Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S3 Ep239: 2023 In Preview
74 Plays3 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they talk about upcoming games for the new year and share their hopes and dreams in this week's episode!
Intro:
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Intro:
- Kirby 64 - The Crystal Shards - Adeleine Battle Theme
- Kirby 64 - The Crystal Shards - On to Aqua Star!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Dave's Unusual Morning
00:00:24
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave?
00:00:33
Speaker
It's going good. I slept in for a Saturday. I mean, Thursday. I mean, that's yeah. Yeah. We're recording this Thursday during the worst of the morning. Sorry work. Not that important right now. Now, actually, actually Saturday, you know, a little bit of a makeup episode, but I'm glad you're doing well. I know sleeping in is a little bit. Unusual for you, though, you're a bit of an early bird. Has that has that thrown you off at all?
00:01:03
Speaker
Yeah. It's very weird because on a given day, like even outside of work, like even if I had.
00:01:14
Speaker
like PTO. It's like, oh, by like eight or nine ish. OK. So then by like, you know, a standard white person in America, nine to five, I'm like, oh, morning time, nine ish breakfast. Right. So I woke up today at like 10 40 because I like check my phone, went back to sleep, check a phone back to sleep.
00:01:37
Speaker
and now it's this time where it's like hey, body's like we kind of want that food thing and I'm like it is kind of close to lunch though so I don't so I just had like a later breakfast. Yeah. And then I had like a brief fork full of like cold pasta and some other bullshit. But yeah, it's throwing me for a loop because like I don't know what I'm supposed to have meals or do things now. Yeah. When does lunch happen if you have a late breakfast, right?
00:02:06
Speaker
Maybe like one thirty two. Mm hmm. Exactly. One thirty two. I guess if you have, like, you can you can have like a lighter meal or something like that to kind of return to normalcy. You know, just go for the all in lunch.
College Memories at IHOP
00:02:24
Speaker
Lunch at IHOP. Oh, my God. Any pancakes and I fucking miss that so much. Yeah, because back in the day,
00:02:37
Speaker
Uh, when we were younger and drank more Friday night would be the, Oh, we'll get some people together, have a party, play some drinking games, whatever. And then like it crashed in the morning. You're like, Hey, I want to sober up and, you know, add more calories to my weekend. Oh, let's go to like I hop.
00:02:57
Speaker
So if you get some people in a car, chilly morning, the most sober, everybody's sober at that point. Somebody drives IHOP. Good cover. It was me. I was the most sober. But then you get to order stuff like pancakes and syrup and bacon. You're like, hooray.
00:03:16
Speaker
Do you not order syrup anyway? No, it's usually provided at the table. Somebody showing their white privilege. It was just like a nice like weekend spot to go to the thing. It was timing it. So like you didn't go there when the families you're like, oh, hooray, we're done with whatever activity. We're going to go there as a huge group because it would become pretty packed around lunch. Yeah. That's probably still the case. Did you ever do that with
00:03:47
Speaker
I mean, I'm sure you went to IHOP with us at some point, or like a diner. Yeah. I've gone to IHOP twice in probably the last 10 years. But I think you were probably at one of them. But I'm not 100% sure. Only I ever died at one of the IHOPs.
Regional Food Debates
00:04:04
Speaker
Yes. Yeah, you oversee it.
00:04:08
Speaker
The one time we actually it was back in like the first D&D campaign and we incidentally ran into some other people like from college or something like that. Like if they're at the IHOP and I was like, is this a thing? It was incredibly random. And I went not that long ago after moving in.
00:04:31
Speaker
It was just like I had some time off. I think it was during the work week or maybe Saturday outside of busy hours entirely. There's almost no one else there. And we're like pancakes, pancakes are good. I like pancakes.
00:04:46
Speaker
Do they call them hotcakes or flapjacks or just pancakes there? I think they legitimately call them pancakes. OK. I'm getting it conflated with McDonald's breakfast then. McDonald's calls them hotcakes. Yeah. And it's probably brandy. And I don't know how much IHOP has to pay to use pancakes as a moniker, but like it's in the name. So unless they rename the actual restaurant, they're probably going to continue to pay that.
00:05:17
Speaker
I'm actually I don't know exactly why that is my hotcakes instead of pancakes. I assumed it was like a regional term. Oh, yeah, that's it. Damn, I'm good. That's funny. Hmm.
00:05:35
Speaker
But I mean, even if you go to like central Pennsylvania from like Eastern Pennsylvania or like Southeastern, just like some simple terms just change around or even like soda versus pop or hoagies versus grindies, sprinkles and jimmies. A lot of that stuff just changes pretty quickly. But it is pretty universally understood. People might look at you like, why are you calling it that? But like, they still know what you mean. Yeah.
00:06:02
Speaker
quick Google search, apparently McDonald's still calls them hotcakes because it was the more popular term in the 50s.
00:06:09
Speaker
According to someone on Reddit, I'm not going to quote, like I'm not going to give them, not going to attribute to them. That was me. That's where this attribution is coming from. I still call women hotcakes because that was a popular term used in the 50s. And if they get upset, you just tell them to reach out to you that you're your PR department. You're just like, all right, there you go. Same as McDonald's.
00:06:36
Speaker
Oh, it was Cora actually. It's fine. I'm still not going to attribute it. Yeah, they're pretty good. Have you ever had pancakes without the, um, leavening is the wrong word. Uh, what is the thing that makes the pancakes get fluffy?
00:06:56
Speaker
It makes, is that not a thing? This quick powder. All right, I'm gonna find this. This is very specific. At some point we'll get to the topic here. Also, you're asking a Jew if he's had unleavened bread? Yes, I think I have. Okay, all right. Matzah, is it matzah? I think it's baking powder.
00:07:19
Speaker
I think you get it without baking powder. But anyways, basically you get like super flat pancakes that are not like fluffy, but they taste delicious. They're just super good. Yeah. I guess it's closer to a crepe. Yeah. Anyways, I have no follow up to that. That was just a random question.
00:07:44
Speaker
I will say though, crepes kind of suck in comparison. To be fair, it's a different thing. Pancakes are obviously big, fluffy, smother them in syrup and other stuff. You can have fruit with it, but that's not usually the vibe. Whereas crepes are lighter, powdered sugar, fresh fruit.
00:08:06
Speaker
Like, it's a lighter, healthier type of dessert or food. Like, it's not meant to be decadent and you're going to be comatose afterwards. Yeah. As soon as I feel I hear lighter and healthier, I'm out. It's just like those are the two things I am not. So, you know, you are what you eat. I'm not light and healthy.
00:08:31
Speaker
Lighter and healthier. So you should not put any dressing in my salad, is what you're saying. Fuck you. Just greens. You just get greens. But yeah, food aside, glad you're doing all right. We can work our way through the late wake up adjustment here, which is pretty normal for me. I usually wake up late, so it's all good. Yeah, I was going to say, when I messaged you today, you're like, I also just woke up. Yeah.
Anticipated Video Games
00:09:00
Speaker
The surprising thing to me was that you woke up for sure. But, um, or just woke up, I should say, woke up. The assassin. It didn't work. I don't know. I went into like a Salazar voice. We say Salazar. Is this Salazar Slytherin or is this a different Salazar? Salazar from Resident Evil four. Okay. Not familiar with this character, but the only other name I've heard with Salazar is
00:09:32
Speaker
Harry Potter. You should watch the Resident Evil 4 gameplay, but he's like a Napoleonic, at least for how he's dressed.
00:09:41
Speaker
a fairly short, but he has like a comically evil voice. And he always has like these schemes and machinations to kill Leon Kennedy. And he's usually like, I'm going to put him in a spike room and that's going to fall on him in four minutes. Anyway, I'm going to walk away and assume everything worked out. It's type of stuff like that mustache twirling. So the villain is Napoleonic, whereas the protagonist is just Leonic in this case.
00:10:09
Speaker
I'll accept it. That's it. That's the episode. All right. See you guys next time. That's fair. Anyways, today's episode is most anticipated episode of the season. We're still in season two, I think. Listen, I will work on a video at some point. I don't even know if that's maybe we should just treat that as the
00:10:37
Speaker
Official breakout point. It's like this is it definitively. That's the reason we've been in season two and I'm sure my phone incrementers the text of season three on a notepad ah It's official now It's very like it's kind of Twilight ask for me. It's just like what season are you in to? How long have you been in season two? But yeah
00:11:04
Speaker
This episode is our year in preview. So this one kind of matches up nicely with our year in review. So instead of looking back, here's our opportunity to look forward to the future of video games and talk about them. This is also the optimism episode.
00:11:29
Speaker
for what things we think will go well in the coming year. Right. But then to borrow the Ferris Bueller quote, the man should not believe in isms, man should only believe in himself. Right. Hmm, that's deep. We should have saved that for the end of the episode, the wise words for the year.
00:11:50
Speaker
That's all right. We can think of something else. I'll steal something from Lorem Ipsum. Don't worry about it. Oh, that's good. Yeah. All right. Well, so I would second that. And I would preface that, as is often the case, games, particularly once we get to the ones that aren't guaranteed, they're not guaranteed. But I would say set to release in a given month, those tend to be pushed back.
00:12:16
Speaker
And I expect honestly like half of the games I'm gonna talk about to probably be pushed back. Oh Yeah, so That's great for us just means more content
00:12:30
Speaker
We get to say like, hey, looking forward, like for every following year, be like Red Falls definitely coming out this year. Red Falls. Love the skooma. Red Fall. It'll be like Tunic, right? Talk about it three times a year and it comes out four years later. Yeah. Or Silksong, right?
00:12:51
Speaker
So it's actually not even on this list. Do they not have I want you to read I want you to read our chat Specifically a message that I sent. Mm-hmm Okay, I'm gonna find this in real time. I have you plebeian next to silk song because it's on the fucking list Was it actually yeah
00:13:13
Speaker
Well, I missed over it. That's a good Sunday night though. It's under H. Oh holiday. Yeah At this point they've given up they've just thought he's a holiday holiday tell you knives out Yeah, you want to talk about soup song again
00:13:34
Speaker
Oh my God, yeah. I would love to see more trailers and more content from Team Cherry about this. I know they have more stuff to share. It's just not at a point where they want to share it yet because they give a fuck about their product and they want it to be as clean and tight as possible. Zing.
00:13:58
Speaker
But they really do, they are a small team and they care very much about their passion project and Hollow Knight has done very well. And I feel like they want to have their successor for it be something that actually lives up to the title instead of being like a
00:14:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, the holiday one was actually better type thing. Right. Or potential negative outcome. They've still only made the trailer. They haven't made any of the gameplay. They've just hired a series of animators. I mean, people have done it. I don't think that's the case, though. I think you're correct. And everything from the trailer, I'd say looks pretty, pretty cool as far as like what they're adding mechanically.
00:14:49
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I don't want to say they should rest on their laurels. I do want to see continued improvement and things like that, but Hollow Knight was just like mechanically a very sound game. I don't think it takes a ridiculous amount of improvement to that formula to justify like another release. This is not something that I would apply to all IPs, but like if it was more Hollow Knight,
00:15:17
Speaker
with some different moves, more songs, you know, to add to a playlist, then great. That would honestly be pretty good. But it seems like, well, I would agree with you. It seems like they're trying to continue the, honestly, the hardest part is probably the world building because they had like a bunch of questions. And one of the things that made Hollow Knight really interesting for me, it was like,
00:15:42
Speaker
This is a lot deeper than I expected, no pun intended. Sorry for those I triggered about Deepnest. But that's what I want to see in Silksong. Is there anything in particular you're looking forward to in Silksong or questions you want to see answered?
00:16:00
Speaker
I'll be honest, I love a good lore, but very much in the moment I will get... I always start out with the machinations of, oh, I'm going to figure stuff out. I'm going to, you know, put all these puzzle pieces together. And then I get so immersed in the game and lost it that I forget to do that.
00:16:20
Speaker
And then I'll just watch 75 lore videos by Vaati Vidya or in this case Mossbag. And I like being along for the ride of realizing what I experienced on a deeper level and being like shown that extra information.
00:16:40
Speaker
So, no, I don't have any active questions, but I would like to just learn more about the world because it is really, really cool. Oh, yeah. I'm also going to assume. Going to assume that this happens after the events of Hollow Knight one. Right. Yeah, I think that would be a much more interesting case. OK, I'm actually going to propose. I feel like it's safe to assume at this point just through crafting that.
00:17:10
Speaker
depending on which ending they go with for canon, that we don't have to worry about the radiant infection anymore. So that won't be a part of it. Right. Yeah, no, that I mean, that's the question, right? There is there is depending on what you did in Hollow Knight and how much of the DLC you got through. Please load your save from Hollow Knight one. Yes, they do the Mass Effect thing.
00:17:36
Speaker
It's like, well, Pillbug died in episode one, so we're not going to load him in for episode two. Yeah. We'll see if it does indeed come out. So this is one of the ones that doesn't have a particular month unless I missaw. It still looks like it's just 2023. I'm getting the headache. So to be announced for 2023.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah. Technically, I don't know if it was them or someone else, but they did miss a deadline already in 2022 because of the blanket statement. All of the games that were shown here would be coming out.
00:18:17
Speaker
What was that for? It was for 2023. Okay. Well, then they're good. This was all 2023. Excellent. Um, it was just a weird announcement. I guess it was for them because they kind of just were seen in a trailer and it's like, by the way, you're saying it comes out next year.
Interest in Game Remakes
00:18:33
Speaker
It's like, yeah, sure. Whatever. We'll release it next year, I guess. Um, which isn't the most hyped up way to do it, but you know what? That's fine. So.
00:18:44
Speaker
On my list, I've got a lot here. I'm not going to take as much time as we did to talk about Silksong, because to be honest, my investment in all of these games is not the same as Silksong. But early in the year, we've got Dead Space. So January, that's this month for those that are listening in the present tense. And if you're listening absolutely in the present tense, how did you get in my basement?
00:19:11
Speaker
But we talked about it recently, Dead Space 1. Very solid game. It holds up surprisingly well. What are you hoping they accomplish? Or what are you hoping they change? Or what would make you play Dead Space coming out this month, I guess? If it's not released as a new game, like a full game. Like if it was like, I'd say $20 or cheaper, like even $30 maybe.
00:19:41
Speaker
But like I have played it. I assume they're not going to change anything mechanically about it. It's just going to be visually updated for everything. Maybe they'll fucking take out the cannon section because that blows dick and not in the fun way. But really beyond that, like the gameplay is good. So just giving it a visual update after like a decade. Cool. I'd be happy.
00:20:04
Speaker
Yeah, I actually, I didn't even think about that, but that's a good angle to take care. I want to see remasters not be full retail price games. And I would tell Resident Evil that. Yeah. Well, yes. It's I haven't played most of Resident Evil, so I don't know if I can jump in that. I don't know to what degree they made changes within the gameplay.
00:20:30
Speaker
But if Dead Space just has a visual update, and it's a $60 or, God forbid, $70 game, machine God forbid, $70 game, I'm not picking it up. So. No, I don't think you could change the mechanics too much and still have it be the same game. Yeah. Like, I know with Resident Evil, like, Resident Evil initially was, like, very janky. And, like, you have, depending on which one you played, like, certain hallways. And it was very slow, whereas now it's
00:21:00
Speaker
an active third-person game. You can move around and stuff. I'm sure they added actual detail to certain areas, et cetera, et cetera. I think they've changed it enough to warrant it is a technically different game. Final Fantasy 7. That remaster is very much different from the original game. So it justifies that difference.
00:21:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's hard for me to imagine what they would change in Dead Space to be like, all right, it's an entirely different thing, but still the Dead Space you're familiar with. I'm going to I'm going to do this episode. I'm going to try to take a moonshot for each of these games, a mechanic that they're not going to introduce, but would be hilarious if they did for Dead Space. It's one player plays through the game. Same story, same whatever as Isaac, but it's online.
00:21:53
Speaker
And another player will join is the Necromorphs that are coming in through events and stuff like that to screw with you. Just to mess up the experience just a little bit. You play in offline mode? Very boring game. Yes, there are no enemies. The other one that's coming up soon, and I know a lot less about it than Dead Space, is Atomic Heart in February. Woo-hoo. Yeah.
00:22:22
Speaker
I'm not sure if I'm even going to pick it up immediately at launch. It really is dependent on what the game actually is because I still don't know. I mean, as far as I can tell, it's. It is Bioshock. And by that, I mean like you. You have powers and you have weapons and you're kind of exploring an old.
00:22:50
Speaker
Russian factory of robots type thing. It seems interesting enough that I'm invested to see where it goes, but it seems like a good continuation of something in that immersive sim space like Bioshock, whereas some of the stuff I've seen as kind of like spiritual successors or continuous in the space of a dark soul such as
00:23:13
Speaker
Lies of P, which is like the Pinocchio fucking whatever, or Steel Rising, which is like the French Revolution, Dark Souls, whatever. They seem to be a lot more weirdly linear and not in the same actual spiritual successor space. Does that make sense?
00:23:37
Speaker
It kind of does. And I'll be honest, I mean, maybe I'm missing details that have been posted somewhere, but I don't even know if atomic is like immersive sim, if it's a linear shooter, whatever, because all of the trailers and things we've seen have been action shots and the powers look bioshock. I guess I'll give you that. It's got definitely that that aspect to it, but. I don't know what like the genre of game is beyond shooter, probably RPG like I'm not sure, right?
00:24:07
Speaker
That's why I like when they have gameplay trailers. Like give me that IGN 20 minutes to be like, Oh yeah. Instead of just a trailer. I'm like, let me, let me guess based on this recorded footage. It's got the aesthetic, but I, other thing I would contrast this to that I talk about a lot is, um, is death loop.
00:24:29
Speaker
where they definitely had the aesthetic trailers. Those were great. But you also were getting information about how the gameplay loop works, no pun intended. Whereas the moment-to-moment gameplay beyond fighting the robots, I know nothing about Atomic Heart. So we'll see, I guess, pretty soon. Do you want to pick one from your list?
00:24:56
Speaker
like a dragon Ishin is a more of a like a dragon not Yakuza parentheses is Yakuza, but it's going back to like I Don't know if it's safe say feudal Japan. Mm-hmm
00:25:14
Speaker
But more like a crossover is the joke. More stuff like that. I enjoy those those games. I haven't played too many of them, but the few I have, I'm like, this is entertaining and fun. So I'd be curious to check that out. I have a tidbit for it, which is apparently Yakuza is the. English name for the series, but in Japan, it was always like a dragon.
00:25:43
Speaker
Um, so they're kind of unifying the naming scheme a little bit there. Oh, okay. Yeah. So, um, uh, what is the, uh, I was literally playing it recently. Is it just like a dragon? Yakuza like a dragon. Is that the one that I have? The, uh, the JRPG Yakuza like a dragon. Okay. You plan that.
00:26:07
Speaker
I started I got like through the first fight. I started it, but we're getting there. I'm definitely still in tutorial mode. Okay. But yeah, and I played Yakuza zero and it's such a great series. Freaking love it from from what I played for sure. So I don't know if I would put this as a day one pickup for me. Given that, you know, that's not a day one.
00:26:34
Speaker
But it's definitely something I'll pick up once it's on sale, particularly if it continues to review really well, like they're just making good games. So that's all good. Now that we've talked about good games, the next one, I don't know if it's going to be good or not. We have Sons of the Forest coming out in February. Longtime listeners will recall that we've done an episode on the forest
00:27:05
Speaker
And it was one of the one of the few survival. I would say the few survival crafting games that actually integrated story in a meaningful and engaging way. With some pitfalls, shoot Minecraft right in the kneecaps, but whatever. They had to release other games to get the story from Minecraft. But yeah, I mean, Sons of the Forest is their follow up.
00:27:33
Speaker
What are your hopes and aspirations for this one? I don't know how they're going to continue the story in a way where I'm invested. Because again, with forest one, I had no idea that it was going to be a story until towards the very end of the game, I was like, oh shit. I was like, oh, that's a nice twist and that was interesting.
00:27:59
Speaker
But now with forest two, I assume it's after forest one, like continuation. But I know it would be weird if it's onto the forest and it's a prequel, right? On my own grandpa, was it? I know from the trailer and like they have confirmed it that like you do have like helpful NPCs. Like there is a lady who has an extra arm and like carries multiple guns.
00:28:29
Speaker
So I feel like they're ramping up a lot as far as the mechanics in the game and they did talk a little bit about increasing the animations for stuff. So like if you're going to be crafting, it's not just like slapping all this stuff and like going to pile in a backpack and wow, like it's actually going to be making it. I'm sure visually it will be better as well.
00:28:55
Speaker
But yeah, my my key thing will be, is it going to have a story or is it just going to be a survival crafting shooter? Mm hmm. Yeah, it's just that I don't know if I'd be too, too engaged. Yeah, I think there's almost been it's it feels really weird to say this, but a drought of survival crafting games.
00:29:22
Speaker
And I'll prefix this that I care about or suffixes I care about. Like they never stopped being made. I'm sure there's still so many on Steam, but like we really burned ourselves out on that genre, it feels like. And there are so many things to reference that need to be improved upon.
00:29:46
Speaker
Um, in order to make like a modern current year survival crafting game, that's worth playing compared to all of this other stuff that's out there. It's like $5 on steam or whatever. Um, so they really have to, I think they have to aim high here and do better than the first game for sure. But I wouldn't hate the idea of having a, you know, co-op multiplayer game that's engaging.
00:30:10
Speaker
in the first couple quarters. I really need more good co-op games. Because every time I look through my library, I'm like, what games can I play with people? I'm like 80% single player, like three multiplayer games, and the rest I can't talk about legally in public. Because of the NDA. Yeah. That's fair.
00:30:34
Speaker
The non-disclosure ass. The next one I have on my list, I'm just going to do two for every one you have, just because I have a bunch of games. I'm not going to talk about it as much because we talk about the game a fair amount, but Destiny 2, Lightfall, also coming out in February. I have to mention this because, I mean, at some point, we'll probably have Ian on. And if I don't defuse it now, he's going to talk about it then. So we're just going to cut it off at the root. Just kidding.
00:31:05
Speaker
It looks interesting. But I mean, I don't know what can be said for Destiny at this point. They have a pretty fixed content cycle. And I don't think anything's going to be too earth shattering if it's fun and we play through it. Awesome. I'm just looking forward to having build loadouts.
00:31:27
Speaker
Yes, that's actually really funny. But legitimately, there's all of these lore implications, everything happening in the game. Excited for that. I am more excited for build loadouts in game that don't require them. Yeah, it is such a pain in the ass. So that'll be cool. Yeah, sometimes we feel the, or perhaps often we feel the weight of how old Destiny 2 actually is.
00:31:56
Speaker
with all of its early design decisions. Who's developing this, Nintendo? Uh-huh, right. We refuse to change our ways. Yeah, that's destiny. What would be next for you? What are you looking at this year?
00:32:14
Speaker
Something I'm interested in following, I don't know if I'm necessarily going to pick up, but if I was going to, it would probably be this entry, the Resident Evil 4 remake. From the outside in, Resident Evil is a very entertaining franchise to watch. I don't really care about playing it or the storyline, but it's always entertaining from a distance.
00:32:38
Speaker
I will say Resident Evil 4 is the most, the most hokey one where everything's very over the top and comical. As I mentioned, Salazar is from Resident Evil 4. And they're doing all of these remasters of these games. I feel like this one is going to be huge for a lot of people because this was a major entry in the franchise.
00:33:05
Speaker
Yeah, I haven't played too much of Resident Evil. I've played a lot of five, a little bit of six, a little bit of seven. And even I know the Resident Evil 4 is the biggest in the series, right? Like this is Silent Hill 2 for Silent Hill fans. This is the namesake. So I expect this one is gonna
00:33:26
Speaker
make them a lot of money and it's probably going to take off. And for people who want to watch people play through Resident Evil, I think that's going to be very much available at launch time because I don't think this one's going under the radar.
00:33:40
Speaker
Also, I like the idea that for some of these remasters or other stuff like that in general, I like the idea that it can bring new players into the space. I feel like any time a franchise releases a game shouldn't be, hey, everybody who already loves this thing, here's another thing. Like I want something that's going to be able to invite new people in and get them interested as well.
00:34:04
Speaker
Oh yeah. I'm doing the opposite of gatekeeping for a franchise I do not play. Everybody come play Resident Evil. Yeah. Well, you're just getting them away from the franchises you care about, obviously. Do not touch the ones I love, please. I like when more people can play games and appreciate them together. Gatekeeping is weird.
00:34:28
Speaker
It really is. We talked about the remaster phase we're in right now. And going into some of the sequels, you're going to see a lot of games here that have numbers after them.
Resident Evil 4 Remake
00:34:40
Speaker
But I think
00:34:44
Speaker
Yeah, I would absolutely second that it's important to be able to get people to play these games that otherwise are completely inaccessible on old consoles. You can't buy anymore or you have to just use like a virtual console or it means that we wouldn't advocate for in a public podcast. New Replicant is I think a good example of that. Yeah. I've never had a PS3 and I was never going to get it for one game.
00:35:08
Speaker
but here we are. Yeah. And I mean, uh, demon souls, obviously another example, like no one played that game on PS five exclusive play him like, fuck. Yes. Uh, I wish it wasn't exclusive. Um, I understand why they did it, but
00:35:26
Speaker
More people play Demon's Souls Remake than the original Demon's Souls. I can say without even any scientific backup, I just know it to be true. How much are PS5s now? Are they available? They probably are. I know we have a friend who bought one recently, and I can't imagine they're still out of stock. Production's ramped up.
00:35:51
Speaker
Speaking of production ramping up, I'm gonna move a little bit quickly through some of these. Star Wars Jedi Survivor. I kind of, well, I'm not gonna move too fast through this. I really enjoyed the first game. We never covered it here. But for where I was at enjoying a kind of like adventure story game, I had a good time with it. I probably wouldn't pick this up day one
00:36:20
Speaker
Can I throw my uninformed two cents? Sure. I've played the first game for two hours. I am struggling very hard to give a shit about it because I feel every five seconds they're interrupting me with something else and I'm not really getting a chance to just play the game.
00:36:42
Speaker
Yeah, I, I don't recall the early game, so I couldn't confirm or can contest. I know the early segments are very cinematic focus. Like there's stuff happening to you to kind of like set the, um, the baseline for where the story's going, but I don't remember exactly what happens there. So could not, uh, corroborate or contest, but
00:37:05
Speaker
Overall, I think the game received pretty good reviews. And a lot of Star Wars games come out that you just don't have to have any interest in. But this is kind of in that action, kind of like Jedi Knight space, where they're pretty fun to play, in my opinion, at least pretty fun to play. So I expect more of the same, pretty much, from that. A little bit more plot and all of that.
00:37:31
Speaker
Uh, next one's a big one though.
Diablo 4 Concerns
00:37:33
Speaker
Um, Diablo four in June, they've, uh, feigned interest for a second and then went back to reading this newspaper. But from everything I've heard about the early coverage in Diablo four, um, people are saying it's, it's very fun. Um, Blizzard has made it very open. They allowed not just the employees to play, but they had like a friends and family event where
00:38:01
Speaker
pretty much everyone related to the employees could also play for an extended period of time. So you can see a lot of gameplay for it online now. No, no, at least as far as what I saw that got like posted on YouTube, people are allowed to make videos on it, but they weren't allowed to show any footage of their own. They can only show footage from. I guess prerecorded stuff from Blizzard.
00:38:30
Speaker
Well, I did. I mean, maybe these aren't allowed and maybe these are leaks then. I don't know to what extent I would contest that. But I mean, there's 40 minutes of gameplay with boss fights, sorcerers, barbarian, rogue, like maybe they weren't supposed to record it, but it's all out there and it's on it's on YouTube so you can find it. Which you're pretty much opening yourself up to when all these people who haven't signed NDAs are allowed to
00:38:57
Speaker
play the game. For anybody who is unaware, that still stands for non-disclosure ass. Yes. You must disclose your ass. Yes. It's those chaps, I think, specifically. I'm not sure how I feel about Diablo. I'll let you go first.
00:39:22
Speaker
Well, you can put down the newspaper and give me your brief impressions. Put the pipe to the side of the mouth. I like the idea that I'm actually reading a newspaper with a pipe. I smoke indoors. I mean, I'm always somebody who enjoys this type of ARPG. I don't like Blizzard as a company. That's pretty well stated at this point. Diablo 4 does look pretty clean and nice.
00:39:48
Speaker
For me, my money is still going to be with Path of Exile 2, which visually looks like it was built on the same engine. Path of Exile has always followed a free and pay out the dick for cosmetics model. It has a much more robust and I would almost argue overly complicated system of pathing your skill trees and whatnot.
00:40:11
Speaker
That being said, I still grew up with Diablo, so I'm going to follow it to a degree. So I'm interested to see how it does. This definitely does look like their best iteration since. I don't think Diablo 3 was bad, but I don't think it was like... I don't think it blew Diablo 2 out of the water, at least as far as the sequel, whereas Diablo 4 does look comparatively way better than 3. Yeah. I think that's fair to say.
00:40:40
Speaker
We lost some stuff out of two and three had a lot of controversy and issues off the jump. Um, remarkably, the one, the one I recall the most was, um, how like bright everything was. People are saying this is not, not dark gothic Diablo two or Diablo theming anymore. This is just overland adventure and somewhat infamously, the developers parried that, parodied that in the development of Diablo three with the pony level.
00:41:10
Speaker
Where you know hidden pony place instead of the the cowl level where you run around and get loot and stuff in this very bright area It does seem like diablo 4 has gotten darker again Based off of what i've seen they're they're going back to that old motif the things i'm looking for are gameplay interested like The things i'm scared of battle passes Like season loops stuff like that the stuff I know
00:41:39
Speaker
Blizzard is putting into their games much more aggressively now Diablo immortal, right? Like we can't forget the recent past. Yeah. Overwatch even. And my concern is that's going to obliterate my interest in the game and it'll just be like dead on arrival.
00:41:58
Speaker
So I guarantee you that they will do something like that. It's just right now they're advertising, hey, here's how cool the new spells look for like Ice Mage. And you're like, nice. So I feel like that's the hook.
00:42:17
Speaker
Because it does look really good. It looks really good. But yeah, I can't imagine Blizzard being like, but not for Diablo. We're not going to do that for this game. We're not going to apply our models for every game to this one IP.
00:42:33
Speaker
Yeah, I don't expect a massive model shift. I think they actually did confirm that there would be a battle pass. But my hope is that there will be enough negative pushback in the games that have been released since then, including Overwatch, that it's not in a terrible model.
00:42:51
Speaker
I've played games with battle passes. I play destiny. I'm willing to do it if it seems fair, but not if it doesn't. So we'll see. This is this is a wait and see for me. I really want some in-depth information about mechanics and crafting and loop progression and co-op and all that stuff. And if it has all of it, I'll probably play it.
00:43:16
Speaker
If it doesn't, or it has some bad things, some toxic elements in here that are gonna make me hate it, I probably won't. For those of you listening at home who are recording the time, Jake does care about Diablo 4 as much as Silksong. That's not true. I probably passed it out with my ranting as well.
00:43:39
Speaker
I'm sure we'll talk, even if we don't play about it, I'm sure we'll talk about it for a post-mortem of the launch to some degree once it comes out. Diablo 4 was shit. I didn't play it, but here are my thoughts. Well, I'm just saying it's big, right? This is one of the classic IPs. Diablo really is. And whether it is harming or helping
00:44:03
Speaker
The the video game space it's important. So I think it's gonna be worth talking about regardless Side note side note. I kind of want The game manual for diablo 2 that I got from my battle chest way back I'd be willing I might look after I might look during this call to actually see if I can buy that because that would be a nostalgia trip for me Yeah, I know
00:44:29
Speaker
You want it in the physical form. I know digital forms exist for it. They still have the battle chest, but I think it's digital now, which is less less physical. How do you feel about Alan Wake to. So I'm one of the people who played Alan Wake and I enjoyed it. I don't know exactly where they're going story wise, especially after.
00:44:59
Speaker
Control. Which is in the same universe. Yeah, that was.
00:45:09
Speaker
Weird. Not bad, but weird. Because that was only part of the DLC, right? Yes. But they're like, hey, this is canon. Well, actually, no. Even in the base game for Control, they had the old gods of Asgard tie in. And I'm like, OK. I like that it's in the same universe, honestly. But I don't know how they're going to tie that in. I hope it's not heavily plot relevant.
00:45:36
Speaker
like somehow Jesse Faden. Oh, somehow that sounds right. Yeah. Somehow is related. Dr. Jesse Hayden. Yeah. Like it's somehow something with her organization or even her somehow relates to
00:46:00
Speaker
Alan Wake's predicament. This is what I fear is Alan Wake was a much more personal story. They kind of like expanded in scope a bit over the course of it, but it's kind of like.
00:46:13
Speaker
It's kind of Cthulhu-esque and how it all unfolds, this unknowable darkness in all of this. And then Control is like, we're big business, like Illuminati tier. The world is fake. It's like Illuminati SCP stuff. Yes. Yeah. And of the two, I actually like the story for Control more. So that's my concern. My concern is after coming back from Control, I don't know what they're going to do with Alan Wake.
00:46:43
Speaker
Gameplay wise, it'll probably be fine. It was a third person shooter with a flashlight. So. I will say I played Alan Wake before control, and I feel like that's the correct order to do it in. Yeah. Because mechanically going back, it's just not the same. But I was surprisingly more interested than I thought I would be playing through Alan Wake as things kind of unfolded.
00:47:07
Speaker
Yeah, they need to add something more to it by a couple of degrees.
00:47:15
Speaker
Because the story is interesting enough. But mechanically, it's like, I put the flashlight on the guy. I've now switched to the gun. OK. We've all played Luigi's Mansion already. Uh-huh. Yeah, pretty much. To this day, I'm not going to spoil it. But the ending of Alan Wake, not talking about the DLC, I never did American Nightmare. But the ending of Alan Wake has like a goosebump inducing like end line.
00:47:45
Speaker
that makes no sense out of context. It's one of those things where it's like, man, this was such a cool moment that means nothing to people who haven't played the game. I actually didn't know that you played through. Alan, wait, did you finish it? Yeah. Oh. It looks back to your previously recorded episodes.
00:48:08
Speaker
Oh, what's this Alan Wake? We covered Alan Wake. Really? I actually forgot we did that episode. This is what happens when we've been here for years. I hope it wasn't like last episode or something ridiculous. We've only been recording Alan Wake episodes for years. This is an Alan Wake fan show and I didn't realize. That's funny.
00:48:32
Speaker
Jake, you need to become Alan Woke, okay? I guess so, jeez. We were talking about co-op games, one of the big ones coming up, and I'm through my list of games that have a month on them, which means we're into games that very well could be pushed back, higher frequency.
Baldur's Gate 3 Excitement
00:48:48
Speaker
But Baldur's Gate 3, from Larian, the creators of a little-known game called Divinity 2 Original Sin.
00:48:57
Speaker
which somehow is the first and only game in the Divinity series, as Dave knots. It's the first RPG in a very long time where I was like, holy fuck, I am really into it and invested.
00:49:13
Speaker
Yeah, mechanically everything's really fun. The writing is brilliant. I like the characters, the environment, the story. Mm-hmm. And like I've always been D&D adjacent in that everybody I know fucking plays D&D and talks about it a lot. Yeah. So I figured I'd like Baldur's Gate 3 because it's, you know, gonna be a very similar thing mechanically. Mm-hmm.
00:49:38
Speaker
So yeah, I'm just, I'm down to play the actual game released. Yes. Cause it's been in early access. I know a friend, Ian, friend of the show, a special, special guest. Ian has played the early access. Um, but
00:49:54
Speaker
I haven't touched it. All I know is there's Mind Flayers, which are one of Wizards of the Coast's top enemies, honestly, for interest. And otherwise, you know, pretty spoiler free.
00:50:09
Speaker
D&D is basically a system that's meant for video games, which is kind of funny because it's also meant for tabletop games, but it's really easy to translate it to a video game as long as you constrain the walls a bit, the possibilities of what people can do and skills and things like that.
00:50:28
Speaker
It makes a lot of sense. I'm sure it'll be good. The question is going to be, is it divinity too good? Or is it divinity? Or is divinity one? Yeah, divinity one. I was linked to the Alan Wake episode of 2020 by our resident fact checker. Thank you for whoever did that. Yeah, three years is a long time though, right? So I don't need to remember things that old.
00:50:59
Speaker
But yes, Baldur's Gate, looking forward to it. I don't know how many players it'll have in co-op. It's three or four probably. I assume four. Yeah. I don't know if we'll do a four or if we'll get three people together for it, but I'm sure it'll be a fun time. We'll all take PTO and that'll be great.
00:51:15
Speaker
I mean, my ideal group is still you, me, Jenny, and Ian. Yeah. Because I know Ian definitely wants to. We've played Divinity 2. And Jenny and I haven't played a game in a while, but I also know she's a big D&D nerd. Yeah. Yeah. From what I've seen, the very little I've seen, a lot of it translates from D&D. So.
00:51:40
Speaker
should help with getting into mechanics and things like that. They also just put the divinity twist in there, which that was my fear. And that still kind of is my fear to this game that they lean too hard into D&D where divinity had a really interesting magic system. Um, that was more dynamic, but we'll see. Got to have faith. Um, this other one I actually learned about while looking at a list of games coming out this year, ghost runner two.
00:52:11
Speaker
I will probably play this because I really freaking enjoyed ghost runner one. And it's in the genre. It's basically like hotline Miami cyberpunk 3D for me. So that's what I want.
00:52:25
Speaker
Yeah, it's weird how like these games I can look at from a distance like, I don't know if it's for me. Then I play it for five minutes and then like you run and dash off a wall and then reflect something and then murder somebody. You're like, oh, this is actually really fun. Yeah. Like they just make the gameplay very enjoyable and smooth.
00:52:45
Speaker
And then you're like, okay, now hear me out. Instead of one guy, 17 guys. You're like, that seems like a lot. It's fine. You have some powers. You have some other things you're gonna be in your way and you can slow time. Go. And you're like, oh, okay. It's fun piecing that together and figuring out how to get through a section and then how to do it faster. And then realizing Jake beat your time and you have to grind this one out a little bit.
00:53:12
Speaker
Because I'm just sitting here and watching you play. And it's like, Dave's in level two. And I was like, all right, loading up level two. Got to refine this. I like when games like that have, hey, here's how your other friends did on time. And I'm like, motherfucker.
00:53:30
Speaker
Those are my two immediate ones. I've got a lot more. Eventually, we'll probably have to start the ratio. I'll go faster through some of these, but some of them I want to at least remark on. But do you have a game in your list before you seed control the rest of the episode to me? The last thing I'll say before my mic cuts up. So it's just high level things that look interesting, and you could look into more about, but we won't delve too much into, Black Myth, Wukong,
00:53:58
Speaker
I'm gonna blank use the term souls like, but looks very entertaining, very fun. Also, I would say plucky Squire is one that you mentioned to me a while back. It's a great name. Yeah. But it looks like it kind of branches, bridges, bridges, a bunch of different genres. It looks very fun, similar to how
00:54:26
Speaker
it takes to incorporate like a lot of different mechanics and mini games. It just looks very, very entertaining. But I'll have to see more about it. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I'd agree for that one.
00:54:43
Speaker
All right, that's it. I have control of the podcast. The mic's been cut, I think. I'm not sure. We'll see if we can get in there for some later ones. So we talked about Ghost Runner. Homeworld 3. Homeworld is a game I haven't played a lot of. I own the remaster for one. It's on my list of games I want to play, but I love the idea of it. I'm going to sell you on the idea of it, and then hopefully this is what it turns into.
00:55:11
Speaker
It's a space, RTS, I already lost most people, where you command a fleet that includes salvagers and things like that. You go from engagement to engagement, basically these big battles, and there's no resupply outside of what you get from the battle. So you want to build new ships, it requires you to reclaim the wrecks of enemies and literally your mothership
00:55:37
Speaker
is going to produce these new ships. If you have a particularly terrible engagement, that sucks. You're down those resources forever. A really interesting idea, and the original games came out a while ago.
00:55:54
Speaker
We'll see how they do with Homeworld 3, but my hope is this is the, that modern onboarding, the anti gatekeeping, if you will, um, to an interesting idea that other games really don't, there's not like other games like this for the most part. Um, we'll see. I feel like a lot of, oh my mic does work. I feel like a lot of space games are very niche to where they fall into.
00:56:22
Speaker
Like they're always developed by crazy people who like really care. Yeah. Because no space game is like, yeah, you're just in space and that's it. It's always right. So we have thirty seven recursive nested deep systems for how things work. And you're like, dear fucking God. So having a more accessible version of that with actually good clean mechanics to make it interesting for people is actually a really good step. Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:50
Speaker
I agree. We have a great commentary. As a meta aside, I know time's ticking down. We've had great commentary on games that neither of us may end up playing, which I think is perfect. High effort. High effort podcast. Palace on the back. Ask me about a food I've never eaten. I'll mix this shit up. Let's go. Next one's Payday 3. This isn't going to release. Maybe it'll release eventually, but not this year.
00:57:17
Speaker
Remember the Overwatch 2 conversation? Apply to Payday 3.
00:57:22
Speaker
I just don't know what they're going to say to be like, oh, this is entirely a new thing to justify new game slash for everybody who's spent three thousand dollars on the. What's my number here? Let's say the three thousand different expansion packs, like usually fairly cheap, like two fifty to five bucks. Yeah. And John Wick in the same game. Yeah.
00:57:50
Speaker
Like, I don't know, is that, you're not gonna carry over? So yeah, for something like that, I just don't know what is different between this one and that one. That said though, Payday 2 was very fun, had some of its issues, but like, the music fucking slapped.
00:58:12
Speaker
Yep. I'm, I would second all of those and I would exaggerate that had its issues too. That's the reason I'm not playing payday too much anymore. Like mechanically, there are so many problems with detection and multiplayer and stuff like that. Legitimate two. Are you not the host? Well, thanks for playing. Yeah, you're going to have a bad time. Um, but despite all of that, we still put a bunch of time into it. I'm actually hoping they do clear the board for payday three. What I want is enough content in the base game and then nothing to do with payday two.
00:58:44
Speaker
Because Maybe that seems anti-consumer given like the content packs and yes, I have jacket unlocked and payday too when I like that but Like that systems overloaded. There's too much stuff too many perk trees all this stuff Make it fresh make it more up-to-date make the systems work make the gun play good and
00:59:06
Speaker
which was, it was okay at best, I think in payday too. Um, and they could be onto something, right? Not many people play games or make games where one of the primary actions is shooting police officers. You know, today's day and age, there's nothing in a lot more than a good shooting game. Uh, joke, sarcasm, all of that. Don't demonetize us.
00:59:34
Speaker
Send in advertisement deals things like that Next is Redfall. I'm not sure if this is gonna come out either co-op shooter versus as Vampires stuff like that. We'll see I I do not have high hopes for it. I Don't either it's it has a high potential low realized value is where I put it
00:59:57
Speaker
So in the same way with like Back 4 Blood, people are like, yeah, another Left 4 Dead type game. And then people just didn't really like it for whatever reason. I thought it was fine enough. But like even at a point, I just kind of stopped playing. Yeah. So I don't know what Redfall is going to do. People are like, this is going to be the next big day. I just don't see it having staying power.
01:00:19
Speaker
I mean, from what we've seen, and I, again, don't think it's coming out this year, it's going to have more powers oriented classes, which is kind of interesting, give you a little bit more of that.
01:00:30
Speaker
Um, and then like decisions about how you want to approach engagements with stealth and things like that. But honestly, the trailers, when they, when they talk about things like, oh, we're like lining up with our sniper opening, we'll have the assassin going and kill a guy. And there's all this pre-planning and stuff like that. I go back to the division Ubisoft trailers where people were like on radios doing all this stuff. And there's a friend who's controlling like a drone with a tablet.
01:00:56
Speaker
And then they're like, okay, I gotta go get the mail and the drone flies off. And you're like, wow, what a great experience. And the game is nothing like that. Right. That's my fear is when you have these really detailed trailers for that. But gameplay trailers, gameplay trailers. Yes. Yeah. Slime Rancher 2, not going to talk about it a lot, but Slime Rancher 1 is a very fun, casual game. If you like fun, casual games, check out Slime Rancher.
01:01:23
Speaker
It'll go on sale, and it's cool. You'll like Harvest Moon, Stardew Valley, things like that. It's like that, but slimes instead of crops. That's the game. Starfield, I'm not going to talk about until it comes out. System Shock. We said we don't have high hopes for other ones. I have low hopes for System Shock, because I did the playable demo, and the game will have needed to come so far.
01:01:50
Speaker
I think the joke I made when we did the playable demo, I was like, yo, Chex Quest is hitting different. Yeah. Yeah, it's it's pretty rough. I applaud them for releasing it. But man, they're going to have to prove that the game's come a long way since then. So the wolf among us, too.
01:02:13
Speaker
This is a surprise for me. Um, I don't know. Check out our Wolf Among Us episode. I kind of liked it. Yeah. It's, it's an interesting story, interesting universe. I'd love to see where they go with it. Yeah. Uh, Valheim is also slated to have its official launch, which would probably be a great time
01:02:40
Speaker
I'm getting eyebrows as though. I thought that was already out. Well, it's, is it have a 1.0 launch? If so, we remove it from the list. Jake checks the seams. We just like 3.7 release. Yeah, it's, it's still an early access. Okay. So this will be the official launch. It'll have things like the mist lands, whatever, all of that content.
01:03:02
Speaker
I'm not expecting anything drastic, but Valheim was a sensation when it launched. We talked about the survival crafting games and how there's kind of been a lull. Valheim made a new thing. I had my issues with it, but this could be that game we go back and play as a group, especially if they've added a lot to it when it actually launches.
01:03:27
Speaker
And my last one ending on a high note here Warhammer 40k space marine 2 I was one of five people that played the first game. It was fun Hopefully this one is also fun boom episode That's the year I hope for your sake that they make a good war hammer game They have and
01:03:49
Speaker
I don't know, Darktide could become a better game, but it does still have its good moments. I'll send you a video. It's very entertaining to watch full of bugs. But otherwise, yeah, 40k is tough sometimes. Any words of wisdom for our listeners in this new year?
01:04:10
Speaker
One moment. Googles frantically. Confucius quotes. Lorem Ipsum, dollar sit amet, concept actor, adept, that's as far as you get. Yeah, that's good. I mean, we don't want to get people too much. So much unfiltered, unbridled truth can just sear the mind.
01:04:34
Speaker
Hopefully, that's helpful to you guys, and you guys are having a good new year, hoping for the best. We might talk about some games that weren't even on this list if the game proves itself worthy, where we just play something that came out in a previous year and decide to talk about it. Also, coming soon, actual game episodes. True, yeah. We do occasionally play games. It's very hard to find time to play games when we spend so long talking about them, but we do what we can.
01:05:04
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think you realize how many other podcasts we have. Cool your jets, baby. How about that? It's multiple full-time jobs. And someday we'll get one advertising. If you want to advertise on our podcast, because the last email I got for Soapstone was for a website that got automatically generated for us.
01:05:25
Speaker
and I could check out the sample. It didn't look bad, but I'll be honest, we kind of don't need a website. If you actually listen to this and that's where it came in and it wasn't like a mass emailing, sorry that I didn't respond, but it did kind of seem like a mass emailing, especially when it was hey, space, question mark. I think that's just because we didn't have a first name filled in on like our Gmail profile.
01:05:47
Speaker
Oh, well, if you have ideas for future episodes or you're an advertiser and you want to reach out, we advertise for anything. We have no scruples, no morals. Send those in to soapstone podcast at gmail dot com or join the discussion on Facebook. If you advertise there, it's got to be it's got to have some scruples and morals, I think. Facebook dot com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Goodbye.
01:06:42
Speaker
you