Seasons and Gaming Transition
00:00:32
Speaker
We're actually done with winter now. my name is jake and i'm joined but my co-host is always dave that's it going to today dave going swell that's good a night relaxing weekend the weather is not as cold as it was like a week ago so yeah i'll take it while we can still get it yeah he's a global warming at work we're actually done with winter now We are in November. we are We are headed into spring. Puxatawney Phil never goes back in his hole. Yeah.
00:01:08
Speaker
He gets an apartment uptown. he's Yeah, I was going to say, he's in his Florida vacation home. its just yeah ah Groundhogs. What are you going to do?
Discord Guessing Game
00:01:20
Speaker
um I have no way to transition out of that into talking about games, so I'm just going to do it.
00:01:26
Speaker
Playing games. I... was on Discord not that long ago, which is not uncommon for me since I usually am on Discord. And Dave had sent me some messages describing gameplay with no context as to which game it was.
00:01:43
Speaker
But the clues were you can parry your own shotgun shots, which some people might have already gotten it based off of that. ah Fight a statue.
00:01:55
Speaker
and what was the last one? you remember? I'm going to have to check our messages briefly. ah But I want to give people the same thing. Oh, ah it has absolutely crazy FOV.
00:02:07
Speaker
So you would have to be sober while playing it. um And hopefully, and maybe some of our listeners could have guessed it by now. But for those that couldn't, what game were you playing, Dave?
Ultra Kill Gameplay Dive
00:02:20
Speaker
I was playing Ultra Kill. Ultra Kill. Cue the sound effect for the theme noise. Um...
00:02:31
Speaker
Hell is full. Blood is fuel. Yeah, this is something I have been aware of for a period of time, but never really looked into too much because a lot of games that people enjoy, i don't necessarily enjoy or it might have been might be a little bit dated and it's harder to go back and appreciate it for exactly what it was at that time.
00:02:56
Speaker
So it just was off my radar. i was like, maybe one day, maybe one day we'll check it out. um But as I've been wanting to like. Tinker around and like unity and stuff, I've been playing more like a first person games and then trying to like think about the pieces that go into it.
00:03:16
Speaker
um So yeah, I've been trying some things and then it's like, oh, well, ultra kill. It's been on my list passively for a long time. Oh yeah. We get that. And.
00:03:30
Speaker
It's good. Oh yeah. Like I know we've talked a lot about Robo quest being like the idyllic, um, FPS roguelike because like the movement feels good and everything else about is very polished and it makes sense in the world.
00:03:47
Speaker
um This also knows exactly what it's doing. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like it's low poly isn't even the right term for it. It's like a kind of pixelated 3D model.
00:04:04
Speaker
Yeah, there's sprites. There's a lot of sprites in the game. yeah Like they don't actually poly. When you say poly, it like implies angles and at least a triangle somewhere on the model. But this is closer to like doom. Yeah.
00:04:18
Speaker
Yeah, that's a probably the best way to describe it. But it has like tight little level design and they do a surprising amount with it.
00:04:30
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Because like for how the game started out, i was like, OK, yep. All done playthrough like, Jake is all right. It's Jake. But it does a good job about ramping up quickly and like adding in things that you can do or being like, hey, remember that boss?
00:04:52
Speaker
They're just here now. They're just an enemy. Yeah. um got that. Which I know. i think Doom has done as well.
Indie Games vs. Graphics-Heavy Games
00:05:00
Speaker
Sure. First time you face like a really big demon.
00:05:05
Speaker
Yeah, um just like a pinch of background on this. So because you've you've played other games by this publisher, like this publisher, this developer is known for this, right? this So this is New Blood Interactive.
00:05:16
Speaker
um They've done Ultra Kill, Blood West, which I haven't played, but the splash screen on it looks really cool. gloomwood fallen aces faith which some people have heard about is kind of a meme that's the shotgun priest one that windigoon did a video on oh is it like everything is kind of done in a 2d style yes yep dusk which uh you were playing and then i played a bit and still want to play more of to be honest um there's something about the i don't know if i want to call it minimalist, but like just like an older style of design for like early, early FPS stuff.
00:05:57
Speaker
Yes. um So the physics things are a lot less based in realism and a lot more in like, hey, wouldn't it be cool to go fast?
00:06:09
Speaker
And then like they'll give you movement tech to do that. um And sometimes you're supposed to abuse that a little bit. And ah yeah, i just I don't see that done as much anymore. But I mean, that and like the little environmental design and the music with it, it just makes for like a a tight experience.
00:06:30
Speaker
Yeah, I think part of it is like so a lot of their games, some of their games have um slightly better graphics. They made this game called a medieval, which I'm less familiar with. But to be honest, like the ones that are overwhelmingly, overwhelmingly positive, they are these boomer shooters, right? It's like it's it's dusk, it's ultra kill, stuff like that.
00:06:50
Speaker
And it very clearly, i think part of it, maybe one of the reasons it's refreshing to play these types of games is over the last, I was going to say decade, but it's been more, probably like 15 years, maybe 20 years. There's been this massive continual advancement in graphics, right? Like what were people talking about in for the new GTA trailer? It was like the beer with the physics of of the bubbles and the water and all of that stuff.
00:07:20
Speaker
But fundamentally, what that trailer is not telling you is, is the game fun? Right. And so instead, something we've seen in the indie space a lot is it's just like, what if we actually just don't care?
00:07:32
Speaker
Like, don't care. What if you hit them with a don't care about graphics? And instead, you're like, it's just the loop. It's just the mechanics. And anything else is superfluous. It's going to slow us down.
00:07:45
Speaker
Like. The difference between making doom, the dark ages and overkill is, you know, years of development and millions of dollars in developer salary. And like, I get it to a degree. Like it, it looks cool to like hop into a game and you're like, Oh, this is like really fleshed out.
00:08:11
Speaker
Um, But as far as like the less overly engineered designs, again, like you're saying, it's much more focused on the mechanics. Yeah. And typically just like, hey, we thought this would be fun.
00:08:26
Speaker
And we did some stuff around it to make it kind of connect like, hey, you be doing this in a world. OK, what does that world look like? What type of characters you can run into? What type of scenery?
00:08:38
Speaker
um But it's trying to convey a lot with a little like going back to fucking Undertale. Yeah, very minimalist for ah what it is, but like wildly successful because you could pick up enough of the design and character stuff from sprite work.
00:08:57
Speaker
You didn't need to have three d graphics to get the vibe of the game. Right. Yeah. And there was so much character in the art style that was picked, right? It's kind of like, what do you want to convey?
00:09:11
Speaker
In Undertale's case, it's like, We want you to get invested in these characters more than anything else. But also we don't want you to be distracted by an art style. And more importantly, we have a single artist and she's working her way through college. So well we need, we need to not go full 3d or whatever. um I guess there is two, I guess, Toby, Toby and Timmy both contributed, but, um,
00:09:34
Speaker
But it allows you to focus on like the core parts of the game. Like talk about Ultra Kill. If the core gameplay sucked, there's nothing else to fall back on. Right. You're not going to have like a Ghost of Tsushima moment where it's like, oh, that's really, really pretty. Right. Like this is an excellent. This is graphically really interesting.
00:09:55
Speaker
That holds my interest for about like 20 seconds at most. Right. Like I can appreciate that a game looks
Gameplay Mechanics Over Graphics
00:10:00
Speaker
graphically really amazing, like once per scene. maybe um like, but I'm not usually sitting there kind of slowly going through appreciating all of the artwork and stuff that's being done in games.
00:10:14
Speaker
Occasionally, but very rarely. Most of the time, I'm focused on the gameplay. That's all Ultra Kill has. There's nothing but gameplay. There's no graphics whatsoever. It's its eyes closed. You just hear sounds of guns. um They also, like, they're very confident ah in their art design, I guess, because they give you basically like 360 degree FOV, I think, at the high end.
00:10:39
Speaker
ah I can't play high FOV. It drives my brain insane. Yeah, it's I want to look up what it is, ah what the actual maximum is, but it's over 160.
00:10:53
Speaker
And for console players out there, just know that basically everything you've played is 90. Like that's that's essentially the FOV for consoles, because as you or it was in the past.
00:11:08
Speaker
Because as you increase FOV, you're forcing more things to be rendered on the screen at once, which will actually negatively impact performance. And any game that actually has graphics. So again, and there's probably not much of an impact to Ultra Kill. The highest I'm seeing is 140, which is insane.
00:11:27
Speaker
Still way too much. I can play like 120. I'm playing 120 in the Outer Worlds right now, actually. And it's a little disorienting because you're basically a fish.
00:11:38
Speaker
um Your field of view is essentially a fish. You are a prey animal and you see more to the sides of you than you do in front of you. At 140, you have supernatural s spidey senses telling you when there's things coming up from behind you. Like yes's I said, for me, it's just too much to process in the moment.
00:12:02
Speaker
Yeah, it's i mean they are it's also kind of a meme. They didn't ah put a cap really like on the FOV, not under the expectation that um players legitimately are going to enjoy playing this way, but because it would be hilarious to enable it. Right.
00:12:20
Speaker
True. Because you only have so much screen space. So if you're seeing more content from the sides of your character, you're seeing less content from the front of your character. And eventually you are a full prey animal and you will not be able to see in front of you because all of your monitor screen is to the left and right of you.
00:12:45
Speaker
Yeah. but That's not what games about. We have an extra try and run. Yeah. You have to say one last thing towards graphics yeah is the more realistic you try and make something, the more it's going to be compared to that realism.
00:13:01
Speaker
So like you brought up ghost of Yote, um those faces look fairly realistic, but not like insanely. So you're like, it's a person I can't tell the difference.
00:13:13
Speaker
Right. Um, but i feel like even for those games you don't need it that much and i think you can get some uncanny valley type stuff as well yeah versus throw that to the fucking winds do your own stuff make it kooky
00:13:34
Speaker
yeah no it's um i mean part of it is i well well first i agree entirely right like If you try and fail, it's a lot more obvious than if you didn't try. Example of this would be like Mass Effect Andromeda, where most of the press around that game was bad lip syncing. It wasn't around the open world gameplay and the ability to switch through between classes and some of the things that the game did right and other things that it did less well.
00:14:04
Speaker
Literally all of the oxygen in the room was taken up by like ah our engine didn't match what people were saying to the lip movements, which is like crazy, but that's how news works sometimes, right? In games.
00:14:20
Speaker
Like I played it. It wasn't a big deal for me. I don't remember if it was pre or post patch though, so i'm not going to claim that. But conversely, compare that to a game where they don't even bother to animate someone's mouth.
00:14:33
Speaker
You know how many games I've played where they didn't animate someone's mouth and I was like, And that's a problem. Zero games there. I have never. I know a lot of money goes into this development for these features.
00:14:48
Speaker
I don't care. Right. Like. Yeah. It doesn't. So good. Add much. Like if you think about older games like PS1 era, like you run to a character and they'd have the cameras that you could see that character speaking to you and you and their mouth doesn't move because they don't really have The ability to. yeah um And at no point are you like, who's saying that? Where's that sound coming from? ah You know who's fucking talking because they're showing that person.
00:15:18
Speaker
Or you do the rareware thing where their mouth just kind of like jabs. you like rightm i i man Yeah, you know, I do love a good simlish or a what are they call the one for Animal Crossing? Is that also simlish? Oh, I don't know. It can't be simlish because it's not EA. But yeah, I don't know what the language is called.
00:15:36
Speaker
But I like somebody just having a tone and then making noises and you're like, oh, that's so-and-so. Yeah. Yeah. It's nice. It's it's like artistic, but i I understand why some of these things mattered for the first pass, right? Like when you were making games in the early 2000s, like um improvement in graphics, when like people saw Alex in Half-Life talking to you and her mouth is moving and all this stuff, I'm sure it's like, oh my gosh, like, This could be a graphics demo or the one that stood out to me. I'm sure you can reminisce about this one as well. Water in Bioshock, right?
00:16:14
Speaker
Like watching just water, especially that opening sequence in Bioshock one where like the room gets flooded and it's filling up in real time and there's like water pouring over your screen. It looks absolutely like GPU crushingly gorgeous. Mm hmm.
00:16:31
Speaker
But then like I played another two Bioshock games. I didn't really care how nice the water looked anymore. Right. That's the thing. It's just it's novelty that wears off. The thing that stuck with me more was like, I wish we were doing more with the plasmids by three. You know, like I wanted more gameplay in my game.
00:16:50
Speaker
um Not that it was bad. I still enjoyed infinite. Infinite's excellent. But. um But at the certain like once you've breached that once you've walked through that door as an industry or maybe it maybe it's like per gamer, you played a game that looked really good.
00:17:07
Speaker
It doesn't matter as much anymore. You kind of just you care about gameplay beyond that point. And so. New Blood is focusing more on gameplay at this point. They're like, OK, well, if we're making a boomer shooter, what's the difference between something like Dusk and something like Ultra Kill?
00:17:24
Speaker
Right. And, you know, what's how are we competing in this now kind of
Boomer Shooters Evolution
00:17:30
Speaker
ironically very populated space for boomer shooters? um or even 40k is getting in on it with bullet gun, right? Like, um yeah, it's a a good, it's a good space. I hope it never dies because I feel like starting with ah Wolfenstein, like it's always been a part of gaming. Yeah. Very few genres die out and you're like, never seeing that again ever.
00:17:59
Speaker
Right. Yeah. In a lot of ways, like, I also think like there's things that Ultra Kill does that really wouldn't work for Doom just because Ultra Kill doesn't really care about graphics as much. Like you move so fast in that game at times that investing in graphics would literally be a waste of money. right like You have a button to like so ground pound, I guess, basically like you can go super fast. You can you can slide.
00:18:30
Speaker
um Jake, stop talking about RoboQuest. I know, right? There's a lot in common, as it turns out. um Well, also, these types of games will build upon each other in the ecosystem. Because like if somebody discovers like a really good mechanic, like whoever first discovered a wall running as like a, hey, this would be a cool thing we could put into a game. yeah And now a lot of shooters have it, and it's kind of an expected thing. yeah It's like, I should have two jumps. I should have a dash. I should be able to wall run a little bit.
00:19:02
Speaker
just because it's been so baked in on the mobility side of things, but they were good ideas. I'm not the, uh, the historian for this mechanic specifically, but I'm going to guess Prince of Persia.
00:19:16
Speaker
And then, ah Oh, you're right. Mirror's edge into Titanfall. And now it's in like call of duty and stuff like that. It's, ubitu I remember on mirror's edge like needing to try and line up the angle with the wall correctly. Mm-hmm. So I could actually do it versus just just running alongside or falling. Yeah, you're like, well, that's not what I want.
00:19:41
Speaker
Yeah, but mirror's edge is actually man. It's been so long. Yeah, but that was a great early first person movement game that felt really good and the design was not insane.
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, I remember there was a my my my wife can't play that because she has like motion sensitivity when playing games and Mirror's Edge is not a good game if you get motion sick while playing games.
00:20:09
Speaker
um But there's one specific like design decision they made, which was when you break your fault, when you roll basically after doing like a drop, um they had a decision to either stick with what they were doing and keep you in first person view and basically force your perspective to do a somersault or not do that and then basically break their own rule where you're otherwise attached to like faith's head and actually just be able to not throw up and they pick the latter option they're like okay we're not gonna force you to like spin the camera every time you roll on the ground um that would make dark souls very challenging oh my gosh dark souls first person shooter would be a vomit fest but
00:21:00
Speaker
But yeah, what do you what are you enjoying in Ultracone? um The way they do, again, I'm not, actually, I'm want to stop on the design side of things. Sure. It's good.
00:21:11
Speaker
ah But the guns all feel impactful and unique. Like you start out with a revolver and like you want that single shot with some good kickback.
00:21:21
Speaker
um And they do a good job of that. And then the shotgun is still my main weapon, because as ah Jake mentioned earlier in the episode, you can shoot and then quickly pet press your parry and you'll pair your own shotgun projectiles of which you have at least 10 just in the direction you're aiming.
00:21:44
Speaker
So like a damage boost. Yeah. And think an AOE boost, too. Yeah. Yeah. It's just more powerful. And that's also good. It builds off a really cool mechanic, which is is the ability to parry projectiles. right So much about Ultra Kill is like, so I feel like Dusk was like, we're doing the boomer shooter in the horror space and the cult, you know, Nebraskan farm harvest moon-esque, like blood moon, whatever ah type setting where bad things are happening.
00:22:21
Speaker
And then... Ultra kill is like, well, you're a robot and the premise is absolutely insane and blood heals you. So, you know, try to soak that up when you can.
00:22:35
Speaker
And you can parry projectiles. If you get attacked, but if someone shoots you, your first instinct shouldn't be to get out of the way. It should be hit that back at them with your fist. um And you can like,
00:22:51
Speaker
you can switch your arm out. That also there's like that, that that's one of the unlocks. So you can kind of like change your behavior based off of what type of gameplay you want to go for. Give up the ability to parry if you want, but no, I'm actually, this is the one game I'm actually going to try and do more parrying in. Uh-huh. Cause it's impactful and I don't suck at it.
00:23:13
Speaker
The other thing on the style front, which is like, that is one of the core pillars of the game is actually your combat stylish robot.
Mastering Ultra Kill's Mechanics
00:23:20
Speaker
For the revolver, your alternate file is fire is not aim down sights. This isn't one of those like aim down sights types of games. This is a a boomer shooter. You throw a coin up into the air. You flick it up with your thumb.
00:23:33
Speaker
And if you shoot said coin in the air, the bullet ricochets to an enemy weak point. um So you get reliable like headshots on enemies by just flinging coins up in the air and then popping them with your gun like it's insane. Oh, Western setting or something like that.
00:23:56
Speaker
um Doesn't make any sense. Stylish AF. yeah it's I feel like they make the game obviously challenging, but they also make you feel very powerful.
00:24:10
Speaker
Like, sure, there's a lot of enemies, but every time I do my dash, I have complete iframes. yeah Now there's like a cooldown, so I can't do it infinitely and just cheese my way through it, but...
00:24:24
Speaker
the fact that i have a dash the fact that when i parry my shotgun projectiles in midair there's like a brief pause uh-huh yeah but also it allows you to like reassess okay assuming what i'm aiming at right now is going to die where am i going next like am i going to be dropping on a platform do i have to worry about going out of bounds am i going landing on enemies or do you i need to be aiming at them um
00:24:52
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of this decision making happens real time. But like when you get into a good boomer shooter, it feels really good to play quickly. Kind of similar to once you understand some of the frame data, ah playing Rivals of A through 2 feels a lot better.
00:25:11
Speaker
oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm trying to remember. I was trying to look up exactly what the term is for this. um and I can't find it, but there's an industry term for basically pausing time for a second to lend impact to it.
00:25:32
Speaker
Of all games, it's really unfortunate I'm picking this one, but like um Skyrim does it, where um if you are swinging your weapon and you swing through an enemy,
00:25:49
Speaker
there'll be impact frames where the ah the animation basically stops and it's a way to convey the impact. um And it makes the the hit feel more impactful is the way to to say it. And the alternative to that is you just allow the ah the sword swing to carry like straight through the enemy. And if the sword carries straight through the enemy, it feels like it does less damage. So in Skyrim, because they slow it down, it makes it feel like a meteor hit, not like a meteor hit, but that's like a war hammer impact or sword swing or whatever.
00:26:24
Speaker
Um, and, I think ultra kill accomplishes a similar thing during the parries. It's like it adds emphasis to the move because you got that slowdown when, uh, when, when you actually land the parry.
00:26:41
Speaker
Um, it's also, uh, really good from, uh, the other things kind of like that's going on in the game. ah The blood is the blood is fuel thing to heal. You is nice because it teaches you to be aggressive.
00:26:57
Speaker
Right. And I think modern doom, you know, could be said to have a similar thing, but they basically just have like an execution button using the chainsaw and ultra kill. It's like you want to be near enemies when they die so that you'll be showered in blood and heal.
00:27:14
Speaker
And if you're just kind of like hanging back for the entire thing, that'll work as long as you never get hit Right. But that might not be feasible. Yeah. My strategy typically becomes.
00:27:27
Speaker
All right. I have mobility. i want to be strafing and jumping around the outside of the room, always moving. So it'll fuck up their aiming a little bit. Yeah. And then realizing I've taken some hits and I'm like, oh, I need to get close to enemies and then just like rushing in and then I'm shooting while punching.
00:27:47
Speaker
Yeah. yeah No, it's like it's completely valid. um I think we've covered most of the non-plot related things for the game. The only other thing I would mention is like the levels are are varied and interesting.
00:28:01
Speaker
um They start out a little samey, but they start to, it starts to become like ah a world tour a little bit as the game continues. um And ah it's also, it's got like,
00:28:15
Speaker
if you like replaying levels to get a better score, to find secrets and stuff like that, ah this is an excellent game for that. It's basically like a speedrunner's wet dream, essentially, because it's just got so much, ah so many different ways to plan a route, basically, to to maximize it.
00:28:33
Speaker
I think the first time I got to a level and there was some like hidden challenge to like beat the level in 20 seconds. And I was like, there's like three doors that that need keys here.
00:28:47
Speaker
How is that going to, but it's completely doable. ah Like that's the kind of game it is. Yeah. It'll tell you after you complete a level, like, Hey, you can do this challenge thing here. And then the challenge
Design Choices in Gaming
00:29:00
Speaker
thing might be like, uh, it'll make you think about the level in a different way. Cause now you're like, Oh, well this is feasible. How would I do that?
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah. Very cool. And, um, If I remember correctly, it's been a while since I played it. had like different difficulty levels. But if you like difficulty if you like difficult shooter-type games that aren't just trying to be punishing for the sake of punishing, it's excellent for that.
00:29:30
Speaker
It also, like Super Meat Boy, has a quick reset option. If you ever die, you just hit a button and you're right back in the game. There's no crazy loading or anything like that. Which... which ah Towards the end of act one, i mean, obviously you're going to have a boss between stuff, but that was kind of the first time I actually hit a roadblock and like was dying repeatedly. Yeah. And i was like, okay, I got to figure out how to not die, but just going right back in without having that.
00:30:00
Speaker
kind of rubbing my face in it and maybe needing to load something. The run back. Yeah, exactly. That's a part of it. I'm still ranting about Silkside. That's all this was.
00:30:14
Speaker
But yeah, it it doesn't feel as oppressive. Yeah. Because like. ah Hey, you didn't do that right. Just reset. It just hits the reset button for you.
00:30:25
Speaker
It's not saying you're a piece of shit. It's not saying you're bad. It's just like try again. Yeah. And there's such a low opportunity cost in order to try something different.
00:30:35
Speaker
Right. You know that you're not paying extra time. You're like, this boss is just punching my face. And will this weapon work? And he just like hard counters it or does something ridiculous that just gets you shut down. And you're like, huh, guess not. That cost me five seconds. I don't feel too bad. Also, I love when more.
00:30:57
Speaker
In shooters in general, it's nice not to have to worry about ammo. Yeah. So like they solve this problem by having things be cooldown based. and Certain guns fired a certain rate.
00:31:08
Speaker
ah Certain other abilities of a weapon might take longer to charge and then you can use it later. Yeah. um But there's not that mid fight being like, I want to hit him with the rocket.
00:31:19
Speaker
Oh, i don't I don't have any more rockets left. Yeah. And they but because of the cooldowns, they really do. if you wanted to If you wanted to max out your skill or or your ah yeah your skill and your effectiveness, then yes, toggling between the weapons and using different things is the right call because um then you're allowing other things to cool down in the background. But the game doesn't demand it.
00:31:44
Speaker
it's like You can also just take some time, you know dodge and let things cool down and then keep keep going. um Which I think is kind of like a more novel way to do it than...
00:31:56
Speaker
I haven't played Doom the Dark Ages, but the previous Doom Eternal and Doom 2016. um Those kind of like, I still like that, by the way. I like the idea of like, okay, you're running low on ammo. Let me chainsaw an enemy to get my ammo back.
00:32:10
Speaker
But you really only still had to use like two of the weapons in your arsenal. um And then combined with that and then your ammo refills with the chainsaw, you're like, you don't really need anything else.
00:32:22
Speaker
um So it's good to i don't know. they They put a little bit more emphasis emphasis and reward to diversifying in Ultra Kill.
00:32:34
Speaker
Yeah, I've noticed a lot of other shooters will do that as well. Like RoboQuest and ah I always forget the name of the other one. i don't even know what the other one is, to be honest. It's a a Chinese. You play as animals. Oh, Gunfire Reborn. Gunfire Reborn. Thank you. Yeah.
00:32:53
Speaker
ah where they will have certain like passives or other things where you get benefit from switching guns. Mm. Yeah. It's okay. Every time you switch a gun, like your next shot's going to deal more damage.
00:33:04
Speaker
Yeah. even you switch, it'll reload automatically for that gun. So it makes it an option versus I've burned through all of my ammo on this one gun. Let me check the next number to see which gun has ammo.
00:33:17
Speaker
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. And I do appreciate that. I think it also lens lends towards people experiencing um the arsenal a little bit more fully. Because I think, especially older games, they kind of had this.
00:33:33
Speaker
I'm actually going to put a lot of this on Bioshock, actually. They had this thing where it's like, you can upgrade your guns, um but you're still finding new guns while you have the option to upgrade your guns. And you're like, great, I could use the rocket launcher I just got.
00:33:49
Speaker
But I also just have this fully decked out pistol 9000 that has like every upgrade imaginable. The pistol shoots rocket rounds. So I guess I'll just keep using the thing I'm comfortable with. From a game design perspective, you got to give reason. You got to give people a reason to branch out.
00:34:07
Speaker
Yeah. And I will say the way that Ultra Kill does it is they'll usually have a new weapon on like a display. They'll give it like a dedicated light. Like you're finding a special pickup in a game.
00:34:19
Speaker
Yeah. And then you get to try it out usually immediately. And you're like, oh, OK, that's pretty cool. Yeah. Definitely a little bit of the... You have picked up the weapon. Now all of the weapons guards are going to flood into the room when you have to deal with them with said weapon.
00:34:37
Speaker
But it is a good way to show... Like, let's say they give you a flamethrower and they give you, like, a lot of little enemies. You're like, okay, this is a good time for, like, crowd control. can hit a large area.
00:34:50
Speaker
I don't need to just focus on a single target. um Yeah, having little things like that, it's just, like, a very... I don't want to say sneaky, but less obvious way to design a way for a player to get interested in using a weapon or mechanic.
00:35:08
Speaker
Yeah. If this was Ubisoft, it would be a pop-up, but instead we're just going to kind of give you the use case immediately for it. And then you can intuitively figure out, um, where it works.
00:35:20
Speaker
So, um, yeah i'm not goingnna I'm not going to spoil anything um for for the playthrough, but the game does ah just really go off the rails. um it is i It's probably New Blood's most popular game. I feel like that's pretty pretty
Outer Worlds 2 Systems
00:35:40
Speaker
easy to say, actually.
00:35:41
Speaker
um Dusk is probably second. Ultra Kill. Give it a shot. It's like $2. I don't even know. Oh, wow. It's it's actually 25. It'll be on sale 10 days, probably for the holidays.
00:35:59
Speaker
um Also, last note here, because I didn't mention this at all. It is still technically in early access. They're still developing the game, but this is not one of those games where it's like, hey, we went into early access and then ah all of this sucks and you can expect it to suck for the next 10 years.
00:36:19
Speaker
Instead, it's like it's an early access, but they're adding content to it. And all of the content that exists in the game is fully playable. So like Hades, too. Yeah.
00:36:32
Speaker
Which is released now. and We all have to have an episode on it at some point. ah All I got to do I got to figure out who who bought me the game. You know, it was Dave. Dave shaking his head. That means it was. dave um but Yes. Excellent game that.
00:36:48
Speaker
Uh, other game playing anything else. Me. Okay. to Hand it back to me. Uh, that's fair. Thank you. Uh, so I've been playing some outer worlds too. Still.
00:36:59
Speaker
Now that game came out a little while ago. I'm playing it on game pass. Um, and I have not put a ton of time into it cause I've been a little bit busy recently with life and then also, um, tired. And if I'm tired, I'm like, I'm just gonna play hell divers or something. I don't, I don't know. But paying a lot of attention in an RPG is not always the mood when you don't have the the brain space for it at the time. What's really funny is I actually thought about this when you were talking about switching weapons and overkill.
00:37:32
Speaker
Last night, I picked a perk that made it so every time I so change weapons, I get like a 20% damage boost for like five seconds. But it's funny because my character is like stealth based.
00:37:47
Speaker
So I'm using like a stealth, a silenced burst fire pistol, like a murderous knife, like it's freaking dishonored. And then like a stealthy sniper rifle.
00:37:58
Speaker
And then I'm just like in the open world, kind of like sneaking up. on enemies I'll be like alright now before I take the shot I need to switch over to my other weapon and then switch back so I can just do extra 20% extra damage 40% extra damage don't you mean forty percent extra damage Oh my gosh.
00:38:17
Speaker
what do I assume it doesn't stack. i assume Oh no if you stacked a bunch? Yeah, I wish. Well, if you just like ah slam the scroll wheel real quick it like cycles through your weapons and it keeps building this 20%. There is like, um I did find a knife that's like an exotic that has ah a trait where every kill you get like while it's out, it stacks damage. So the idea is like, oh, if you just train assassinate a bunch of people with this knife, it's going to do more and more.
00:38:46
Speaker
I haven't actually found too many cases where that really does work. um But I will say, i was reading an article about um ah stealth gameplay since like Thief, how it's been implemented in various games and things like that.
00:39:02
Speaker
And ah this one actually is like pretty decent. It's definitely a lot better than in Outer Worlds 1. But um playing a stealth character that's like close range,
00:39:15
Speaker
is actually like pretty viable. And even at long range, my stealth modifier is getting high enough that ah like it it works. But like I built the character for, um honestly, the the melee attack, which has like a button, you can just hit like oh hit this button to just like stab them and kill them, essentially. And it'll tell you if they have too much health, and it wouldn't be a one-hit kill, so you don't like accidentally go to combat when you're not expecting it. That's massive. All games should do that.
00:39:47
Speaker
um If you're in stealth and you're pointing at an enemy with a gun, it'll tell you how much damage you'll deal when you attack them. Not counting for crits or other random things.
00:39:58
Speaker
um But that's actually like really nice. Because if you're going into it intending to be like, oh, this is my saboteur-esque playthrough or whatever...
00:40:09
Speaker
it's really unfortunate when you don't know when you stab somebody and they're like, did you just stab me? And you're like, i hadn't thought this far. Right. That's why i invested in speech. No, it was an accident. I tripped and fell butterfly knife, just nicked you or something like that. But, um, yeah, it's really, it it is neat. Cause like some of the perks let you play into that a little bit. Like I have a perk that makes it so, Beyond close range, my pistols do like less damage.
00:40:38
Speaker
But if I'm closer to the enemy, they do extra damage. um And so I can play that into the stealth playthrough. It's like, oh, extra modifier. And it's like, as I'm putting points into lockpick, which I just want to open doors and get loot and stuff like that, um i picked a perk that's like, oh, your lockpick skill also adds to your sneak attack modifier.
00:41:05
Speaker
You stand with the keys. Yeah. Well, it's a way to kind of like synergize between and a lot of RPGs. You have the trees that you never really use um or They have very specific value, but outside of like an esoteric character build, there's not adaptability in Dark Souls 2. It feels weird to invest in it if that isn't like your sole focus for that playthrough. Exactly. Right.
00:41:30
Speaker
I want to put everything in strength because it makes sense. It's helping build my health and my damage is based off strength type thing. Exactly. Right. And so sometimes it feels like these these skill points are a lot less useful. Right.
00:41:42
Speaker
And I can't remember exactly how it worked in one, but in two, they have a lot more synergies for things like that. Like the idea that my lockpick skill is now contributing to my sneak attack damage, which is like the main thing I'm trying to bump with my character. I have something like plus 720% damage on sneak attacks ah for silenced weapons. It's like...
00:42:07
Speaker
The whole point is I'm going for the one hits, right? and Like I'm trying to stay in stealth through the entire encounter. um And if it's like, hey, you can get a little bit more sneak attack with lock pick now. I'm like, all right, okay. I guess so guess I'll double dip.
00:42:24
Speaker
um And that is that's a lot better than having just skills off an island, right? um It's not like Path of Exile, which does this better than anything but um there's at least a little bit Yeah, Path of Exile system is... confusing. It's... like Do you remember the sphere grid system from Final Fantasy Mm-hmm.
00:42:52
Speaker
But basically, in the sphere grid system, everyone's on the same sphere grid, but they started off at different areas based on the character. But the things that you were building for the character kind of made sense. Like, you're not going to get physical attack damage on Yuna, etc. But...
00:43:09
Speaker
but You can keep building around this sphere grid ah to get some of those stats for those characters. Right. So if you really want
Character Builds and Strategy in Outer Worlds 2
00:43:20
Speaker
to, you can branch out into it, but doesn't feel like, oh, I have to go over here to get this one super esoteric thing that is going to benefit my build a little bit.
00:43:31
Speaker
Yeah, it's like... games that use the constellation style skills, like more than other games, distance tends to matter, right? It's like you'rere you're, you're, you're paying in distance to get to some reward and you only have ring out as a higher tier.
00:43:48
Speaker
Yeah. You're, you can only walk in those boots so many times before they, they run out, right? You can't just branch out in every single direction and grab everything. Um, but,
00:44:00
Speaker
um The other thing I was going to mention, I'm probably done for Outer Worlds. Excellent writing. I'm enjoying that. um It seems more open and there's more things in it than Outer Worlds 1, which I should hope so. They're using like the same engine and they had more time to just work on everything else once that was established.
00:44:18
Speaker
um I did experience a fair number of crashes, but I think it has something to relate to how shaders are being cached. um So like last night I deleted my Nvidia shader crash and I had crossed my fingers, hope not to die to a crash.
00:44:35
Speaker
um Haven't had anything since then. um And then the flaw system is a lot more interesting than the first game. because in the first i'm sorry go ahead a flaw system i assume is where you take um a handicap like oh i'll always be dry but never wet yeah never one yeah upside and downside just right there you try and go swimming you can't yeah so you can take like a negative trait at the start of the game so when you make your character you pick a a positive trait
00:45:08
Speaker
And then optionally, you can pick a negative trait. And if you pick a negative trait, it allows you to pick a second positive trait. So an example of a negative trait, a character creation is your character can be dumb.
00:45:19
Speaker
which forces you to pick five skills at the start of the game from the skills list. And it's like, you cannot put anything in these. These are locked for the rest of the game.
00:45:30
Speaker
um But you get to select what those are. So if you kind of know what you're doing, that's kind of not like a downside, right? You're just like, just never going to put any points in science um or something like that.
00:45:42
Speaker
um But the flaws are kind of built on top of that because they're reactive to gameplay. And the first game had it. But basically, if you find yourself catching on fire a bunch, it might just be like, hey,
00:45:54
Speaker
ah We found a flaw in you and you can accept this or not. It's flammable. And now you're going to take extra damage when you get caught on fire. And it usually is negative compared to like what you're doing in the first game. Right. Like you took a certain type of damage. You're going to take more of that.
00:46:11
Speaker
But on the upside, here's like a free perk instantly, um which is pretty big in these games because you only get a perk every two levels. um So that's not too bad.
00:46:22
Speaker
In Outer Worlds 2, they don't give you a free perk anymore. The upside is attached to the flaw itself. So the classic example that showed up in the game preview was if you're sneaking around all over the place, um you can ah get a massive speed bonus ah when you're crouched, um which is really, really nice. But the downside is your knees pop every time that you crouch or uncrouch with an audible sound effect, ah which will cause enemies to potentially investigate you.
00:46:57
Speaker
um And that's hilarious. Like, yeah that's that's very on point for I see you like stealth. What if ahha there is another in some of the some of the situations I won't spoil them like I won't spoil a bunch of them.
00:47:12
Speaker
ah But one other one I would mention is you can get one for staring at the sun. where like your vision gets a little bit weird, and like you'll see god rays if you're out, essentially like in the sun. by And I think your cone of fire, your accuracy has decreased a little bit. But you auto-heal in sunlight now.
00:47:33
Speaker
um You just automatically heal over time. Now, that seems like a bad deal, but um it's still... It's interesting, right? like And you have the choice to decline these...
00:47:45
Speaker
Unless, unless you have picked two flaws or you had the option to pick two flaws. No, you have to pick them. You pick two flaws and the next flaw you'll be presented is flawed, which the game literally gives you to disclaimer about.
00:48:02
Speaker
And it says like, you probably shouldn't pick this for your first playthrough. And they usually don't break the fourth wall like that. But they're like, if you pick this, then um you get, ah it's like extra skill points, like 50% more skill points on every level up for the rest of the game.
00:48:23
Speaker
But every time you're presented with a flaw, you have to take it. You don't get a choice anymore.
00:48:29
Speaker
And that's... potentially really dangerous actually so i'm glad they included that disclaimer um i saw on reddit somebody picked it and they're like why do i not have the option to decline flaws anymore and all the comments are just roasting them being like did you not read the last one that you picked like um but yeah that's a fun system i think more games should probably have that to some degree depending on how many rpg elements it has yeah but yeah it's another variable to go back and be like but what if i couldn't eat any food uh-huh yeah i mean i i immediately started build crafting once i thought about this i declined it for my playthrough because there are some flaws in the game i've seen that
00:49:20
Speaker
really would screw with my ability to play. I won't spoil those. I'll leave those up in the air. But um there's a build crafter where you can like plan out your character build up to like level cap.
00:49:31
Speaker
And it's like if you took the flawed flaw as early as you can, you could actually get all of these extra skill points and will allow you to like put those in the builder.
00:49:46
Speaker
and I'm like, i don't know, man. It's tempting. It's tempting. So a little bit of that in the game, but less than a hardcore RPG. um And that is The Outer Worlds.
00:49:58
Speaker
At some point, I'll come back and
Indie Gaming Scene and Innovation
00:50:00
Speaker
say overall what I think about it. But so far outside of the crashes, it's been a good time. If you enjoyed the first game. Otherwise, can't recommend. recommend Nice. Like I said, I haven't been playing much in the RPG space.
00:50:14
Speaker
That's fair. Have you been playing anything else? Or you have you eyes on anything else? ah There were some trailers that dropped recently that I'm just curious where things are going now.
00:50:26
Speaker
Sure. um But I really thought I was done playing vampire survivors forever, forever, forever. Like they're like, they're not doing anything new. Right. Then they're like, hey, what if we made like a roguelike card builder similar to Slay the Spire, but it's all vampire survivors stuff?
00:50:45
Speaker
And it looks kind of good. it does look good. I am interested to see where that goes. And I can't imagine it's going to be like a terribly expensive experience, even if it's not not perfectly what I imagined.
00:50:59
Speaker
ah I know I'm going to have a fun time with it. So this is ah Dan Danfire vampire crawlers. oh is is the game that's being announced here. It is very funny that like all of their stuff is in this space.
00:51:15
Speaker
Like they're they're they're filling out the vampire cinematic universe. um Like in the ah ah has some of the the pictures you can see of it, like the preview video and stuff like that.
00:51:27
Speaker
It's got a lot of the art. It's like clearly in some of the levels from vampire survivors and the gear might be similar. Yeah. But it does look very good. And I mean, like these developers have the pedigree, right? Like, I don't know how many indie games. I mean, indie games generally have a little bit more goodwill, I guess, in today's day and age.
00:51:51
Speaker
But Vampire Survivors have a lot of it, right? Like. That was game was $3 and they kept adding content to it much more content than the game started with when I got it at $3. Yes.
00:52:05
Speaker
yes Which was already fair. Like there's a decent amount there. um Is the developer Ponkel? Is that how you pronounce Ponkel, yeah. So yeah, I mean, it's it's exciting. You know, we'll see we'll see what that turns out to be.
00:52:23
Speaker
But it feels like we say every episode. But the indie space really is where it's at right now, right? um And I think it...
00:52:34
Speaker
I'd be surprised if Indy got taken over within five years, at the very least, ah just because the more corporate AAA gaming space has been kind of doing the same thing that they have been doing.
00:52:50
Speaker
Yeah. um Pokemon games are all relatively the same. All of duty is all relatively the same. A lot of big IPs or franchises do not venture out too much because it's going to hurt their IP.
00:53:04
Speaker
But you can't branch out too much from that identity that people are familiar with, comfortable with. Whereas any games like it's just. Open an open space, it is the tabula rasa of gaming.
00:53:19
Speaker
Very sophisticated term, but I do agree, right? It's where experimentation is a lot safer for sure. um And I do think like the double A to triple A space, there there there are still hits, you know, every year. i know Battlefield's been doing really good. That's nowhere near indie. um Excuse me. But like ah Call of Duty isn't doing as great this year. Isn't doing it so hot.
00:53:45
Speaker
um I don't know if Arc Raiders is double A or triple but that's also doing really well. There's space for these. um It's just for me personally,
00:53:56
Speaker
ah I don't know. There's sometimes just a lot more
Game Awards and Industry Trends
00:54:00
Speaker
fun and excitement in the indie space. So we'll see, though. You know, we're coming up on Game Awards, too.
00:54:07
Speaker
so Oh, yeah, it's true. We'll see what people yell about. I know that... When is voting for that close? Because I don't think I've voted at all. Yeah. I don't know if it's closed yet. Um, I would have to check on that.
00:54:21
Speaker
There was not that long ago within the last month, I think apparently like Larian got nominated again for like the, like continued support category for Baldur's gate three.
00:54:35
Speaker
um because they're very dishonest. Like it is an incredibly dishonest company. There are so many times that they're like, we're not going to develop this game anymore. And that they just kept pushing out patches and stuff like that.
00:54:48
Speaker
um But ah what was really funny is the response, the official like Larian social media account was like, oh, thanks for the nomination. you like appreciate all this, whatever.
00:55:03
Speaker
And then the actual head of Larian, who's known as... i can't remember his name, but um ah you can look him up. it's it's He's out there. He's but definitely out there on the internet.
00:55:14
Speaker
ah He chimed in and was like, seriously, what do you have? Thanks, guys. And it was just very funny to have like the head of a company say that. But also, this is like the third time they've been nominated for it, and like the game already had a sweep.
00:55:31
Speaker
like I think two years ago ah when it came out in the game awards. So like, it's very funny that it keeps showing up, um but it it might not win this one.
00:55:44
Speaker
i I think like the top contenders for support are like Baldur's Gate 3, No Man's Sky, which I mean, it's pretty, pretty high up there. No Man's Sky has a longer history of supporting their game. Yes, they had, they left a lot. It was smart of them to leave such a void to fill with support on launch. We will develop this game over the next 20 years. It is out today. ahha Exactly. It does not run.
00:56:10
Speaker
In some ways, yes. um But yeah, I'm curious to see what kind of, kind of um awards indies can pull. And... and
00:56:23
Speaker
Other things, just real quick on the run by ah So I wanted to mention Dispatch because this game I've been looking at. I think in the past I talked about how I was going to pick it up once all of the content was out, but I expected it to be like a six to seven month release schedule where they released an episode.
00:56:44
Speaker
You thought you had years ahead of you before you had to play this game. And instead, they actually had the entire game developed and they released two episodes every week. And I didn't even realize this until the entire game was out. um So it's overwhelmingly positive on Steam.
00:57:02
Speaker
I'll probably give it a shot at some point. But again, like Dave said, I thought I had years. So I'm going to give it a little bit of time, work through some other stuff in the backlog.
00:57:16
Speaker
um Go back through Ultra Kill. Oh my gosh. I probably should. It's a good refresher. I do sometimes like I have a lot of ah I don't want to say like nostalgia, but I take some things from Hotline Miami, obviously.
00:57:32
Speaker
um I don't think it's the best in its genre, like for that quick paced gameplay. And I mean, Ghostrunner is very similar to that.
00:57:44
Speaker
But Ultra Kill is also just like, you want to just pick up stuff and not be tired because you're not going to be able to play this game while you're tired. to like um So I could see it. I could see it. And I do need to actually catch up on content.
00:57:59
Speaker
I know there's a lot of difficult stuff in that game that I haven't seen. So. i I have noticed a good variety of difficulty options when I launched the game that range from like easy to like normal to like hard to like we're not even going to show you what this option is yet, but.
00:58:16
Speaker
It's probably after you've beaten some harder difficulties and you're like, I still crave more pain. Yes. Which you should not do in Ultra Kill until you've progressed through the game. Because just like you had that wall at the end of Act 1, there are some difficult fights in that game. Oh, yeah. I can imagine.
00:58:35
Speaker
But they're very fun and incredibly cinematic. So excited to see see what we've got there. Yeah. Otherwise, i think i'm I'm probably pretty good on the news. Anything else that you wanted to mention?
00:58:49
Speaker
um I know Kirby Air Riders came out this week. Nice. I've heard some good things from a friend who picked it up. That's all I know. But I think if you liked Kirby Air Riders back on GameCube, you'll probably like Kirby Air Riders on Switch 2.
00:59:09
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah. But it is exclusive, though. So you can't get it just on Switch. That is smart on Nintendo's part, because I personally have still not made the jump to Switch 2, nor have I. You haven't been inclined.
00:59:26
Speaker
Yeah, haven't switched. Yeah. um But also like, I mean, we've been playing Rivals of Aether more than Smash. I don't think I've used my Switch since the last like social engagement where we or I like I had it to like play some games with friends or whatever. And it's been a while. So yeah, on the I'm an adult, I don't need to buy everything scale.
00:59:54
Speaker
um There's no immediate value for a switch to right now
Upcoming Games and Sales Expectations
01:00:00
Speaker
for me. um And maybe that'll change, right? Like, they they could start releasing some exclusives that I'm really excited for. They're just like, by the way, cold Hot Drop, the next Supergiant game is just was just out. That'd be dirty. On 80s, too. I think for me, it's going to be when f FromSoft releases whatever that project is. It's so weird. I'm going to be tempted to maybe dip my toes in.
01:00:28
Speaker
forgot about that because they, like... There's just trains passing in the night from soft, just like flash banged everybody with some absolutely crazy set up for some multiplayer, maybe live service ask. I don't know what it is.
01:00:44
Speaker
I don't know what it's going to be either, but night rain has been really successful and they keep adding content to that or having like some seasonal events. I need to get back into it to see some of that new content.
01:00:58
Speaker
Sure. Definitely i haven't experienced even all of what was that when it came out. But yeah, if they're finding success in that, I think they could maybe find success in more multiplayer options.
01:01:11
Speaker
Heck yeah. I mean, they... What's really funny is I like to believe that their foray into multiplayer was ah experimental after like...
01:01:24
Speaker
pvp had dedicated support in armored core and they're like okay now that we've got armored core like we're back we're warmed up we're back into it we can start having like dedicated multiplayer experiences and things like that but um which is nice to have because in like the soul stuff previously you just have to join a fight club where you just try and join a world and see if there are other people who are also looking to fight uh-huh yeah Yeah, exactly. and Like one of these hubs in particular. You could always tell where they were because there would be a red signs everywhere. Also red signs, yeah. yeah
01:02:02
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. um But, I mean, it's from Soft. So they have not so far given me a reason to doubt them. um And I do need to pick up Night Rain. I'm hoping it goes on sale for a holiday sale.
01:02:19
Speaker
I can't imagine it wouldn't. I can't imagine that it wouldn't. I hope that it does. Let me rephrase. I hope that it does because I would like to play that. Yes. yeah I would be surprised if it didn't get at least like 15-20% something like that. but Also, it's a $40 game and I want to just as a final note shout out $40 games, uh, regardless of all other thoughts for, for our creators or whatever, it's a $40 game.
01:02:49
Speaker
Excellent. I'm so glad that that's not 70. I'm so glad it's not 80, um, outer worlds FM 70, $80 game, a hundred dollars for the deluxe edition. Absolutely not.
01:03:02
Speaker
Uh, I'm playing this on game pass. If you want me to buy this game, I am waiting for a sale. Um, So anyways, make your games less expensive. Be more like, you don't have to be vampire survivors, but like closer to it. A little bit.
01:03:19
Speaker
Squeenix. Releasing a fat chocobo for like $5,000 or whatever the next thing they're going to do is. So I'll have like a cake on its head though. So people would buy it.
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah. This is my prediction. But anyways, and you'll have like two b It'll be wearing like a 2B dress. And so, yeah, exactly. The expression Dave just made is exactly why people would buy those.
01:03:49
Speaker
Anyways, that's the podcast. Thanks for listening, guys. um If you have feedback on the podcast, maybe there's some things we missed in the news you want us to cover, suggest that. Reach out to us on social media. We check it periodically.
01:04:02
Speaker
um And that is all in the description. But as always, we will in the next one. Have a good one.