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Andy Kaye: Puzzler, The Last Ronin, Lego 2K Drive, and Game Preservation - Add to Party 03.26.2023
4 Plays1 year ago
Jigsaw puzzles are on the brain, a darker and grittier Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles is announced, Lego Movie-esque racing game, and what's the point of game preservation if it doesn't matter any more?
Listen in on the latest episode of Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a news show.
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Transcript
Introduction: Meet the Hosts
00:00:15
Speaker
Welcome to another episode of Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I am still your all powerful host, Charles Jamot, and I'm joined by James Hartwell, and I'm joined by
00:00:29
Speaker
Andy K. Charles, you're still in power. I am. That's it. Some militia did try to overthrow me and then we ruthlessly deconstructed them all in a day's work. Was it a military junta or? Well,
00:00:52
Speaker
I would like to liken it to a ragtag group of young 20 somethings that thought that they could change the world and then got reminded. That's why you think they can change the world.
Idealism and Power Dynamics
00:01:02
Speaker
Exactly. And then you just had to show them how it really works. How does it really work? People with the most money tend to win. There you go. There you go. Learn that lesson, idealistic youth.
00:01:20
Speaker
Build value, abandon God. My property is completely exploited to the working class. That's right. When things go wrong, the government will bail you out. Don't worry.
Youthful Hubris in Business
00:01:37
Speaker
You're fine. I was watching something.
00:01:43
Speaker
where it- I'm not allowed, but continue. Not allowed. That's fair. That's fair. But I broke the rules, and I was watching this interview with this kid. He was 24. And it was incredible to hear the hubris of a 24-year-old, like we were kind of talking about, just how you can fix the world, how you have wisdom.
TikTok-inspired Business Ventures
00:02:09
Speaker
He said he had wisdom at 24.
00:02:12
Speaker
And he said he could make you a millionaire by teaching you how to drop ship. And I was like, I would argue that those two points are incongruent, but.
00:02:28
Speaker
I want to tell you something actually very funny. Um, a couple of weeks ago, uh, maybe almost a month ago at this point, my uncle called me, let's say like nine o'clock at night on a Friday night. Oh, geez. He goes, he goes, James, James. I go, what? That's emergency. Do you know how does this like printing t-shirts online stuff work? Cause I keep seeing this on Tik TOK and people are making all of this money.
00:02:56
Speaker
And I was like, oh god, no. He's like, I could just make up some stupid little political slogan and make thousands of dollars. And I'm like, listen, it's not that easy.
00:03:11
Speaker
He's like, I'm looking at the site. It is that easy. Your uncle is going to start printing those awful shirts here. Already did. He already had with penises anymore. Oh, that's nice.
00:03:26
Speaker
I get conservative t-shirts. That's my story. Oh, okay. All right. I was like, what's weird? It's a weird swing, Andy, in the middle of my story, but okay. Oh, sorry. I only wanted to jump on the making conservative t-shirts. He's not making conservative t-shirts.
Hobbies and Pandemic Pastimes
00:03:42
Speaker
He's making anti-conservative t-shirts, to be clear. Oh.
00:03:46
Speaker
OK. He's supporting the liberal side need of stupid t-shirts. Well, I don't know why Google AdSense isn't serving me those. Probably all that religious YouTube you watch. Nope, I'm into watching puzzlers now. The fuck is a puzzler? Like jigsaw puzzles? Yeah, like jigsaw puzzles. Did you know that people are super into jigsaw puzzles?
00:04:15
Speaker
Every day I wonder how I'm the oldest of the three of us.
00:04:22
Speaker
I just didn't know. And it's fascinating. And now it makes me wonder if I want to get into jigsaw puzzles. I mean, you didn't have your puzzle phase during early pandemic, Andy? No, no, no, no. I just have my model kits. That was the time. Early pandemic. Oh, and that like in that March to May area. Sure. That was that was puzzle time, baby. So would you consider yourself a puzzler?
00:04:51
Speaker
Absolutely fucking not. Well, now that I'm an expert on puzzles, tell me what puzzles you did. What brands because I know brands now too. Ravensburger? I don't know. I mean, they sell at my, at my partner's workplace, they sell puzzles.
00:05:10
Speaker
Oh, okay. She works at the museum, remember? So they sell puzzles. And as you may also recall, we ran the gift store out of my house for a period of time. Oh, really? Oh, so you had a lot of puzzles. Yeah, so we just, you know, we did puzzles.
00:05:29
Speaker
How big of puzzles? 500,000? 2,000? I think we capped at like 1,200 pieces. 1,200? OK. A decent size. All right. I was thinking of doing a 500, but I think I need to stop watching them because I don't want to get into puzzles. Why don't you do an eight, Andy? Let's see if he can do an eight. An eight piece? That's right.
00:05:51
Speaker
What an interesting puzzle. Like, just imagine a thousand pieces. That's like a thousand like little dopamine hits, right? Like every time it's more frustrating than that. I was going to say, I was like, is Andy just conveniently forgetting the initial search of finding
Gaming Excitement: Counter-Strike Source 2
00:06:11
Speaker
two pieces that fit?
00:06:13
Speaker
And he just thinks that he has a pile and he reaches in and he goes, oh, these two-piece spit. You were starting at 500 or 800 anything? It's not a 25-piece puzzle where it's for children. Maybe that's what I need to start with. But to me, it just sounds like- And he bought the 5,000 clear blue sky puzzle.
00:06:42
Speaker
It has just the slightest gradient from light blue to slightly less blue. Gradients, as I understand, are the easier types of puzzles. Sometimes. I've been learning how to sort, sometimes by dividing into sections, sometimes you have to do it by pieces. Hey, Andy. You've been tested for ADHD.
00:07:08
Speaker
Well, Google certainly thinks I have it. I'm just interested in the drip feeding of joy that puzzles look like. This seems like classic hyper-fixation to me. No, no, no, I'm just trying. I haven't done a single puzzle, but I have watched hours of puzzles. Oh, it's been hours and hours. But I'm not hyper-fixated, just to be clear.
00:07:37
Speaker
I'm not. It's a nice break from leftist YouTube. It's either puzzles or politics, James. That was the last time you did a model. Maybe a few weeks ago when I melted one and then I was like, all right. But maybe I should get back to models.
00:07:57
Speaker
Yeah. You know what? Maybe work on one hobby before you start a new one. To be fair, to be fair, this is also pot calling it a little black, calling it the kettle black. Hold on. Hold on. I've never said I don't do this. Let's be very clear.
00:08:17
Speaker
That's what I'm trying to steer Andy away from the rocky shores in which I live. I was going to say, what was the combination for James? It was photography plus model building. What else
AI in Gaming: Ethics and Advancements
00:08:28
Speaker
did you do? Oh, hey, hold on. Hey, James's photography is still going. I'm saying it's fantastic pictures of Japan. You have. I really am. I am rules of thirdsing it up over here. Oh, oh, like an expert.
00:08:43
Speaker
I bet you had to watch a lot of YouTube videos for that, James. Less than you think. It was mostly just how to understand the settings of the camera, so I know what the fuck I was doing. Technique is kind of more just, I was like, this looks good. You just have to have the eye. And the model building I do want to get back to, I just had a new hobby, which is a puppy. When he calms down, the model building will come back.
00:09:12
Speaker
You're your attempt to shame me is good, Charles, but I actually have good defenses for it right now. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. There's nothing about shame here. This is just to say they're not the only one doing that's judging or juggling multiple things. Listen, mine is a real struggle, but I don't worry, guys. I won't get into puzzles. You can. You can go. You just talk about trying to get a puzzle. You could get a puzzle. I don't want to get a puzzle.
00:09:43
Speaker
Listen, no, and also maybe don't start on like, you know, tier 10 hardness, you know, like a nice picture of a to cut a toucan. If you will, there's probably good color. If you're looking at the shared screen, do you get one of these? Oh, wait, one second. I was looking at conservative shirts. Uh, pop out. Let me look at the screen. Why do I get these? Oh, my God, Charles. This is literally when you look up jigsaw puzzle brands. That is one. Oh,
00:10:13
Speaker
You know, I don't know. I'm not looking at it, yet I know exactly what it is. Listeners at home, stretch your imagination that on the top row of image results, it is a woman exposed to the world.
00:10:35
Speaker
You know, interestingly enough, I haven't seen many puzzles in Japan. No? They just don't do puzzles? Well, they have model kits. I guess that's true.
00:10:46
Speaker
Who needs pop puzzles when you have model kits? No, that's not fair. They're a different type of a different type of activity. They are. Um, but yeah, so that's my, um, my recent fixation. Just wanted to share that. I don't know how we got there, but I'm going to start dropshipping puzzles now. Don't worry. Yeah. That's it. Andy. Did you, do you know about what's going on with the source two engine?
00:11:11
Speaker
Source two, isn't that valve? Yeah. Yeah. Valve. Wait, we're not on source two yet. Not fully. No. That's it. So a couple of what I think is on Dota is, I think.
00:11:26
Speaker
Right, Dota 2 and Half-Life Alyx were made with Source 2. The physics, the basically game engine that powers all these games. Valve has been famous for not fully, I would say, predicting or being productive on moving their brands or releasing games or whichever thing you want.
00:11:53
Speaker
But over the past week, they actually announced that Counter Strike, the biggest FPS that even with the announcement of this game made original Counter Strike Global Offensive reach 1.5 million concurrent users. Super excited for this transition of moving Counter Strike into Source 2.
00:12:17
Speaker
Oh, that wasn't in Source 2? Specifically Counter-Strike Global Offensive, otherwise known as CSGO. Yes, which is famous for a little while ago, right? They would do like, what was it, like lotteries? Like gambling? There was a big lottery gambling scam with knife skins in CSGO. It was real bad. Yeah, always like knife skins and gun skins and just millions and millions of dollars were moving through this.
00:12:46
Speaker
As like really predatory streamers were streaming like this lot this gambling for these skins and then like children are playing this and Children don't know better. So they're throwing their money at it. And it was just it was real bad Yeah, also if you're keeping track this now makes for concurrent versions of Counter-Strike that valve supports which is Counter-Strike 1.6 Counter-Strike source Counter-Strike CS or global offensive and now kind of straight to
00:13:15
Speaker
They're not just, I did not know that. I thought it all moved to go. Nope. No, people still love 1.6. Source is kind of like the weird middle child that no one particularly likes, but it's there. Yeah. Um, and now we'll have to see what the two to go version is. Charles, did you want more? Um, did you want to do more setup for this? No, not at all. I mean, the,
00:13:42
Speaker
They did like a semi beta with some creators. I remember that over the past week. They, you know, they're they were showcasing and just talking about all the changes they're doing to upgrade all the looks. But I don't think they're really changing much of the core gameplay for Counter Strike 2. They're just basically they're changing some. I mean, the shooting, no, because if you change how the shooting works, they wouldn't be Counter Strike anymore.
00:14:07
Speaker
but they are changing at least I think you have the link in there in the show notes too but like how smoke works in the game which is actually incredibly neat if you haven't taken the time to go look at the video basically valve has added
00:14:27
Speaker
physics-based smoke movement to the game, where basically, oh, you throw a smoke bomb, it obscures everything. However, if you have a powerful enough gun, your bullet will actually make holes in the smoke cloud because the force of the wind will push the smoke. What? Yeah. Wow. I'm sure there's other physics-based things that come with Source 2, but that was the one that stuck out most to me. Also of note, too, this is
00:14:56
Speaker
Technically speaking, an upgrade from CSGO. So all your unlocked skins and what have you will be transferred from go to
NFTs and Blockchain in Art and Gaming
00:15:04
Speaker
to. Wow, that's nice. I just. I've got enough money. This is another one of those things where I just I don't know anyone who plays this, so it just doesn't exist to me yet. It's huge. It's huge, not bigger than Fortnite. No, big.
00:15:23
Speaker
It's a lot. I would put it. I mean, it's the biggest. All right. I think it's the biggest competitive FPS, right? I can't think of a better one right now. I would assume so. I don't know. What's that? Valorant, maybe Valorant's beating it now. It's it's real close between CSGO and Valorant. I'm not sure who's taking it these days. I think it might be Valorant, but well, Valorant being the the.
00:15:49
Speaker
If you took Overwatch and Counter Strike and smushed them together, you get Valorant, which is made by Riot Games. A lot of people play that. It's a good time to play first-person shooters.
00:16:04
Speaker
Okay. According to gamesite.io, the top FPS games are Valorant with viewer hours of 26.74. So it looks like this is based on Twitch and YouTube videos. Oh, that's fair. Counting Strike Global Offensive at 16.43 million, and then Apex Legends at 13.4. Oh, Apex.
00:16:27
Speaker
That's a good call. I didn't even think about Apex. Yeah, actually six. Oh, actually, Apex is actually actually having a big push here in Japan right now. There's like Apex posters everywhere. Oh, I think Apex was the one that actually stuck really well. I remember when he came out, some Japanese YouTubers were talking about Apex and how there's a lot of people that play it. So I think it's not as posters everywhere in the subway. Yeah.
00:16:56
Speaker
Who did they choose, um, for branding? Uh, what's her favorite anime girls? No, it's what's her face. It's the medic that she's Jamaican, right? Is it? Oh God, I forget her name. I know. I haven't played the game in so long. It's not hard line. No, hardline someone else. Um, one that wears a band around her name. She has like space buns, doesn't she? Apex.
00:17:25
Speaker
We'll know. Oh, it's Lifeline. See, not Hardline. Oh, Lifeline. There it is. Yeah, it's Lifeline. She was one of the original batch, wasn't she? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. I remember. This game doesn't have power creep, Andy. It just has power creep. They release new heroes, right? It's definitely Lifeline, but also what's her face, Spectre? Loba? You're saying Spectre is the favorite? Man, I really like Loba, though.
00:17:54
Speaker
She has a cool ability. The one, the one who could teleport places. It's right. Right. There it is. Thank you. Well, good deal. Yeah. James, you know, you were talking about, maybe you miss it. Did you hear about anything that came out of GDC? I didn't hear anything new, at least that shocked the world. Like at least it made it to my ears. Did anything happen?
00:18:17
Speaker
There's two things. One thing is Epic, during their state of Epic talk, was showcasing a bunch of games that were using Unreal Engine 5, particularly for Help Blade 2.
00:18:32
Speaker
in Hellblade 2, they showed some animation for it. And if you look at it, it just looks like a real person. The only time I realized it wasn't a real person was when they actually started having a person like
00:18:48
Speaker
like move around and talk a little bit more. Like when they do a mouth or something, jaw movement is hard. I think it's the lighting to like there's like they're showing her face with like some grime on it and like like there's a reflection. There's like a reflection of the flame against her face and something about it is a little too clean that makes you realize it's not real. But before that, when it just looks like a person with no dirt on their face,
00:19:14
Speaker
Yeah, I like this looks like somebody filmed another person close up.
00:19:19
Speaker
How visible are their pores? Very rare. Yeah. There's like tiny imperfections, like little individual bumps, and you're just like, OK, that's a person. And what's wild, if I understand it correctly, I don't know if this demo necessarily was done with it, but like the motion capture was just with the camera of a phone. Like they were able to map the movements just by using a phone. So like.
00:19:46
Speaker
Yeah, that's fine. Because ultimately, it's not about the fidelity of the video. It's just about capturing it. Right. But that's wild that like you can use that kind of inexpensive technology to be able to now make this like lifelike representation of a human talking like with a phone. It's just wild to me. It's just wild.
00:20:08
Speaker
I always go back to I remember when Metal Gear Solid 2 came out and I thought graphics will never look better than this. It's just too good. And then now we have this and things are only going to keep getting better. Yeah.
00:20:26
Speaker
I, it's definitely one of those things where, uh, we'll talk about this in a little bit too, but you know, the advancement of technology is meant to keep going forward, meant to, you know, just by virtue of the phrase advancing, uh, and progress. But, um, is there a point when I feel that we should go too far, that we shouldn't go too far? Right now I feel, no, keep going. I don't know. Hmm.
00:20:56
Speaker
Well, we all know what I think is too far. Right. About voting. You know, I don't know. I won't get into it. Andy, your toaster fell in love with it.
00:21:18
Speaker
Does that mean my government dollars should go to my toaster? I don't know. Listen, I want universal health care, but for a toaster. Andy, as the parent, isn't our responsibility to take care of our children? Oh, god, I don't want to think about the difference. It makes me so uncomfortable. Oh, my god. Okay. Well, that's technology gone too far for me. Yeah. Also, we should regulate deep fakes.
00:21:47
Speaker
Well, yes, that is also one of the problems with that's clap Joe. Yeah.
00:21:53
Speaker
If we're going to keep advancing, sorry, big government's going to have to try to do at least a little. Speaking of defakes, on the release of Resident Evil 4, someone made a defake conversation between Leon Kennedy and Joe Biden, as if Joe Biden was the one sending him out on the mission. Okay, that's fun.
00:22:17
Speaker
Yeah, like for goofs and gaffes, I'm into it. But well, right. Well, the problem for goofs and gaffes and being fun is that you, you know, they're not meant to be taken seriously. People are all supposed to be like hot. That's funny that they made a fake Joe Biden.
00:22:35
Speaker
But the worry of impersonation is very high and scary, and that should definitely be regulated. Like this next election, Facebook? Oh no. I mean, the other thing too is when you talk about how this using AI to generate these levels of art and things that they're doing with motion capture,
00:22:58
Speaker
I've seen at least a couple things now where, one, this is a while ago, they showed, what is it? I hear Efria's first name, but Miyazaki, the creator of, the leader of Ghibli, what's his name? Miyazaki. It's Hayao Miyazaki.
00:23:16
Speaker
Yes, thank you. It was funny. I just went to the fucking museum two days ago. They showed him like a art generation and he said this is a crime against humanity. I never want to work with this. Literally, like basically that.
00:23:33
Speaker
in a slightly more positive version, but still nonetheless problematic. There was the studio that
Game Announcements: LEGO 2K Drive and Last Ronin
00:23:40
Speaker
basically fed a bunch of key art from Vampire Hunter D by Madhouse. Yeah, it's a quarter digital to this.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, and if you don't know Vampire Hunter D or Madhouse, it's very stylized. It's up towards the peak of like animation quality in terms of what anime accomplishes. And then they filmed basically themselves playing ping pong and then they use AI to... Wasn't it Rock, Paper, Scissors or was it ping pong?
00:24:10
Speaker
Was ping-pong maybe either way Doesn't matter is they filmed themselves doing like a mundane game and then the AI took all the keyframe art from vampire hunter D took their basically rotoscoped animations from the video and created Vampire hunter D madhouse like animation for all of that. No be it just AI. No, thanks We don't need I mean yes and no Andy right like
00:24:38
Speaker
Yeah, it's there's valid uses for for doing this. Yeah. Yeah. Keyframing or not in betweening. Right. Is like the bane of animation. Sure. On the in between frames for animation is why animators are dying.
00:24:56
Speaker
Right. And if I can relieve some of that also, however, think about it like that. Yeah, exactly. Right. If you only as an animator have to draw the key frames and then I does all the in betweening for you, it's fucking fantastic. Now, however, you know, they won't get paid more.
00:25:14
Speaker
Well, no, they'll just fire the people they don't need. But there's also this other thing. Yeah, I think you're going to say what I'm going to say. Go ahead, Charles. Which is that like James said, that this helps do a lot of like the small work. But Andy, you can think about this on the smaller scale, too, which is there are there are other YouTubers that are one man shops that do animations.
00:25:40
Speaker
that are suddenly able to do longer animations and longer videos using their own art that they've created.
00:25:48
Speaker
So they can train an AI to replicate their own personal art style and help animate their keyframes. That would be very cool. So like, yeah, we talk about like the bigger studios, like making shortcuts and screwing people out, but it also enables these tiny, tiny groups to also be able to animate and output things much higher than they would normally be able to do.
00:26:16
Speaker
Charles, that's the idealistic version of what I was going to say. I was going to say the pessimistic version, which is I, a person who has no artistic ability, could steal that one person shops are trained in AI and create art based on. Oh, sure. Well, my thing is that I've you know, I've seen a YouTube channel that does that, that they they were just like, I'd use this so now I can animate things more by myself. Yeah.
00:26:41
Speaker
I'm curious how good those fill frames are. Because like watching something. Unnoticeable for the ones that I've seen. But granted, unnoticeable for the ones I've seen. But granted, those are, you know, best case scenario. Let's show off the text. Sure. Yeah. I'm like thinking of the like, like when I think of like smooth hand animation, like I always think of like those 80s OVAs and movies and stuff like of anime.
00:27:06
Speaker
I was like, you know, those are all rotoscopes, though, right, Andy? What were rotoscopes? Oh, when you think of that incredibly smooth stuff? In anime? You're talking about like an Akira and Ghost in the Shell and all that stuff? Ghost in the Shell rotoscope? I don't think Ghost in the Shell rotoscope. Akira didn't. I know that much.
00:27:25
Speaker
But like those were like such a to be fair, I can't blame if they did rotoscope, right? Rotoscoping, if you don't know, is basically it's kind of like the old version of motion capture, which is you film a scene and then you draw over the stills from the film of the person doing the acting.
00:27:46
Speaker
It's a way to get realistic movement. It's also very identifiable once you know what you're looking at. Yeah, it like looks a little bit too uncanny. It's like that. Plus, because there's like so many frames, like the detail goes down and blah, blah, blah. All I meant to say is if it can make it look like the Golden Age of anime. Well, God bless. Do it. Yeah. Well, here's the thing about that.
00:28:14
Speaker
Within GDC, they actually announced a couple of studios that are going to be trying to incorporate AI in some way or another, which to a lot of question marks on how it works or how to be clear. Unity announced they were going to try to integrate AI into their process. Ubisoft had also kind of did a mini announcement that they're going to try to have AI generated
00:28:41
Speaker
initial texts being written out and have their writers edit for and these are those aren't for like major story points just for like random NPCs for now. We'll see how that goes. And then King as well, which is the mobile game developer, trying to figure out how AI can fit into software development.
00:29:04
Speaker
I feel like they have to say this too for investors. I mean, you should. There's this hot new technology coming out. What are you going to do about it to make use of it? Nothing.
00:29:17
Speaker
I remember when blockchain became a word, everybody was saying blockchain, and I don't think half of these companies knew what it was, or the investors knew what it was. I remember there was that joke. There was a T that named itself blockchain, and its valuation went through the roof just because they put blockchain in their name. Oh, by the way, we know how we talk about how NFTs, at least in American space, are dead. Oh, there's still NFT signs everywhere in Japan. Really? Oh, yeah.
00:29:46
Speaker
Oh, the rich are trying to keep making it a thing. You know, I saw an interest very quickly because I never thought about this before. But I guess like the art world was like a really good way for like launder money, because the art shouldn't be worth that much, right? Like, yes, it has importance, but it was a really good way to move money around.
00:30:09
Speaker
But more regulation started going on top of that. And that was when it kind of corresponds with when NFTs went off. So I was reading this thing that was kind of like talking. I was like, oh, maybe this is a new way to launder money, which is what it always felt like to me. But because they can't use the art scene anymore because it's getting regulated. So put it into NFTs. The rich want to stay rich, you guys. Yeah. Screw it. Yeah. Rich gonna rich.
00:30:39
Speaker
Right. But so here's my thing about that. She's not happy. Like if they could only just go back to like, I don't know, make some good things so people will pay you for them. That could be really nice. Do you provide a good service? There's one thing that I was hoping for, you know, on like,
00:31:03
Speaker
what makes a video game a success, right?
00:31:09
Speaker
Um, cause there's been a couple of game announcements that are different than I was kind of surprised about that. I'm like, boy, I hope these turn out to be good. And if you look at our fantasy critic, I did vote, I did bid for them. And so you'll see those, uh, probably later today, but, um, two games got announced, which were, um, Lego two K drive and the last Ronin, which is a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles game.
LEGO 2K Drive: A Fun Exploration
00:31:37
Speaker
Which one do you want to hear? I'm coming out this year.
00:31:39
Speaker
Ronan's not for a long time. Yeah, Ronan just got announced as being in development, but 2K drive is coming out this year. Yeah. OK. Why is it called? Is it part of the 2K sports series? Because that would be fun. I believe so. I believe 2K is LEGO license. Yeah. Yeah.
00:31:58
Speaker
Oh, and and let me tell you, it looks great. The Lego game. And if anybody has like watched the Lego movie, like they basically kept that like little like level of humor and just moved it into a racing game. Oh, my God, this looks incredible. Yeah.
00:32:18
Speaker
I believe it's been confirmed that like when you when you build a car, it's brick by brick. So you can just kind of make your silly carmobile and drive around. I got very quick. What was that? Nuts and Bolts? The Banjo Kazooie game? Oh, yeah. I don't know, but it like gave me that vibe for a moment. Hopefully it doesn't go there. But I'm for it. Yeah.
00:32:46
Speaker
And I loved the Lego humor. So bring it. Bring it. Yeah. And they said there's also going to be multiple modes. So there's like online, there's couch co-op. They look like there's going to be some side quests and like story missions and stuff. So it seems like it's not just going to be racing. There's probably going to be an overworld or like cheer around. Oh, this looks fine.
00:33:12
Speaker
It looks fun, right? It's because it's silly. I think it's keeping the silliness of like being a Lego thing. That's what it should be. Holy moly. I'd only seen like screenshots and stuff of it, really. But this I love. Yeah, I mean, it's nice that it basically looks like a racing version of the Lego movie. Yeah. Which they did in the Lego movie. Yeah. Remember, there's that scene where they build cars like. Oh, sure. Yeah.
00:33:42
Speaker
Um, which good idea looks fun. That's funny. It's under the two K license to them.
Dark Narratives: The Last Ronin
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah. Or not like whatever it is. But awesome. This came out of GDC. I got announced, I believe. OK, cool. Bring it. Yeah.
00:34:02
Speaker
I want more fun, colorful games. That's what we need. I know. Oh, grim, dark, brown, black. Well, and that's what the last Ronin is. It looks like an edgy Ninja Turtles. Yeah. That's it. Have you? Do you know the storyline for this? I do. I read it. Oh, did you? Yeah, I got it. I ordered it the day this game got announced and then got it came here the next day and then I read it.
00:34:27
Speaker
Wow. So what is a short read? Yeah, it's very short. It's only like five, five issues. Issues. Yeah. Yeah. It's good. The basic premise is it's a future setting for the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, also coincidentally Marvel. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Where there is only one surviving turtle left.
00:34:52
Speaker
And they are trying to rid the city free of the control of the foot clan. And for, it is a mystery for a little bit about who is the surviving turtle. You noticed that only for the first chapter. Yes. So you notice that, um, they're the turtle that you see on screen is not wearing a stereotypical color of the turtles. It's wearing a black headband.
00:35:18
Speaker
And it, and they are carrying all the, all the weapons for the turtles. So you're like, Oh, which one is this turtle? It's fun. I thought it was a good story. It's definitely a darker tone. The nerd, the turtles fucking kill people. I mean, they always did. It was when they became a cartoon that they didn't, but yeah. Um, I mean, you, Charles, you know the whole thing, why it's the foot clan, right? Yes.
00:35:44
Speaker
So there's the hand of Daredevil. Yeah, that's right. It's a reference to the. Yeah, the hand of the Daredevil thing. Also, I think the other lead you're bearing to is that the they haven't named the developer, but they did say that they're aiming for a God of War style game. Yeah. Yeah. Which, to be honest with you, doesn't give you anything. It tells you that is a type of action game.
00:36:12
Speaker
I mean, you know, it's going to be a narrative action focused game, which I mean, you would hope with a good story, not multiplayer. Yeah. Well, there's only one. Yeah. Yeah. This one. The interesting part for this one is definitely. One, a switch in tones because, you know, as popularized, the Ninja Turtles have been mostly kid friendly for the past couple of years.
00:36:41
Speaker
Um, but this one is very dark. Um, and we'll see how they'll handle it, especially if, um, if they keep this tone of a, you know, a wandering Ronin and yes, they are Ninja Turtles and they're mixing them up a little bit, but you know, fine, whatever we'll call them. Or if you grew up in the UK, hero turtles. Um,
00:37:11
Speaker
Yeah, so it'll be interesting where it goes. Oh, it's going to be a while. This will be a while. Hopefully they don't mess it up. There's a it's a good story to base it off of. And I would suspect 2026, maybe. Yeah. When we know the studio, that might give us a better idea of who's doing it, but they haven't named them yet. Oh, yeah.
Sony's Success in 2023
00:37:34
Speaker
Give it to platinum. A platinum Ninja Turtles game. You know, honestly, be fine.
00:37:40
Speaker
Like what in them did, uh, automata, right? Yep. Yeah. Yeah. If they did like this, like autonomy, I think it would be great. Oh, can you get, uh, what's his name? Yoko Taro to, um, do the adaptation. I don't know if you could get Yoko Taro to do it. How many women can he sexualize in his story? I mean, uh, there's one, there's one, there is one.
00:38:09
Speaker
April Ryan, is that her name? Don't worry about it. No, no, no. Well, if you're not playing as her, if you're not going up ladders, you're fine. I say get Yoko Taro in here. Has Yoko Taro made a game with a male protagonist? Yeah, the Drakengard games, or the early ones. Oh, that's right. He made Drakengard. I forgot about that.
00:38:31
Speaker
The most depressing games. The most depressing games until Automata was made. I've never played Drakengard. Well, the endings of Drakengard are what goes into an ear. Well, that too. But it basically amounts to small apocalypse to large apocalypse. There's no middle. There's no happy ending. It's just how small is the apocalypse that you trigger. Fair.
00:39:00
Speaker
Well, bring it. Yeah. We'll look forward to that in 2026. Yeah. Maybe he'll sexualize a turtle. Andy. Hmm. This is a semi tangent, but I'll you know how I was just thinking how this game was going to be, you know, hyper violent. The last run in.
00:39:22
Speaker
You know how when we talked about Final Fantasy 16 and there was that trailer where like a guy's head gets cut off and it puts blood all over that person's face. It was like crazy. Yeah, it was like the kid, which I think is going to be the main character. The I started playing type zero Final Fantasy after beating Horizon Forbidden West. That game is incredibly bloody.
00:39:48
Speaker
Wow. Which one? Final Fantasy type zero. Oh, they are. It is. Let me let me explain in the first five minutes. World War II. Let's stop here. This is for highly technological dependent army fights magic country. Magic country erects like personal magical shields around their their soldiers.
00:40:16
Speaker
Technological country creates anti-magic jamming. Shields immediately drop. People are ripped to shreds with bullet fire. Oh, man. And then there's like a Bahamut, which is a giant dragon that gets summoned and is shooting at people. Cannon fire takes it out from the sky. Oh, wow. And you're like, holy shit, this is the first five minutes of the game. And there's just blood everywhere. It's almost like Normandy.
00:40:45
Speaker
Is it good? Yeah, I'm having a great time. Having fun? Yeah. These child soldiers that are made expressly for war are doing a good thing. Someone's got it. And so I guess, you know, to tie this back with Final Fantasy,
00:41:05
Speaker
It's going to be interesting if they're, it seems like they have a history with this very bloody stuff. But I think James is right in the sense of so far, this Final Fantasy 16 trailer is the only one that showed like or implied sex in it. I thought that was confirmed that there was going to be some sex in it.
00:41:26
Speaker
Well, like I'm saying more of the, um, that they're, they're completely fine with having it. Like, I don't think in like, like James said before, I don't think they have, um, shown it or implied it even in other games. People have been in relationships. Yes. But I don't think anybody has ever.
00:41:46
Speaker
It's never been like, and we wake up the next day. The body's like, yeah, I can't think of one that did. Yeah. And did you, that's it. Did you see about how the creators also talked about the, um, the game only being about 35 hours mainline? Wait, didn't we talk about them having like 16 hours of cuts? Yeah, I yeah. More than Mel, you're solid for.
00:42:10
Speaker
Oh yeah, yeah. I'm curious, does that include cutscene or not include cutscene? Does it include cutscene? That's a short fucking game. Yeah. Well, they, they said the, um, with side quest, it goes to 80.
00:42:24
Speaker
OK, so it sounds as if. Oh, here's the thing. I would assume that they include cutscenes with that our time. I'm assuming he wouldn't know because he framed it as people are busy. You know, they don't have time for this crap. So I don't think he would have removed a man who makes them. People are busy. Well, do you know about Yoshi P's attitude about the MMO, right? No, I know. I know.
00:42:50
Speaker
Yeah, that's it. What a saint Yoshi P is. Go and listen. If you're too busy for the MMO, unsubscribe for a bit. Come back later. Tell me if you can hear this. A little. Yeah, I can. What was that? That's a Red Bull, baby. Oh, isn't it morning for you? That's right. I got to get I got to get hype. Wait, what's that? What's your energetic day today?
00:43:18
Speaker
Oh, I'm going to go see a giant Gundam. Oh, that's a Yokohama or Odaiba. Yeah, I'm going to Yokohama. OK, the Yokohama one's better. That's going to be fun. And then after that, Andy, the Cub Noodle Museum. Oh, that best life. Yeah. Well, that should be good. Well, good deal. Thank God. I'm not saying our podcast is boring. I'm just saying I'm tired.
00:43:44
Speaker
When you walk an average of 12 to 15 miles a day, you get a little tired. I get it. I get it. Well, let's not keep them too long. Let's talk about some news with Sony then real quick. Good news.
00:44:02
Speaker
Sony was listed as the top game publisher for 2023 on Metacritic for releasing about 10 with 15 scored products, 10 being distinct titles that have a hundred percent good ratings, not necessarily rated fully a hundred, but like they land in a general favorable review score. So like 80 plus. Yeah.
00:44:26
Speaker
I can't think of a PlayStation published game that was, but was that one's fall PlayStation published? I don't think it was. No, that was square, I think. Yeah. Yeah. Also platinum. Yeah. Platinum. With, um, actually, I guess 70 is still in a good rating in terms of, uh, the publisher's worst title for 2022 was MLB, the show 22 with a score of 77.
00:44:54
Speaker
pretty decent so it's probably like what 75 to 100 yeah that's worth 700 yeah which is a pretty neat number two being paradox interactive that makes Crusader Kings people love Crusader Kings yeah yep yep and then number three being Activision Blizzard oh what did they make that was bad they haven't made anything that's the point
00:45:23
Speaker
Dragonflight was the only thing I think they've really released. Yeah. Overwatch 2, I guess, technically. Yeah, yeah, exactly. So they've got a couple things going. And then...
00:45:38
Speaker
For this year, at the very least, Microsoft was not able to be qualified for the publisher's rankings because they released less than five games on twenty twenty two. You know, there are 50 studios that released five games. Yeah, that's listen. You know, next year, that's when we're getting red fall star fields coming. Yeah.
00:46:01
Speaker
They're unclogging the pipe. We'll see where they actually go.
Preview: Redfall and Gameplay Comparisons
00:46:05
Speaker
It's one of those things for them where you're looking at them as if you want to see how much buying these studios is going to help them. Right? You're going to be like, okay, Starfield needs to be incredible. Yeah. And some other things.
00:46:23
Speaker
By the way, I don't think you have it on here, but Redfall previews came out this week, last week? I think last week, yeah. And surprisingly, I thought a lot of people say it's actually a lot like Far Cry. So less like, you know, back for blood or left for dead, it's more of a Far Cry experience, which I'm like, interesting. What is a Far Cry experience? I don't know.
00:46:50
Speaker
Um, like, isn't Far Cry just like a narrative first-person shooter? Sort of. Yeah. And I mean, it's also a lot of like, I think what Far Cry, I would say is a lot like you're capturing bases and expanding the map to add the story. So really like you're, you're growing through these sections of a map and you're capturing it and pushing out the bad element. And then you kind of push forward into harder territories.
00:47:19
Speaker
I'm not necessarily sure if that base capturing mechanic is in there. I didn't hear anyone talk about it. But the way that people described it, they said it made them feel like they were playing Far Cry. And the fact that, you know, when you play co-op, it's just it doesn't change the feeling. So that's good. I mean, it's I kind of like that. I was a little worried about Redfall being too mission based. I agree.
00:47:44
Speaker
It's a tough road to hoe sometimes. You have to get it right. It being more of an open world, I think, is more to Arkane's strong suit. And they did say that also there's going to be a lot of Arkane in this game, which means there will be a lot of solutions to the problem other than just doing what we tell you to. Ooh. Are these the same? If you never played Prey, they're fantastic at that. I heard Prey is very, very good. Prey is super good.
00:48:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's a prey. I, um, I never finished. Um, it's a black mark in, uh, my gaming catalog. I would say, don't worry, Charles. I can tell you how to finish that game in 15 minutes. If you want. No, no, it's okay. Roll credits on that real easy.
00:48:31
Speaker
The other game that got previews was Dead Island 2 last week, which I believe the consensus was, this would be a great game if it came out in 2011. Oh. Yeah. That's a shame, coincidentally, that it was around the time that game originally started development. Yeah. Yeah.
Game Review: Lies of P
00:48:50
Speaker
I mean, that's a game, too. I'll be looking forward to more previews on that to see what people think. I enjoyed the original Dead Island. I think you did, too, right, Charles? It was a fun, weird zombie game.
00:48:59
Speaker
Yeah, it was a good time. It could be good. If they're going to have me pay 60, $70 for it, I might not do it. But you get me in there at a discount price. Nothing else is out when it comes out. Although I think what it's supposed to come out like.
00:49:17
Speaker
next month, right? No, not April and May. It's fairly soon. Yeah. Next two months or so. Well, let's finish up some of the bad news here for Sony. Unfortunately.
00:49:30
Speaker
The European Competition and Markets Authority has given a provisional finding, which means that it's not a final decision, it's more just an observation that can be disputed with interested parties.
00:49:48
Speaker
Having considered the additional evidence provided, we are now provisionally concluded that the merger will not result in a substantial lessening competition in console gaming services because the cost of Microsoft withholding Call of Duty from PlayStation would outweigh any gains from taking such action.
00:50:06
Speaker
Going back, this is about the merger between Microsoft and Activision Blizzard. There are various different country commissions monitoring the merger. It seems like the European Commission is saying, Call of Duty is not going to be the problem. But in addition, they are still looking about how competition is going to be affected for Cloud gaming services.
00:50:35
Speaker
Just weird because Activision really doesn't have cloud music services. Right. But it's more about like, yeah, I agree in the sense that like Activision itself doesn't. Was it the idea of if you're trying to chokehold everything into Xbox? Yeah. Which, uh, which is fair, I suppose. That's a best case scenario. The steel goes through one week before Diablo four comes out. And then my, my morals are spotless. Cause I go into that game.
00:51:06
Speaker
Yeah, we'll see. We'll see. Yeah. No. But one. Do we want to talk about Liza P Charles? Because yeah, yeah, it's Liza P time. OK, so two. So I guess two things. One is that so I was in Akihabara yesterday and they had just kind of Akihabara. You should be so embarrassed, James. Akihabara. I'm white.
00:51:36
Speaker
Although I'm decently tanned because I've been in the sun a lot. But yeah, so what did you see? They had this weird little pop-up gaming show. And they had lots of games out there for demo, including Diablo 4. I didn't play it, though. So my morals are still stan. I was just like, I don't want to play it now. It's not fun. I don't want to play Diablo 4 for 20 minutes. I want to play Diablo 4 for eight hours.
00:52:03
Speaker
But what I immediately caught my attention is that Liza P was there and there was literally an open bay that I just walked up to and I was like, can I play this now? Yeah.
00:52:17
Speaker
If you're not familiar, Lies of P is the Soulsborne-like game, and the PR person literally said that to me, Charles, as I walked into the bay. It's like, is Soulsborne? Oh, I know. Which is, and it's basically kind of a medieval dark fantasy game where you play this weird Pinocchio-like character, that's the titular P, and you fight kind of
00:52:43
Speaker
weird clockwork monsters as you explore a Soulsborne world. And let me tell you, it felt like fucking Bloodborne. And that's all we want out of this game. I was talking to the PR guys like this feels like Bloodborne. I think the hit the the atmosphere of the world, the design level design all played fantastic. I assume I was playing on a PC.
00:53:11
Speaker
I couldn't see, but I was playing with an Xbox controller, so I wasn't playing on a PS5, I know that much, although all the, whatchamacallit, the art and promo material said PS4, PS5 on it, but I was playing on an Xbox controller. But it felt great, it played smooth, I think.
00:53:36
Speaker
Like the hits had a good amount of weight to them. They start you out with like this weird kind of, um, spinning chainsaw on the end of a stick that had a lot of weight. Yeah. It's a pizza. Yeah. It's a pizza cutter. Yeah. Um, and that felt like, I feel like, uh, front soft could, shouldn't copy written the pizza cutter.
00:53:55
Speaker
they really, yeah, they should have. Eventually I found kind of like a cutlass that more or less acted like a katana. They played very, like the pizza cutter, very slow, very heavy. The katana cutlass weapon played, you know, much faster, much quicker. They have a parry mechanic system in there which felt good. Blocking, well, blocking only reduces damage by half if you perfect block, which is the parry.
00:54:22
Speaker
you will actually regain health instead of losing it. I couldn't do it once while I was there, but granted, it was an ideal scenario. You also have a grappling hook weapon.
00:54:35
Speaker
that allows you to hook onto enemies and either pull them to you if they're small enough or jump towards them and then you will when you get to them you'll fly into the air and do like a downward slashing attack. That's very cool and very artistic. It seemed to have an ammo to it. I can only do it about three times before I had to like reload or like reset the world. I didn't quite get. A lot of this was still in Japanese so I couldn't quite understand all the mechanics.
00:55:01
Speaker
There was also a talent tree system in there that looked fairly deep. I only kind of skimmed it, because I only had 20 minutes to play. So I was just like, this looks good. This looks good. So I didn't dig too deep into it. But there is a talent tree in there. They have a system where you stun enemies, but it's called making them groggy, which I thought was adorable. It's like, when do you groggy your enemies? And I was like, I hope that stays in the translation. Yeah. Yeah.
00:55:31
Speaker
You can do like a special attack with a heavy. But again, it played exactly like Dark Souls. Traditional Dark Souls controls. R1 was light slash, R2 was heavy slash, B was dodge roll sprint. You had three flask charges to heal yourself. When you die, you're... what did they call it?
00:55:52
Speaker
I think it was called ergo. It was ergo is what they call like your souls in this game. Yes, I did die, Andy. I died at the mini boss to be clear. So I'm like, that's a reasonable place to die. I think the guy was like watching me. He's like, oh, you're getting pretty far. And I was like, I played these games before.
00:56:14
Speaker
Oh, all three of us were born into these games through the fiery. What do you call it? Fiery. Nintendo. What's the pressure thing? The the thing that. Oh, oh, oh, oh, I know. It's the fiery crucible of the blood, the bloodborne villager alleyway.
00:56:39
Speaker
That's a stupid point in my life. I know that that whole thing of us like repeatedly dying in a long alleyway full of villagers in bloodborne until you finally realize you can make a shortcut and just ignore them.
00:56:59
Speaker
And then if you hadn't told me about it, I would have left. I would have been like these games, not for me. Yeah, exactly. It's the make or break system of like just makes it to the shortcut. And then you realize you had to change your mindset on the game. You don't have to kill absolutely everything in an area. You could skip it. But I will say, where are we now? Go ahead, James. Keep going.
00:57:23
Speaker
uh... just to sum up i mean so i i only got to play about twenty minutes uh... i really only played kind of one area and i got about one miniboss who was decently hard uh...
00:57:33
Speaker
But again, I don't know if I was playing the build right, or I was accessing all the skills that I should have been using. I played it like Bloodborne slash Dark Souls. There weren't trick weapons that I saw, like the pizza cutter didn't move into a different weapon. But I think you can activate certain different skills based on how you charge the weapon, because there was this weird charging mechanic that I didn't quite grasp completely. But it played great. I mean, if you told me
00:58:00
Speaker
This was the new From Software game. I believe you. Like, I mean, it's it's certainly like, you know, when I played Neo, which I think was like the first game that came out that really tried to ape from software style, like officially.
00:58:17
Speaker
You could tell you weren't playing a FromSoft game. It was a fun game, and you could play it, but you're like, this is not a FromSoft game. Playing Liza P, I'm like, they've really taken the lessons, and they know what they're doing, and they're paying homage where they should be. So, I don't know, I'm even more excited about it. The question is, can it carry that entertainment all the way through to the end? That's kind of a challenge. I didn't get to an official boss, so I don't know how the boss combats there started.
00:58:45
Speaker
Um, but I mean, going by that mini boss, it should be good. Yeah. No, that, no, that's very exciting. Cause I think one of the hurdles of making a souls born like game is that from soft level design is so distinct to that developer. They are, I will say, Charles, I immediately, um, one thing that immediately the guy came over to see me because I started laughing. Um, I turned a corner and an enemy kicked me off a ledge.
00:59:15
Speaker
I was like, you know exactly what you're doing, don't you? Yeah. Um, and I think from the souls born, uh, like games that get inspired by, I think it's very hard to copy that level design feel enough to make it really like engross a player. So I, it's so far, it sounds like it's good. Hopefully they keep it going the entire way. Yeah.
00:59:44
Speaker
I think the date they had was August on the promotional material that was sitting around there. So we'll see if that keeps. I don't believe they've officially announced the date, but it didn't have a
Preserving Games: Digital vs. Physical Media
00:59:57
Speaker
day. It just was like 2003 eight. So I think that's what they're targeting. But so yeah, we're nearing the end. Let's, let's talk about something kind of interesting and it's kind of in the,
01:00:12
Speaker
I would say it's a thing in the corner of our heads whenever we think about gaming and game releases as a whole as they go on, which is video game preservation. Because as we know for the past couple months, I think, the 3DS eShop and Wii U eShop are going to be closing down soon.
01:00:35
Speaker
And that also locks out a lot of very old games that will be very difficult to find after the closure. There are people such as I believe there is a form of organization for video game preservation, is there not? There is. Yes.
01:00:53
Speaker
I'll have to look them up. Their name is escaping me, but there is literally an organization that is determined to basically archive any game, and especially online games. They specialize in setting up servers. The Video Game History Foundation is one, and there's also the Game Preservation Society. So here's a couple. The second one is the bigger one. Doesn't the government do that with movies?
01:01:19
Speaker
Yes, but they have not every movie. It's not some movies. Yes. Yeah. The Smithsonian does that is what you're thinking. Mm hmm. Yeah. And, you know, I think this whole thing gets brought up a lot because there's also instances of games that were formerly digital coming back later, such as I think there's currently talks of Dead Cells releasing a physical edition with all their DLCs at some point.
01:01:48
Speaker
And, you know, there's kind of this whole thing of whenever a digital distribution center goes offline, you have to think, what games are we losing and how, who's going to keep track of this? Um, uh, famously the completionist, uh, on YouTube, a popular, uh, gaming channel bought every Nintendo Wii U and 3DS game before the Nintendo eShop closes, uh, costing, I think he said, Oh no, he doesn't have it readily available.
01:02:19
Speaker
I forgot what it was. It was a lot. It was like over 10, I think, wasn't it? Yeah. I love him, by the way. He's such a good guy. Yeah, yeah. I do, too. I think he's he's. Wait, what are these masks they have? Sorry. And listeners at home in the video that we have, they have like masks that they're wearing, but it covers their whole beard. They're big boys with big beards. So there's masks for my big beard.
01:02:49
Speaker
I have those Andy, you don't have this? For big beards? I didn't even know that was a thing. I've never ever seen it. That's all the COVID's escaping out the bottom of your face.
01:03:02
Speaker
Yeah. So I mean, you know, for you guys, I know, James, you've, you've started living a digital life. Um, but you know, where's, where are you guys the stances here for game preservation? Cause I still try to get physical when I can, but I've definitely downloaded highly anticipated games digitally first. My opinion on the matter is.
01:03:26
Speaker
I don't own physical things anymore. It's out of convenience at this point. If I have owned it, or currently do own it,
01:03:43
Speaker
You know, it's like, I don't, I think piracy slash downloading this is fair game, right? You know, we, we wink, wink, nudge, nudge a lot of the times and I go, Oh yeah, I'm playing this game. That's because I dumped the ROM. Um, and it's because I did dump the ROM, but, um, I think, right. That, that, that weird aftermarket world is there and it's reasonable for it to exist because
01:04:10
Speaker
I mean, I've been bitching about Nintendo releasing Twilight Princess and Wind Waker for the Switch for feels like two, three years at this point now.
01:04:24
Speaker
I have those games. I've bought those games. Like, you know, I bought them twice now, I think at this point. And I also have those games on my steam deck. But it's like if you release them for the switch, I'll get them there, too. But if you're not going to release them and I've already paid for them, right, then I do feel a sense of ownership for those things that should be allowed to continue even past your ability to serve them to me through some sort of shop.
01:04:54
Speaker
I do think the kind of gray market slash black market that allows these places to exist, I think is a reasonable thing. And I know Nintendo has always been kind of very litigious about ROM sites. There are ways around that. But I don't know. It worries me sometimes.
01:05:20
Speaker
But I also think like I know enough of the human experience that it's like if you put enough time and effort into something, you will be able to get it. Sure. Right. The genie is out of the bottle. Like once you started once you could get a digital file of something, then there is no going back. Like for the Wii U store, literally people figured out a way to download the games from the official servers to then run the runs on their emulators. Oh, wow. Yeah.
01:05:50
Speaker
which is just the biggest fuck you to Nintendo, right? But yeah, I mean, it's this, I these game preservation society should exist and should continue to exist. And God damn it, if they can make it easy for that kind of thing of like, oh, yeah, you can come just, you know, library, like loan that game out. That's the ideal. But until we reach that point, I think
01:06:15
Speaker
you know, the hidden market will support that in the meantime. I mean, I don't know about you, Charles, did you ever mess around with setting up like custom MMO servers or anything like that?
01:06:29
Speaker
Um, no, no, I, um, I know people had set them up for, you know, MMO games that have, you know, to them private servers and everything else. But my friends were normally the ones that like were really into it. And they would, if I even had an inkling of interest, somebody, one of them had already beat me to the punch. So I just wrote on the coattails of my, um, friends in college. Like it was, um, either Guild Wars or Guild Wars two.
01:06:54
Speaker
it was Guild Wars. I mean Guild Wars, I know Ragnarok online, they were always like modded custom servers you could get access to and they would have like you know five times XP, five times item drop to make you know kind of taking out the time gates out of those things so you experience them better. Blizzard and World of Warcraft have been much more challenging in that arena but I also think at the same time Blizzard knows that it has something of historical value so
01:07:22
Speaker
I feel at a certain point, Blizzard will be like, all right, we've made all the money we can make on a level of Warcraft. We will make sure this is preserved somewhere where it can be played outside of our hold. Because if you've ever listened to Blizzard employees and even executive manager talk about World of Warcraft, it's like, this is like owning Final Fantasy. You know what I mean? This is bigger than us. Yeah. Andy.
01:07:49
Speaker
Hmm, I don't know how I feel about it. Like, I don't think owning a physical means anything anymore, right? Like almost every company is shipping a broken game on a disk. So owning the disk means nothing. I buy all disks just because I like having it on my shelf. But, you know, every time you put in the game, you're installing a patch. So I don't think we can count on printed games as preservation.
01:08:16
Speaker
I think it's just for boomers now. And I think the only thing I can think of is that if a if a if a company is closing down a digital store, I think they should have to submit every single game to like some type of preservation, like, and I'm talking about like, even through like, like regulated by the government, right?
01:08:36
Speaker
Like, I know the light, like, you know, you're only licensing a game, you're only essentially renting a digital game and it can be taken away from you whenever. I think if you're shutting down a store, you need to submit everything to something for preservation, because physical means nothing anymore.
01:08:52
Speaker
Um, they should not even release physical until like a year after the game's out. Like I think I even stamped the disc anymore. I mean, I know, Andy, I know it's, it's a, it's an increasingly common occurrence in terms of like, when you get a disc, there is items that need to be downloaded, but I wouldn't say that these games are on like always going to be unplayable. Um, when you get a physical game, um,
01:09:22
Speaker
I know that Elden Ring, if you didn't have, you know, you could play the physical edition, like cut yourself off on the internet and play that initial version.
01:09:33
Speaker
Um, right away, uh, which comes up just because, um, I know, you know, some of the lore people, uh, bring up like how some game descriptions change if you download the day one patch. So you can like, in order to see certain things in the world that were not removed or changed, you'd have to start the game offline first. So like, I, you know, I, I wouldn't say it's, uh,
01:10:02
Speaker
fully 100% that every day one physical edition in modern times is unplayable? Well, I wouldn't say unplayable. But I agree that there's a lot of day one updates to games that either fix things or do things. It's not even just day one. Sometimes they're just shipping disks. We're literally the only thing written on it as a code. There's a little bit of script that says go to Microsoft Server download. Yeah. Yeah. It really doesn't feel like physical means anything anymore.
01:10:31
Speaker
I think the only game I've ever received that didn't get a patch for a long time was Final Fantasy 7 Remake. That didn't get an update for so long. They tried to do it right. And Nintendo games. Nintendo games rarely need an update. I wouldn't say they really need an update. They rarely get an update. Need is another. OK, that's fair. But anyways, so I'm bitter about all of it. I don't even really care anymore.
01:11:02
Speaker
I just assume games go away like nothing's permanent. Everything we're losing. Charles, did you or Charles or Andy, did you buy the that game from loading ready run? It's a demon run, which is basically it was this game. It's a switch game that they're basically like, we will never allow this game to be digital. This game is only physical and it will only be this one printing. Oh, I'm fine with that. From loading ready run.
01:11:31
Speaker
I think it was loading ready run. Who's the company that does all the weird physical releases for games? Limited switch game. Limited run. Thank you. Limited run. So loading ready run is the online content group. Yeah. And I think the game was called demon something. I think it might've been demon run, but I can't remember. Okay. Well, it looks like limited run had some problem with the community manager. That's it.
01:11:59
Speaker
Yeah, for me personally, when it comes to game preservation, it's one of those things that kind of lumps in with, I lump in with the preservation of all human media to ever be created. It would be nice and comforting that we could have a record of everything.
01:12:17
Speaker
I'm a little bit more thoughtful about this because I recently got done with Horizon Forbidden West, where human apocalypse has happened and the game takes place thousands of years later in the ruins of our old times in technology. So it's kind of like this thought of like,
01:12:39
Speaker
it would be nice to have a record of everything. It would be a shame to lose all the stuff that humanity has ever created, including games. Charles, to not spoil too much of Horizon, but that one scene where the AI is telling the children, I can't help you anymore is like the most heartbreaking scene. That's from one, I think.
01:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I was going to say, I was like, I don't recall that. But yeah, so it's this interesting thing in terms of like thinking about Steam exists and it's the de facto game distribution system for PC games, right?
01:13:24
Speaker
nothing's impossible. There could be a future where Steam eventually goes away. There are definitely other distribution platforms for games currently as well, but it's always just that thought of like, what do you lose when the distribution platform leaves as well?
01:13:43
Speaker
Yeah. And I'd like to think that somebody, some very hyper, uh, hyper focused nerd is just trying to check off boxes. Jigsaw pieces together.
01:13:59
Speaker
I mean, I don't think it's just one. I mean, there's definitely people with terabyte. Well, actually probably at this point, what comes after terabyte? Zettabyte, right? Zettabyte stack towers that just have every game they could possibly have on it. Ready to go in a moment's notice. And I mean, even, even past that there's those people's like, all right, here's this game and here's it in each patch. Oh, sure. Oh God bless them. Yeah. Well, you know, I think, uh, we could call it here for now.
01:14:29
Speaker
But you know, I'd like to thank all of our lovely listeners, especially when these recordings stop going away and the servers die and preservation, but multi redundancy on these, we have it on.
Conclusion and Farewell
01:14:47
Speaker
three different services, actually five, technically. Yeah. And maybe thousands of years from now, you'll be listening to this on another episode of Add to Party, a friendship simulator masquerading as a new show. I am your nihilistic host, Charles Jamot. And I've been joined by James. I'll be back in America next week. Charles will still be hosting Hartwell. Uh, and I've been joined by Andy. I'm a puzzler now.
01:15:19
Speaker
I'm a puzzler. And he said he wasn't going to become one. I don't want to. Have a good night, everybody. Have a new hyper fixation hyper fixation. No, it's fine. Everyone say good boy. Good night. Bye.