
gonna be like a diagonal angle here, I'm gonna be
a tower smacking these down, get my other two towers.
But then it gets really intense because like mid round,
it's like, okay, well now I have to frantically run
up to this corner where I want my next tower
or slap it down, maybe get an upgrade for it,
do this other micromanaging stuff. And especially like in the
later levels, like the final level took me probably like
fifteen tries to like figure out a strap it, and
a big part of that is just like constantly figure okay,
we're trying to be we're going to put these towers,
what is my upgrade route for it? And your character
intentionally moves very slow, and there's no way you can
like upgrade your you can upgrade your weapon power of
your character, you can't upgrade. You can upgrade your range,
which I guess helps, but you can never get your
speed up up updated, so you kind of always are
a bit of a tower yourself. You're kind of sluggishly
moving along along, and so it really incentivizes that strategy
of where you're gonna place yourself mid level, even though
that's something you can constantly update and change. So yeah,
it's it's really cool. And then the other kind of
I really like the the building of it is like
very simple, as most things are in you fifty. It's
like very just reduced to like the core concepts and this.
There are three towers that you can place. One is
like the attacking tower. One is just a campfire, which
I'll explain it minute, and the one is like a chicken,
which isn't even a tower. It's just for currency. I'll
explain again in a minute. As far as the towers go,
it's like a pretty much a six. There's there's a
pretty basic skilteriy to it. You put the basic unit
down and then it branches out. You can get three
upgrades for it, and then for each of those three upgrades,
there's two more upgrades, so it's like six different variations overall,
or I guess what would that be like nine if
you count like the lower tiers. And sometimes you might
just leave one on a lower tier because you don't have
the money or because you know you don't need to
upgrade it past that tier, and then they get specialized,
you know, like the ones that higher tiers can like
have the slow ability or can hit multiple units at
the same time. But I think it's like pretty simple
in terms of towers going, like even comparing to like
some of the crazy towers to get like later on
in Balloons or I talked about Siege Breaker last year
and some of the interesting mechanics you can get there. Like,
it never really gets that wild because you know, it
doesn't like change much. And even on the first level
of the game, you have access to the exact same
towers and upgrades that you do on the final level
of the game. You never unlock anything new. It's just
like that same core concept, but you're just kind of
refining it. And once again, the game doesn't really explain
what the towers do. You kind of have to figure
it out from trial and error like, oh yeah, this
one hits through targets. This one only hits one target,
but it does big damage. This one's really good against
flying units for example. So there's there's little things you
kind of have to learn just from playing, which is
pretty much all of you for fifty because only like
one or two of the games have tutorials in there.
It's mostly just you dicking around until you figure things out.
And then yeah, the other two towers. One is the
campfire the whole game, I should say. The reason this
campfire is this game is like a caveman themed. There's
like dinosaurs crashing into this island and you're like cave
cave people and you're fighting off these dinosaurs. So anyway,
that's why it's like you're hiring cavemen around your towers.
The campfire, if you put it near next to one
of your one of your cavemen, they get increased attack speed.
So that's one thing you can do with it. But
then the thing with the third upgrade I mentioned the chicken.
If you put a chicken next to a campfire, it
will slowly cook the chicken and after like a like
a round or two, a wave or two, it'll fully
cook through and then you can sell it for like
triple the value that you bought it for, or you
think you maybe hire for the exact numbers that it's
couple weeks since I played it, And so you're kind
of finding that constant balance too of like how many
towers do I need just to get by so that
I can put more chickens down so that I can
make a ton of money and like just you know,
crush it in these next three ways when things are
gonna get harder and like boss students are gonna come through.
And so it's a really fun balance of that where
you might just have a part of the map that's
just sectioned off and it's just like your huge like
line cook factory, you just have campfires and chickens. But
then also you might just be like, Okay, I'm gonna
put a campfire here so it's strategically next to one
of my towers, but then I can cook chicken on
the others, you know, spot next to it, and so
it's just like that strategy to it is really engaging.
So yeah, once again, when someday, when you eventually pick
up this game, I think, yeah, let me know, because
there's like three or four games that I would immediately
say you need to play this now. But knowing that
you're a big tower defense guy, I think you would
really like this game. It was just I think it
probably too three or four hours. Maybe get through the
whole thing and ei there's even like the cherry condition
is to be at the levels without taking any damage
on your home base, which is gonna be insanely difficult
on some of these levels. I don't know if I'm
gonna do that necessarily. But it was just a really
great time with this simple but really in depth tower game.
Speaker 2: No, that's awesome.
Speaker 3: I honestly like halfway through you talking about the game,
I like forgot you were talking about u UF fifty games.
It's just there's so much depth in each of the
little games within it. That's that's so crazy. It's funny
that the game really was bringing back memories to a
different game that I don't know if you ever played,
but I loved it as a kid. On PS three,
I think it was is a game called Fat Princess.
I were playing online with a couple of my friends
and we played this game so much. I like completely
forgot about until you were describing this game. It wasn't
necessarily a tower defense in the sense of like you're
building towers, but like similar where like you're controlling one
one soldier sort of situation you're trying to capture the
other princess, And it was just it was just such
a fun game and very very unique. And uh, I
think the idea of like just controlling one player on
a tower defenses is interesting or minds. It also reminds
me of a or Warcraft three custom custom game bo
that I played back in the day. So no, that
that definitely sounds like it's up my alley because it
reminded me of two very very fond memories I had
in gaming.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I remember Fat Princess like just seeing
it on maybe not any three thing, but like just
G four, seeing like reviews of it, me like, well,
what a weird game, and like what a strange sense
of humor this had. And I remember that like they
added that character and PlayStation all starts. That's very much
like a time capsule of like where that when that
game came out, that they had Fat Princess in.
Speaker 2: There as a character for sure.
Speaker 3: So two thousand and nine, I think was the one
that I played, and then apparently they came up like
a twenty fifteen one that.
Speaker 1: Well, so would that be on PS four?
Speaker 3: I I don't even remember this coming out, and then
when I was just reading about it on on redd,
it sounds like it's it wasn't very popular compared to
what the first one was.
Speaker 1: Okay, it was like a sequel or a remaster or
something not like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, let me uh huh, let me check.
Speaker 1: Because that is it. That is a game that just
totally forgot about until you mentioned it, but now it's
bringing back a bunch of memories. And this one that
I would like to check out was like Princess Adventures.
There you go PlayStations. Okay, so that was kind of
maybe like a spin off or something.
Speaker 3: Yeah, a little bit different, but yeah, that same sort
of cute sea appeal.
Speaker 1: Interesting. I'm gonna have to write that down because I
feel like I wonder if that's on I don't think
it's on PS plus, but like that would be a
weird game to go back and yeah.
Speaker 3: Play It was fun because you could play online or offline,
I believe, I don't know if they did that, like
like the new version but on the old one, Yeah.
Speaker 1: Would that be like a gauntlet game? Like could we
play could we like do his split screen against each other?
Speaker 3: Because that could be a wild I feel like in
my mind it would be fantastic, but like I don't
know if it if it had that type of support
for it, but who knows, because I don't think I
ever played like against someone on the same console.
Speaker 2: It would have been online.
Speaker 1: Online Peedian, right, yeah, And I mean a lot of
those games and a PS three era kind of stuck
in limbo because they've struggled with the emulation, Like they
have a ton of PS one and two things on
PS five, P four things, but PS three is like
the just because of the whatever, the hardware of the system,
it just makes it harder to port that stuff unfortunately.
So some of those things have Like PlayStation All Stars
another one that I really want to go back to,
even though it's not great, but I just want to
play it. But it's not easy to just I mean,
it's probably some emulator. I guess I could just do
it on PCU, but to play it on PlayStation is
not not super easy. Unfortunately, it's PlayStation All Stars. I
want to play it on the PlayStation. Yeah, uh, and
then you know, so it's funny that I kind of
paired these two games off because you know, Rock on
Island reminds me of balloons and this this Tower Defense
flash game. Another game that was is I've been playing
that is kind of similar to a flash game I
used to play back in the day. And I think
we've talked about this game, and I don't think you
did play it. Do you remember the game Crimson Warfare?
Did you play that one back in the day? Was
that an I swear we've talked about it in our
in our different flash games conversations that we've had.
Speaker 2: Let me get a google that one. Yeah, Crimson.
Speaker 1: It's like a it's it's almost like an RTS but
like put into like a two D realm where you
just buy you know, building, building upgrades and then like
send out units and then the unit's not an auto battle
the game.
Speaker 3: I never played this one, but it looks like many
different games that I played in mini clip like.
Speaker 1: Just absolutely yeah, Like Age of War that.
Speaker 2: Was one, I think is what it was called.
Speaker 3: It was similar where there was two enemy like sorry,
two sides, and then you're just like ye upgrading and
trying to different the base.
Speaker 2: That's kind of what it looks like.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, anyway, the newer game that I've been playing
that is kind of reminiscent of that is a game
called Metal Slug Attack Reloaded, which came out on the
Switch last year. And you know, with the Switch to
there's not like other than Morrocraft, there'sn't really any launch titles, right,
so I've been like, Okay, I want to just pick
up some things to like play on this console, to
like be able to buy this new hardware that I
spent hundreds of dollars on. And so, yeah, this game
came out last year. It was like on sales like
ten ten bucks, I think, because I'm pretty sure it's
a mobile game. And then this is like the Port
two consoles where they took out a lot of like
the you know, micro transaction stuff and just made it
like one full release game. And so it's been on
my radar ever since it came out because I love
the concept that reminded me Crimson Warfare Metal Slug I
was talking about Tactics last year and how I just
love that pixel art and I'm kind of reminiscent and
nostalgic for that game and that series a little bit,
and especially after playing Tactics and really loving that game,
even though I had a bunch of bugs and issues
like that, I was excited to finally pick this game up.
And there's another game I also picked up on Switch too.
I'll talk about not like these are run on Switch one,
like there are new games or anything like that, but yeah,
Metal Slug Tack reloaded, so kind of what I was
describing there of you have your base on the left
side of the screen, enemy based on the right side
of the screen. You are just accruing currency over time,
and then you can like put upgrades into accruing that quicker,
and then you're just buying units, you know, a basic
gunman up to like a bike, up to like a
huge mech. And then Metal Slug is crazy. There's like
crazy anime waifu characters, and there's like giant demon beast,
huge slugs, and like it's insane the kind of stuff,
not even metal slugs, just like real organic slippery slugs.
All sorts of crazy sense in there. And so you
buy these things when you get enough money. They go
out in a vertical or a horizontal line against each other.
They auto battle against each other, and then there are
a couple buttons that you can choose to have them
attack manually. And then you're building up like a super
attack that you can send out at different points and times,
and you can like change what the superattack is, you
can like customize it and all that sort of thing.
I guess this game is also a bit of a
deck builder in the way that you are picking which
units are going to have the composite. You can have
like maybe ten units at a time in your roster,
and so you can switch that out mission to mission,
and I think that's kind of what the idea is.
Like each mission you're kind of supposed to look at, Okay,
what enemies or what units does is my enemy capable
of here? Maybe they have a lot of flyer units,
maybe they have like some strong ground unit. What is
the counter attack unit for that? I'm going to put
that in my roster, switch it out, And so I
think the idea is rather than just building one deck
and rolling with it, you're kind of having to constantly
adapt and modify and then that sort of thing. It's
a really cool game. I really like the art style,
but there are a couple things I've brushed into almost
immediately that really grind my gear, and I think those
things probably do come back a little bit to the
it being a mobile game being like poorted over to console,
Like this game is super loop boxy, even though even
though like I don't have to pay with extra money
to do that stuff. But you get currency in the game,
and then you go when you're unlocking units, you just
go to this thing and it just like you know,
slot machine rolls, like here's you just got three to
four new units, and some of them are crazy, some
of them are pretty basic. Sometimes you gotta duplicate even
and then it like gives you more currency back, you know,
like a refund kind of thing, rebate, and so you're
just rolling units. And so I think, because that almost
immediately was like, what the hell is the progression of
this game, because like I'm just getting random units. So
it's not like, oh, I'm in world two, now, what
are the new units that it's gonna give me. It's
like it's completely random. So I might get something that's useless,
I might get something that's way overpowered. And that happened
to a couple of missions where I just got this
one demon guy who has like this huge double handed
like fire staff, and he costs a lot. You know,
it takes a while to a crew, but if I
get him in there, he would There was multiple missions
he instantly won for me, and no one could stop him.
He would kill everything on his own and nothing you
can do anything about it. I'm like, it was kind
of fun once, but then like doing that over and
over again doesn't really feel that satisfying. And then I
got to another mission where there's just a certain helicopter
unit that was destroying me, another dog unit that had
like this powerful magic yelp that would like kill my units.
And I tried so many different combinations of what unit
is good against this? I have no idea. And there's
so this game has way too much like progression. There's
like Moult, there's two or three ways you can upgrade
just individual units. There's like upgrades you can get overall.
You can upgrade your base in different ways. But I know,
and like there's stats fucking everywhere. It's just stat vomit
all over the screen. But the one thing I want
to know is like what unit is this powerful gainst
and what is it weakly against and I feel like
it is not telling me that information in a meaningful way,
and so I'm stuck in these missions and I'm like,
I have no idea how I'm supposed to win this,
and I can try for hours, but like I don't
really want to do that. So I kind of wish
the game was just like more well designed, as like
a linear game where you're getting units at like a
logical progression. Maybe you get the odd loop, boxy random
one that you can have in the mix, and that's
one and exciting, but it just feels a little bit
too chaotic when it seems like a game all about
counters but there's like hundreds of units that it doesn't
explain to you what any of the counters are or
what you should do. So it's it's it's a cool game.
It's interesting concept. It's like ten bucks. So I'm not
like too mad that it's like a little JANKI, but
I was maybe hoping for a little bit more, a
little bit more of like a streamlined, like actually designed experience. Instaid.
It feels a little mobile gaming, even though it's a
switch game.
Speaker 3: You know, yeah, yeah, it's it sounds like maybe it
would have been better if they had like like the
base game foundation being like maybe like a new game
plus sort of situation where like like as you describe,
like for a more casual fan that just wants to
like I just want to get through the story and
not have to like think too much about it, like
just go because I feel like many games do have
that natural progression system where it just gives you the
tools to complete the job and then like you don't
have to do much more thinking beyond that. But then
of course after you roll credits just for replayability, they
could make it a lot more or just difficult. But yeah, yeah,
I mean it's like it also sounds like the foundation
of being a mobile game like that that kind of
makes sense for it feeling louboxy. Yeah, and I'm sure
this game on phone is like crazy with like oh,
by these units now, or do you want the solution
with this level by this super dog that has a
gun on its head like that kind of thing. But
it's like you know, by World Too, which is only
like seven six or seven missions in and each mission
only takes like a minute to be like they're pretty quick.
It's like, Okay, I have already unlocked like fifty different units.
I can only put like ten in a deck.
Speaker 1: So now it's like, okay, like a fifth the fourth
of the units that I have accessible to me, I'm
putting in a deck, and it's kind of just a
wheel of fortune whether or not they're gonna like work
against this particular level. So I don't know. Maybe I
should watch a YouTube video of breakdown of like how
this game actually works. I feel like I'm missing something
once again. It's just so confluted with stats and menus
and menus on menus on menus. There's like three separate
tiers of menus just to get to like the next
campaign mission if you want to do that, and there's
other things on the menu too that are like coming soon.
I don't know if that means like a DLC update
or if I have to unlock something. It's just it's
a very messy game. Uh So, I don't know if
I could really recommend it, I'd recommend Tactics, assuming that
game is a Metal Slug Attacks being if it's not
like still bugged out. I haven't looked back if they've
patched that game a bunch. As I mentioned before, I
was having a bunch of crashing issues and stuff with it.
But yeah, once I mean Metal Slug The art pixlart
is insane, the game is gorgeous, the attacks are super cool,
and it is a very fun, like cinematic crazy experience,
like watching these two huge armies like going at it
and just like this hectic mayhem. Uh so it is
fun to watch. But yeah, I just feel like it's
maybe a little little too convoluted unfortunately, which I don't know.
Maybe mobile games like are usually even more dumbed down
and simplified, so maybe it's a good thing. This is
a complicated game, but I think it's just uh yeah,
a little little too complex at different points sometimes. But anyway,
that is Metal Slug Attack reloaded. I think it's just
called Metal Slug Attack on mobile reloaded is like the
console port version of it, I believe. There you go,
there's that one. I do another game I'm planning on
switch to, but I will save that for later, and
you know, I'll kick it over you, Kirkland. I don't
know how many games you got to talk about, and
uh so, yeah, just guide me through this journey here.
Speaker 3: I got a couple of games shout out some that
I've talked about on here before. I think all of them,
maybe maybe maybe one not. But I actually wanted to
start off in a different direction, which is very rare.
You know, last time we did a news weekly geek,
you and I brought up the YouTube channels and I
of course I could bring it up on on the weekly,
but this one's very centered around the gaming.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to shout it out. The channel called
Rye Games r y E I.
Speaker 3: I've randomly found him on just my YouTube algorithms, and
a big thing. What he does is he finds like
either like the worst rated games on Steam or like
completely abandoned games, like those early access games that like
it just seemed like they never they're never out of
early access, and then the whole community just just abandons them.
And he jumps in there and he just like documents
what he does. Sometimes it's a collection of games, and
like a lot of them are really funny because like
there are people playing a lot of these completely dead games,
some of the populations like less than definitely less than
one hundred players, but like you'll find their discords and
like chat with the people and just like document what
like basically the history of these games, and there's been
some videos that are like almost like getting me choked
up with how wholesome they are. Like like like he
just like meets these guys that have been playing this
game for like ten years and they just like talk
about how it's like been a part of their lives
and it's just it's so like fascinating just getting an
insight into into uh yeah, just some of these really
obscure games because whether it's Steam or PlayStation, I feel
like I see, i mean just endless amounts of games
and I'm just like, man, some of these like PVPMMO
ones like who is actually playing these? And then shouts
out to Rye because he's you just jump it in there,
And I highly recommend the channel.
Speaker 2: It is it is very entertaining.
Speaker 3: Most of the videos are like over half an hour,
so it's like a good uh you know, episode length
and uh but yeah, there's been some really good.
Speaker 2: Ones see that.
Speaker 3: Like it was multiple I tried the worst rated Steam
games and then like again, so he just like kind
of as the series going and yeah, they're they're they're
so fantastic.
Speaker 1: I Yeah, I feel like I've seen a few different
channels do tackle that kind of thing of like just
go on Steam. Sometimes it's like, holy shit, the amount
of games that are here, just even like the new
releases is overwhelming. It's fun for people to actually dive
in what are these things? And sometimes there are actually
is gold to be found, and other times it's just
fun to laugh at the nonsense of it. But that's
great if there's if there's a video, a particular video
you recommend her when you watch those those good sent
in my way, I'll definitely check the channel out either way.
That actually reminds me of I'm glad you brought this
up on other YouTube gaming channel that I'm a big
fan of his. Her name is euro Thug four thousand.
I don't know why that's her name. It's kind of
a goofy name, doesn't really fit or uh or vibe
to be honest, but I'm gonna do it. I'm actually
subscribed to her Patreon. I'm a big fan of her
her content, and yeah, she does like she dives into
like usually like weird, obscure Japanese horror games like PS one,
forgotten games, maybe games that were never translated into English,
but sometimes dives into like just the weeds of the
strangeness of Steam games. And she has a video that's
kind of you reminded me of there where she went
into like this MMO that where she was literally the
only person online, like it is just a completely dead mmo,
but it was fascinating because it's like the world seems cool.
I'm like, I want to play this game, but just
talking about the experience of being in this place that
is like completely abandoned in a ghost town but like
still has hints of life to it is really cool.
Just like the full history of like the developers who
made that game. So yeah, that's another another good channel
to check out. So yeah, glad you brought that up.
Speaker 3: Yeah, absolutely, And I I'll find an episode set of
your Way because there's one where it's like a Russian
server and he literally had like a translator like communicating
with this guy that was teaching in the game, and
that at some point the guy like found out that
he like a YouTube channel or like was it American
or something, and he's like, oh, you like music, and
he like grabbed a guitar and like through his mic
like literally played him like a Nirvana song and like
the guy didn't speak any English, and that's where it
was just like, man, this is just such a wholesome experience,
like just this this this random seventeen year old Russian
man that's just like bonding with this guy like through
this game that he just loves. It's it's yeah, I'll
definitely find an episode to recommend. It's great, But onto
games i've actually played, this was a big one for me.
On this past weekend, I wrote credits on Stellar Blade.
I've completed one of the indings, which I think there's
three total, which isn't isn't crazy. It's not like Nero
Automica levels of like where they just have right.
Speaker 1: They're like actual endings, not like takeout.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah exactly, So I think I got the good ending.
It's kind of hard to say, like there's a lot
of like just moral dilemma I think throughout the entire
like story, and then like the inding is just very
like gray on like if you did the right thing
or not. But it seemed kind of wholesome and like
happy to me, even though some bad things did happen. Man,
I absolutely love this game so much. I took a
big hiatus from it and then jumping back into it.
Speaker 2: It's funny.
Speaker 3: I was playing a lot of Elder Ring too, like
at the time when I jump back in, and I'm like,
I can beat any game now, Like I like like
the combat of any game now, like like I can
get in there, figure out the attack patterns.
Speaker 2: I can totally dissect any enemy.
Speaker 3: And just the way that you like Perry and Dodge
is very different in Instellar Blade versus Elden Ring. It's
like it's like it's like they're both bikes, but like
one has like three handlebars or something like. It's just
it's just a little bit different, even though it works
essentially the same Insteller Blade a lot of like the
enemy attack animations, you can like hit them and it
recoils them, but their attack will still like go off
like after they recoil.
Speaker 2: I know. I like that word also that where it
just changes.
Speaker 3: So like like I feel like sometimes you could think
that maybe you canceled their attack, but then like they
still hit and when they hit, they hit really hard.
Speaker 2: And uh, the way that.
Speaker 3: Checkpoints work in that game is like you get really
far in and then if you die, you're just like
right back at the start. And uh, there was a
few times when I was getting back into the game,
where I like I felt like I'd readd the same
mission like three times because I just kept dying right
at the end and then put down the control, but
for sure enough I got it down again, and uh yeah,
I was powdering through the story. I think I told
you last time I was playing it, where I kind
of like, Okay, I'm not going to get all these collectibles.
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna like jump into it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, and actually progressed this story. And there's like
a big thing that happens I think about halfway through
the game where it's like very obvious that it's going
to be happening. I like, not necessarily with the way
that it's set up, but just like the way that
characters talk like in classic video game stands, like make
sure you do everything because you won't be able to
come back here, like like it's like, okay, I think
something happening, So like a lot of that felt very obvious.
But man, in like the last act, like the I
don't even know, like probably like the final third of
the game, some stuff happens in there, and it like
blew my mind. I feel like I had like three
mind blow moments that I was not expecting at all,
really like emotionally driven like story just some of the
characters that you're either just saying goodbye to or whatnot
or yeah, just otherwise And yeah, I really really enjoyed
this game. I found the combent like really really challenging though,
but also very satisfying, just just the way that you
would pull off maybe like Perfect Paris. It's like if
you get a perfect dodge, your character will like slow
mo and there's just so much action going on, like
it's and then paired up with like the music is
just so stellar.
Speaker 2: Wow pun non intended, but yeah, it's so fads. It's
funny too.
Speaker 3: I always thought there was like maybe like thirty or
so like outfits collectibles that you can get for your character.
Apparently it was like over like one hundred and thirty,
so I was comp wrong. God h most of them
are definitely like thirst traps, but it's so funny. I
collected this one. It's like it's like anti thirst trap.
You basically just go into this like Teddy Bear costume
where it's not like sexy teddy Bear either, It's it's
literally just a d bear. Yeah, yeah, so I was
rocking that for a good chuckol the game and it's
just like the animations are for like a slender you know,
like female, but like you're just wearing this teddy bear
costume and it just looks so funny, especially when you're
doing like perfect dodges and whatnot.
Speaker 1: But that's like Residon Evil for you make they have
like a Tofu costume where you're just like a giant
piece of jiggly Tofu.
Speaker 2: Just insane good jiggle physics on that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like big Head Mode right and and other
games also, but uh yeah, I highly recommend the game,
especially now it's on PC so it's more accessible to uh.
I remember Good God Loves Me sixty nine, he was excited.
I think he was getting for the PC. And yeah,
I highly recommend it. I think for like like in order, yeah,
in order of things that I love the most about
the game, it would probably be the gameplay, then the music,
and then the visuals.
Speaker 2: Not necessarily for the.
Speaker 3: For the first traps of it, but just it's just
a beautiful looking game. And yeah, it just it just
looks really uh yeah, just the different biomes that you
go to are are really phenomenal, and yeah, characters are
like I don't know, they're they're they're not that like.
I feel like it's a classic like anime where you
just have like stereotypes of like characters and I mean
they fit their role. But yeah, gameplay like definitely, I'm
down for a sequel. Nothing with like the ending makes
me be like, oh man, like see you next time.
And Stiller Blade two, I think they could pick up
some things, but it very much felt like like a
closing of the book with the making here. But yeah, no,
I still recommend the game definitely to I think everyone.
I think the game does a good job at giving you.
Speaker 2: All the tools.
Speaker 3: That was another thing that like I was struggling coming
back to it. There was so many like gadgets and
stuff that I just completely forgot I even had access
to until like the end of the game. I'm like,
if I hold this butt, oh wait, I have like stunt.
Speaker 2: Grenades and stuff.
Speaker 3: I totally not even had that, so uh probably would
have made it all hard. Yeah, I probably would have
made the combat a lot easier if I was using
those things. But no, it's it's such a great game
and well designed nice.
Speaker 1: I don't know, if I know this about you, are
you the kind of guy who wants to see all
or at least like more more than one of the
endings if possible, whether that's reloading a previous save or
just hitting up YouTube, or like obviously preplaying a whole
game just to see different ending, and I think is
not usually the play these days, unless there's like all
sorts of decisions you could be making, it's easier usually
just like, Okay, I had to save like two hours ago,
I'm going to quickly blasted this section again.
Speaker 3: That definitely was me, like I think funny, like the
first Dishonored game. I think that was like a big
example where I'm like, oh my god, I can't wait
to play through the whole game. And it's nice when
it's not just the cut scene is different, but like
the way that the game progresses and like the world
around it changes based on your decisions, where of course Dishonored,
as you will know, it has.
Speaker 2: That, which is how dark the city can get.
Speaker 3: I mean, nowadays, just with time being such a precious
commodity and we're I'm just lacking it with working full
time now and podcast schedule and all these other things.
That I'm trying to do, whether it's watching stuff, watching shows,
catching up on movies, a lot of nineteen ninety four movies.
Speaker 1: I'm but even interested YouTube though, Like you ever just
YouTube different Steleblade endings that.
Speaker 2: Would be that would be the play. I haven't done
that yet.
Speaker 3: I like, I do think I'm gonna keep playing the game,
not necessarily like right away, but I do want to
jump back in there. There's like a Boss's challenge mode
that I haven't even really dabbled in, so you can
just kind of practice different I don't know if it's
just replaying different bosses or like just a boss arc
type that you can try beating. But I do want
to get in there. But yeah, in terms of the endings,
I think I'll just YouTube it. Yeah, I think that's
what I would do, because it is, like it's a
pretty long game.
Speaker 2: I was kind of surprised by it.
Speaker 3: I think there was many times where I thought I
was coming to the ending and then I don't know,
it's just just there's a lot more content there. But yeah, no,
I I yeah, I'm just gonna YouTube. I imagine because
I think there is three there might be like a
hidden ending okay in there, but I don't know. I
haven't done dug too deeply on the reddits on that,
but because some of it, like the way that you
do the ending, like I don't even really know why
I got the ending I did. I didn't like select
a window or something or like kill someone off. It
just I think they're based on the side quest that
you do. And I was doing all of them for
a good amount of the game, and then that's when
I was like, I just want to beat the game
and get through. I'm gonna be trying to collect these
trophies all all Yeah years.
Speaker 1: That's weird. Usually it's pretty obvious, like where you could
have dv'.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah, yeah, I know. So I don't know.
Speaker 3: So I think i'll just YouTube them and then I'm
sure they'll be like descriptions and like why you did
this or why.
Speaker 2: I got this?
Speaker 1: Yeah sounds good. How about we take our first break.
I'm gonna thank our wonderful Patreon producers Aaron Brady, Naple
of Darkness, Jack Grant, Sam super Bad, Mic TGGLM six
or nine, Jeremy Renner, Charlie Rendell, and Cocktail Clay. Thank
you guys for keeping the lights on of this here
Geek first podcast. I mean, like I said, already kind
of showed out the death stranding situation. You go check
out that re release of that original review. Next week's
episode will all about that. What we got On the
main feeds, we're doing a big juicy newscast and a
weekly Geek this week, we're doing some other stuff. I
don't know if that's going to main feeds or Patreon
for bits, I'll save off some of that, but yeah,
it's an exciting time. We just did a review for
twenty eight years later and uh yeah, all sorts of
good stuff. So let's take a quick quick ad break.
If you are on Patreon, you could perfect dodge pass
these ads, just like Kirkland playing Stellar brom But if not,
here is some ads. We will be right back. Okay,
we are back. What else you got for me, Kirkland?
Speaker 2: Yes? What else do I got for you? I was
getting I was getting some inches.
Speaker 3: Not too long ago about uh, first person shooter Itch
and like very very specific first person shooter Itch, a
very specific ubisaw first person shooter Itch. And I say
it's very specific because I think they just have like
their own genre, which is also like their own just
franchise of games, being the far Crive series. Uh, the
games are like so interchangeable, Like you know, as they
go on, they get they get nicer, maybe some like
new mechanics, but like it's always the same bones. It's
like I'm playing think from onward.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's been It's they've been using a template for sure.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, And like if you're buying them every year, I
think maybe that's where it's an issue. But like if
you just come back to it and you're like, I
just want to know what I'm like, I want to
know what I'm gonna be getting into. And if you
play the farkery games before. I played a lot of
farc Cry in my day.
Speaker 2: I I don't even.
Speaker 3: Know which one I played the most, Like I feel
like it's a pretty even spread. I played the first
far Cry Xbox through sixty, I played far Cry two,
I played far Cry three, Far Cry four, like I
think I have played all of them. I even played
far Cry Primal, but the latest one that I jumped into,
which was on Ubisoft PlayStation catalog, Far Cry five, the
one with the colts in the place of Montana. I
don't know why I picked it up. I, oh, actually
it's because this is the one where they have like
the miles miles morales, like two point five up game
with New Dawn.
Speaker 2: I think it's called where.
Speaker 1: Yes, I imagine a nuke.
Speaker 2: Goes off or something. I'm judging by the by the
box start that's what happens. But I don't know. I
just want to jump in there. I just want to
take down.
Speaker 3: Some some settlements, you know, like some fortresses. And yeah,
like I jumped into it. I was pleasantly surprised. Like
within twenty minutes, I'm like into the actual gameplay. It's
pretty open world, and I'm like, yeah, this is exactly
what I wanted to play. I probably won't beat this game,
but I had a lot of fun just jumping in there.
And you have like little animal companion. I think his
name was Boomer or Boozer or something like that, and uh, yeah,
we were just taking out enemies. And I find in
those games I usually always kind of have like this
similar uh like load out, whether it's like a bow
and arrow, a couple throwing knives, and then like maybe
like a silence pistol or something like. I'm just like
stealthily taken down these little checkpoints and whatnot, and yeah,
just so much fun. Like I got in there and
I'm like, yeah, this is exactly what I want to play,
and it's exactly what I got out of it, And yeah,
shouted out to be soft for still making these farcry
games I saw for her six is on there again.
I don't think I'm like actually gonna be playing because
they do make them pretty lengthy.
Speaker 2: A lot of the time. It's just you know, go
to this area and take.
Speaker 3: Out this, this, whatever that, like, whether you're search and
rescuing people or looking for collectibles like like, it just
there is a lot of content in there for for
sinking in hours, but for what I'm gonna get out
of it, I think I will play it a little
bit longer.
Speaker 2: But no, it's it's it's fun.
Speaker 3: I'm totally digging it, and I would recommend it if
people are looking for that type of first person shooter.
Speaker 1: I you know, I was gonna save this game actually
for next week, but I think this is a perfect
segue into because I also had that rich that itch
recently and needed to get scratched. The first person shooter.
I think for me, it is more specifically like a
first person shooter like campaign. But I've definitely had that
where I've i think, you know, on different points of
game pass or when I've been sub to Ubisoft. I've
pretty much played all the fire Card games, like all
the newer ones that at some point I think I
put like a good like five to ten hours into
yeah into five and you know, I had a good
enough time with it. I really I just love the
driving mechanics so much in Firecry. I think that it's
always fun using vehicles. That's always the highlight for me,
just flying off mountains and smashing people and different stuff
like that, just like the physics engines and the goofiness
of it. Uh So, yeah, I've I've definitely done that
a few times as well. But yeah, my my first
person shooter itch that need to be scratched. I went
for a game called weltin the New Order. So I
remember last year I was talking about, Yeah, I was
playing through Old Blood last year because I want to
get like a little bit into machine games. I wanted
to play something from them before Indiana Jones, just to
get a bit of a flavor and see what the
games are like. And I had a good time with
Old With Old Blood, it was a fun time. It
was you know good. It was pretty solid, like just
single player level based linear linear progression kind of you know,
pretty straightforward by the books, and that is what kind
of one of those point five games as you were
just talking about the Miles Morales comparison there. But yeah,
obviously Wolf and signed the New Order. This is the
first one of the machine games one. It was the
first like Reboot, I guess, although those games have kind
of constantly been coming out in different shapes and forms.
But yeah, I'm almost near the end of it now.
I think I think I maybe have one or two
more missions. But it's definitely surprised me, and some of
the like twists and turns is taken. But I think, like,
you know, Old Blood, I had a good time with
it was cool. I'm like, I can see why they
were picked to do Indiana Jones. But I think after
playing this, I'm like, holy hell, like this is like
that must have been the the easiest green light ever
to give these guys Indiana Jones. This game is fucking awesome,
and it's not that surprising to me, like because Amber
has been telling me about this game for years and
always praised it and always told me to go play it.
And I think I did buy it on seeing like
a bunch of years ago, but just never pooted it
up really and then I just download on game Pass
this time to play on the TV. A bit simpler there,
But this game is amazing. I think what surprised me
about it is how it kind of it's not really
just that that basic level structure, like it does break
the game into chunks, of course, and you have different
load screens between them, but I feel like the you know,
it doesn't like pop you back up to a menu. Okay,
now I'm gonna load level two going there, Like it
seems very seamless, and different points in the story. It's
really surprising how you're gonna like be stuck in a
certain place. There's one point where you're like kind of
in a home base that's kind of wedged in between
these different buildings, is like underground sort of, and then
it almost becomes like a bit of a dark Souls
like Firelng Shrine, Like you venture off to like two
or three different missions from this place, finding hidden compartments,
coming back to it. You know, your your school, your
team is there and you're doing plans in between missions,
you're finding stuff, you're talking to people in between. But
then you know that's just for like, you know, a
third of the game and another third of the game
is like that. The start is a little bit more
straight and straightforward, and then this this last half has
been or this last third has been insane. I feel
like that's what Wolfenstein done in the third act is
it just gets crazy talked about with old blood hovers,
like crazy zombies and stuff coming out which I didn't
even realize there was like supernatural stuff, and this game's
old enough. Icking spoiler. I'm now in space, I'm on
the moon, and I'm just going through like this moon base,
and like all the weapons are kind of brand new.
They or at least they have like fully new skins,
and they act a bit differently, and the physics are
a bit different. All the enemies are like have different
costumes and things like that than they did on back
on Earth. And I think that's another thing that surprised
me too, is like I feel like most first person
Sugar campaigns and like far Cry be an example of this.
Like as you go through, you start out maybe you
have a melee weapon. Early on, you get a pistol.
Then should get your first assault rifle, and you get
a shot gun, maybe get an SMG and you get
a sniper, and you get variations on these things, get
a rocket launchr you know, kind of goes along. You
get upgrades for these things, you get more and more weapons.
But once it feels like every level or every couple levels,
it completely refreshes the palette and it's like, Okay, your
back down to a knife for just this mission, and
you're gonna play with just you know, for like a
half an hour. Then maybe you'll get like just a
shotgun in this level, and then maybe you'll get a
sniper later on. At one point you get a sniper
and then it was gone for like four missions. I
just didn't have the sniper anymore. And then you're, oh,
maybe I have my sor rifle again. No, no, I have
two assault rifles. And it just like constantly kind of
shifts things up, I guess based on the balance of
the level, but it also keeps things fresh, and then
you'll even if you get the shotgun again for a
few missions, it's like, oh, here's this this new upgrade
that makes all the shotgun pellets like bounce off walls,
and now you can use it in like a fully
new way. So I'm just like fucking shocked at how
great this game is. It's it's super fun. I think
you should definitely check this out. I don't know if
this one is on the psplus catalog. I'm sure it's
like super duper cheap on sale, but I think you
would have a grandle time with this game, and the
story's crazy and fun, and I can see why they
once again, I can definitely see why they were picked
to do Indie like they were a great Maybe the
dialogue is different style, but I can see why they
were perfect for that game and why they kind of
nailed it with Indiana Jones.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, No, I I did see a couple on the
Police Station catalog, but I can't remember if it was
in because it's not like, like what studio is it again?
Speaker 1: You said Machines Machine Games. Who's owned by Xbox now,
but at the time they were because they're under Bethesda
so but for a while they weren't under Xbox right,
so they you know, they might be out there and
the way they like Doom I think is maybe on
like PS plus.
Speaker 3: Or yeah, right, yeah, yeah that I think Eternal and
uh like twenty sixteen are Yeah.
Speaker 1: It seems like but does this will make like deals
outside of Xbox, Yeah, just like, oh yeah, we'll go
on PS plus for a little bit here.
Speaker 2: Which I'll take it.
Speaker 3: But I mean you and me sold the last time
you were talking about Wolf and Steinin with uh the
old blood there. So yeah, it definitely sounds like it's
up my alley.
Speaker 1: And then I think the two because you know, this
game is like a lot of first shooters, a mix
of stealthy gameplay and like full combat and you you know,
usually it's like you're sneaking around for a bit and
then event she'll get caught and then I'll go into
a full gunfight. Two things that I think you would
really like about this game that kind of feel like
immersive SIMI in a way. One is like it has
the sick first person shooter lean that I feel like
every first person shooter has now, but in this game
that the lean is like it's not just one button
you hit and now you've leaned over forty degrees and
now you're just leaning forty degrees, like you just click
the button, and then you can like almost like get
in a complete circle shape. You can like move your
camera around in like such a precise way, and a
lot of the time it does that is like you know,
if you're like in a hospital game, there's like the
trays everywhere, and there's like you know, little wheels on
the tray. You can like you know, croach down pretty
much go prone under like something like that and like
shoot enemies from like this little high hole or sneak
around a corner, or you can kind of just quickly
like jitter it up and down and it feels very
It's like it's so it's one of those things like
any game that is has like the best, most precise
controls there are always take the longest to get used
to because you just have such fine motor control that
you have to really get used to it and learn
and get that bustle memory down. But once you do,
just leaning around like crazy is super fun. And yeah,
this game has like the same RPG system that Old
Blood does, which I really enjoy of just like kind
of basic but just giving you little incentives to use
things in different ways. And then I think the other
immersive semi part to it is. I talked about in
Old Blood that one of the main weapons you have
is like these two pipes and you can like use
them to climb, you can use them as like a
melee weapon, and then you can use like break open
crates or whatever like thing like events and things like that.
And this game's equivalent of that is this I don't
even know what the gun is called, but it's essentially
like a little like a welding torch sort of thing.
But you can also use as like a gun. You
eventually get like a sniper upgrade for it, like and
do the huge like solar blasts. But you can also
just like you know, in the class like the Mission
Impossible way when he like drills a hole and like
the glass to like pop through and make a hole
in it. It's like you kind of have that where
you just have like this this little thing. You can
like use this cutter and make shapes and things, which
is maybe in crates to get items or even like yeah,
cut holes and like fences and stuff and like sneak
through the fences and find like hidden path throughs through
the levels. And that gun you get it early on
in the game, and it's like pretty much the only
thing you have. In almost every level. As I mentioned,
so many weapons are being taken or given away, that
one you almost always have, and you're constantly getting upgrades
for it, like even until like this final act, I've
gotten like a fifth upgrade for this thing where it
has like a new function that it didn't before, and
it's just it's just great. So yeah, I absolutely love
this game. It's such a great time. And yeah, I
New Clauses I think is the last one of the
new games they made right before they went over to Jones.
I might be missing one in the mix there, but yeah,
I'm definitely gonna check that out at some point because
I don't really know much about New Clauses. I feel
like that's one that I don't hear as much chatter about.
I don't think Amber ever got around to it, but
I definitely want to see how that one holds up.
But this is like I don't know, Machine Games is
just they just fucking crush it. And even if if
they don't do Indiana Jones next, I'm just I'm super
stoked for whatever they do, and if it is more Jones,
I'll check that out. Even if I was a little
bit more lukewarm on that game overall, just because the
second half kind of dragged. But yeah, I think Machine
Games is doing some really cool shit. Yeah, there's points
in this that are like very much like an Indiana
Jones like Toomb puzzle area as well. So I'm like, oh, yeah,
the DNA was here, like they they were perfect for
this job, and it's it's really cool to go back.
Speaker 2: And see that nice.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Like I said, I wasn't even planning to bring
the game up today. I was gonna bring up next
week with Travis, but you summoned it to me. Uh,
did you have any other games you wanted to shout out?
Speaker 3: Yeah, there was a big Warhammer three patch. Uh of
course that's yeah, they got me itching. And side note,
also there's there's a race in Warhammer. Uh. They're called
the Skavin, which are probably my favorite race just because
there's they're just so unique and they they're they're evil
for sure.
Speaker 2: They're basically just rats.
Speaker 3: Their rat men in in the strategic element of their
like armies and whatnot. It's just quantity over quality, Like
they're all garbage units but you just throw zero style exactly.
Speaker 2: It's played ratmen.
Speaker 1: Playable races and games. I feel like that's usually reserved
as like the enemies, we need a label rat rat people.
Speaker 2: I completely agree.
Speaker 3: I completely agree with you, especially just with how unique
their mechanics are. Uh and in the total war sense
that like the way that you play them is so
different than other every other faction because every other faction
you're like, especially for the good races. You know, you're
trying to set up like trade you know, and like
like military alliances shared borders, like I'm gonna look after you,
you look after me. Scaven's a complete opposite, like like
you make allies, but you plan to betray them, so
you like want to get them in situations that will
fuck them over. You don't really do like like move
your armies in the same way, Like it's all about
ambushes and just like baiting people in if you're defending
like a settlement, you like, your goal isn't to defend it.
Your goal is to inflict as much damage as possible
so that the the army that that wins it, or
like barely wins it, they just get absolutely destroyed by
your six other armies that are on route that are
all like just just so cheap, but you just throw
infinite amounts of them. So I I love Scavin and
and a big thing with the Scavin.
Speaker 2: Is they're.
Speaker 3: They're all for the Great Horned Rat, which is essentially
their god. It's all about the Verminie, you know, rat.
It's a great name. And they have a symbol for
the vermin Tide or the Great Horned Rat, which is
basically just a triangle, like an upside down triangle with
like it basically just looks like a rat heead essentially.
Speaker 2: So it's basically just think.
Speaker 3: Of like a triangle with like with a lot of
extra length on each of the corners.
Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: And I I love this so much and to just
gamify life when I'm when I'm at work or something
and I'm like, I'm like up in an attic or
I don't know, opening up a box like no one's
gonna see, Like like recently, i was like forty feet up,
I'm putting lights on these these hangarbays like in a warehouse,
like so high up no one's ever gonna be there,
and I'm just drying the little Verminide symbol everywhere. I'm
just like, oh yeah, just for.
Speaker 2: The vermin tide.
Speaker 3: Here we go, so shouts out anyone out there that's
like repairing the light or something.
Speaker 2: They come up. They're like, oh man, this this house
is marked for the green Hood rat. We gotta get
out of here.
Speaker 1: You're gonna say, I thought you were gonna say when
you go up to an attic or you open a
box and there's like a rat in there, and then
you like, oh, you like praise this rat. That's better though,
just a little fun little drawing. When you're gonna get
that tattooed on your Bodykirk, and when you get yeah.
Speaker 2: Hopefully not ever.
Speaker 3: I I yeah, I mean that would be like a
true fan.
Speaker 2: But that's also like I feel like you're big.
Speaker 1: Enough fan of a warhammer to get a maybe you'd
get a dark what is the dark health symbol? What
does that look like? But that's I feel like your
go to race usually.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, just yeah for for like their units and whatnot,
because they actually have quality in their units, so it's
like you feel nice and they don't bog down your
computer because when you're actually in battles, all those rats.
Speaker 1: As if there's a bunch of rats in your com.
Speaker 3: But that brings up a great point because in the
recent patch a lot of things got added. They they
added a couple of new units to different races and whatnot.
Speaker 2: It was it was a major patch.
Speaker 3: And the thing that was probably the biggest for me
is they did a lot of work on like compressing
the files and the games. So not only is it
like way smaller size, but they actually reduced load times
now and on their patch notes it's said anywhere between
five and like forty four percent increased, like from going
into battles and then battles into the campaign, which like, man,
if I'm playing that game, if I have to go
into a battle like campaign, it's it's fine. It's like
I'm playing Sieve or something like. It's not really it
doesn't really take a lot on the hardware itself, but
when you go into the battles, that's when they actually
have to render the units and just the load times.
I enter the battle, I go do laundry, I make lunch,
you know, I I just chill.
Speaker 2: I come back.
Speaker 3: Maybe I'm watching like a Rye Games YouTube on the
second monitor. So I just kind of worked around that
and last time I was playing, I like I did
that came back I'm like, oh my god, my units
have just been waiting for me for who knows how long,
So I have noticed a significant increase in my times.
I was recently playing a co op campaign with my
buddy Tyler and Denzil, and I it seemed like almost
longer the load times in that sense. But I'm not
sure if it's because it's like an old save file,
so of course when you update the patch.
Speaker 1: Had to shake off the dust a little bit.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know what it is, because sometimes if
you have an old file and then updates, especially the
major updates, you go back like sometimes your files all
buggy and you like at worst of times, have to
just make a new one.
Speaker 2: Fortunately that's never happened to me.
Speaker 3: But yeah, no, we were playing on our co op
campaign and it is going, it's going so well, it's
it's it's so fun. Tyler's playing as the Dark Elves
and then I'm playing as the Wood Elves, and my
friend Denzil is playing is the Vampire Coast, which is
like all factions that probably wouldn't like get along, like
like like in just lore wise or like like base game,
like they wouldn't naturally align. But we all kind of
started in the same area of the world, and it
is just it is so satisfying. We also like have
very different gameplay mechanics of course Vampire Yeah, it's a
co op campaign, so so we all started.
Speaker 1: Could you turn your back on them?
Speaker 3: Though for me, if I was scaving, I probably would
have had to because it's just that's just who they are.
I don't know, actually, because I think we like started
it on the same team as opposed to actually yeah,
I can't quite remember, but uh yeah, I know. It's
fun because all all of our like goals are very
different from one another, and the gameplay mechanics are very different.
Like the wood Elves, you basically just you're just trying
to save the trees and like you just stay in
your little nook like like you're just staying and basically
Loflorian like you're not you're not exiting the woods, whereas
the dark Elves are like going out out rating and pillaging,
like all of their economy is if you're at war.
Essentially in the Vampire Coast, are basically just vampire vampire pirates,
so they're just sailing the seven seas, collecting booty and whatnot.
But like as a team, it's actually like very interesting
just how well we all work together. And no, it's
been lots of fun and uh yeah, no, it's been
awesome getting just getting back into Warhammer. It's funny. My
itch was getting itchy, just like when I was at
work and I was just doing my little Vermin Tide
symbols and I'm like, man, I just want to play
this game and so bad. And then sure enough I
look that day and that's when they got the big
update and oh that was the other big update on
the patch was they they reworked a lot of the AI,
a lot of just like what they do strategically, because
I don't know, if you play the game as much
as I have, like you can kind of like predict
what the AI is going to do, Like okay, well,
if I accept this non aggression with this faction, this
guy's probably gonna declare warming because he and at an
enemy with this and it's just like the same like
moves can kind of play out the same way, especially
when you get at the end game, like the same
factions are usually always the same factions at that point,
they just naturally dominate the other races, but not only
did they rework the AI and like how they yeah,
just strategically how they work, but they also made it
so there's a little checkbox now that you can set
when you start your game. It's called the.
Speaker 2: Minor Faction Potential. And I haven't really tested it out yet.
Speaker 3: I haven't gone that far in the game, but supposedly
it makes it so like the minor factions that aren't
the races that you can play as, whether it's DLC
or just I think there's like seventy two plus like
factions you can actually play, but like beyond that, there's
like two hundred and eighty just in the game. And
now they made it so like the minor factions can
actually like make smart plays and like somehow defeat like
the better factions.
Speaker 2: I don't know if that's just.
Speaker 3: A matter of them like taking advantage of like if
they're really beaten down, then they'll just like quickly wipe
out the other factions. Like I said, I haven't really
gotten far enough in my campaign to notice that, but uh,
if that works out, well, like that is so intriguing
because now it could really mean that like every campaign
will be very different, like it like it won't just
be malakif the Dark Elf is gonna be like like
number one in the North every single time that you
get to like past turn one hundred and fifty, you know,
like now it could be just a minor Dark Elf
that like somehow takes out Malca, which was really interesting.
Uh and so I'm curious how that's going to play
out and if it just breaks the game or you know,
like like maybe there's just gonna be a minor faction
that's just ununbeatable. But uh no, my uh yeah, my
my craze on Warhammer's back for sure, especially whenever I
take a hiatus from the game, I get back in there,
I'm like, man, like, this game is just so fantast
especially now they they improve the low time for someone
with like me with my my lowly uh my gray
beard computer. That's yeah, that's a whole on for dear life.
But yeah, just a warmammer Warhammer.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, Kurkling the the just once again, we didn't
know what games each of us were gonna bring into this,
but the the commonalities are insane. So speaking of the
scave in, I've been playing this game and bear with
me here on the title, This game is called Squeak
Cross Home. Squeak Home.
Speaker 2: Okay, I can't even guess what that would be about.
Speaker 1: You can't, okay, And this is this game is a
puzzle game slash like a house building game where you're
building a house for a rat. It's perfect. You're building
a house for one lonely scave in in this at
this point in time. Yeah, So there's two sides of
this game. There's the puzzle sides and then there's the
like house building side. Are you familiar with pitcross at all?
Have you have I talked to you about Pitcross or
do you know of Pitcross? The kind of like puzzle
genre also known as nanograms, I think, is what they're called,
like outside of video games. No, okay, it's essentially like
a logic puzzle, Like it's sort of like a sudoku
pretty much like there's a grid on the top of
the grid, and on the side of the grid there
are numbers and it's telling you, oh, there's a block
of like five boxes filled in here and a one
you gotta figure out. Okay, so maybe it could be
any of these squares. You fill in some of those
squares and you're kind of cross referencing these sides of it. Yeah,
you've probably played something like mine pretty.
Speaker 2: Was the one that I played. I think very similarly. M.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I guess it's sort of like that a little bit.
It's got a little mine sweeper.
Speaker 3: You like click a box and then it'll show you
like the bomb is one or four, it'll give you no.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I never thought about it, but it is a
lot like a mine sweeper, although it's yeah, it's it's
it's more sudokui than it is mine sweeper though, where
it's not like there isn't like that randomness to it.
It's like you are eventually figuring things out by like
the DEU scene where certain tiles are and you know,
it starts out pretty basic and it's almost like a
nice mindlessuztle thing where it's just you filling the boxes
and that's satisfying. But then in like the deeper levels
or like harder design levels, then you're having to be like, okay,
I got a math out, Like okay, if all this
stuff works out, and like this line could be potentially here,
maybe there's a slot that could be potentially this one,
but like because of this vernile QUATERM can only be
this one, so you know, it gets very complicated as
it gets deeper into it. But then the other side
of this game is just like building out a house
for a rat, which seemingly has like really no gameplay
mechanics to it. It's just for like fun and for esthetics.
So generally, what you're doing in a piccross game, and
there's been like one hundred pick cross games, a bunch
of them on Switch, there's like a Pokemon pick cross.
It's like it's like a known thing. You're essentially filling
out this grid and it usually ends up making like
the broad stroke of like a pixel art of a
certain thing, like anything it could be absolutely so the
Pokemon one is like you're doing the broad stroke of
like a Pokemon, and then when you fill it out,
it fills in the color and then it's like, oh,
you made the Pikachu pick cross. You solve the Pikachu puzzle.
That kind of thing. In this game, what you're doing
is you're going through and you're filling out these puzzles
that are all like different house furniture or like costumes.
So you might have one that's like a cupboard or
a fridge or a couch, and so you're filling out
this pit cross puzzle or a squeak rock puzzle. Once
you fill it, you unlock the item, and now you
can place that in your house or in the rat's house,
and you can give him like a different furniture vibe,
and then eventually you can like add colors and different
like variations on top of this. And like I said,
the building part doesn't really have any gameplay mechanics as
far as I can tell. Right now, you can eventually
get a bigger house with like four to five rooms.
Right now, I still only have one room, but yeah,
it's very much like Animal Cross, and the way it's
like the top down view you're dropping in furniture. You
can rotate it around and then you can like click
on different things and he'll go like interact with it.
But you're I don't even like there's not even like
a satisfaction bar to like make this rat happy by
giving him like a balance of things. I think it's
purely just for esthetics and vibes, But honestly, it adds
like a really nice progression too, because like I've bought
a couple of Pitcross games on the Switch before, and
I played one called Murder by Numbers, which was like
a detective game mixed with Pitcross and still obviously that
one had like some for momentum to it, but other
than that, normally Pitcross doesn't really have like unincentive to
keep doing them. It's like, if you just want to
keep doing puzzles, to do puzzles, cool, but there isn't
really like a story or any reason why you're doing
this stuff. But this game kind of gives you a
reason because you want to make this cute house for
this cute little rat. And it's a very sweet, wholesome game.
The music is amazing. It's like kind of jazzy and
fun and vibrant and cool. So yeah, it's another like
switch to game that I've just been like playing handheld
that I watch something on TV and it's and it's
great for that, which is usually what pick crosses because
they're kind of like puzzles that don't require all of
your attention. It's kind of like, you know, maybe you
need thirty percent of your brain to do it a
usual pit Cross puzzle, and then, like I said, the
higher level difficulty ones can get pretty crazy. But yeah,
it's it's been a really fun, pleasant game one that
I'm probably just gonna put a bunch of hours into
over the next few weeks, just because it's a fun,
like easy thing to play on the Switch. I was
gonna ask is Shaye into like logic puzzles, like does
she like Sudoku or anyth because I feel like if
she does, this would be like a match made in heaven.
I think she did love this game.
Speaker 2: I'm definitely gonna pitch it to her.
Speaker 3: I feel like it's it's hard for me to tell,
like what is up her her Alex. Sometimes she'll she'll
pick a game. They're like, wow, I'm kind of surprised
that you are interested in that. I'm like, man, I'm
so excited to show you this game. It looks so
up your ally show two.
Speaker 2: She's like yeah.
Speaker 3: I'm like, okay, I don't want to get excited any
before I teach you a game, but I'm definitely going
to show it to her because did.
Speaker 1: You find it on really able to decipher the words?
Speaker 2: I was saying? Sorry?
Speaker 1: Were you able to search it?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 1: Could you decipher the words? I was saying? Because even
when I I heard about the game, I had trouble
trying to find it on Google. It's like, what the
hell waits? What is this game called?
Speaker 2: Sorry, definitely type it to me because I'll send you.
Speaker 1: It's squeak Cross one word squeak, a cross like squeak
like a sound of red makes home, squeak home. There
you go. But I'll type it out and please then
the episode description as well for listeners.
Speaker 2: Nice.
Speaker 3: Yeah, no, she she's been going very hard on Hello Kitty,
I an Adventure two for the Switch one. We're still
holding on to that. That that old tech. We will
get the switch to eventually. But that game has like
so much content in it. It isn't saying she's she's
grinding that game like every single day. I think it's
like a daily thing. Animal Crossing kind of had that
too instead of ized to go there every day. But yeah,
she's been going. She's going ham and it's like, oh,
what time is it? Okay, I gotta go on my
my Hello Kitty. So pretty pretty committed and it's great.
Speaker 2: I didn't even know that was a real game.
Speaker 3: Like way back in the day, on the South Park
episode of the Make Love Not Warcraft, there was a
big joke of like, oh, I'm gonna go play Hello,
Kitty Out Adventures.
Speaker 2: So like, I've always known of that game.
Speaker 1: That was the same game that they were meaning about
all the way back there.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, and then that crazy when she told me
that she caught that game.
Speaker 2: I just laughed.
Speaker 3: I'm like, there's no way that's actually a game, and
then sure enough and very animal crossing, like it's it's very,
very very similar, but she loves it.
Speaker 1: Right on, h Did you have any other games to mention?
Speaker 2: No?
Speaker 1: I didn't, Okay, I have one last game to talk about.
This came out last week by Slow Cap Clap, the
developers of seafu is their new soccer game called Rematch,
which is on game Pass. I don't think it's on
PS plus, but yeah, that's too bad. Yeah, I think
people a lot of people just have been comparing this
game too Rocket League, which is obviously once a soccer
game that makes sense, But I do think that makes
the most sense in terms of relative to like I
don't know, a FIFA game or like a Mario Strikers.
I don't know what other soccer games exist, but I
feel like Rocket League is the closest comparison where it's
like kind of a smaller arena it's not quite the
chaos of Mario strikers of just like tackling and destroying
people with items, but it's more focused on the mechanics.
And I think if you can picture like the way
Cefu took fighting and like really broke it down into
the different chunks and then like, Okay, what could like
the right button do, Like what could the right trigger do?
What could this button do? And like really breaking it
down and make it feel like tactile and fun and crunchy.
I feel like they kind of took that same idea
here mentality with soccer and really broke it down into
those some of those mechanics. I think that maybe the
biggest difference for me immediately from other soccer games is
that that if you hit the pass button, it doesn't
just immediately pass to the guy that you're like roughly
aiming at, Like you have to actually aim in that
direction and then like hit the button with like the
right amount of power in order to get to him, right.
And the same thing is for shooting, Like if when
you're shooting, I feel like Mario Striker's right, there's like
a rough you can roughly aim into the net. I
don't really know what FIFA games do, but if with
this you have to, like you have a radical in
the middle of your screen, you want to aim where
you and then you got to charge the button and
like release and hit it in that particular angle. And
so I think that's maybe the biggest difference is there's
like a level of precision in here. And I've noticed
that the game too, like the default insensitivity is cracked.
It is way way too high, really insane. But I
think that's because they want you to be turning back
and forth to see, you know, where the other players are,
but then also to like precisely aim your shots and
move your shots around at different times. But I've noticed
that there's just so much of that. In my DNA
of playing soccer games and mostly just strikers over the years,
is like oh yeah, if I just hit the pass button,
it'll just go to toad, you know. But like in this,
it's like, Okay, I actually have to be like pretty
thoughtful about my passes. I can't just like hit that
button and spam it back and forth. I really like
that idea of spamming back and forth does not really
exist at all. And then also I don't think you
can play this game single player, in which you would
like be switching away from different characters. You can queue
so far in three v three, four four or five
y five. And I think it's only online other than
like maybe you could do bot matches in practice, I guess,
but it's like intended to be online, Like that's the
main tab for the game, right I don't think there's
like a campaign or anything. And yeah, so you're not
switching between characters, like you have some other guy online
and he's playing the other player, and so you kind
of have to work with your teammates there. And I
think that's been a point of contention, is like I
have like hundreds of hours in RockA League. I don't
think I've ever solow cute a single time in all
those hundred hours. And that's definitely what I was feeling
a little bit here, is like this guy maybe sucks,
but also like I do suck too because I'm just
starting this game. But just not having communication makes this
really rough and not as enjoyable as it could be.
So you know, I definitely got to play it with
some friends. I don't think it has cross player right now,
which is makes it harder to you know, team up
with certain people. But yeah, I think it's a really
cool game. It's it's it doesn't really feel like slow Clap,
which I think is a good thing.
Speaker 2: Like it.
Speaker 1: I can see where the seafood DNA is here in
terms of how they want to break down fighting, how
they want to break down soccer, but it does feel
like a totally unique thing. And yeah, I mean I'm
not really a master of sports games. I guess I've
played a lot of FEF for Street. Maybe that's a
better comparison point, but I guess FIFA Street and Mariras
Strikers are kind of in the same ballpark for me,
and this feels like a little bit more on the
Siemi side. Although I've seen some clips and people are
doing some insane stuff, so I think it you know,
it is one of those Rocket League type games where
there is like a crazy skill ceiling, probably endless, you know,
probably especially weekend. I'm sure people are still just getting
learning the ropes and whatnot. But yeah, I think whenever
this game is like a good price maybe hits PS plus,
I like, you should definitely check it out because I
think this is right up uh right up your ballpark there.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I was getting really excited for it.
Speaker 3: I feel like I just assumed it was a free
to play game, and then closer to let's too bad, Yeah,
realized it was. It was the game Pass release. But
I actually watched quite a bit, uh like quite a bit.
I mean, I don't know, I watched watch a few games,
a few sessions. I saw a bunch of people streaming it,
and uh, definitely like just some of the things that
people could pull off. It seems like, yeah, the skill ceiling,
it's like right up there with the Rock League that
are like air dribbling and stuff, where it's just like
a completely different game that people are are playing, like
people just going up with the goalie and just like
like just demolishing people because they're just confident with the mechanics.
I don't know if they had like beta access or
something to be that good this early on, but there
is uh. And it also seemed like there's a couple
of mechanics that seemed a little game breaky, like like
some persons just kept like jumping up like infant.
Speaker 1: I saw I saw that too. That must be unintended.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, you saw it in game.
Speaker 1: No, Like I saw it. I read it clip clip
of someone doing that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it seemed a.
Speaker 3: Little game breaky because I don't know how you would
you would stop that, man, But.
Speaker 1: I have not done that. I will say, it's not like, oh,
you just clicked the infinite fly button. Yeah, it's a
little more.
Speaker 3: But yeah, I think this with with a couple of lads,
you know, in a in a private game.
Speaker 2: I think that'd be so much fun. So yeah, I'll
definitely be following it.
Speaker 3: And hopefully it pounces on my catalog somewhere.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think for me, it's like this
just happens often if there's like a game similar to
a game that you love. It's like, I'm just gonna
play RockA League. Like if I want to play this game,
I will team over with a friend who you know,
a lot of my friends love RockA League, so it's
a much easier sell. Maybe I can convince Travis and
Taylor to check this out because because it's on game Pass,
maybe they want to check it out. But I don't know,
I don't know, I don't I don't think this is
when I'm going to be revisiting a whole lot. I'll
probably play like a match here there. But I'm curious
to see how this does and how like successful it
is for them, and if they intend this to be
a game that kind of has that everlasting effect to it,
or if it's something like Seafood that kind of comes
and goes. And I mean Seafood still talked about and
it had that episode of Secret Level, right, so it's
like it's still relevant. But obviously they kind of want
a different direction here, and I think that's a really
cool pivot for this studio. But yeah, it makes me
wonder what they're gonna do next, because I think even
before Seafood they were doing other fighting games like Absolver
and another one that I forget the name of, right,
So I wonder if they'll go back to maybe their
roots a bit more. But this is a really cool
take on something and it's it's honestly, it's funny timing
I talked about on Originals, which you know, patron exclusive
thing go check out if you want where. I played
a game of soccer recently in real life, just randomly
because I was out of field and then a bunch
of people showed up and they were like, hey, you
want to play. I'm like yeah, sure, just played for
a few hours. I actually played again with those people
on Sunday, and so I've been playing a bit more
soccer again and and it's funny, just like how A
is mad at my teammates for not communicating, and it's like, yeah,
soccer is such a communication I mean sure, I'm sure
every single sport is, like you need a shit ton
of communication if you want to be good at it.
But that's definitely a big thing, especially with these games
that I've been playing with these people, And like, it's
funny going into into those games because I'm absolutely the
worst person there. You know, I haven't played since middle
school and I was never even good in the first place.
And they've been you know, playing three times a week
for the last like six years, you know, so they're
all really good and I'm terrible. And it's not like
a video game where I'm just like, oh, yeah, i
leveled up three times in this session. It's like, no,
I'm just like still kind of as bad as I
was when I started, and my body hurts a lot,
whereas it doesn't when I'm playing Rematch for hours at
a time. So yeah, it's it's it's just a weird
timing that this game came out when I kind of
have randomly been getting back into soccer in real life too,
so kind of a funny connection there as well. But
I think I'm just gonna go play some Rocket League
this week, and I don't know, it's a cool game,
but it's you know, when I already I already got
my heart somewhere else unfortunately for them.
Speaker 2: So yeah, yeah, yeah, it's tough to beat.
Speaker 3: Like if this would have came before Rocket League, you know,
maybe you wouldn't have been thinking that, Hey, I don't.
Speaker 1: Know, possibly possibly, uh curkently. I think that's all for
this episode. Wow, a ton of games that we talked
about here. This is a really fun back and forth,
all sorts of crazy things to discussed. Like I said,
next week is death Stranding on the Beach impressions. That
should be a lot of fun. I might have a
couple of other topics in there, maybe a newscast. I
think I saw that our system works, who's making Marvel Tokon,
have like a showcase this week, so we'll probably get
into the try for that game. Maybe some new characters
that should be fun to see who they're putting in
that cool game, but yeah, tune in next week for
all that stuff. Thank you everyone for listening, and we'll
see you again next time. Bye bye b