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