Speaker 1: Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the Game Informer Show, a
weekly podcast covering the video game industry. Join us every
episode for a discussion on the latest gaming news, reviews,
in exclusive reveals, alongside Game and Former staff and special
guests from around the industry. I'm one of your hosts today,
Alex van Aiken. I am joined by Charles Hart. How
are you doing, Charles?
Speaker 2: I'm doing great. I was the first guest introduced today.
I don't know that's ever happened for except maybe the
one episode I did alone with Kyle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, how's it feel? You feel good?
Speaker 3: I'm like top billing. I'm like the first and like
cast in order of appearance at Tallas fan Akin and
then Charles Hart, like we were in the first scene.
Speaker 1: Knowing that it's that important to you, I will make
a note in the future to make sure this is
in the last time I'm Charles.
Speaker 3: It made it made many plenty of sense before, you know,
it was never like a regular host. But I'm like
a regular host, and I just kid, it's just cool,
you know, it's.
Speaker 1: Just cool whatever growth evolution you know? Hm uh, Kyle Hilliard,
how you doing?
Speaker 4: Hey, how's it going? I can't believe I was second.
I'm frankly offended.
Speaker 1: Honestly, yeah, I would like to hear who's coming in third.
Speaker 5: Which I believe.
Speaker 4: Not to spoil it, but I think this is my
first time podcasting with full time staffer.
Speaker 1: Eric Van Allen. Yeah, yeah, I remember my name at all. Geez,
I thought we were just going in off. Yeah, is
that not what we were doing? No, but happy accident.
All right, Well, welcome to the podcast, dear listeners. This
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and D double sided poster.
Speaker 4: If you're watching the video version, I think Charles and
I were trying to do the two sides, but we
actually did the same.
Speaker 2: Accurate.
Speaker 1: Yes, well, that is a great way to support us. Also,
if you are watching on YouTube, be sure to click
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That helps us out. But without further ado, guys, we've
got a pretty pad show this week. We're gonna be
talking about our metal Gear Solid Delta review here momentarily
are sort of the CEA review and drag x drive reviews.
Later in the episode, we're also gonna be talking about
the Battlefield six Open beta that Eric and I played,
had a lot of fun with that. This seat Taken
is gonna be covered by Charles, which is a really
cool puzzle game that came out recently, and then some
game games Calm Quick Hits from Opening the Night Live
and that'll be a show. But needless to say, it's
gonna be a pack show. So let's get started. Kyle
tell us all about metal Gear Solid Delta Snake Eater.
Speaker 6: That.
Speaker 1: Did I get the title order right? Okay? Great?
Speaker 4: Yeah, because I always want to throw a three in
there or something.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't include the three officially.
Speaker 4: Which I think is like Delta does the idea is
they just want new people to come into metal gear
for the first time, and if they don't want them
to scare them away with the three, I think, which
makes sense. It is the first in the the timeline
it is. It is like, it is the one that
I would always recommend to people. They're like, I'm kind
of curious about metal gear. I'm like, just start with three.
Just like, play that one first because it's one of
the better ones. And like you'll it's the most digestible story,
you know, because you understand it in one entry. But yeah,
I are you guys, I forget. Have you all played
three or no?
Speaker 1: I have not. I've been waiting for this to come out.
Speaker 3: Okay, I played I played one and two last year
and I actually started three, and I had the thought,
I was like, I'm kind of sick of playing all
these metal just played one and two back to back,
and I was like, I'm gonna do something else, and
this was an excuse to wait. But I've been I've
been looking forward to it because I want to see
what happened.
Speaker 6: I watched I college roommate play one through four like that.
That was how I experienced all of mental gear. Solid,
and then the first one I played is you can
see from the arm back here on my shelf is
Metal Gear Solid five, which I absolutely adored. But I
am really excited to hear if this is like a
good version of three to jump in with, if this
is like the good way to experience it for the
first time, or if you feel like it's maybe meant
more for kind of the people who've already played the game.
Speaker 4: No, I I think I'm curious what the public the
broad public perception is right, which I haven't heard at
the time of this recording. I think even the review
will have gone live, and then the game comes out
next week if you're listening to this startment the podcast
comes out. I think it is the best version of
Melgar sold three like pretty much like without a doubt,
because it looks amazing. The updates that they made are
like small but significant, like the game plays more like
a third person shooter now, which feels good. And then
there are things like changing camo, which is like small
but like I was even when it came out in
two thousand and four, I kind of ended up not
changing Camo much because to do it you have to
go into a like two menus and change it and
then like leave. But now it's all like quick select
and it'll it'll be like this is like the best
one for this area, which is really really nice.
Speaker 5: And then oh please, yeah, go ahead.
Speaker 1: Oh no, no, I'm not. I was gonna interrupt you
with a very important question as to whether or not
the Game Informer issue is still inside the game. It is.
Speaker 5: It absolutely is. Yeah, it's uh.
Speaker 1: And remind me, was that a fake game and Former
game and Former cover?
Speaker 4: They yeah, it's made. It's not a real game and
Former cover. It's like a fake Metal Gear Solid three
game and Former cover, and like you can shoot it
and hit it and it'll flip over, it'll flip open,
and it looks like a two thousand and four layout
of Game Informer, which.
Speaker 2: Is very strange crazy.
Speaker 4: And then on the back of the issue, because it's
like random whether how it flips. On the back of
the issue, there's like a weird picture of Former Game
in Former editor Matt Cotto that I worked with for
many years, like eating bugs or something. It's really odd.
It's it's weird, and I actually, like recently, like after
seeing it was in the game, I went to talk
with some of the old like Game Informer old timers
about it, and I was like, do you guys remember
like how this came to exist or like what happened?
And Andy McNamara was like, I don't remember, just like
I just like, do not remember. I think maybe there
was an email or something that said they were doing
it and then and Matt Cotto similarly was like, yeah,
I don't, I don't, I don't have no I think
I remember taking a picture or something. That's the extent
of my reporting for how that game to exist. It's
just this weird thing that if you're not if you
don't know what we're talking about. In Metal Your Solid three,
there are like a number of publications at the time
are in the game, like they're just like on a
desk or something like that. And one of them is
Game Informer, which was like.
Speaker 1: Yeah, just like a guard reading gaming magazines in the
spare time.
Speaker 4: Yeah, which is like that weird fourth wall stuff that
Kojimac games tend to do. But it's actually it's a
nice transition Alex to ask about that, because you know,
I was, I was telling you guys some of the
things they updated and change, but like the for lack
of a better term, like the soul of the game,
which like the main thing I was worried about because
Hideo Kojima is not involved, and they even asked someone
asked him about it recently if he would ever play,
and he said, no, I don't want to play that game,
Like it seems like he's upset by it, maybe even
a little bit. But without his involvement. I was like,
is it gonna have the soul of Metal Gear? Is
it gonna feel like Metal Gear? And like the thing
is is like they upgraded those few things, but everything
else is like direct copy paste improved to the point
where like the soul of the game just kind of
came along with it in that process, because like none
of the story has changed at all. It's all the
original voice acting, all the cinematograph for excuse me, cinematography
for all the cut scenes are exactly the same, Like
nothing has been changed in that regard. This is the
exact same version of Metal Gear Solid three, with the
exception of it looks a lot better. Right, So, like
you get these cut scenes that like function exactly the
same as they did in two thousand and four, but
like the lighting's a lot better, so they just sort
of automatically look better and things like that, and like
I ultimately was like really impressed, Like that's what I
wanted here. As someone who loves metal Gear Solid three
and has played it, I've probably played that game once
through every like you know, five or six years. I've
played through it something like that through its various versions.
So to have just like basically a one to one
version of metal Gear Solid three that looks better with
you know, the improvements that you want where it controls better,
and then that one that little hiccup with the camo.
Oh also like your your codec is easier to quick
select to like stuff like that.
Speaker 5: You know.
Speaker 4: I mean to me, like I when I get that
hankering to play metal Gear Solid three again, I don't
think I'm going to be able to go back. I
think this is the new primary version of metal Gear
Solid three, And I am curious, like I said, what
public perception will be if like there are purists out
there who really find things about it they don't like.
But from from my perspective having played through it, you know,
and then also started new game plus a little bit,
and then like did all the snake versus monkey stuff
in there, Like, it feels good. It feels like Metal
Gear Saw three. I was very I was really happy
with it. I gave it a nine out of ten.
And it is like, again, if you're that person who's like,
I'm kind of curious about metal Gear, maybe you played
five and you're curious, like what the history of the
series was, Like, this is the one I will recommend
moving forward. It's like, play metal Gear Solid Delta. This
is like the best version of metal Gear Solid three
that will get you into that story very easily. And
in terms of like five, you can see a lot
of the seeds that got planted and grew into the
mechanics of five, which is really fun too. So yeah,
good game. I really like metal Gear Solid Delta a lot.
I think they did a great job.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Is there anything that you felt like they dropped
the ball on or things that didn't maybe age as
well despite you know, kind of the remake.
Speaker 4: Yeah, process, I mean, I like, I don't drop the ball.
I don't think so, but there are definitely elements in
the game that like don't age well. Like the writing.
A lot of the writing feels like sort of cliched
often and like there's like there's just stuff that like
kind of doesn't really make sense that you just kind
of have to wave off, you know, which maybe I
was like more forgiving of back in two thousand and
four when I was just a stupid high school senior
due didn't know any better. So that stuff kind of
feels like almost like laughable now. Like that's that's my
takeaway for a lot of that stuff is like just
these like really self absorbed monologues, like from from people
like explaining exactly why they're doing what they're doing. And
like Snake gets imprisoned at some point and they like
don't take his radio, so he has like full communication
abilities with his full team, and it's like that doesn't
really make any sense. But whatever, from a gameplay perspective,
I guess I would rather be able to call you know,
Commander zero or whatever, like I don't I don't want
that taken away from me. But it's just it's just
the kind of thing that it's like, ah, whatever, It's
like it doesn't make sense, but it doesn't really hold
back the story. And also like I don't think I
would want them to like rewrite the game, because that's
that's so crude to it, even if it even if
it like makes me laugh in twenty twenty five and
like it's kind of feels outdated, like I would rather
have it be that for for what is, you know,
a remake of Mental Year Solid three. So so I'm sure,
I'm I'm happy with it, but but yeah, there's definitely
stuff in there that is that is kind of laughable
for sure.
Speaker 1: Well, moving on, unless you all have any questions for Kyle.
Speaker 3: Well, I just want to say I'm excited. I'm very
glad that that is the case, because I also felt, uh, I.
Speaker 6: Don't know, I don't.
Speaker 3: I feel like every everything, I didn't really know what
Konami was until I like they were already not really
doing stuff anymore, so like the concept of them making
the remake and Kajuma wasn't involved. Just I was like,
I don't, I don't really know what to expect. But
it doesn't seem I don't know, it didn't. It didn't
give me any green flags. Really, it's just knowing that
it was like they're being faithful to it and it
still looks good. And I know sometimes when they do
I can't think of the game off the top of
my head. But sometimes when they do remakes and they
make stuff like photorealistic or they like improve the lighting
a bunch, they kind of like sand off some of
the art direction that was gone on.
Speaker 2: Like you'll see a game.
Speaker 3: That has like a lot of like green tones and
kind of like a filter over it where it's like,
we can't make it look like real people, but we
can give it like a vibe, and then you'll have
the remaster version it's like, oh, we made these colors
look how they actually look, and it's like, ah, okay,
now it just kind of looks like some dudes standing
in a room with no nothing going on. Sure, And
I don't know if that's like a thing you've you've
felt here, but you mentioned that it looked good, like
I think it is a different I'm curious if that
is a thing you feel is true about.
Speaker 5: This at all.
Speaker 4: I mean, there might be something there to that, because
in my memory, like thinking back to the PlayStation two version,
it does sort of just have like a green like
sheene to it, you know, which I think is gone here.
But like metal Gear is always sort of striving for
really realistic visuals with like you know, mechanical creatures that
you believe, right, Like they want you to think that
these things could actually exist in the real world. It
is Metal Gear is an anime, but it's not meant
to look like an anime, right, It's just like a
spire by the storytelling style of anime. But it's always
it's always, I mean, even moving into stuff like death stranding.
You know, everything in that game is meant to look
like something you could hold, even if it is odd, right,
I don't know, maybe that that's.
Speaker 1: Kind of yeah, no, I think that makes sense.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And comparing it to anime was also the
thing that made me.
Speaker 2: It was a shift in my head.
Speaker 3: I needed to get through the first game for that
first time where I was like, wow, this is just
crazy people talking, and then I was like, oh, it's
like an anime, and for some reason that was all
I needed to be like, Okay, yeah, this is exactly
what to expect from anime.
Speaker 4: They re released a Ninja Scroll on Blu Ray recently,
which is a fantastic like nineties anime, and I remember
I watched it again for the first time in I
don't know, it's like twenty years or something like that
great movie Ninja scroll, and I was like, oh, this
is this is a whole, this is just fully metal gear.
This is just like one dude versus a bunch of bosses,
one of which is a guy who controls bees, you know,
like in Ninja Scroll, and he's just like he's got
to figure out how to defeat him all one by one,
and there's also a conspiracy going on in the background,
and it's like, oh, yeah, this is this is just
metal your Solid three but like Feudal Japan basically, and
it's great for that reason.
Speaker 1: RULES love that. Well. We have both been playing Sword
of the Sea, Kyle and I have both beat the
game now Kyle twice for me, yeah, you've beat it
twice now, okay. And I knew that you had started
New Game Plus as part of your review process. But
so far, I mean, well not so far. I beat it,
I liked it a lot.
Speaker 3: It's I think I'm near the end just because of
comparison point, I uh gotta well, I don't. I don't
want to give it away as like a spoiler and
the thing, but I can message you guys.
Speaker 2: I think I'm like near that. I think I'm like
an hour away.
Speaker 4: Charles, are you telling me or Alex anything about where
you are in the game. I bet you're close to
the end, because it's not a very lock.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I didn't think I beat it in an hour
and fifty nine minutes.
Speaker 5: Who really?
Speaker 1: And then I got an achievement for beating it under
two hours, and I was like, I didn't think I was.
You know, I guess something as good a games. Yeah,
it was like gamer over here. That's why they employed
me here.
Speaker 4: Which, by the way, I don't know how you feel, Alex,
but not a complaint.
Speaker 1: For no, No, Like I think it's felt longer than
two hours on Yeah, Like it's.
Speaker 4: So well and it moves so quickly that it like,
I think it is a good length. I like it
for that reason.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't think I would have wanted it to
be longer, did you Guys?
Speaker 2: Like unlock?
Speaker 3: I mean, I'll let you give like the introduction to
the game, sure before.
Speaker 2: We get into all the details of it. But I
do have questions for you.
Speaker 1: Okay, Charles wants to know we unlocked something unlocked, and
we did unlock several things throughout the game, but real quick,
the the sort of the Sea. It's the third game
from Giant Squid, which is a team comprised of members
who worked on Journey back in what twenty twelve, and
this game, Kyle says in his review, it's very much
like it. It feels like a a successor to Journey
in its own right, and it has that that sort
of art direction from Matt Naba that is pretty iconic
at this point, especially in through the lens of like
Journey and and everything that has come with that game,
as in the Pathless of the other two. This one
is really beautiful. I think that some of the the
shader work that they do and sort of the see
is just absolutely ridiculous. The I really want to see
a GDC breakdown or maybe we'll reach reach out of them.
I want to see how they they did what they
did with that water to sand to ice ground shader.
It's so it blows my mind looking at it as
you're playing. But Kyle, I'll pass it to you to
talk more about the game in general, kind of what
you're actually doing in the game all that kind of stuff.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean, we're going to say the word Journey
a lot, and because it's like for like, I like
you said that, I said, Alex it to me, it
feels like the most direct line to Journey that that
Giant Squid has made so far between Absu and the Pathless.
And it's like it's a game where you're kind of
this silent protagonist. There's not any dialogue in the game.
There's there's text, but there's not any dialogue, and you're
kind of making your way through this like ambiguous desert
and as you progress, you kind of fill this desert
with water. And you just do this by like moving
around and solving little puzzles and you're like riding your
sword is like this floating object that you're just riding
around like super high speeds, and it.
Speaker 5: Just feels really good.
Speaker 4: It's just really satisfying to like move across the sand
and then you know move along the water and then
like some of the other materials that you're talking about.
Alex likes it's a short game, but we don't want
to spoil like all the all the environments that you visit,
but like it just feels really good to move and leap.
And then there's also buttons that do tricks and stuff,
and you will find occasionally like half pipes and like
a mission. There's only a few, but there's you can.
Speaker 1: Find certain challenge rooms as well. Yeah, to do high scores,
get high scores. It's like it's not certainly that first
play through, it is not like a high score game.
It's not it's not a Tony Hawk game. But there
is definitely Tony Hawk inspiration in the sense that it's
like they want you to like move quickly and do
interesting tricks to kind of entertain yourself while you're moving
through these beautiful landscapes.
Speaker 4: And I think it works really well. I think it's
just it's just a game that just doesn't stop from
the moment you start, and it's it's it's it's great.
I give it an eight point five. The reason I
didn't like sort of cross that nine threshold is because,
like what story there is there didn't really like move
me necessarily, Where games like Journey and like The Pathless,
I did feel moved during the course of those games,
where this was like I was like, Okay, this is
interesting and this is like I can follow this and
I see what's happening. But like I just and the
end is really cool. I really like the end a lot.
It's just really like bombastic and crazy. But I just
wasn't it was. It was more my reaction to thout
the whole game was like, oh, that's really that's really
pretty and cool, rather than like tearing up a little bit.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 5: And I'm prone to that, you know.
Speaker 4: I Yeah, plenty of silent games have brought me to,
you know, wiping a tear from my eye. This wasn't
one of them. But it's still still really good game.
I like it a lot.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I found myself in awe of kind of the beauty, yeah,
of the game, But like you said, like the story itself.
I mean, it's got themes of like conservation and that
sort of thing in regards to like protecting the environment,
and you know, I think some of that is pointing. Yeah,
I think some of that's poignant, but yeah, nothing really
that like kind of struck a hardcored and and I
think like some of the more like tragic moments in
the story, you don't quite have enough time with the
characters to kind of really feel any any any hits
necessarily when things happen to them. I agree, Yeah, but
I think all that aside, I really really like the game.
It's really impressive, especially from a technical standpoint. I think
also the level design is you know, you get to
these places that kind of open up and are really
fun to navigate and explore. You know, you can as
you go you level up new movement options, and one
of the things that you pick up pretty early on
is the ability to kind of like climb up kelp forests.
You kind of float up with them, and and you
know there are secrets in the game. If you explore,
you can find these these shells. And I'm not sure
what they're for, Kyle, I haven't figured that part out.
Speaker 4: I haven't either. I have found a lot of them.
I don't know exactly how many.
Speaker 2: I assume it's just like, I don't know if that's
one hundred percent of it. You find all the shells.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if you get something you know, yeah,
or if it's just I don't know, but I've got
several of those from kind of going off the beaten path,
and it is fun to get a little little reward
when you do that, as well as kind of seeing
more of like that environmental set dressing that is so
pretty to look at. But yeah, I think Kyle said
a best in his review. You know, the the star
of the show is the movement and riding your blade
across the landscape. It's got this like there are certain
times when your your camera just like gets really low
against the ground and it's kind of like looking up
at your character like gliding along the like water, and
it looks so cinematic. It looks ridiculous. It looks like
something out of a movie. And like, especially with the
vertical nature of how the map progresses. As you go,
you're kind of click climbing this mountain and or a
series of mountain peaks, and you know, when the camera's
low like that, looking up the character surfing and in
the background, you've got these beautiful vistas. I really enjoy it.
I think I think there are a couple of moments
throughout where some of the more novel mechanics kind of
wear a little thin for me. Luckily, the game is
so short that I think if it had been a
longer game, that some of those I don't want to
spoil it because it's it's kind of a cool moment,
but yeah, there are moments where like there'll be some
kind of novel mechanic that you have to use to progress,
and had that those those experiences been longer. I think
I would have been like, ah, but with them being
so short, it's like kind of like a nice little.
Speaker 6: It's almost.
Speaker 4: Very little repeats. You know, it's not completely without repeating,
but there's like it's it's few and far between.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that is a thing that.
Speaker 3: I played the game at SGF and then I turned
around and there was a guy like standing at the
booth and sometimes it's like the PR people, and he
was like, hey, you like the game and I was
like yeah, and he was like, oh great, thanks.
Speaker 2: We worked really hard on it. And I was like,
wait a minute, you're Matt Nava.
Speaker 3: So then I just kind of had like an impromptu
interview with it. I know he was there, And I
also interviewed Austin Wintery like a week or two before
that for the magazine, so I like talked to him.
Speaker 2: Bustin's the composer.
Speaker 3: And one of the things that Matt said about Austin's
composing because I brought it up, is he's like, we
don't ever want to play the same track of music twice,
like it can loop in an area, we can have
different stuff going on, but if you like leave and come.
Speaker 2: Back, I'd rather there's like no music than repeating.
Speaker 3: It because it's very like just the fact that Kyle
keeps saying like it starts and then it just kind
of goes until it stops where it's like they want
you to keep going in on the path.
Speaker 2: And they're not like trying to. I don't know. It's
a very like contained linear experience.
Speaker 3: And I was gonna say just to uh, I think
I know what novel mechanicis you're talking about, Alex, and
I think I disagree. I think I like the length
that they're there, and in general, I kept finding the
game where I'm like, it's just fun to just ride
around on your sword board, and I'm like, man, I
love jump in and I want to go up there.
And every time there's a big hill, it's like I'm
gonna jump off of that. And then I get to
a new area, it's like, hey, by the way, you
can do a new thing now, And I'm like, new thing?
Speaker 1: What?
Speaker 2: How lucky are we we get new things in this game.
I would just ride on this sword forever and that'd
be great.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, well cool. Any Eric, are you gonna play
this game? Are you a are you a giant squid?
Fan or not really, I do like the studio. I
actually I really enjoyed The Pathless when I played it.
I don't think I finished it, but I did really
enjoy what I played it. Uh, this has been on
my radar, but we are once again entering the fall
zone of there are too many video games. They're just
that's too many games. So actually, y'all saying that this
is only a couple hours long, many of you have
moved it up the list for me because sorry, the
ramones of video games. It's I think it's more doable
in that sense if I know that it's going to
be really impactful and also really contained. That's how you
sell your game to me right now, is not don't
tell me about your eighty hour epics. That's there's no
time for that. I think playing this game, playing this game,
you know we've got the I think Eric describes it
as like the content goblin in your brain.
Speaker 6: I have a content goblin in my brain and that
I make things.
Speaker 1: Yes all the time.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel similarly about whenever I play I'm like, Okay,
how does this fit into Game of the Year at
the end of the year, And I feel like I
can't just enjoy games without being like, what kind of
award would we give this, Like if is this, like
what would this be in contention for?
Speaker 6: If anything?
Speaker 1: Sort of the Sea is one where I'm like, that's
a really cool moment. I'm gonna jot that down for
Game of the year time or mmm, that's a I
think it's got my favorite arts art direction of the year,
like it pay attention if you play it too.
Speaker 6: To the environment art.
Speaker 1: It's it's I know, it's like it's a game that
you're moved very quickly through, and so I think being
intentional about stopping and smalling the roses is a very
cool thing. And you can kind of see the detail
that you might otherwise miss if you're kind of speeding
along on your on your hover sword.
Speaker 2: I did, I did want to say that I think
I have. I'm like, I'm like.
Speaker 3: Three and a half hours in and I haven't beaten it,
and I was gonna ask you how much how much
of the like little bits you're collecting, because I like
gameplay is like I stop and I go back. Once
you've like made more water appear, you can go and
you can get all the little bits in the area.
So I spent a lot of time just like I
did that tracking and getting all of them.
Speaker 1: Maybe I didn't get as many as you. I mean
I've unlocked like all of the crucial I think I
by the end. This would be a good way to
measure how many bits I collected. I think the last
thing I unlocked was for two thousand bits.
Speaker 3: Okay, I'm I'm almost I think once I get to
a guy, I'll have two thousand bits where I am.
Speaker 1: Okay.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I don't know if there's anything after that or
what the thing is, but I was very I kept
I kept getting to the place I'm like, oh, I'm
only one hundred bits away.
Speaker 2: I bet I could go back and look under this
rock or smash this pod or whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's fair, I mean, that's I think. My perspective
was like, these bits are going to be throughout the game,
and I'm just gonna continue to get them.
Speaker 2: And sure, I just didn't want to.
Speaker 1: I don't think anything you unlock in it is game
changing with the bits.
Speaker 2: I think I just wanted to know what the next
thing was.
Speaker 3: And the idea, the idea that because there's like and
then Alex, you beat it in two hours. You could
beat it faster than that then, for sure if you
were still going back and getting bits, because it's like
if if once the path is unlocked, you can breeze
through it pretty fast, this will be like a super
cool speed run game. Also, but I was like, I know,
I could just go from point A to point B,
but there's so many little bits I could go back
and get.
Speaker 2: They're called tetras. I don't know. I keep calling them
a little bit. Someone did an interview here and we
learned they were called tetras. I'll call them that.
Speaker 3: But that's a good way to smell the roses. I
guess it's like a fun it's a fun game to
kind of play in a completion of style for me
because it's not too overwhelming, and also it just is
fun to do flips.
Speaker 6: I agree.
Speaker 1: I might actually do a second play through and get
more bits.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, I can get some more movies.
Speaker 4: That's kind of way I did it because I was like,
you know, there's like one more thing to get, and
I was like, yeah, I can just like pick up
our I left off, which is nice.
Speaker 2: Does your bit progression go yeah, whoa.
Speaker 4: Yeah, So you can just kind of keep going through
the game and gather more bits.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm going to be playing this game for the
rest of the year.
Speaker 1: I guess just.
Speaker 6: Getting back to the bit minds knew what they were called.
Speaker 2: Probably bitcoins, I don't know.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, that seems right. Uh, Kyle, can we go
back to you, Sarah? I know you got to get
out of here soon. I believe in this a little early.
But before you do, I'd love to hear your thoughts
on Drag X Drive, which is the wheelchair basketball game
that has been part of Nintendo's launch portfolio.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: Can and you played it right, Yeah, a bit of it.
Is there a campaign or.
Speaker 4: It's not, which is part of the problem, I guess
you could say. But uh yeah, I mean just to
sort of just so Brian like sometimes we'll have games
that he doesn't immediately assign as reviews to people, you know,
ye be like, anybody want to review or look at
Drag Drive and it's just crickets. So we all have
switched to is that we're very excited about it, But
no one was raising her hand for that, and I
was like I was the one that was kind of like,
I'm curious. I'm curious about this thing. So I raised
my hand and yeah, I mean my I did. I
do have a proper review on the site. I gave
it a six seven five, which is like not.
Speaker 1: Also, I'm just realizing how many games you've reviewed, Kyle.
Speaker 5: I know. Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 3: He took he took, not that he took it. Brian
took it from me. Well, no one took it from me.
Speaker 2: I was just busier, but I was going to.
Speaker 1: Changed times.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I kept being like I can do it,
I promise, and Brian's like.
Speaker 6: I'll just give it to Kyle.
Speaker 1: Is real, Okay, Charles, calm down, you can finish your
Shadow Labyrinth review or whatever.
Speaker 4: Are you mad at me, Charles that I took sort
of the game so you can play.
Speaker 3: We should to be totally honest of how I felt
about it and the reason I didn't jump on drag
x drive because I wasn't reviewing it, because I.
Speaker 2: Was like, I'm just I would like to review a
good game.
Speaker 3: For work that I'm having fun playing, and I had
done I wrote. I wrote my FBC Firebreak and my
Shadow Labyrinth reviews on the same day because I like
finally got to both of them after doing all this stuff,
and in both instances, people were like, Charles, I think
your score is too high for what your text is.
I had to I was like, I think you're right.
I think it's a lower score than it is. But
I was like, I I'm glad I'm playing Sure to
See on my own time because I don't have to
you know, rush or whatever. But I was also like,
but I don't have I don't have another six of
another six.
Speaker 2: In me to review Dragon Drive right now.
Speaker 4: And truly it was meant to be an active kindness.
It was meant to take it off of your no,
I know, an act of mercy. Yes, it was weird for.
Speaker 2: Me to be overwhelmed by work and then be like,
what what happened to my work? I was gonna do
Like it was totally fine. I still got the games.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but yeah, Drag Extra Drive six out of ten.
I mean, my my big sort of takeaway from Drag
Drive Drag Extrive, Drag. I'm not sure how you pronounce it,
is it?
Speaker 2: I think it's pronounced drag and dry. I feel like
there's like some something.
Speaker 6: Like Hunter Hunter where you just don't pronounce the X.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 5: Yeah, that's what I was wondering.
Speaker 1: But I mean, if only there was a symbol that
they could use to to imply the word.
Speaker 4: And but my big takeaway was like playing this pronounced
drag and drive.
Speaker 5: Drag and drive.
Speaker 4: Okay, yeah, okay, core is I I for you guys
know those like little foldable like dinner tables that maybe
you put out. That's what I was playing it on.
And I was like, my big surprise was like this
is actually works pretty well, Like this is this is
not like like this isn't remind me of the era
of like that those first few WEI games where you
were like this is straight up like doesn't work. You know,
yeah it is not that it works pretty well, and
there are like it actually does give you nice options
for like you can break on your right wheel and
do like a quick turn and stuff like that. So
and then like the act of shooting the basketball. Actually
it's like just like you kind of lift it and
like do like pantomime sort of shooting basketball. It works
pretty well. It's like a good reminder that motion controls.
Speaker 1: So you are lifting off, you're pushing lifting off, lifting
your hands.
Speaker 6: I mean it's you know, the TV table like it
would be a this motion right, like a forward to
back and then I'll lift up right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like, but if you just kind of like, I'm
like you maybe lift your hand like, oh no, it's
just a forward motion.
Speaker 1: I do have an important question, Kyle. Do you when
you're shooting a basketball do you hold one hand still
and push through with one only one arm or a
person who pushes the ball upwards with both hands. Oh
you mean like in real life, in real life and
in the game.
Speaker 6: What's that?
Speaker 5: Fuck?
Speaker 4: Like in the game, it's just one hand. There's no
advantage to like doing two hands like that.
Speaker 1: So it's just like, okay, so they're they're practicing good
ball form handling, But is that what you do in
real life?
Speaker 5: Real life?
Speaker 4: As I played basketball constantly, as you guys know, yeah,
always passing the rock, I go, I go back and forth.
If I'm really far away, I kind of thrust with
both hands. But if I'm closed it, you know, you know,
it goes right.
Speaker 1: Okay, Yeah, just I just I just want to make
sure the person reviewing this game has proper basketball form
in real life. Well that who has ball knowledge and
can review drag extra yeah.
Speaker 4: By turning around and walking away. But yeah, so the
controls actually work pretty well, and it's funny. I the
way I actually ended up playing it the most comfortably
was wearing jeans and just doing it on my thighs. Actually,
like that ended up being a more surprisingly, like comfortable
way to play the game. So that was like a surprise.
That's like a positive thing to say about Drag Drag
and Drive is like that mechanic is unique and different
and it actually works pretty well, and it does afford
you some opportunity to like do you know, interesting quick
turns and stuff like that. But it's it's not perfect,
you know. It's like I still think you're obviously still
gonna have better controls using a control stick, but that's
not an option for this game. But I mean, the
big thing about it is like it's like, Okay, that
was the first hurdle. It's like, oh, the controls are
weird and they and they actually work and there's nothing
like this, you know. But then like the second part
of it, it was like, well, there's like one mode
which is like you hang around this area and occasionally
you get thrown into games, which is like that's interesting
that you kind of can watch people play live games
and stuff like that, but it's like it's a.
Speaker 1: Area similar to like two K and how you can
like two K in my part probably.
Speaker 2: How you play two K all the time right between games.
Speaker 1: Of yeah all the time.
Speaker 4: Yeah it's all but which is like that's that's neat,
but it's and there's like there's not a lot to
do in there, and between games sometimes they'll have a
mode where like everyone who's in the lobby, like up
to I think twelve people will kind of be thrown
into like one mini game where it's like everyone try
to get this rebound er. We'll have a race, and
then you go back to just jumping into games and
there's just like the games are like fine, I didn't
really feel incentivized to keep playing. There's not really much.
There's like a few unlockables to customize your character, but
not really and like you kind of see everything the
minigames have to offer in like twenty minutes, because it's
like some of it's like racing between cones or like
doing tricks off like half pipes and stuff like that,
and it was like ultimately I was just kind of
like I had no I didn't feel compelled to try
to get better at the game because it was like
not really a reason to like it was it was
all it was all functional, but it's just like there's
just not anything there really to hook you in or
keep you going, you know, especially if if your reaction
to basketball is like, oh this this works okay, Like
that's kind of was like the nicest thing I could
say about it, you know, And it's like, you know,
it's developed by Nintendo and it's like a twenty dollars game,
which is kind of like says a lot about it.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 4: It's like they Nintendo usually charges absolutely as much as
they can for this kind, which I guess you could
argue they did year, but it's just it was just
kind of it's just kind of a shallow game with
interesting controls, and I do give it credit for that.
It's like, wow, these there's nothing like this, and like
you couldn't even port this to like PlayStation, like you know,
like it's like it's just only really gonna work on
switch to ultimately. I mean, I guess maybe you could
do it on PC if you had like motion control
mice or something. I don't even know if that's a thing,
but like so it's like, yeah, you know, what kudos
to that, Like you've made something that really only works
on switch to and I admire it for that. But
it's like beyond just playing for a little while, like
you kind of get everything you're gonna get out of
it quickly. I would be shocked if I ever booted
this up again, other than to maybe show someone it's like,
look this weird thing, you know?
Speaker 6: Yeah?
Speaker 3: So yeah, do you think it's like it has a
place at like a gathering where a bunch of people
are hanging out and it's like, oh, this there's this
game we can all play together, like it is a
multiplayer game. But does it does it have like like
split screen local co op or co op?
Speaker 4: No, No, you need like both joy cons and stuff
like it's I mean, it's you know how like maybe
you buy a new TV and a new console and
you're like you buy a PlayStation five and you're like,
let me show you like Death Straining two so I
can show up my TV. Like you can show that
to a friend and be like this, doesn't this look amazing?
Like that's kind of I think the height of Dragon Drive,
where it's kind of like look at this weird thing.
Speaker 5: Is that's weird. Huh works pretty well? Huh, all right,
yeah we can.
Speaker 4: We can play Bonanza now, Like that's kind of I
think it'll have a weird legacy of being that, like
we'll remember in a couple of years and be like.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Dragon Drive. That was a weird launch window title,
you know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's And can you remind me of what the
headline of your review was?
Speaker 2: Because I thought it was funny.
Speaker 4: I did change it, okay, because I yeah, originally it
was my thumbs and wrist hurt, which it was like
I liked and it was true, like it truly does
hurt my thumbs and my wrist to play that game
over a long period of time and that and that
text is like in the review. But I changed the
headline to be just like I think it was, like
functional but shallow, just to kind of be more like
explain exactly like if you if all you read is
a score in the headline, at least you kind of
know what I'm talking about. Where it's like even though
it's like I like my my wrist and thumbs hurt,
as like a funny headline is that?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Is that because you're playing it so much? Because
you love it is that, right. Yeah.
Speaker 3: I do like the idea of someone like posting, like
a food critic posting review of a new restaurant that
just has my stomach yeah.
Speaker 1: Function shallow, that'd be a food review.
Speaker 4: I was not hungry after I left this restaurant. That's
like the nicest thing.
Speaker 2: That's a good one.
Speaker 6: Yeah.
Speaker 4: But yeah, I mean, I guess I think some people
looked at it as like this weird disaster kind of
ahead of time, like what is this terrible thing? It's
not that, but it's also just not like it's not
like a you know, it's never going to go on sale,
so I wouldn't say, like, you know, hey, maybe check
it out when it's on sale because it's a Nintendo game.
Speaker 5: But yeah, it's fine. It's a little bit. It's like
south of fine. You know.
Speaker 1: Well cool, Kyle, You've got to go. You've got places
to be, things to do. Thank you for joining us
on the magazines to Read and proof. Thank you for
joining us on the show this week. Of course, people
can find you almost every week here on the Game
and former show, but in between they can follow you
on social media at Kyle Hilliard or at Kyle M.
Hilliard depending on the platform.
Speaker 4: What's on Blue Sky, which is where I'm at. Primarily
it's I went through the trouble of getting the u
r L. So Kyle Hilliard dot com on Blue Sky?
Speaker 1: Oh cool, so official, welcome, welcome to the custom r
L me. Neither that's been verifying.
Speaker 6: It means nothing anymore. The check mark needs nothing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it doesn't until like at one and then yeah, exactly. Yeah.
For now it's just a bunch of elites in their
dumb check marks. Yeah. But but once I get one,
there'll be my peers who I adore. Well, I needed
this to assure you that it is in fact me
providing these terrible posts to in the morning. Yeah. Well, Kyle,
we'll let you get out of here. Thanks for being
with us today and we'll talk to you next week.
Welcome back to the Game and Former Show. We're going
to dive into our thoughts on Battlefield six. Eric and
I played the open beta. I had a lot of fun.
I'm not sure what Eric thought. It seemed like he
was having fun with me while playing, but you never know.
And then we're gonna get into is this seat taken
by Charles? Followed by some quick games Colm highlights. Eric,
let's talk about Battlefield, man, where are you at with it?
Speaker 6: Let's talk about the I believe it's the E key,
which you can use for I have your teammates if
they have fallen in battle. Now, this is a universal ability,
I stress universal. Anyone can do this, especially one punch
man who was in my lobby next to my dead
body multiple times as I was flailing for help. You
could have brought me back. That's all I got. No,
I really like Battlefield. I've been a Battlefield player for
a very long time, all the way back to nineteen
forty two. That's like how I've been playing this game
in the series.
Speaker 2: Yeah, guys are way older than I thought.
Speaker 6: I mean I was like, yeah, yeah I was. I
was in the war, I was in the trenches. No,
I wasn't apologized.
Speaker 2: I thought that joke would land way better than it did,
and it did not.
Speaker 1: No, No, No, it's okay. Eric had stolen Valor joke
to make Yeah, yeah, I can't stolen val around Gah,
that's not right.
Speaker 6: No, But I've been playing since Battlefield nineteen forty two.
I loved Battlefield that one and Battlefield two a lot.
On the PC. I kind of fell off around three
and four, and not because I didn't like them, I
just wasn't playing them at the time. Sure, I have
a feeling that was probably because I was playing a
lot of cod at the time.
Speaker 1: Four was a little overrated, I think three Alzheimer.
Speaker 6: But I feel like everything posts let's say twenty one,
forty two, or even post three. The Battlefield series has
been trying to navigate the seas of change in the
modern gaming environment. I felt this especially with some of
their returns to older wars like Battlefield five and things
like that, and Battlefield twenty forty two, which was the
most recent, and also hard Line. Does anyone remember Hardline?
I played hard Line for a hot minute, and that was.
Speaker 1: I didn't play Long one. I think I've played every
Battlefield but hard Line.
Speaker 6: They tried to implement this idea that you would arrest
people in a battlefield game. Crazy concept for the time. Yeah, yeah,
that's what I I enjoyed doing in my team based
squad shooter is arresting people. I really like Battlefield as
a concept. I think on paper, maybe even more than
Call of Duty, because I've always really liked the strategic layer.
I love the metal layer stuff where you're kind of
planning things out. My dad, actually, who also was the
reason I got into Battlefield the first place, loved playing
Commander in Battlefield two on PC where he would drop
things in and coordinate with squad leaders. And he would
be that dude on the mic being like, y'all go
take here. I'm going to drop you some amo here.
We're bringing in artillery support over. We can take b
after we push for this, tanks are coming in and
he was just on it like that. So all that
being said, Battlefield six Open Beta feels like a solid
battlefield game, about as solid as you can make a
Battlefield game nowadays. It definitely feels pulled in different directions
by all that it has to be. And I stress
that because if you look up the developer of this game,
it's Battlefield Studios. What are Battlefield Studios, Dice, Criterion, Motive,
Ripple Effect, multiple devs that came in from other EA
studios to assist on this.
Speaker 5: It is.
Speaker 6: This is all chips down version of Battlefield. And they've
been saying as much at Electronic Arts that there's just
a lot of betting on Battlefield. This specific Battlefield taking
off and being the game that kind of springs this
franchise back to life, and I think the effort to
make it do that could ultimately be its undoing, because
I think the more that this game focuses on being
a good battlefield game, it's got some really solid stuff there.
I like what they're doing with the weapon loadouts. I
don't love the UI, but it's I enjoy getting the guns,
leveling up the guns, equipping them all kind of the
classic battlefield things that you do. I love being able
to freely swap between weapons on the different loadouts, so
I can go in as a medic but still be
running a DMR or running a carbine or running an
LMG and not have to worry too much about oh,
I have to be a certain class so that means
I have to use a certain gun in the field.
Speaker 1: That's interesting. Let's put a pin in that. I'm going
to come back to that later, but please keep going.
Speaker 6: But it's a lot of I don't know if you
felt this when we were trying to lobby up and play,
but there's just so many menus. It's clear that the
groundwork is laid here for them to try and push.
Here are all the different Matt playlists that you can do,
and here's the things that you can chase after, and
it's this idea of the how do I put this?
It is the massive universe of content, not quite chasing
Fortnite or roadblocks in terms of how expansive it could be,
because I don't think it can do that. But every
shooter does kind of want some of that pie, right,
like they want that level of we are larger than
just playing a team based shooter, because there's something attractive
about being as big as Fortnite, right There's there's something
alluring about that, especially to people who like money. But
I don't know if Battlefield can or should be that.
I think Battlefield works best when it is battlefield and
we're on a map and we were playing I think
it was a rush game the other night, and I'm
not even a huge rush fan. I'm mostly a conquest fan.
But we were locking down a point, we were holding it.
There was a part where you and I were kind
of doing this infiltration and we were moving from one
point to another and we were checking corners and the
squad was spawning in on us, and it felt like we
were doing like a real push into enemy territory to
like hold a location and I was like, that's battlefield
to me, that is that moment of it.
Speaker 1: I remember that exact moment too. I was like this
it did. It felt very cool and like the fact
that like we there was like a sniper pinning us
down and like you know, you got shot and I
like try to sneak around and shoot this night because
I was playing a recon as well. That felt really
cool to me. And I agree with a lot of
your points. I think I don't know, did you because
I know we played the first day together and then
I played again in the closed weapon lobbies? Did you
play any of that?
Speaker 6: I haven't tried the closed weapon lobbies?
Speaker 1: Okay, I liked that a lot. It was way more
like classic battlefield, where like your weapons are locked to
your class, and I found that it was it felt
less chaotic and more organized as a team. I think
one of the things that recent battle especially twenty forty two,
fell into is just feeling like chaos, and there there
is an element of chaos to battlefield, like that is
has always been part of the charm, you know, like
you know, the the iconic video of like the dude
jumping out of the jet rocketing. You know that all
the viral collipse like that is born out of call
of or not God not called du battlefields commitment to
kind of cultivating those moments of chaos. But I think
some recent releases have gone a little too far in that,
and like I think it just feels like two kids
like playing with a bunch of army figures and just
smashing them together, and less so a tactical multiplayer experience
that I think a lot of us fell in love
with the battlefield for, you know, being strategic about which
points we're going after, do we have, how's the balance
on our team when it comes to you know, assault
versus you know, recon or support or engineers. Yeah, And
I felt like the closed matchmaking playlist kind of got
me more in that in that area, and I was
really enjoying it so much so that I'm I'm I'm sad,
I'm sad the beta is over now because that would
hit it would that would hit right now? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: I think my thing with it and maybe the biggest
because I think ultimately I like having the open weapons personally,
just because if I'm a medic and I'm on a
big map, sometimes it's like, why do I have to
use an annoying little carbine? At least give me like
some level of weapons variation, especially on differing map sizes
and things like that. I feel that addresses some of it.
There are always going to be people who roll in
and they're like, I'm whatever class, but I also have
a sniper rifle and I'm going to play like a
sniper the whole time. Yeah, that's always going to happen,
but I like at least that now when somebody plays
Recon and they're scoping, they like auto tag people. I
don't know if that was a twenty forty two edition
or not.
Speaker 1: The auto tag is a auto tag is a passive
perk of the recon.
Speaker 6: Of Recon specifically, I don't know when, if that got
added or if it's new for Battlefield six or not.
That tells you how much I really played of twenty
forty two at the end of the day, but especially Recon.
I'm sorry, I don't play Recon. I like snipers.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'll hold that I play Recon. I'll hold that
I play support. I like to fix up the tanks.
I like to make sure that our armor's doing well,
and I like to take out their armor if I can,
because I'm all about that that infantry vehicle interaction. But
to that point, one thing that is already kind of
a knock against the game for me is that I
don't feel like the maps.
Speaker 6: Are super memorable. And even in twenty forty two, a
game which did get i think rightly so a lot
of criticism, there were specific maps, specifically that rocket one
where where there was a rocket that took off and
stuff like that, that had big landmarks, noticeable points of contention,
things that people would try and fight and buy over.
It felt like there were important areas of the map
that felt important to hold and that made a statement.
And the maps that at least we played in the
open beta did not really have that. They all just
kind of felt like urban environments that had a lot
of buildings. And I don't know if this is maybe
just me not finding those particular maps remarkable, or if
there's a level of there's a lot of destruction in
this game, a lot of level devolution and hitting stuff
with a tank shell or an RPG and causing it
to fracture. But by about five minutes into any match.
Most buildings are some form of the side has been
blown out. There's kind of little outcroppings and ledges you
can get to with windowsills that might provide some cover
for all of about ten seconds before another grenade or
rocket takes it out and now it's just an open hole.
It feels like you're kind of decaying the level into
its base, like you're bonanzaing the level in real time,
and that actually it actually makes some of those areas
start to feel less identifiable and important to me if
everything is destroyable. I know that might be controversial for
the battlefield fans, but I do feel like there's some
level of you need lands, You need places that have importance,
that have a degree of rigidity to them, So then
you have kind of a funnel effect of Let's say
there's there's a map that has like a football stadium
in the middle of it or something like that, that
becomes like a really good landmark to base yourself around.
Oh hey, there's a tank. It's sweeping around the left
side of the football stadium something like that. Instead you're
kind of just going like tank east question mark. I
don't even know if that's east, Like that's a tank
over there and you pay it and that's about all
you can really do. And I feel like that's going
to affect that level of communication and interaction that that
normally happens. Maybe people don't want that anymore either. That's
maybe the other thing is maybe people don't want to
talk on video games anymore. They just want to like
be in discord with their friends and not participate with
the broader group. Maybe that's where I am different. So
who says that's fair?
Speaker 1: You know, I am taking a look right now on
the website. They've kind of got They've announced a lot
of maybe not a lot of, but they've announced the
slight of launch maps. The ones that we played that
were available when we played were Siege of Cairo, Liberation Peak,
and Empire State. I think out of those three, I
only ever got matched into Liberation Peak or Siege of Cairo.
I don't know if I got mapped, got match made
into Empire State.
Speaker 6: I don't remember it off the top of my head.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 6: I remember there was the Rush map specifically, I think
stood out the most to me, and that was because
of there was some interesting elevation that we were trying
to hold on one of the points, and we were
really locking it down, and it was creating these interesting
funnel points and places where people could run in and
cause damage, and so we'd have to watch all these
different windows and doors and things like that, and it
felt like we were really hunkering down in an area,
and so that stood out. But I don't know that
many of the There was the one that was kind
of just a conquest map that I felt like we
were just going back and forth across on the entire time,
and I never really remarked upon it. I do remember
the mountains one that had a lot of mountains in it,
and that I had one kind of area in the
middle that had some cool elevation, and so holding that
spot became really important because it was super easy to
defend because you have the elevation advantage. But get a
tank rolling up there in infantry surging behind them, Suddenly
you can push in and now you've got a really
good foothold to advance your offensive across the rest of
the map. I like using hand motions when.
Speaker 1: I describe, yeah, I you know, looking at the other
maps on that are slated Operation Firestorm from Battlefield three
is returning. That's not the Battlefield three map. I want
them to bring back. I want them to bring back
Oh god, it's the one where you jump off at
the edge and you have to skydive down.
Speaker 6: Yeah. I think I remember what you're talking about.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, maybe not. I also being border is also good,
very good one. Yeah. There's a lot of battlefield maps
that that's they could bring back.
Speaker 6: But there are a few that are I think they'll
probably bring back at some point when they have to
start doing the you know, bring players back stuff, and
they'll start there's usually always a reskin of Wake Island
or something like that from the A nineteen forty two
and and and stuff like that. So I wouldn't be
surprised to see that pop.
Speaker 1: In you put you put Wake Island in this game.
Speaker 6: I'll be there, wait Wake Island twenty four to seven
servers find me there any data?
Speaker 1: Yeah, but I actually don't know if they have boats
in this game. I don't think they have any naval maps. Yeah,
and I'm looking at the slate. They've got a like
French Quarter infantry only map. They've got Operation Firestorm. Rance
does not have boats. You're right, New Sobic City, which
is on the outskirts of Cairo. They've got Mirek Valley,
which is the largest map at launch, a massive war
time or in landscape filled with every type of vehicle. Interesting.
I wonder if that means boats also fell.
Speaker 6: I felt like vehicles were a little understated in what
we played. I don't know if that was because of
the modes we kept getting matched into, but I feel
like I mostly saw a few APCs, IFVs, and then
maybe a tank every now and then. But maybe that's
also because, and this is something I love about Battlefield,
there's always somebody who camps out waiting for the helicopter.
Speaker 1: Or the plane or the jet. Yeah.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it jumps in it and just immediately beefs it.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I saw that playoff in one of our matches.
Speaker 6: I literally saw somebody take off with the helicopter and
do the giant bomb thing of like fly off and
then land on the roads and explode.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: That's that's Battlefield to me. That's beautiful.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I am definitely going to play the full release.
I'm looking forward to it. It's yeah. I think the
big thing is like where will this fall in the
echelon of Battlefield kind of will be towards the top,
middle bottom. I kind of feel like somewhere in the
middle is kind of what I'm feeling right now, Like
it doesn't feel particularly stand out. However, I am just
excited to have a battlefield that is, you know, supported again,
And I think the expansions they're making to Portal, which
is their Good Dough powered ug U GC stuff that
could be interesting. And I think it's really cool that
it's like they're using good Dough to make that. But yeah,
I don't know what we'll see how how it all
shakes out. Yeah, I just I feel like that, like
you said, Eric, like they've been pretty public about this game,
there's a lot riding on it, and I'm right now
I'm not seeing it like I'm going to probably enjoy
it based on what I've played. If it's anything like
what I've played, I'll find a lot of enjoyment out
of it. But I am very specifically somebody who will
hop around from those various games and spend a couple
of weeks in them and then I'm out. And I'm curious,
like how many people are like that, or if there
are going to be people that this kind of gets
its hooks in. I guess we'll see, but yeah, Battlefield
six out October. Don't have the date on the top
of my head, I can. I can grab it real quick.
Is October tenth, October tenth.
Speaker 6: Thank you.
Speaker 1: Google. AI served me a bunch of nonsense that I
didn't want. So at the top of the feed.
Speaker 6: Well that might character. That might also be a double
check you. Okay, no, that's real, that's real. For the
first thing it gave me was a new story, but
it was like a leak new story, and I was like, oh.
I scrolled down and there was the official Battlefield six.
I was like, okay, good.
Speaker 1: Well, Charles, before we get to our game, some highlights
I want toss you to talk about. Is this seat taken? Yeah,
game I've been looking forward to. I got announced what
a few months ago, probably six months ago.
Speaker 3: I have no idea I'll so I'll be hon it.
This just happens sometimes, is you aren't You don't know
every game that comes out in the job, and then
you get an email of someone like, hey, here's a
game that's out.
Speaker 6: And I was like, yeah, that's cool.
Speaker 3: And they a lot sometimes, especially when it's like a
smaller game, They're like, here's a game.
Speaker 2: Here's a code. If you want to check it out,
go ahead and do it. And I usually just kind
of scroll through those and mark them off as red.
Speaker 3: I'll reply to them sometimes, but you know, you just
have a lot of stuff going on, and any any
given day you got like a dozen emails of indie
games that are trying to get attention, which I wish
I could give attention to all of them in said
of some other stuff, but I digress.
Speaker 2: This was one where I like from the email is like.
Speaker 3: Huh, this seems cool, and then I downloaded it and
then it like shadow dropped. I want to say at
one of them in Tendo things, it know what it
was it shadow dropped one day.
Speaker 6: It is definitely featured on I think the most recent
Nintendo Indie Showcase if I remember correct.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, because there was the partner director and
there's any World, but this is definitely more indie world.
Speaker 2: Anyways, I love this game. I'm planning on reviewing it.
Speaker 3: I don't know if i'll have it up by the
time this episode goes up, but I'm hoping to get
it up this week. But the gist of the game
is that it's you are in various settings in which
people can sit down or stand up, or it could
be arranged certain ways, and you have a crowd of
people that want to populate the area and they all
have little different preferences. So it'll start off and it's
just like we're going on the bus and Bob wants
a nile seat and Tom wants a window seat, and it's.
Speaker 2: Like, okay, that's pretty eas I can do that classic.
Speaker 3: But then it's like Bob wants anile seat, Tom wants
a window seat, but Tom hasn't showered and Bob hates
bad smells, so it's like, okay, now you gotta spread them.
Speaker 1: Art sounds like some good game design. I like it.
Speaker 3: And the farther you get, the more specific, the more
varied and specific it gets. So like you'll have a
later bus level where it's like blah blah blah, Martha
gets motion sick at the back of the bus, or
Johnny wants someone to talk to and so you need
to sit him next to someone else that wants to
talk to someone. But then when they're talking to me
to create a field of noise, and someone who wants
to sleep can't sit near them, and so I'm just
very impressed by the best puzzle games to me are
a I like it when a game gets more complex
and that's where the challenge comes from, rather than just
like making really really intense versions of the same thing,
because there's a there's a version of this where it's
only island window seats and bad smelling people or whatever,
and there's like one solution every single one.
Speaker 2: Instead, I like that, it's like.
Speaker 3: There's those there's boat levels where you've got seats on
the edge and then seats in the middle, and that
kind of plays around with like who's adjacent to who.
But some people don't want to get in the waters,
some people need sunscreen, some people have sunscreen. There's a
classroom level where the teacher wants everyone to focus, and
some people will talk if they're next.
Speaker 2: To each other, so you have to be really strategic
about all of it.
Speaker 3: My favorite ones are at airport levels, where there's the
seats and then there's the line to board the plane,
and each person has a flight number that they're getting on,
and so you have to pay attention to what their
flight number is to see if they're sitting down or
in line.
Speaker 2: And then there's like.
Speaker 3: Some people have the VIP pass. Some people don't have
a VIP pass, so you have to be in different ones.
Speaker 1: You gotta sign up for the skymiles, y'all.
Speaker 6: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: There's some people where it's like this guy's watching a
movie really loudly on his phone, and this guy wants
to sleep, so don't put him next to that. But
then also it'll be like this guy really wants to
watch a movie on someone else's phone, so you get
to put them next to them. So I it's the
criteria that they make and the conditions in which they're met.
It's new and exciting every level, and then each locale
it also tells a story. There's a character whose name
I can't remember, but Nat I.
Speaker 2: Think is the main character's name.
Speaker 3: Everyone is little like shapes, so it's like squares and
circles and triangles and rohmbuses and stuff, and that is
a rhombus who wants to be an actor, and so
you kind of watch their journey as they like find
out there's another rhombus actor that they want to go find,
and it's like as they go from Barcelona to Paris
to New York to some other place.
Speaker 2: And it's an interesting. It's not like a heavy story.
Speaker 3: It's just like each area, so like a bus level,
for example, will have like five different stages, so you'll
do just five different combinations of increasingly complicated people in
that space, and one of those five will have like
a little dialogue exchange between Thata and someone else to
kind of explain what's going on in the story. But
I appreciate that the story is also about someone trying
to fit in and find their spot, much like what
is happening in the literal puzzle levels, which is cool,
and the music's nice and the art is nice as
fun sound design.
Speaker 2: You can.
Speaker 3: I think you can complete the levels without getting everyone
in the right spot. I've just been perfecting all of
them because it feels like the correct way to.
Speaker 1: Is it like a star ranking kind of, I think.
Speaker 3: So, like you get a point for every person that's
like satisfied, so I haven't all tested out before I
actually submit the review.
Speaker 2: But like, for.
Speaker 3: Example, if everyone satisfied but one person wanted to sleep
and they're near someone loud, then you just wouldn't get
a point for that person. I did one level where
I had one person that was unsatisfied, and it didn't
catch it un till afterwards.
Speaker 6: Can't and then I could go back. They just wanted
to sleep. Why would you do that?
Speaker 3: But and then if you get all the stars in
one like city, so if you got all the stars
in Barcelona, then you get a little bonus level. That's
like a really specific situation. That's really cool.
Speaker 2: So I did a wedding.
Speaker 3: Where you have to decide, like people want to sit
near certain people, and someone's like the bride and groom
and they got to be in the special spots, and
other people want fish, you know, other people want chicken,
et cetera. And then there's one that's like a dance
party and someone needs to be near the speaker. And
this guy's like, I'm in the band, put me on stage.
Speaker 2: And it's just.
Speaker 3: Very very charming, very good. Highly recommend. It's on switch
and uh PC, I'm playing on PC.
Speaker 5: It's nice.
Speaker 2: Nice to have the mouse.
Speaker 3: I wonder if you can use the mouse on the
switch to version. I think it's just Switch one actually,
but still good game.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah, sounds like Toaster is going buck wild in
the background.
Speaker 2: I didn't know if you guys could hear that or not.
Speaker 1: It's okay, it's okay. I want to acknowled for a sec. Yeah, no, no, no,
we don't need to pause. I just want to say,
shout out to toaster, shout toast, hold it down, whatever
is happening out there. He's on top of it.
Speaker 3: He doesn't care if the seat's taken. He's gonna yell
you till it's gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 6: Do you do y'all have specific rules that you would
have or I don't want to sit next to this,
or I do want to sit next to this because
I have one I immediately thought of when you were
talking about airplanes. Please seat me as far as possible
away from anybody who thinks it's okay to take their
shoes off on the airplane.
Speaker 1: That is Yeah, that's follicle beavior.
Speaker 3: Okay, Okay, can I canny posted like anyone that has
their toes out on an airplane?
Speaker 1: Yes, jail, Okay? Can I ask you a question just hypothetically?
Speaker 6: Oh, no, I've seen.
Speaker 1: The Let's say I was on a twelve hour flight. No, wait,
nobody's next to me in the immediate row. Can I
just take my my shoes off but have my socks
on twelve hour flight? It's cramped there's nobody in my aisle.
Speaker 3: So here's here's my take. I think it's fine if
no one notices like I shouldn't.
Speaker 1: Like I wear. I wear clean socks when I get
on the way.
Speaker 3: Like if your feet don't smell and you can take
off your shoes and no one smells it and no
one's looking at your toes, I think that's fine.
Speaker 2: I think if you're making a.
Speaker 3: Big show and like, really the socks off in the air,
I'm pulling my Yeah, okay, but I don't.
Speaker 2: I don't have an aversion to feat personally.
Speaker 6: You said you wore you put on clean socks. Number one,
I hope. So number two, that's they're they're no longer
clean because okay.
Speaker 1: But I've only been wearing it. Yeah, but they've only
been on my feet for like two hours at this point,
usually because I usually put fresh socks on as soon
as I right before I leave for the airport, so
a lot because I hate wearing socks, and so they
are not on my feet until like I'm about to
walk out the door. I to be clear, I've only
done this one time on a plane, and it was
this very specific.
Speaker 6: It was a twelve hour flight and yeah it was going.
Speaker 1: Yes, it was like it was.
Speaker 6: I don't see it, then I don't have an issue
with it. If I notice it, if I am accomplice
to it, then I'm going to have a problem with it.
So maybe that's my addendum as that is the sea
taking character is don't let me see the grippers. Don't
don't let me turn my eyes and see it.
Speaker 1: The one thing I don't want to be sat next
to on a plane is there are several a talker
who doesn't get the clue and I barely reciprocate. Yeah, yeah, exactly.
I think the big thing is I don't want a
man spreader. I am very much aware of the space
that I take up on a plane as a bigger guy,
and I go out of my way to make sure
everyone is as comfortable as possible. But the people, the
little the little men who are like half my size
and spreading alley, ramming their knees into my knees. I'm like,
you don't want to try to box me out, because
if we're playing that game, it's PvP. At that point,
it's yeah, yea, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. If we're playing
that game, you're gonna lose buddy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's also like, don't sit if you're gonna it's
the words.
Speaker 3: When you're in the middle and both other people have
taken the arm rests, it's like, dude.
Speaker 6: Yeah, I think friend of the show not an armrest person,
So I don't really mind that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I kind of like, do one of these things.
Speaker 6: I do I do an arm cross or kind of
arms out in front. Yeah, yeah, yeah, usual.
Speaker 2: Who's the front of the show.
Speaker 1: You're gonna call alex uh Sean Thomas. He had a
great point on social media recently. If you're a middle
row person, then you should be able to get at
least one arm rest.
Speaker 2: That's what I think.
Speaker 3: I think the window person gets the window, the isle
person gets the aisle, and then the middle person gets
those arms. That's what I think is a fair trade.
Speaker 6: I'm a window person, and I if I have the window,
I'm all up against that window to the point that
I feel like I would be in severe danger if
that window even slightly moved. But I'm just like in
if I can get in the alcove like that and
get a nice little headrest going there, because I don't
I don't put my seat back. I feel very self conscious.
Speaker 2: That would be.
Speaker 3: That's my sorry almost I almost swore I got actually
two heated there, I think. So my thing is I
need leg room. Most planes are just literally not big
enough for me, so I kind of I have to say.
Speaker 1: The last flight I got off of like a week ago,
I left the plane with like like indentations all along
my legs from how shoved up they were against everything.
Speaker 3: Yeah, mine's like the just the forward my my thigh bone.
The length from the back of my seat back to
the back of the seat in front of me is
the length of my thigh bone on an average So
I can, yeah, I can fit them in there, and
then I cannot move And if you try to bend
it back, that like fills me with a primal rage
that I cannot express.
Speaker 2: But shoot, I was gonna say something.
Speaker 1: Else that really just took over your It really just
you saw red.
Speaker 2: For a moment I had, I had.
Speaker 3: Like a my magazine was full of a bunch of
things to say, and then all of a sudden I
had to unload all my thoughts on this.
Speaker 1: pH Yeah you rerated a systems yeah to fire.
Speaker 3: I will think it was just the the aisle thing
and then I think if I was in a car,
it's a it's another thing of like I can't sit
behind the driver, like I need someone that can scoot
forward if they need to.
Speaker 6: I don't have that problem as much. I would also
see red when it's somebody watching videos on a phone
or a tablet and they don't have headphones.
Speaker 1: In raw sound, throw them off the plane.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I don't know when midair midair jeopardize all of us.
Speaker 6: I don't know when society decided that it was suddenly
chilled to start doing that. But if you don't show
up with headphones for your flight, you don't get You
just d find in herself. Don't share that with the world.
All right, we don't want to hear your bad tiktoks.
They're bad tiktoks. They're never good tiktoks.
Speaker 1: I watch, Okay, all right, this is getting into this
is the good, the good stuff. I on my recent trip,
which was a nightmare trip. It's the worst trip I
ever went on because I had to travel with Matt Miller,
you know, and you know he's just such a hard,
hard guy to get along with. He was putting, he
was taking his shoes off. Yeah, so have you seen
the movie Noor. I've heard, Oh my god, I.
Speaker 3: I have several times on a plane been like wow,
I kind of watched the movie and Nora, but I
couldn't do that on a plane.
Speaker 1: I watched. I watched the movie, and a row over
from me was like a group, a group with like children,
and but like I during the really risque scenes, like
I put one hand up to the monitor and like covered. No, No,
I mean they are.
Speaker 6: That's theirs, that's that's their thing. Yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I think they shouldn't put on plane.
Speaker 6: Yes, I mean I don't watched it in public. It
shouldn't be on a plane, that's yeah. And let's let's listen.
Speaker 1: I had the seat open next to me, so I
moved over as far as I cut away from them
to watch it. And then and then in the particularly
gruesome scenes, there's not a gruesome.
Speaker 2: It's the nudity.
Speaker 1: They're going hand, they're going hand. Yeah, they are. The activities, yes,
they are. The desires are on full display of flesh.
I felt like one hand up. I felt like one
hand up.
Speaker 2: And then you said the word flesh.
Speaker 6: Afterwards, you could have said something so much more disgusting,
like like just on a base level, and it would
been less worse than that was.
Speaker 2: Like, yeah, so the movie I halfway through and then
I was like, I gotta take my socks off for this.
Speaker 6: The worst possible, Oh my god.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But you know, I usually like try to be
sensitive about who's around me, but as of late, I'm like,
you don't gotta look. I'm gonna watch my show and
if somebody's getting dogged, then.
Speaker 6: So be it. Somebody gave me a weird look. Okay,
this is maybe like the one weird thing that I
do when I travel is I won't sometimes depends on it.
I won't watch anything on my seat back. But if
I'm just listening, because usually I listen to music, I
try to sleep, and if I can't sleep, I don't
really want to go through the whole thing of finding
something and putting headphones in because it's always like an
OX headphone jack and I have Bluetooth stuff with me,
so I'll listen to my music. But sometimes I'll just
glance over and watch somebody else's TV screen and I
can't hear what's happening, but I just kind of ingest
the movie as it is and so that's how I
saw How to Train Your Dragon like twice because people
were just watching it on the plane. Someone gave him
a weird look for doing that, like they like turned around.
Speaker 1: Like are you looking at me?
Speaker 6: And I was like, no, I'm but like explaining it
is kind of hard. Like I was watching the screen,
like if.
Speaker 1: There is somebody in front of me playing a movie
and there are subtitles on. There have been times, multiple
occasions I've watched entire movies. Yes, just reading subtitles of
the on the screen in front of me. Yeah, And
I'm like, huh, I, I'm glad I didn't see that
because I wouldn't have want to watch that. But I'm
just like kind of read my way through this movie.
Speaker 6: I saw half of like a really bad horror movie
that way. I think it was they were stuck on
top of a tower or something and they were gonna
fall off or I don't remember what it was, but
it was bad. Oh barbarian No, no, no, No, that's
that's a basement, isn't it. That's a basement.
Speaker 1: Well there's a water tower in it too.
Speaker 4: No.
Speaker 6: This The whole thing is like they climb up a
tower and then the ladder breaks and then they're stuck
up there. I don't know that that was the farthest
I got.
Speaker 1: With it, you know, you know, it's really funny. Another anecdote.
I'm sorry we've gone so we've gone so far off
the tracks. It's okay, though, Miller on that trip I
sat behind him. I forgot this. On our trip back home.
One of our trips back home, he put on a Nora,
but I was behind him and I had already watched
a Nora. You were like yeah, and I was like,
I was like, I want to see how he reacts
when like the scenes come up, because he's got a
person next to him, and he's like if you don't
know Miller, he's like very very polite person and like
very like Miller.
Speaker 2: I feel like was born a boss of someone.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it feels like he's just the boss baby. Yeah,
but like he's very considered of other people. And I
was I was like taking bets in turn. I was like,
is Miller going to turn this thing off? Is he
going to keep going? What's he doing? And to his credit,
he just had some like very uncomfortable shifts, like somebody's
getting hammed on in the scene and he's like, time
to take my water out and drink some water and
like like kind of block part of this screen with
the water bottle and like not really, and I got off.
I was like, what do you think about a Nora?
And he was like well, I was like, yeah, good
movie though, Right.
Speaker 2: So I don't like these new verbs you keep creating.
Speaker 1: Getting hammed on?
Speaker 6: Is that a thing?
Speaker 1: Eric, I'm trying to keep it. I'm trying to keep
it pseudo family friendly. Yeah, yeah, no one, No one.
Speaker 6: Can intuit your meaning. Yeah, the advertisers are gonna love
getting handed on.
Speaker 1: Is what it is. That's part of life, part of life.
These are all real life situations we find out just
you're just you just can't.
Speaker 6: Eat ham anymore.
Speaker 1: I guess there are other verbs I could use, but
they're very explicit, so I'm not gonna say them.
Speaker 2: You could just say during the love scenes or something like.
Speaker 6: That, during the love scene, during the more passionate moments
of the movie. Yeah, okay, I have fine, getting a
little mechanical with it over here. We need shirts now,
new merch ideas say what getting hand hand?
Speaker 1: I got hand on? Anyways? Video games, let's round the
show out with some games come highlight. I'm pulling up.
I'm pulling up. Uh, we were about to we were
about to crash into the ocean, but pulled us right up.
We're all good games Come highlights. Did you guys have
anything big that that really hit for you? I feel
like it was kind of a mid show a little bit.
There are some surrounding announcements that got me really excited.
We saw a bigger look at Word of Warcraft Midnight,
the upcoming expansion. For a wow, they showed off the
new Ally race that is going to be in the
game that you can play as, and it's the first
Allied race in a long time, pretty much since Battle
for Azaroth in twenty eighteen, where I'm like, oh, that's
like a cool Allied race. The others have kind of
been mid for me. The new Allied race.
Speaker 2: Are the.
Speaker 1: Hara let me let me pull it up. The hair
a near. I'm gonna double check real quick because it's
a funky, funky pronunciation, but yeah, they're like these these
creatures that they were introduced in the War Within, which
was the last expansion, And yeah the hair in near
I was correct. And they are a group of secluded
Hunters who you encounter in this upcoming expansion and the
place that they're from. They don't actually build their architecture,
they grow everything, and so like they've got these like
really cool fungal towers and Moss Bridge and like these
Really it sounds like a really cool idea for a
little society of new people and wow, so I'm excited
to kind of get that going. They showed off more
player housing and the new zones I feel like the
new there's three new raids dropping at launch, I think,
and and eight new dungeons. It it seems like a
pretty beefy update that'll be coming sometime in twenty twenty six.
So that's probably probably my personal highlight. What about you, Charles, I've.
Speaker 2: Got the full trilogy here. Oh my god, Lego Batman one,
Lego Batman two, DC Superheroes, and Lego Batman three. Beyond Gotham.
Speaker 3: I'm I'm the game. I'm the Lego game Informer guy.
I don't know if you've ever read my artist profile
my author profile on gaminformer dot com, but it is
ninety percent just me talking about Lego Star Wars.
Speaker 1: I want to read it right now for the audience.
Speaker 5: Yeah, please do.
Speaker 1: I'm pulling up your staff gamefor dot com slash Staff.
Do you ever need to go and find people? Ever
since receiving Lego Star Wars as a Christmas present in
two thousand and five, Charles has been an avid gamer.
Since then, He's had the chance to play lots of
other games like Lego Star Wars two, Lego Star Wars
The Complete Saga, Lego Star Wars three, The Clone Wars,
and even Lego Star Wars The Skywalker Saga he loves.
He also loves RPG's rhythm games and then with a
great story. We're almost done now. Charles is stilled to
be part of the game from her team, where he
writes podcasts and edits video. He currently lives in Ohio.
While doxing yourself, Charles with his partner, their dog, and
their two cats. GOODBYO, thank you, thank you.
Speaker 3: Anyways, Lego Star Wars, Yeah, it was my first video game.
I really like all the Lego games and Lego Batman.
I had it on the DS hmmm, and there was
like a console version and I didn't have I don't
think it was on the Wii, but it was on
like PlayStation two and I have a PlayStation two, and
I would go to my friends. I had Lego Batman
for the PlayStation two, and I'm.
Speaker 2: Like, you gotta let me in. This seems like the
coolest thing in the whole world.
Speaker 3: For some reason, I thought it was a For some reason,
I thought it was so cool that in the console
versions of the games you could tilt the stick and
walk before you ran, because I played Lego Star Wars
on PC and I only had the arrow key and
you could only run, and I was like, one day,
I'll unlock the walking. Anyways, just a lot of nostalgia
for me. I really liked the Skywalker saga and they
kind of like Lego was like they were churning them
out for a few years there, like it was like
one a year for a while, and then they started
really ramping it up. And then there was an era
where I was like way too old to be playing them,
and I fell off for I don't know, I was
a senior in high school or whatever. But they had
like Lego Incredibles and like, uh, I don't know, just
a bunch of a bunch of Lego games that I.
Speaker 2: That weren't really on my radar at all.
Speaker 1: The last one I played was Lego Marvel Superheroes.
Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, I love that one.
Speaker 3: Also, the one I really connected with as a kid,
it was the original Lego Star Wars. But then my
brother and I played so much Lego Batman two, and
not for like any particular reason. We would just both
spawn in. It had an open world Gotham City, and
we would just like make up games to play in
open world Gotham City, Like we would play tag and
hide and Seek. And we had one game where I
would play as the Flash and he would play as
Mister Freeze and or no, he plays Captain Cold or
I guess he played Miss Freeze, whatever case is. He
would try to freeze me when I would run super fast,
and for some reason we thought that was like peak
game design.
Speaker 2: Was this game that the two of us.
Speaker 3: This is a game that I just like have have
an unnecessary nostalgia for because of the situations around the
game I created with my brother, But.
Speaker 2: There was a big gap.
Speaker 3: And then they did the Skywickersaga, which was like really
reinvented the formula and made it like palatable to play
as an adult. And uh, there's like character classes and
I feel like there's like you can level up.
Speaker 1: In that game.
Speaker 2: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It was just like way way more in depth than
the series it'd ever been. And now this feels like
kind of what they're doing with Lego Batman, and it's
like a Batman.
Speaker 1: I would play the hell out of a Lego Batman
right about now. That feels like, yeah, yeah, I played
Lego Horizon Adventures and I didn't think the writing was
good and it was kind of a little insufferable for me.
Speaker 2: And it's a different studio.
Speaker 3: Also, like like Post Post like twenty twenty or so,
there's been a lot of other studios that are getting
the Lego license to do other things, cause I think
TT Games. I don't know if they had like an
exclusive license for a while or what the deal was,
but you'll like Lego Horizon was not TT Games.
Speaker 2: What's that other one? Builders?
Speaker 1: Am I making that up Build Journey?
Speaker 5: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, that's not teach Those are really good, are awesome,
just no shade to them, just different different series.
Speaker 1: Sure.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And so this is like they did Skyricrosaga kind
of off the radar for a bit.
Speaker 2: Now they're coming back. They're doing Lego Batman.
Speaker 3: It's got scenes from like the movies and stuff. They
always did their own Lego Batman stories, and now it's
like looks like we're playing stuff that's in the Dark
Night trilogy. In the Batman twenty twenty two, they have
the explosive gel from the Arkham games. And I don't
know like what playable characters there are, because it used
to be a thing in the Lego games where it's
like we have one hundred and fifty Batman characters and
it goes from Batman and Robin and Robin in a
scuba suit and Robin in a different scuba suit, Nightwing
and night Wings with no hair, and then it's also
like Condiment King or whatever, like they really they really
milk it. And this one, as far as I know,
there's like five playable characters that they've announced so far,
and I'm curious if it's gonna like expand or if
they're gonna keep it like more focused.
Speaker 2: But I'm just this is the most most nostalgic type
of game that could exist for me, and I'm just
really excited to see.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and to be clear, it's called Lego Batman Legacy
of the Dark Knight, yes, which I think including the
Dark Knight, and I know it includes like some scenes
from those moves the Nolan.
Speaker 2: Verse, it's kind of unclear what like how exactly they're in.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there is some kind of incorporation though.
Speaker 2: Open World Gotham again, which is exciting.
Speaker 6: That is exciting.
Speaker 2: And my got my brother to play Hide and Seek
with me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you can play mister College mister frees in the flash.
There we go, Eric, Any any highlights from you for
the show?
Speaker 6: Two honorable mentions. First, I always love the Monster Hunter
crossovers with the Final Fantasy fourteen, especially what fourteen ends
up getting, so I'm very much looking forward to that content.
It looked like Zoshiva is going to be the the
Raid monster. I believe Ratholo was the previous one from
Monster Hunter World maybe World Ice Born, but you could
get a really cool amounts and do some really cool
fights that incorporate some cool mechanics. I've never played the
inverse of that where they put Final Fantasy monsters into
Monster Hunter, but I have like kind of an endgame
Monster Hunter Wild's character, and it looks like Omega is
the one that's going into Monster Hunter Wilds for those
who play Final Fancy fourteen at home, you know that
Omega is sick. It's cool as hell.
Speaker 1: So for those what's omega?
Speaker 6: Omega is like a super weapon. It's it's basically like
one of the most powerful weapons in all of Final Fantasy,
next to Alexander and things like that. The idea of
this is a construct meant to just be the ultimate
weapon and the metal gear, yeah, you know what, not
that far off. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's pretty similar.
So I think that's pretty cool. And then Zoshiva was
the flagship monster for Monster Hunter, is the dragon that
has the big electric whip chains and stuff like that,
So I imagine that could do some cool stuff in
Final Fantacy fourteen, so I'm looking forward to checking that out. Also,
honorable mention to one that I know you also care
about Unbeatable Baby music is illegal.
Speaker 1: You're going to do crime.
Speaker 6: That's oh man. I cannot wait for that as a
November sixth release date, I believe.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And also I just as a shout out to them,
like being one of the few game developers headquartered in Virginia,
I believe, which is a rarity in my home state.
So I've I feel like a cool sense of Pride
like I believe they're based out of Alexandria last time
I checked. But yeah, I'm excited for that game regardless
looks I think Kyle put in our slack today like
it's fully coolly vibes all over this thing.
Speaker 6: That era for sure, adult swim type vibes. Some throwback
just everything about the music to the music sounds incredible.
Some really cool mechanics interacting with musical soundbeats and things
like that. For anybody who enjoys elite rhythm agents stuff
like that will probably find a lot to love here.
But I think my number one was a surprise I
didn't see coming but probably should have seen coming, which
is Donald War four. I like the Donald War series
quite a bit. I really loved the first game. Two
was kind of an eccentric oddity that I thought was
really neat and novel, and I wanted to see incorporated
more as they went forward. I didn't spend a lot
of time with Donald War three. I did play a
little bit, but I just I don't know, something didn't
click with me with it. But Donald War four, I
really loved Donald War four, or the idea of a
new Dono War. I should say, and that's within the
Warhammer University. Yes, as within Warhammer forty K. So far
they have shown at least one faction of space Marines, which,
of course you're always going to have them in there
play as orcs. Yes, so Ork. We have seen the
Orc Forces there though the log will ride uh. And
then we have also seen Necrons and my two favorite
fact my three favorite factions and Morehammer forty k are.
I love the Tao because they look really cool. I
love the Tyrannid because I always love a good alien
hive mind a lah, the Zerg from StarCraft, and the
Necron because space necromancers are cool. That's that's just a
cool design, interesting fun So the Necron are They look
like they're a big part of this specific Donald war
Entry very excited that they're going to be in there
from the jump, it seems, because that's a great faction
just have in there and do cool, interesting things with.
But it's also a real time strategy game. There are
a lot of people trying to make new real time
strategy games and it hasn't bad. Yeah, and I love StarCraft,
I love Warcraft, I love Commanding Conquers, I love Oh
my god, I feel really bad for forgetting the name
of it. Not Total War, but it's something else. Alert
no no Agian Mythology, Age of Mythology, also very good.
It's the one that is is it Planetary Annihilation where
you have the giant walking little bot and you build
bases around it and stuff like that. That one's an
old one, but a good one. I've loved real time
strategy games for as long as I've been playing games,
and it bums me out that we haven't had a
good one to really grasp onto in a while.
Speaker 5: I don't know.
Speaker 6: I like that this one seems to just be going
for You're gonna do cool stuff, You're gonna smash units together,
You're gonna have a good time. Because competitive going for
the esports scene, I think you can lose your way there.
I think if you just make a really good strategy game,
it's gonna be a good time. So Dona War, I'm
hopeful we.
Speaker 1: Should play that together, assuming there's some multiplayer. I love
RTS multiplayer.
Speaker 6: I would love to play some donov War.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I will only play ORCS.
Speaker 6: That's okay, I support that for you. I will. I
don't know who I'll play if Tyrannids are in it,
I'll probably play Tyrannids.
Speaker 1: Tell Yeah, well cool. I think that's gonna do it
for the show this week, you know. I guess we're
gonna We're gonna get more Hollow Night News finally later
except for August twenty first, so.
Speaker 6: By the time this podcast is live, Hollow Night News
will have happened.
Speaker 1: So yes, So I hope, I hope it's I hope
it's worth it.
Speaker 6: Congratulations Slash.
Speaker 2: They could announce, other than getting canceled.
Speaker 1: A crossover with Rivals of Ether.
Speaker 6: They're they're adding more content and it's getting delayed further
because they they're putting more content into it. That'd be
the funniest thing.
Speaker 3: Actually, no, yeah, there we find out it's and now
it's Silk Song Part one and part two.
Speaker 1: Oh no, shade Rivals of Ether. By the way, it's
cool game.
Speaker 2: But why was why was that your worst?
Speaker 1: I don't know, like, if it's a crossover with the
game Rivals of Ether, they do indie crossovers quite a bit, saying.
Speaker 2: If that's what it is, instead of Silk Song coming.
Speaker 1: Out, yeah, if it's like okay, oh, I was like,
why didn't you say Fortnite, then why were you just
because I because I played Fortnite and I would love
to play the Hollow Night characters. But yeah, so it
should be an eventful weekend. Stay safe out there, you know,
with all these all these game announcements come and flying
past you, they can get pretty pretty unsafe out there,
so be careful.
Speaker 2: They can. They can really hamm on you, you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, get hand on yeah, yeah uh. And if you're
flying on a plane this weekend, keep your socks on,
for the love of God, you know, not everybody has.
Speaker 2: Don't and don't watch an don't I'm watching.
Speaker 1: Nora on the plane. If you're flying this week.
Speaker 6: Bring a cardboard box. If you watched EVO, they had
those cardboard boxes to hide the fight sticks. Get one
of those to hide your view of the monitor.
Speaker 1: I'm actually flying again and like later this week, so
maybe I'll watch Anor just for the hell of it,
just for to like exercise my free will and put
on a Dora.
Speaker 6: Make eye contact.
Speaker 1: Follow the crew here this week. On social media. You
can follow Charles at Chuck Talk three sixty five. You
can follow Eric at c Moussy, and you can follow
me at It's Van Aiken again. Please consider picking up
a Game in Former subscription. Head to Game Informer dot
com slash subscribe to get all the details and lock
in your access to ten issues a year. Really excited
for the what will be the third issue? We're gonna
be revealing that in a couple weeks. I think that'll
be cool.
Speaker 2: I think next week sue me.
Speaker 1: Who's to say, who's to say? You know?
Speaker 6: Not us?
Speaker 1: All right, I've had enough time to get off of
this show. Bye, everybody, Thanks for watching. We'll see you
next week.