Speaker 1: You're listening to episode sixty four of GameSpot after Dark.
Speaker 1: This week, we're joined by Cirio Vasquez to talk about amnesia, rebirth, hades,
Speaker 1: and fasmophobia. Hello and welcome to episode sixty four of
Speaker 1: game Spot after Dark. I'm your host Jake Decker, and
Speaker 1: joining me this week is Lucy James Ay, Kelly Plaguey Hello,
Speaker 1: and Sirial Vasquez. Hello. Thank you so much for joining us.
Speaker 2: I'm glad to be here.
Speaker 1: Before we get into what we've been playing, we like
Speaker 1: to do the Chris from Dayton, Ohio segment, but Up Up,
Speaker 1: Up Christ, that's our little song. So basically, this is
Speaker 1: just an opportunity for you to tell our listeners a
Speaker 1: little bit about yourself. What kind of games you like
Speaker 1: to play, what games you come back to, what are
Speaker 1: some of your favorite games. In fact, it doesn't even
Speaker 1: have to be about games, if there's other stuff you
Speaker 1: want to talk about, and maybe a little bit about
Speaker 1: how you got into the industry and whatnot.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I've been kind of writing kind of back
Speaker 3: and forth. I was a former gaming former associate editor,
Speaker 3: but I've been doing you know, freelance basically before and
Speaker 3: after just writing about you know, random video games, but
Speaker 3: a lot of it is just like I end up
Speaker 3: falling down like a lot of fighting game and DODA
Speaker 3: stuff because I a lot of people weren't covering that
Speaker 3: at the time, So you know, I have like almost
Speaker 3: four thousand hours of DODA logged at this point.
Speaker 2: So that was mostly.
Speaker 3: Launched my career in a way because it was no
Speaker 3: one was writing about DODA, and it was like kind
Speaker 3: of a lot of people saw it as, oh, you
Speaker 3: know esports, right, you can write about esports. That's popular.
Speaker 3: So that's kind of how I got my foot in
Speaker 3: the door. So yeah, then I started writing about fighting
Speaker 3: games as well, but I'm more mostly like an action
Speaker 3: heavy kind of guy. But it's also weird because like
Speaker 3: every once in a while I'll sneak in like a
Speaker 3: really cool, like story based game, like right now, I
Speaker 3: think Kentucky About Zero is probably my favorite game this year.
Speaker 2: And then.
Speaker 3: So every once in a while and like this School
Speaker 3: Easim I really like last year. So it's kind of
Speaker 3: a mix between like really like really intense games. I
Speaker 3: like games that are like all about story or all
Speaker 3: about action in a way. So that's sort of where
Speaker 3: I'm at. Like a lot of dark soul stuff I'm
Speaker 3: really into. So that's sort of where I'm at.
Speaker 1: Well, this is a disco Elysium podcast. I would say
Speaker 1: at least it was last year, because that's like all
Speaker 1: we talked about every episode.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that game's great. I love it.
Speaker 1: You're also a frequent host on mid max too, right, Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I do a podcast over at mid Max, So
Speaker 3: we do a podcast every week, and we do some
Speaker 3: streams as well, So I talk about games on there
Speaker 3: as well, So you can find me there at YouTube
Speaker 3: dot com slash mid Max Show I believe is the
Speaker 3: u r L. Or to support us on Patreon because
Speaker 3: we're in independent media, So Patreon dot com slash Midmax
Speaker 3: I believe is the u r L.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, and you've been doing some reviews for us,
Speaker 1: which we'll touch on later in the what we've been
Speaker 1: playing section? Actually, why don't we just start with you
Speaker 1: what you've what have you been playing? Cereal?
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I'm still playing Hades.
Speaker 3: Several weeks later, I'm at a well, the Epic Game
Speaker 3: Store thing doesn't count ours directly, it just says days,
Speaker 3: and I'm at like five days worth of because like,
Speaker 3: I think that game does such a fantastic job of
Speaker 3: doling out rewards and having all these like quests basically
Speaker 3: like they're cult prophecies where it's like, oh, do you
Speaker 3: like get every boot, every like upgrade for every weapon,
Speaker 3: you know, every randomized buff that you can get. And
Speaker 3: so I've been kind of picking away at those, and
Speaker 3: some of the relationships with like the different gods and
Speaker 3: stuff are take a little while to figure out, so
Speaker 3: I've been I've been doing a lot of that. And
Speaker 3: there's also like the heat system, which if you've played
Speaker 3: say the Spires, kind of similar where you can apply
Speaker 3: different kind of difficulty modifiers and so and that applies
Speaker 3: like one heat per modifier, and so I'm at like
Speaker 3: around fifteen sixteen heat at this point with each of
Speaker 3: the weapons. And so I've been kind of slowly built
Speaker 3: making the runs harder and harder, and still you know,
Speaker 3: getting upgrades and stuff. So that game has a long
Speaker 3: tail for a single player game, which I'm really excited about.
Speaker 1: It seems like it people are so into it on Twitter.
Speaker 1: I haven't had a chance to play as much as
Speaker 1: i'd like, but what I played was very, very good.
Speaker 1: You mentioned that Kentucky Route Zero was your favorite game,
Speaker 1: so far this year. However, it sounds like you've played
Speaker 1: a ton of Hades. Yeah, are they like pretty neck
Speaker 1: and neck? You'd say, yeah.
Speaker 3: I oscillate between like which one I like more, because
Speaker 3: clearly I have more time in Hades, But it's you know,
Speaker 3: Kentucky Rad zero is not.
Speaker 2: A long tail game. You know, you can't just like,
Speaker 2: you know, play that over and over again.
Speaker 3: But I am considering I've played it basically one and
Speaker 3: a half times at this point because I played the
Speaker 3: episodes as they came out until episode four of Kentucky
Speaker 3: Rod zero, and then I played the whole game again
Speaker 3: when it came out on Switch, and I'm kind of
Speaker 3: thinking about okay, am I just kind of applying like
Speaker 3: roastented glasses to that game because it hit me in
Speaker 3: a really good moment and it was like right before
Speaker 3: the pandemic, so it was like kind of like the
Speaker 3: last like I really enjoy that. I'm really happy right now.
Speaker 3: I'm having a lot of fun because that was also
Speaker 3: like I went to Japan earlier this year, and that
Speaker 3: was like on the edges of that where I played
Speaker 3: it before and after my trip, so I was like, ah,
Speaker 3: I was kind of maybe on the high of of
Speaker 3: going you know, traveling abroad. So I do want to
Speaker 3: play it again. But that game, I think still is incredible.
Speaker 1: I love it totally. I didn't finish it. I still
Speaker 1: plan on going back and finishing it, but the music
Speaker 1: was so good.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and it's it was so fun to see I
Speaker 3: guess the fictional band in that game, June Bug, ended
Speaker 3: up releasing an album, I think earlier this month, I
Speaker 3: think where Yeah, and the single was like the big
Speaker 3: song that they have in the game, but they also
Speaker 3: had a bunch of other like weird ambient song cause
Speaker 3: that's that game is a lot of ambient music that
Speaker 3: is really good.
Speaker 2: But they had like a whole music video for for.
Speaker 3: Like one of their songs, because I think part of
Speaker 3: it is that, like they're this weird concept group.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I've been like that. That music. I've been
Speaker 2: enjoying all year, you know.
Speaker 3: In a way, which is maybe the closest thing to
Speaker 3: like having played one hundred hours of Hades, is I've
Speaker 3: been listening and thinking about Kentucky Road Zero basically all year.
Speaker 1: I am going to listen to that album after this podcast,
Speaker 1: for sure, because I remember playing it and there's that
Speaker 1: one scene early on where you're I think exploring a
Speaker 1: house or something like that, and the cameras zooms out
Speaker 1: and there's that band playing. Yeah. I thought it was
Speaker 1: just like an incredible moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: So the soundtrack is on Spotify and then the Junebug
Speaker 3: EP is on band camp, so you can listen to
Speaker 3: both of those basically.
Speaker 1: Nice. And then you said you've also been playing a
Speaker 1: bit of Amnesia.
Speaker 3: Too, right, Yeah, the new one, the Rebirth, which came
Speaker 3: out I believe this week, right, which, Yeah, I've been
Speaker 3: enjoying that as well. I've been a big fan of Friginal.
Speaker 3: I liked Amnesia, and then I really like So. I
Speaker 3: think Soma is amazing. I think it's one of my
Speaker 3: favorite sci fi stories in games because of the way
Speaker 3: that it uses gameplay basically to tell like an AI
Speaker 3: centric story about like consciousness and things like that. And
Speaker 3: this feels very similar in tone in that there are
Speaker 3: monsters and stuff, but kind of the the key takeaways
Speaker 3: are like story beats of like, you know, you are
Speaker 3: this person who's crash landed in the middle of Africa
Speaker 3: and you're trying to find your way to your group,
Speaker 3: but you know, there there's this mystical element to it,
Speaker 3: but you're also you find out very early on, so
Speaker 3: I don't think this is like a spoiler or anything
Speaker 3: that you're that you're pregnant. Uh, and so you're like
Speaker 3: it's a game about motherhood very explicitly, which is which
Speaker 3: is pretty rare, and like, I think it ends up
Speaker 3: leading you to these very interesting like moral quandaries about Okay, well,
Speaker 3: if you were in this situation, what would you do?
Speaker 3: And it's it's like one of the legitimately like, well,
Speaker 3: I feel like the right answer is this, but you know,
Speaker 3: if I were actually in this situation, I would maybe
Speaker 3: lean towards the kind of like the the less you know,
Speaker 3: altruistic option.
Speaker 2: So there's a lot of interesting questions that it asks.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's as good as some I think
Speaker 3: some of the monstery parts aren't as interesting. And I'm
Speaker 3: kind of surprised that they don't have the what they
Speaker 3: added to Soma post launch, which like the all the
Speaker 3: like it basically gets rid of the monsters, like they're
Speaker 3: still walking around, but you can't you can't like interact
Speaker 3: like they won't hurt you. I'm surprised that isn't here,
Speaker 3: But maybe the latter at some point, But yeah, I
Speaker 3: was really impressed with it, and I'm I'm glad to
Speaker 3: see that Frictional is able to do games like this.
Speaker 1: So would you consider Amnesia a sad mom game?
Speaker 4: A little?
Speaker 3: I mean, yeah, it's it's the the opening scenes of
Speaker 3: that game are just her talking about like vaguely, like
Speaker 3: you don't know what it's referring to about, like how
Speaker 3: kind of you know this thing like some event has
Speaker 3: ended up hurting her, like very deeply in how you
Speaker 3: don't ever really recover, you just kind of change as
Speaker 3: a person.
Speaker 2: And that felt pretty relatable.
Speaker 3: I know that there's kind of a trope of like,
Speaker 3: whenever a game is about woman, it's always about their trauma,
Speaker 3: but this feels this feels like it's approaching that topic
Speaker 3: with some nuance, and her being the main character I
Speaker 3: think also helps a lot.
Speaker 2: And she's like a voice character. It's not like you
Speaker 2: are this person it is.
Speaker 3: She has a lot of voice lens in the game,
Speaker 3: which I don't know if it's gonna I know some
Speaker 3: people don't like that, but I like it when I'm
Speaker 3: playing someone who is different and I'm kind of seeing.
Speaker 2: The world through their eyes. Versus this person is me.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I definitely prefer voice protagonists. In our Amnesia Rebirth review,
Speaker 4: Phil Hornshaw did call it a mom game.
Speaker 5: He said it was unabashedly a mom game, and that
Speaker 5: was like.
Speaker 4: Sold, because you really don't get a lot of those,
Speaker 4: you really, I've played plenty of dad games, so I'm
Speaker 4: very curious. I haven't played the previous Amnesia games though,
Speaker 4: or some Actually I kind of want to play someone
Speaker 4: now after hearing you talk about it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, like you don't.
Speaker 3: You really only need to play the Dark Descent to
Speaker 3: play Rebirth, Like there are some kind of references, but
Speaker 3: even then, if you haven't played Amnesia, I think the
Speaker 3: game just does a good job of being set in
Speaker 3: that world without kind of being about the stuff that happened.
Speaker 3: It's just like, oh, you'll catch a reference in like
Speaker 3: a diary to a character from the Dark Descent. But
Speaker 3: I don't think you need to play it. But yeah,
Speaker 3: that's the only one, because a Machine for Pig isn't
Speaker 3: like relevant to this story. It's kind of its own
Speaker 3: thing and so much pretty standalone.
Speaker 1: Wasn't Machine for Pigs also not developed by Frictional Games,
Speaker 1: or at least not the core team that did Soma
Speaker 1: and the original Amnesia.
Speaker 3: I believe it was written by the Chinese room, which
Speaker 3: who did Dear Esther. Yeah yeah, so yeah, I think
Speaker 3: like all of those games. I think, like starting with
Speaker 3: MUG because I know they made like Panumbra, I think
Speaker 3: was the games they made before that. I haven't played those,
Speaker 3: but starting from MG, I think Frictional has a pretty
Speaker 3: strong track record, so I think all of their games
Speaker 3: are pretty good.
Speaker 1: Nice. I definitely want to check it out. I have
Speaker 1: not finished any of those games, however, I've enjoyed all
Speaker 1: of them, but so many. In particular is one that
Speaker 1: I've been meaning to get back to and finish because
Speaker 1: that setting I thought was excellent. I mean, they're always
Speaker 1: good at creating dark and scary atmospheres. But yeah, I'm
Speaker 1: excited to check it out. Lucy, you've been watching more
Speaker 1: bake Off. How's that going?
Speaker 6: Bacoff remains the light of twenty twenty, That's how that's going.
Speaker 5: I mean, I was gonna say, like, the.
Speaker 6: Only game I've been playing is I played twenty something
Speaker 6: hours of Persona five Royal in a week. Hell yeah,
Speaker 6: I'm in Like, well, it's because now it's all new stuff.
Speaker 1: For me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, So what hour are you at?
Speaker 1: I guess, like when did the new stuff start rolling out?
Speaker 1: Because I'm curious when that'll be. So I'm at.
Speaker 5: Fifty five hours. I got the broken There is a
Speaker 5: there is a fight.
Speaker 6: In that game that is fully broken, and like the
Speaker 6: only way to get past it is you have to
Speaker 6: play on merciless difficulty. So I was like, I was
Speaker 6: the perfect level for this boss fight, Like I was
Speaker 6: the same level as the boss, which usually for the
Speaker 6: rest of Royal is completely fine. You can actually do stuff,
Speaker 6: mostly being under leveled, but this boss fight requires you
Speaker 6: to knock down like four enemies in one go in
Speaker 6: one turn and if you don't, no in two turns sorry,
Speaker 6: And if you don't do that, then the enemies that
Speaker 6: are left run away and then it starts again, so
Speaker 6: you can get caught in this loop if you if
Speaker 6: you know, like we're bad on Maboufu.
Speaker 5: It's a margarula.
Speaker 6: You don't have wind and so even though I had
Speaker 6: more Gana and my party, even though I had Joker
Speaker 6: with a wind persona, like, it just didn't because it's
Speaker 6: meant to be the fight that promotes you using baton
Speaker 6: pass and the only way to do it.
Speaker 5: Is to do un merciless difficulty.
Speaker 6: If you get in that weird stuck loop that I
Speaker 6: was in and I was so I did that, and
Speaker 6: I was like, that's a.
Speaker 1: Bit of shit.
Speaker 5: But so I'm at fifty five hours now, I'm still
Speaker 5: at the.
Speaker 6: Like it's it's still a palace from the main game,
Speaker 6: but they've the introduction of all the new characters. I've
Speaker 6: just had a new sequence with the school dance that
Speaker 6: maybe wasn't done as elegantly as I'd hoped, because it's
Speaker 6: meant to be like this, this part in the story
Speaker 6: that you go with the new character consue me and
Speaker 6: so she invites you to go to this dance and
Speaker 6: then you're like, oh, the dances finished, I better go home,
Speaker 6: And then you get a text from Haru that says, hey,
Speaker 6: the dancers just started.
Speaker 5: Let's go.
Speaker 1: Oh weird.
Speaker 5: But still very good. But bakeoff Al also played some
Speaker 5: Ghost of Sushima Legends, which is very fun. Did you
Speaker 5: play with a friend of the podcast, Andrew Goldford?
Speaker 1: I did not.
Speaker 6: I played with friend of the podcast Zach Ryan and
Speaker 6: Kristin Vandier and Josh Do we did. We did a
Speaker 6: couple and it's really fun. And also I'm not one
Speaker 6: for a destiny type luke grind, but the way that
Speaker 6: it's a very similar approach in ghost but I found
Speaker 6: it very very fun. I'm obviously maning an archer because
Speaker 6: that is my yeah, but bakeoff very quick one bake
Speaker 6: off update.
Speaker 5: This is your bake off in it Jesus Christ. The
Speaker 5: first the first. So I'm not gonna spoil who went
Speaker 5: or anything, but.
Speaker 6: The fact that the first challenge from last week was
Speaker 6: making brownies, and every single one of them biffed it, right,
Speaker 6: every single one of them biffed it because they all
Speaker 6: tried to go like, way too complicated with it. They
Speaker 6: could have just done standard brownies and it would have
Speaker 6: been fine. Some of them were undercooked. One of them
Speaker 6: had figs on, which looked interesting. I've become a real
Speaker 6: backseat babe.
Speaker 5: Bit stargy bit stargy bit. One of them was just
Speaker 5: fully undercooked. It just looked like liquid.
Speaker 3: Was the person who put figs? Is that how they
Speaker 3: biffed it? They said no figs in brownies under no circumstances.
Speaker 5: No, that wasn't even a biff. It was just I
Speaker 5: think I can't remember for theirs did they do gluten free?
Speaker 6: That's the glute. It's the gluten free guy. And so
Speaker 6: my I used to live with someone who was gluten free,
Speaker 6: and gluten free flower is just really difficult to work
Speaker 6: with because it's obviously doesn't have gluten in it, so
Speaker 6: it's like some of the stuff is frequently quite dry.
Speaker 6: You have to really adapt your cooking to make up
Speaker 6: for the dryness of it. I'm speaking, I'm talking out
Speaker 6: my ass because I'm a terrible cook, but that's all
Speaker 6: my experience with gluten free. But no, bakof was really good.
Speaker 6: And also, I mean my picks are the two marks
Speaker 6: I love. I love the marks Mark with a Sea,
Speaker 6: who is a kearr and in my eyes an srang
Speaker 6: human being. And Mark with a k who is like
Speaker 6: just bizarrely well traveled, like he is a very international
Speaker 6: man anyway mystery.
Speaker 1: No, it's quite like.
Speaker 5: He's not very mysterious.
Speaker 6: He just like knows stuff about like tribes in Africa
Speaker 6: and brings that into his cooking and stuff.
Speaker 5: It's very good anyway, that's bakeoff well.
Speaker 1: Kelly and I have both been playing a lot of
Speaker 1: fasmophobia with Matt Paget and the great Peter Brown.
Speaker 4: Oh, yes, it has been quite the time. Have we
Speaker 4: talked about fastmophobia on the podcast yet we have?
Speaker 1: We haven't. I'm excited to talk about it because I've
Speaker 1: been having a ton of fun with it. It's janky,
Speaker 1: it's buggy. It makes a lot of people sick as well,
Speaker 1: because including Lucy. But there's something about it.
Speaker 4: We should say it's an early excess, so the jankiness
Speaker 4: is part of the course. But yeah, the I've gotten
Speaker 4: pretty motion sick playing. We were playing the other night
Speaker 4: and I died, and I when you die, you go
Speaker 4: into like ghost World and you can walk around and like.
Speaker 5: See stuff, and sometimes you can see the ghost that's haunting.
Speaker 4: You, but you can't like interact with your team if
Speaker 4: you're using like in game chat, and so I was
Speaker 4: just walking around ghost World. And then after we finished
Speaker 4: that game, I was like, guys, I need to go.
Speaker 4: Oh I don't, I can't do this. And I was
Speaker 4: at a commission for like half an hour. I had
Speaker 4: to lie down and then I rejoined and it was
Speaker 4: like Peter's last game, and I was like, well, nice
Speaker 4: playing with you for one game.
Speaker 5: I'm ready to play an.
Speaker 1: I guess we should talk about what Fasmophobia is for
Speaker 1: the people listening may not know, but it's basically a
Speaker 1: ghost hunting game, except you don't really hunt the ghost.
Speaker 1: You just need to figure out what ghost is haunting
Speaker 1: the building that you're infiltrating, I guess, And you have
Speaker 1: a bunch of tools that you can use to help
Speaker 1: you find clues. Once you find three clues, you mark
Speaker 1: them in your journal and you'll know what ghost it is.
Speaker 1: And then you even get paid and you can level
Speaker 1: up by new gear and so on. I think what
Speaker 1: makes it so good is how well it works with
Speaker 1: friends and how the scares are pretty unpredictable. I won't
Speaker 1: say it's the scariest game I've played. It's probably nowhere
Speaker 1: near that, just because it's kind of cheesy and it
Speaker 1: gets away with like a lot of jump scares and stuff.
Speaker 1: But the way it works to the team, in the
Speaker 1: way it's so unpredictable, makes it incredibly addicting.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the like we've definitely gotten scared, like totally. Maybe
Speaker 4: you spend like the first like five or ten minutes
Speaker 4: like setting up like setting up a camera so you
Speaker 4: can view stuff for like sweeping the house, because you
Speaker 4: have all these tools that it's really interesting the way
Speaker 4: the tools work. It's not really like in a video
Speaker 4: game sense, like the tools that you have just kind
Speaker 4: of work the way they would in real life. So
Speaker 4: there's like a remote that's like an EMF reader and
Speaker 4: it reads like EMF traces and you just walk around
Speaker 4: the house until the beeps and you're like the ghost
Speaker 4: is nearby, and that's when you start setting up your gear.
Speaker 4: And it's like Matt Pagett was like he and I
Speaker 4: watched The Conjuring together over like Zoom or will Discord
Speaker 4: because he had never seen it, and I love The Conjuring,
Speaker 4: so I was like, let's watch it. So when Fasmophobia
Speaker 4: like started getting attention, he was like, Kelly, we're gonna
Speaker 4: play ed Lorraine Warren and we're gonna hunt some ghosts.
Speaker 4: So I like setting up the camera because it's like
Speaker 4: in The Conjuring, but like last night, like just to
Speaker 4: because like Jake said, like some of the ghosts look
Speaker 4: kind of like cheesy or whatever, but the way the
Speaker 4: hauntings happen is what gets really exciting. Like we were
Speaker 4: just waiting around, we were in this house and we
Speaker 4: had had a really hard night, like not telling we
Speaker 4: were like having a really hard time telling what ghosts
Speaker 4: were around. We were not getting evidence very easily. We're
Speaker 4: playing on harder difficulties than we usually do. And I
Speaker 4: was just getting impatient, and everybody else was in the
Speaker 4: truck outside the house, They're like safe, and I was like,
Speaker 4: I was just gonna go in and see if I
Speaker 4: can get anything. And like the second I came, went in,
Speaker 4: the door locks behind me, and I see the ghost
Speaker 4: walking and I was trying to get photos of it.
Speaker 4: So I'm like snapping photos and like shaking, and I
Speaker 4: can hear Matt Pagett outside being.
Speaker 5: Like Cali, hide in the closet, Hide in the closet.
Speaker 5: It's coming.
Speaker 4: So I ran to the closet and I just turned
Speaker 4: my flashlight off and I sat there and like they're
Speaker 4: waiting outside. They can't tell if I've died or not,
Speaker 4: because walkie talkies don't work when this is happening, so
Speaker 4: they're just like waiting outside, like maybe Kelly's dead.
Speaker 5: Maybe she's dead. And I'm sitting in the cloak. Oh God,
Speaker 5: I can hear it moving outside and so but it
Speaker 5: was just like this weird. It looks like a thing
Speaker 5: made of like Plato or something like.
Speaker 1: It was just like, yeah, it was like that little
Speaker 1: child looking ghost.
Speaker 4: Like tiny little baby ghost walking around, but like the
Speaker 4: atmosphere of it all and like everybody freaking out and
Speaker 4: I can hear them through the walls being like, don't move, Kelly,
Speaker 4: and so that that makes it like really fun and exciting.
Speaker 4: And then I also I tweeted about this, but I
Speaker 4: I laughed, and Matt.
Speaker 5: Was like, oh my god, did you guys hear that ghost?
Speaker 5: And I was like, no, that's just me. That's just
Speaker 5: me because I have a witch laugh.
Speaker 1: To be fair, it was because the how the proximity
Speaker 1: chat works and just how proximity chat works, Like we
Speaker 1: were very far uh and Callie had laughed, but they
Speaker 1: were so far away that they just heard a faint
Speaker 1: laugh in the distance.
Speaker 5: We were playing.
Speaker 6: So I played on Sunday with Tam and our friend
Speaker 6: Andy and we were just in Discord, so we didn't
Speaker 6: have the proximity stuff going on.
Speaker 5: Because it was my first game, and I had the
Speaker 5: little radio. I think, oh no, the spirit box.
Speaker 1: Yeah, Jean won't use that, won't take it. It scares
Speaker 1: him too much as well.
Speaker 6: It's my first game and I am given this, and
Speaker 6: then there's a point where I had to play, like
Speaker 6: I turned all of my lights off, I closed my blinds,
Speaker 6: I did the full thing. And then we get to
Speaker 6: a bit we're near a piano. Someone starts talking through
Speaker 6: the thing and they go, oh, okay, well, in order
Speaker 6: to do this, Lucy, we're gonna have to leave you
Speaker 6: in here with all the lights off.
Speaker 5: They leave, and I don't even know what it was,
Speaker 5: but it spooked me so bad. It's like, guys, I
Speaker 5: want to leave.
Speaker 1: How do I run?
Speaker 5: And they're like, oh, shift or whatever, and I was like,
Speaker 5: it's this ship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it does nothing.
Speaker 5: It does barely anything. It's just a power walk.
Speaker 4: The spirit box is so like for context, it's like
Speaker 4: a way to like channel the spirit and it's one
Speaker 4: of the tools you use to get evidence. And yeah,
Speaker 4: the person who uses it has to be alone in
Speaker 4: the room with all the lights off, and you have
Speaker 4: to go like, can you hear us? Where your friends
Speaker 4: give us a sign? And then the ghost will like
Speaker 4: play the piano or something and you're like by yourself, or.
Speaker 1: It'll just say kill on the speaker and it's.
Speaker 3: Like is there?
Speaker 5: It is?
Speaker 1: And everyone hears it too, and they're like we heard it.
Speaker 1: We heard it, put it in your journal, Put in
Speaker 1: your journal, Let's get out of here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it only says like one word through the spirit box,
Speaker 4: and it's always like at teck like in this like
Speaker 4: horrible like robot.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I'm I'm I'm having a blast with that game.
Speaker 1: I'm curious to see how long I'll stick with it
Speaker 1: because I think Steam artists I've played twenty hours, which
Speaker 1: is far more than I already exped Yeah, we started
Speaker 1: put last week. I know I've been playing a lot,
Speaker 1: but like, I'm excited to see what they do with
Speaker 1: it because I feel like there should be more tools
Speaker 1: that give you evidence, especially on the tougher difficulties, because
Speaker 1: there are a lot of tools you can buy that
Speaker 1: kind of don't really serve much of a purpose apart
Speaker 1: from just giving you more information about where the ghost
Speaker 1: might be. And then I also am eagerly awaiting more
Speaker 1: maps because we've played them all by now at least
Speaker 1: six or seven times, and it works because the ghost
Speaker 1: is always in a different room. You're dealing with a
Speaker 1: different ghost. Like it's still pretty unpredictable, but like loading
Speaker 1: into that cabin for like the twentieth time is like,
Speaker 1: all right, I know how this cabin works. I've explored it,
Speaker 1: I know where to go, I know where to hide,
Speaker 1: and it kind of takes some of the edge off
Speaker 1: I would say, which, which you know, is not what
Speaker 1: I want in a horror game.
Speaker 3: Yeah, hearing people talk about fast and Phobia is kind
Speaker 3: of cool because like it feels like this weird emergent
Speaker 3: horror game where everyone's kind of making their own scares
Speaker 3: kind of. It also kind of reminds me of the
Speaker 3: uh the Vine where they're talking about, like where they're
Speaker 3: all around a wiki board and they're like, what's your name?
Speaker 3: And it slides over to and everyone starts fighting each
Speaker 3: other because like I guess they just.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's one of my all time favorite vines. I
Speaker 4: love that vine so much. There are Oigi boards in
Speaker 4: this game, but you don't bring them with you. Sometimes
Speaker 4: you find them in the house. We actually had a
Speaker 4: horrific time with one of the Oigi boards because there's
Speaker 4: like a sanity meter in Fasmophobia, and like using it
Speaker 4: drops your sanity like really rapidly, and like the lesser
Speaker 4: demon unless it's a demon, but the lower your sanity gets,
Speaker 4: like the more the ghost will like bother you. But
Speaker 4: we were like over the Ouiji board and it was
Speaker 4: like in this weird It was just like in a
Speaker 4: laundry room. So we're all crowded around this Swuiji board
Speaker 4: in like a really small room and we're like how
Speaker 4: old are you? And it goes too it's fourteen and
Speaker 4: we were like, oh god.
Speaker 5: And then matt Us, where are you? And it spills
Speaker 5: out foyer and Jake's.
Speaker 1: Like where is that?
Speaker 5: All the all the boys are like where is that?
Speaker 5: Where's that was like the entrance of the.
Speaker 2: House, like what's a foyer?
Speaker 5: What would you do without me?
Speaker 4: But the ghost showed up like in the laundry room
Speaker 4: and we all were like get out of here.
Speaker 5: Oh god.
Speaker 4: So yeah, just in conclusion, it's a lot of fun
Speaker 4: and I enjoyed a lot. And I like proximity Chat
Speaker 4: because it's pushed to talk so you guys can't hear
Speaker 4: my horrible horse noise that I make when I get scared.
Speaker 1: One other thing I do want to mention is that
Speaker 1: the character animations are kind of busted, and that like
Speaker 1: when you look down, your whole torso goes down, and
Speaker 1: when you look up, your whole torso goes back and
Speaker 1: it is. It might be one of the scariest things
Speaker 1: in the game, but it is. It makes for some
Speaker 1: good laughs, like if you look up and crouch. I
Speaker 1: don't know, at the very least, like if you're too
Speaker 1: afraid to play it, loaded up with a friend and
Speaker 1: just look at that because it is.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we like ease each other, like where the girl
Speaker 4: from the Exorcists going down the stairs. Oh. Another thing
Speaker 4: that we should mention is that the tutorial is horrible.
Speaker 4: The titorial is so bad we couldn't figure it out. Like, like,
Speaker 4: just be patient if you're playing it for the first time,
Speaker 4: like go through this tutorial because it does introduce you
Speaker 4: to like the key tools, but like it's not gonna
Speaker 4: it's not great.
Speaker 5: You're just gonna have to do some trial and error.
Speaker 4: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do have a video that I'm working on that
Speaker 1: should hopefully help you out on that end.
Speaker 5: But I worked on the article version and.
Speaker 1: Keli worked on the article, which is that up now?
Speaker 1: Yeah okay, so yeah, check that out if you wanna,
Speaker 1: if you want to give it a shot, because that
Speaker 1: will help a lot.
Speaker 4: The last thing I wanted to mention is that the
Speaker 4: Pokemon the second DC for Sword and Shield Crown Tenders
Speaker 4: out today as of this recording, so I'm gonna be
Speaker 4: playing that and checking that out as as you might
Speaker 4: have expected of me, So I'll hope come on, I'll
Speaker 4: have more later.
Speaker 1: All right. Well, with that, we'll head onto topics. And
Speaker 1: moving on to topics for this week, the first one
Speaker 1: that we're going to talk about is AOC streams among us. Callie,
Speaker 1: you were very excited. You watched a lot of it.
Speaker 1: I watched a good amount too, but you were very
Speaker 1: into it.
Speaker 4: I yeah, I like almost didn't watch it. I was
Speaker 4: kind of like, because I've been so disillusioned with everything
Speaker 4: and just sad all the time, and I was kind
Speaker 4: of like, what if I just didn't And then.
Speaker 5: I was like, no, no, no, no, I'll watch it. I'll
Speaker 5: give it a shot.
Speaker 4: And I actually found her really like genuine and charming,
Speaker 4: not that like I didn't think she would be, but
Speaker 4: like I was more delighted by it than I thought
Speaker 4: I would be. It was kind of like, oh, a
Speaker 4: politician who actually, like who isn't doing this just as
Speaker 4: a ploy, but like actually understands this world.
Speaker 5: More than most.
Speaker 4: And Michael Hyam wrote a really good article about this, Like,
Speaker 4: you know, it's not something that I would want to
Speaker 4: see basically any other politician do, but it works for
Speaker 4: her because I mean she's established that she is interested
Speaker 4: in video games. She's talked about playing League Donkey hung
Speaker 4: sixty four with Yeah, with h mom Er guy, So
Speaker 4: it just felt like a natural extension of that. She
Speaker 4: also does a lot of stuff on Instagram Live and
Speaker 4: so that's very streaming adjacent. And I just like it
Speaker 4: was like the first time in a really long time
Speaker 4: where I was like, oh my god, I think this
Speaker 4: is what it's like to not have depression. I was
Speaker 4: like really just really psyched and like having a great time.
Speaker 4: And when she was like I hate being the impostor.
Speaker 4: I don't want to be the imposter, I was like,
Speaker 4: that's me. And then she got the impostor and I
Speaker 4: was like no, Like I was just I was like
Speaker 4: right there with her the whole time, like, no, girl,
Speaker 4: you can do it. She's playing with all these people
Speaker 4: who have a ton of experience in the game. I
Speaker 4: also was very delighted by ilhan Omar like being like
Speaker 4: I don't know how to play and then like subsequently
Speaker 4: killing like everybody that rig as well the rising, so
Speaker 4: there was some confusion about that.
Speaker 5: It wasn't actually it's not her PC.
Speaker 4: It's for her like communications directors, I think, but posting
Speaker 4: the specs, I was like.
Speaker 5: That PC is like leagues ahead of my PC. I
Speaker 5: need a new one.
Speaker 4: And it was also really cool like when her daughter joined,
Speaker 4: because her daughter like knew what the fuck was up.
Speaker 4: And when Corpse joined, that was like a whole thing.
Speaker 4: I didn't I was not ready for that. When he called,
Speaker 4: he called a meeting and he was like AOC, like
Speaker 4: in a super deep voice, and she was like what,
Speaker 4: I didn't do anything, and he's.
Speaker 5: Like, how's your day?
Speaker 4: And everybody was just like I just oh, it was
Speaker 4: so nice to feel joy for once.
Speaker 5: I really I really.
Speaker 4: Can't emphasize enough like it was just kind of it
Speaker 4: was like, Wow, somebody who kind of understands the world
Speaker 4: that I'm in. Not that I'm like we need a
Speaker 4: gamer president, but like just he's already running, yeah, Ace
Speaker 4: Watkins or whatever, Yeah, Like that's that's not what I mean.
Speaker 4: I just mean like, like, this is someone who can
Speaker 4: like say what she feels. The whole point was like
Speaker 4: to talk about voting. She was like making fun of
Speaker 4: the like combustion engine on the ship, which like I
Speaker 4: had never thought about, but I liked that a lot.
Speaker 4: She had like her Green New Deal posters in the background.
Speaker 4: I just found it very like, very very good, and
Speaker 4: I'm not articulating it well at all, but I came
Speaker 4: cracking right back down to Earth the next day.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was just nice to see someone who like,
Speaker 3: hopefully that this is like a new generation of politicians
Speaker 3: where they don't have to meet with their staff to
Speaker 3: ask what a Facebook is, you know, because you were like,
Speaker 3: if you think back to the other big kind of
Speaker 3: convergence of tech and politics, it was like those those
Speaker 3: meetings that Facebook and Google had about like, you know,
Speaker 3: are you destroying America? And they're like we run ads
Speaker 3: like and like how much those meetings centered on what
Speaker 3: Facebook was and them understanding that, I think, even being
Speaker 3: able to start that conversation from like Okay, I know
Speaker 3: you're not gonna, you know, pull the wool over us
Speaker 3: because we understand what you're doing, and seeing someone like
Speaker 3: AOC like in Congress, as someone who understands that stuff
Speaker 3: and that this is like another outlet for that, like
Speaker 3: she understands, she understands like what is happening in tech
Speaker 3: more so than a lot of politicians, and in a
Speaker 3: way that feels more genuine than like if someone much
Speaker 3: older were to have done that. So that was nice
Speaker 3: to see that. It's like there's some bit of comfort
Speaker 3: in that there's that headline.
Speaker 1: Well, there's lots of headlines with Rudy Giuliani in it
Speaker 1: right now, but there was that headline saying that Rudy
Speaker 1: Giuliani owns three phones and doesn't know how to use
Speaker 1: any of them, according to like his staffers or something
Speaker 1: like that. And I think I saw it right after
Speaker 1: I was watching AOC stream and it was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I think I'm tired of these kind of politicians.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, I think there's a lot of conversations
Speaker 4: happening right now about the age of our politicians. And
Speaker 4: you know, I don't think age necessarily precludes anyone from anything,
Speaker 4: but like the average age of an American is like,
Speaker 4: I think, like thirty seven or something, in the average
Speaker 4: age of our politicians is like seventy or whatever, and
Speaker 4: you have there's a big disconnect because technology evolves so
Speaker 4: rapidly that there's a lot of things that we can
Speaker 4: keep up with that you know, they just can't, and
Speaker 4: it's very discouraging when people feel that out of touch
Speaker 4: and you look at like we were talking to Matt Paget,
Speaker 4: who's Canadian, and we were like, are your politicians like
Speaker 4: ninety how old are How.
Speaker 5: Old are the people who run your country? And he
Speaker 5: was like, I don't know, like forty were.
Speaker 6: Like, oh no, like fifty, well, I mean Bars is
Speaker 6: in his fifties. But then like the rest of Parliament
Speaker 6: and public sixty plus.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And you know, another thing about the streaming platform or
Speaker 4: not streaming platform, but like format, is that you do
Speaker 4: get to see how somebody reacts in an unfamiliar situation,
Speaker 4: because you know, she hadn't really played much among us,
Speaker 4: and she adapted so quickly, and when they were talking
Speaker 4: about like, oh, AOC doesn't know how to vent, it
Speaker 4: couldn't have been AOC. And then she was like, I
Speaker 4: got to learn how to vent because they won't suspect me.
Speaker 4: And then she like figured it out watching her do
Speaker 4: the task like she was doing, like the difficult tasks
Speaker 4: like in one go very naturally, and it's just nice
Speaker 4: to see someone adapting on the fly like that, being
Speaker 4: comfortable in a new situation, being comfortable like with experts,
Speaker 4: like she's an expert in what she does and they're
Speaker 4: an expert in this thing that she's doing right now,
Speaker 4: and she didn't seem intimidated. So I find all of
Speaker 4: those qualities really admirable. And yeah, I was just like
Speaker 4: over the moon. I was like, I I.
Speaker 5: For once, I don't want to move to another country.
Speaker 5: That's nice.
Speaker 1: Lucy, did you watch it at all or did you
Speaker 1: just catch highlights?
Speaker 5: I just caught highlights.
Speaker 6: For me, I have a lot of anxiety around the
Speaker 6: election in general, because as a person who is here
Speaker 6: on a visa and can't vote, it's a yeah, it's.
Speaker 5: Very anxiety inducing. But I did. I basically watched all
Speaker 5: the Corps highlights. No, everything I saw from OOC.
Speaker 6: She just seemed really, really wonderful and just like like
Speaker 6: Kelly was saying, like someone who's relatable in a position
Speaker 6: of power, which is something that's quite rare. Yeah, just
Speaker 6: a quick aside on Corpse. I The thing is I
Speaker 6: hope that she looked up who he is.
Speaker 5: Well he's messaged her or he he tweeted her like
Speaker 5: if AOC follows me back, you know, and she replied,
Speaker 5: so maybe basically the corpse. Corpse is basically just like
Speaker 5: a dude who reads like spooky stories and stuff on YouTube.
Speaker 6: But he has a really really deep voice that is
Speaker 6: just like it's captivating. Is the only what I could
Speaker 6: really describe as.
Speaker 4: Like when he joined the server, AOC like like you
Speaker 4: could see it in her face. She was like, what
Speaker 4: is this man's voice?
Speaker 6: He joined TikTok and all of the girls. He uploaded
Speaker 6: a video of his hand and I don't even think
Speaker 6: he said anything, and TikTok just exploded.
Speaker 4: Gets like one point five million lights. It's it's just
Speaker 4: it's a song he wrote about girls and that's playing
Speaker 4: over the footage of his goth ass hand. It was
Speaker 4: like bracelets and rings and stuff, and yeah, people really
Speaker 4: lost it. So that was an interesting twist, an interesting wrinkle.
Speaker 1: Next big thing we have here is well, I don't
Speaker 1: know if it's big, but a lot of people are
Speaker 1: talking about it right now. Is Tom Holland. Is we
Speaker 1: finally got a photo of Tom Holland in the Uncharted movie.
Speaker 1: He's wearing a brown shirt. I have not cared about
Speaker 1: this Uncharted movie since, like I don't know, twenty fifteen
Speaker 1: or whenever. I don't know what's going on.
Speaker 5: I didn't even know this happened.
Speaker 6: Yeah, they're on like this second to last day of shooting.
Speaker 5: I didn't even realize it was in full production. I guess,
Speaker 5: I guess I heard that they were.
Speaker 6: But it just seems so weird to me that people
Speaker 6: are even shooting things at all right now. I think
Speaker 6: the only movie who's shooting schedule I've been keeping up
Speaker 6: with it's been The Batman, just because of the chaotic
Speaker 6: energy of Robert Banks. I mean honestly, like, I'll watch it,
Speaker 6: but I feel like it's gonna be one of those
Speaker 6: movies where it'll be written by one person and then
Speaker 6: an ampersand with two people, and then they'll be an
Speaker 6: and written all out. It's like just rewrites on rewrites
Speaker 6: on rewrites, and like, I find it very funny that
Speaker 6: originally Marky Mark was supposed to be Drake and now
Speaker 6: he's playing Sully. I guess this film has been in development.
Speaker 4: I don't I don't know what like most of those
Speaker 4: words mean. I've never played Uncharted, and I I really
Speaker 4: I just don't care.
Speaker 6: So you should play like a Lost Legacy, because that
Speaker 6: is two badass bitches just searching for treasure and actually
Speaker 6: having conversations. It struck me when I played Lost Legacy,
Speaker 6: it was like the way that they have a conversation,
Speaker 6: it feels like an actual conversation that women would have
Speaker 6: and not a conversation that men feel like women would have.
Speaker 6: It's very good and also Claudia Black is phenomenal serial
Speaker 6: Do you have any interest in this uncharted movie?
Speaker 3: It's more it's mostly martageous to see what happens because
Speaker 3: I'm actually like, I'm a pretty big Tom Tom Holland fan,
Speaker 3: but so I'm curious to see how what he brings
Speaker 3: to the role, like it is being pissed as like
Speaker 3: he's like a young Nathan Drake, right, this is supposed
Speaker 3: to be like an origin story kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious to see what they do.
Speaker 3: And I'm like interested in seeing what not a dog
Speaker 3: kind of like what their role is in this because
Speaker 3: i feel like they're much more involved with the Last
Speaker 3: of Us show that HBO is producing, which I think
Speaker 3: is still happening. So I'm wondering I'm curious about, like
Speaker 3: what is the difference between like them working with a
Speaker 3: major studio about like, Okay, here's what we like, here's
Speaker 3: what you can kind of play fast and loose with,
Speaker 3: and here's what we have to have in a non
Speaker 3: charted movie. And how when you know Neil Druckman, who
Speaker 3: I think he's more directly involved in the show the
Speaker 3: Last of a Show, I'm curious to see what the
Speaker 3: difference between those two things are because they are probably
Speaker 3: going to come out pretty close to each other, maybe
Speaker 3: like a year or two apart, just to see what,
Speaker 3: like the studio production is. But it's weird to see,
Speaker 3: you know, this comfortble circle is like, here's a movie
Speaker 3: based on a game that isn't like in large part
Speaker 3: inspired by movies to see like, okay, does it actually
Speaker 3: have sure like the magic of what, like you know,
Speaker 3: the Anna Jones movies, or does it just feel completely
Speaker 3: different and than those movies just because of like something
Speaker 3: was lost in translation totally.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm curious too about the Last of Us show,
Speaker 1: right because I feel like, wasn't that originally supposed to
Speaker 1: be a movie and Neil Druckman had written the script
Speaker 1: a long time ago and then we kind of didn't
Speaker 1: hear anything about it, and then the Last of Us
Speaker 1: two happened, and like didn't hear anything about it, and
Speaker 1: then like what Shortly before the Last of Us two
Speaker 1: came out, they announced that they were doing an HBO
Speaker 1: series with the Last of Us And then yeah, like
Speaker 1: you're saying.
Speaker 6: Gigs ah, dude, the guy who wrote to Noble, Oh, yeah,
Speaker 6: he's doing the Last of Us show.
Speaker 5: So I am significantly more interested in that one.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean too.
Speaker 4: I just like, I think part of what makes the
Speaker 4: Last of Us work though, is the fact that you
Speaker 4: play it, because I think on paper it's.
Speaker 5: Just the road right like if if not like.
Speaker 4: Particularly outstanding, it's it's the interactivity that makes it what
Speaker 4: it is. So I'm not I don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I actually I'm kind of curious to see, like
Speaker 3: what people who don't play a lot of games but
Speaker 3: watch a lot of movies think about because this has
Speaker 3: always been like, well, there's always been like this weird
Speaker 3: thing of like, well, this is good for a game,
Speaker 3: but if it were a movie then I don't know
Speaker 3: if it would get as much of a past story wise.
Speaker 3: So I'm wondering, like with Neil direct and be more
Speaker 3: directly involved in the show, is are people who are
Speaker 3: like more in line with like I watch a lot
Speaker 3: of TV stuff, and I know, like you know, good
Speaker 3: storytelling in TV shows, how that would measure up versus
Speaker 3: you know, like to have that analogy be more direct.
Speaker 3: I think it's going to be interesting.
Speaker 1: Before we move on to listener questions. GameSpot Extra Life
Speaker 1: GameSpot staff will be doing our annual seventy two hour
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Speaker 1: at tiny dot, cc slash gs Extra Life twenty twenty.
Speaker 1: We will be updating it with more details, such as
Speaker 1: a schedule closer to the event. But that's not all
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Speaker 1: forward to making this Extra Life one of our best
Speaker 1: ones yet with the help of all you wonderful folks.
Speaker 1: Once again, I had to read John Luke's text because
Speaker 1: I knew I would forget something otherwise. But if you're interested,
Speaker 1: feel free to DM myself for Lucy or John Luke
Speaker 1: or to more on on what's it called? What's the
Speaker 1: social media site? Twitter? Twitter? Yeah, thatsite dot com, hellsite
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Speaker 1: can just email after Dark Podcast at GameSpot dot com
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Speaker 1: right in there. But yeah, with that, let's move on
Speaker 1: listener questions, and we're back with listener questions. As I
Speaker 1: said before, if you have any questions, you can email
Speaker 1: us at after Dark Podcast at GameSpot dot com, or
Speaker 1: you can join our discord. This first question here comes
Speaker 1: from v Tour on discord, Cali. Do you want to
Speaker 1: read this one?
Speaker 5: Yes?
Speaker 4: Okay, So question regarding the new game prices, with games
Speaker 4: of next Gen going to be around seventy dollars retail
Speaker 4: and here in Europe sometimes as high as seventy five euros,
Speaker 4: do you think that this change is going to affect
Speaker 4: a lot of game sales numbers? From my perspective, it
Speaker 4: will just make me even more selective on the titles
Speaker 4: that I choose and regarding console versions. It seems that
Speaker 4: disc is still very viable. Is still a very viable
Speaker 4: option given the trading and reselling factor. What are your
Speaker 4: thoughts on that? Honestly, this price change just makes game
Speaker 4: Pass look like an even better deal. Cheers guys, and
Speaker 4: stay face. I don't know what stay faced means, but
Speaker 4: sank thank you.
Speaker 1: I was thinking it meant. Are they meant to say
Speaker 1: stay safe?
Speaker 5: Stay safe? Stay face?
Speaker 1: But also like, I don't know, stay faced, your composure possible.
Speaker 6: That I don't know that you know, it could be
Speaker 6: I mean, it could be some European slang, you know,
Speaker 6: could be to do I have to do a lot
Speaker 6: of translating and British slang. So maybe this is just
Speaker 6: a new one. Disc is sort of of a viable
Speaker 6: option into next Gen if you buy a Series X
Speaker 6: or PlayStation five disc edition.
Speaker 4: Yeah. Yeah, I would not call it very viable given
Speaker 4: that the more affordable options for both consoles are disc loss.
Speaker 4: I also don't think you really get a whole lot
Speaker 4: from trading in a game or reselling it, so like
Speaker 4: I wouldn't really bank on that. I do think it
Speaker 4: does make game Pass more attractive. Yeah, I was just
Speaker 4: gonna say, I think we've talked about this a little
Speaker 4: bit on the podcast before, but our perspective on game
Speaker 4: prices is going to be a little skewed because oftentimes
Speaker 4: the biggest games, like we were going to get advanced
Speaker 4: code for from the publisher, Like in my case, like
Speaker 4: if I'm reviewing a game, like, I'm not paying for
Speaker 4: that out of pocket. So I do think like cost
Speaker 4: is always going to be a factor, like and always
Speaker 4: has been for me, Like I've always been kind of
Speaker 4: selective about what I'm going to buy because you only
Speaker 4: have so much money to spend on games and also time.
Speaker 5: But so like, I don't know.
Speaker 4: If seventy dollars versus sixty dollars is like necessarily I mean,
Speaker 4: ten dollars here and there can definitely add up, but
Speaker 4: I don't know if that's necessarily the biggest thing. I
Speaker 4: do think that game Pass is super attractive, and I
Speaker 4: think we'll get even more so.
Speaker 1: Yeah, for someone in this like in this position, I
Speaker 1: still find myself buying a lot of full price games,
Speaker 1: whether that be on Steam or Xbox PlayStation. Usually Digital.
Speaker 1: I don't know if it'll change a lot. I think
Speaker 1: the biggest thing that will happen for me is that
Speaker 1: I'll probably think twice, well I usually think twice anyway
Speaker 1: about whether or not I should buy this game unless
Speaker 1: it's something I'm very excited for. But I feel like
Speaker 1: I will probably do that more often because seventy dollars,
Speaker 1: Like it's a reasonable i'd say amount to pay considering
Speaker 1: how expensive a lot of these triple games are, but
Speaker 1: that's still I don't know, that's still ten extra dollars
Speaker 1: that I will undoubtedly be thinking about. Yeah, but I
Speaker 1: think to your point, like I think game Pass is
Speaker 1: really going to succeed with this in mind, just because
Speaker 1: you can just pay a flat fee per month, well
Speaker 1: hopefully a flat fee, and then you can access all
Speaker 1: these games, and especially with all the acquisitions that Microsoft
Speaker 1: has been doing, it makes it even more attractive, right
Speaker 1: like like with Bethesda in particular, like even if Mike
Speaker 1: Stuff does end up putting those games on another console,
Speaker 1: which I doubt, but if they do, like it's still like,
Speaker 1: oh well, there's still seventy dollars now, or if I
Speaker 1: had an Xbox, or I could just have game Pass
Speaker 1: on my Xbox, and I'll be able to play these
Speaker 1: games for much cheaper.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I also think that there's a lot of potential
Speaker 3: for games kind of being further stratified, Like waiting until
Speaker 3: something is sixty dollars is going to be like, oh,
Speaker 3: I'm waiting for the first sale versus something for fifty
Speaker 3: and forty. So I'm curious to see how developers adapt,
Speaker 3: Like how often do we see games that are seventy
Speaker 3: dollars and how often we see more games that are
Speaker 3: forty dollars because I think we're we're seeing some of
Speaker 3: those games. I think like the Crash Collection was forty dollars.
Speaker 3: I know Activision has been doing some kind of less
Speaker 3: than full price games, and I'm curious to see if
Speaker 3: developers kind of take advantage of Okay, well, like the
Speaker 3: budget games can now maybe charge fifty dollars instead of
Speaker 3: forty and people will be more amenable to that. And
Speaker 3: then but yeah, I think like game pass is going
Speaker 3: to be a thing where that's it's smart of Microsoft
Speaker 3: to lean on that more now than ever, as you know,
Speaker 3: games get more expensive and it seems like that's where
Speaker 3: things are going to go. We'll see how this first
Speaker 3: round of seventy dollars games goes. But yeah, I don't
Speaker 3: think it's like, I don't think it's going to change
Speaker 3: much about games. I think it's more about like compensating
Speaker 3: for kind of borrow time, because on the PS four
Speaker 3: and Xbox One, it definitely felt like games should be
Speaker 3: more expensive, but they're not, so like they're kind of
Speaker 3: charging you know, through other means like micro transactions and stuff.
Speaker 2: So I'm curious, Like.
Speaker 3: I don't think it's going to be a huge change
Speaker 3: in terms of what we get out of the games,
Speaker 3: but I think it's, yeah, it's kind of them doing
Speaker 3: what they have to.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think my biggest hope going off
Speaker 1: what you said is that we just see more variety
Speaker 1: in game prices, you know, like and we we are
Speaker 1: kind of seeing that too, right with Star Wars Squadrons,
Speaker 1: which launched at forty bucks. So I just I hope
Speaker 1: you see more of that. Like I wouldn't mind paying
Speaker 1: seventy dollars for a big triple A game if maybe
Speaker 1: like a double A game is a little bit less
Speaker 1: instead of hitting that standard sixty seventy dollars. Right, all right,
Speaker 1: next question here is from Jarrett, Lucy, do you want
Speaker 1: to take this one?
Speaker 5: Sure?
Speaker 6: My significant other doesn't love the fact that I play
Speaker 6: video games. In fact, she sees them as a waste
Speaker 6: of time. Even though I've tried to show her games
Speaker 6: that can be educational like brain age and good for
Speaker 6: physical fitness like ring Fit, she still looks at games
Speaker 6: with a bit of disdain. Any thoughts about how to
Speaker 6: show her that they can not only be good for
Speaker 6: building various skills but also a great escape from reality.
Speaker 6: Oh that's a tough one, Doozy.
Speaker 5: Jarrett, because.
Speaker 3: This is also another field where we feel maybe a
Speaker 3: little bit privileged than that you're able to justify it
Speaker 3: by saying like, oh, this is work.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm doing work by playing too much Hades.
Speaker 3: But I think maybe the best, the better pitch is
Speaker 3: less about like how it can benefit you as a
Speaker 3: human being and more about like, this is something that
Speaker 3: I This is what I do instead of like watching movies.
Speaker 3: This is my hobby, right, Like I don't, you know,
Speaker 3: I don't I can't really garden right now, and I
Speaker 3: don't build model kits or whatever other hobbies people have.
Speaker 2: I play.
Speaker 3: I play video games instead, right, And that this is
Speaker 3: like my me time. I think that's maybe your best
Speaker 3: chance for making that pitch.
Speaker 6: I mean, well, I think if you're showing games like
Speaker 6: brain Age and ring Fit, why not explore something together
Speaker 6: so you can show your partner. You know, it's kind
Speaker 6: of difficult if you're just on the outside looking in,
Speaker 6: unless it's a really story driven game or something super
Speaker 6: cinematic like maybe like a Last of Us or an
Speaker 6: Unchied or any other you know, narrative driven game where
Speaker 6: you can just kind of follow along and kind of
Speaker 6: I don't know, explore the parallels between games as a
Speaker 6: kind of storytelling vehicle. If you're playing something together, something
Speaker 6: that's co op and something that's kind of easy to
Speaker 6: get to grips with, they can maybe see, yeah, can
Speaker 6: get the reinforcement that is kind of you know, driving
Speaker 6: the the brain juice is to love gaming.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 5: My My thing is.
Speaker 4: I am reading this question for me is just kind
Speaker 4: of like, you know, at a certain point, like if
Speaker 4: the person you're with doesn't respect your hobby, Like, like
Speaker 4: I agree with Surreal that it's it's about like communicating,
Speaker 4: Like I don't think you need to get your partner
Speaker 4: to play games with you. Well, I mean, like I
Speaker 4: do think that's a good tactic if like that's something
Speaker 4: you really want to explore. But I I think just generally,
Speaker 4: like your partner should just respect what your hobbies are.
Speaker 4: And so that's what I get hung up on is, yeah,
Speaker 4: if your.
Speaker 5: Partner doesn't.
Speaker 4: It doesn't have to like games, doesn't have to understand games,
Speaker 4: but should at least respect that you like to do that.
Speaker 4: I think that's the foundation for a good relationship. Isn't
Speaker 4: a real relationship advice show? That's my main that's my
Speaker 4: main takeaway from this question is just like, yeah, I
Speaker 4: don't necessarily have a recommendation for a game to show
Speaker 4: that'll like magically cure this. I think it's a communication situation.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I think you can also get into a bit of
Speaker 3: a trap if you're only showing them games like brain
Speaker 3: Age and things like Ring Fit of having those be
Speaker 3: the only relevant games in that discussion then because it's like, well,
Speaker 3: what is you know, for example, what is Goest of
Speaker 3: Sushima doing for you?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 3: And so you start you use those as the metric,
Speaker 3: it kind of starts to skew it a little bit,
Speaker 3: so you're kind of having to justify every game by
Speaker 3: like how is it benefiting me as a human being,
Speaker 3: which is sort of why I lean to it more
Speaker 3: is like, yeah, the fact that brain age is helpful
Speaker 3: and ring fit is as well helps but that shouldn't
Speaker 3: be like the only metric that makes a game useful
Speaker 3: or good, you know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and I don't think that every minute of your
Speaker 4: day needs to be productive. I think it's totally valid
Speaker 4: to just be like, I like it because I like it,
Speaker 4: and I and I want to do this and I
Speaker 4: don't care if it doesn't provide me with anything I like.
Speaker 4: I do think I'll use a video game example. Actually,
Speaker 4: like in the SIMS, like one of the meters you
Speaker 4: have to watch is fun, and like doing like watching
Speaker 4: TV or whatever in the SIMS like doesn't give your
Speaker 4: sim anything unless you're watching the Cooking channel, but it
Speaker 4: doesn't increase your fun if you do that, you know,
Speaker 4: it's just spending time. The way you want to spend
Speaker 4: time is an entirely valid reason. You don't have to
Speaker 4: justify it further in my opinion.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And I mean, I think if you really want
Speaker 1: to like show off games to your significant other, maybe
Speaker 1: going down the artistic path could be good, like because
Speaker 1: because I think of a game like gre Grease gree.
Speaker 1: I never learned how to pronounce that game, but that
Speaker 1: that game was gorgeous, And I feel like, even if
Speaker 1: you're not super into games, it's hard not to look
Speaker 1: at that and have some sort of sense of wonder. Yeah,
Speaker 1: or maybe even like or is another beautiful game. But
Speaker 1: I think all in all, yeah, I definitely agree with
Speaker 1: what Kelly and Surreal are saying about about like just
Speaker 1: pitch it more as like this is kind of what
Speaker 1: I do to blow off steam, to relax, to recoup
Speaker 1: after a long day or whatever it might be. Because
Speaker 1: because that that seems totally reasonable.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think as well, if your partner is saying
Speaker 6: that they see games as a waste of time, maybe
Speaker 6: there's an undercurrent thereof it's time not spent with me.
Speaker 6: So that's why I was suggesting, like the trying to
Speaker 6: involve them. But I agree with like I agree with
Speaker 6: Kellie that like you shouldn't like your partner shouldn't be
Speaker 6: shitting on your hobbies. I thought that's not cool. That's
Speaker 6: not a grown up thing to do. He allowed your
Speaker 6: own hobbies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I think that's a very good point though, is
Speaker 4: like it might just be a veiled way of being
Speaker 4: like I want to spend more time together. But in
Speaker 4: that case, like you could meet, like you meet in
Speaker 4: the middle and figure out what their hobbies are.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 4: I haven't had this problem really with like my family
Speaker 4: or anything. I've never dated anyone who didn't play video games,
Speaker 4: and like my parents play video games, so I like
Speaker 4: I have that advantage, but I do think, like, yeah,
Speaker 4: it's a communication. I would just talk to your partner.
Speaker 1: Well. Anyway, that's been episode sixty four of GameSpot After Dark.
Speaker 1: Thank you all so much for listening, and thank you
Speaker 1: guys for joining me this week. If you have any questions,
Speaker 1: you can email us at after Dark podcast at GameSpot
Speaker 1: dot com. And with that, Lucy, where can people find
Speaker 1: you and what are you working on this week?
Speaker 5: I'm on Twitter at Lucy James Games.
Speaker 6: This week Generation Next, we are talking with Michael him
Speaker 6: once again now that his series x Embogo is fully up,
Speaker 6: so we're putting your questions to him. That should be
Speaker 6: up right now. Jake, you, John Luck and I ran
Speaker 6: through some listener questions and video questions on clibern twenty
Speaker 6: seventy seven, so that should also be up and other
Speaker 6: than that, I'm dealing with my visa fun.
Speaker 1: Kelly.
Speaker 4: You can find me on Twitter at inky dojico I
Speaker 4: n k y d o j I kk oh where
Speaker 4: you can see all the puzzles I'm doing, dude, that puzzle.
Speaker 3: Puzzle, Yeah, Jesus, I.
Speaker 4: Didn't I think it would take a lot of people
Speaker 4: really reacted to that puzzle. My I did it with
Speaker 4: my mom and we just we worked on it for
Speaker 4: like two months or something. Yeah, I'm like I said,
Speaker 4: I'm working on some fasmophobia stuff just to help out,
Speaker 4: and then I'll be checking out Crown one hundred DLC
Speaker 4: for Pokemon Sword and Shield, so hopefully like I'll have
Speaker 4: some some more like you know, guide stuff and other
Speaker 4: you know, I do reviews, So planning a review for.
Speaker 1: That, yeah in Sereal.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you can find me at Twitter dot com slash
Speaker 3: sireal Avascaz s U r I E L And I
Speaker 3: think auto auto complete will will do the rest hopefully
Speaker 3: at that point. But I'm also on you know, mid
Speaker 3: max with two ends. By the way, I should I
Speaker 3: should mention m I N N M A x uh.
Speaker 3: So you can find me there on Patreon and on YouTube.
Speaker 3: We're doing an anniversary stream because it's the when you're
Speaker 3: anniversary of mid Max. I want to say this Saturday.
Speaker 3: And then if you're looking for more extra left ahead
Speaker 3: of game spots, we have our own uh extra live
Speaker 3: stream the week I think one or two weeks before
Speaker 3: I think November seventh. So if you're looking to watch
Speaker 3: all the extra live streams, we're also doing one of those.
Speaker 2: And I think that's.
Speaker 5: Everything is in like Minnesota? Is that why? Yes?
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I have spelt mid Max like in a
Speaker 1: game with two ends because of multiple times, and I
Speaker 1: think I think Edit and including Kelli have even like
Speaker 1: corrected and be like, no, I know this, but I
Speaker 1: don't just my fingers do think that is?
Speaker 2: That is a compliment and I appreciate it.
Speaker 5: I also want to shout out sire L's Hades review.
Speaker 5: It was excellent.
Speaker 4: We all really enjoyed it, so if you haven't read it,
Speaker 4: definitely read it.
Speaker 5: If you want to.
Speaker 4: If the podcast didn't convince you to play Hades after
Speaker 4: hearing how many days Creal's played Hades, definitely read this review.
Speaker 1: And you can find me at Jacob Deckt And I'm
Speaker 1: working on a Fasmophobia guide, which hopefully will be up
Speaker 1: by the time this podcast goes up, but it is
Speaker 1: considerably longer than I expected. And then, like Lucy said,
Speaker 1: there's cyberpunk stuff. I think Jean Luke should have another
Speaker 1: cyberpunk lore video up suit. I don't know. I think
Speaker 1: this weekend, I think we get the.
Speaker 5: Q and A up first, and then law Cyber Saturdays.
Speaker 1: Yeah, normally they go up Saturday.
Speaker 5: I'll call it that.
Speaker 1: We don't normally they go up Saturdays. But this one
Speaker 1: has been particularly tough because A this has been this
Speaker 1: week has been madness, and B the topic he's covering
Speaker 1: there's not a lot of b roll or anything to
Speaker 1: go off of, so it's A it's been it's been
Speaker 1: a long edit. I don't envy him at all. But
Speaker 1: with that, I'll see y'all next week.
Speaker 6: M h.