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S2 Ep136: 2020: Year in Review
78 Plays5 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they look back on this year's games and favorite podcast moments in this week's episode!
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Thoughts? Comments? Requests for new episodes? Feel free to email them in!
SoapstonePodcast@gmail.com
Like our podcast? Like our podcast! We'll post when new episodes are uploaded!
https://www.facebook.com/SoapstonePodcast/
Recommended
Transcript
Work Mishap and Music Preferences
00:00:52
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake. I'm joined by my co-host, as always, Dave. How's it going today, Dave? It's also going pretty fucking swell, which I think I said last time. That's fair. Do you want to know why? Sure. It's because I apparently stopped working at noon.
00:01:13
Speaker
They said like, well, actually, I think the head of IT called me. They're like, hey, just letting you know we're going to be letting people know that they can go around like noon. And I'm like, for the day? Or is this one of those Christmas firings? And he's like, oh, no, no, for the day. And I was like, oh, OK, nice. You can go. And by that, I mean, you need to go. You got to go.
00:01:41
Speaker
Clean out your desk. Like, I work from home. Yeah, but still. We're gonna need that work laptop back. I'm like, kind of like it. That's pretty good. I'm playing games on it right now, actually. I haven't gotten that far yet, but I definitely will have Discord up kind of throughout the day. Maybe just comment on some things and then YouTube or music constantly because in the silence, I feel alone and in my thoughts,
00:02:11
Speaker
I do really like music. To just
Spotify Wrapped and Music Reflection
00:02:15
Speaker
brush completely. Strangers in the night, not even looking at each other. So like, what have you been listening to? Um, any old staples or any new discoveries? I was catching up on, um, discovery, the Spotify discovery weekly. I did, I did get the, uh, um, you listen to Spotify, right? So you got your year.
00:02:41
Speaker
in review like breakdown. Did you take a look at that? Did you see what genres you listen to? I don't think I looked at the breakdown because I could tell you I could tell you what my number one genre was and it was a vapor soul.
Home-Cooked Meals vs. Fast Food
00:02:55
Speaker
That's apparently the music I listen to you more than any other type. I don't know what that is. I don't either. But is this your top songs 2020?
00:03:06
Speaker
Yeah. So there was one there where they have like a Facebook like collage of, here's the song you listen to the most. And like during January, this was your top song. And they told, say the top genre. Um, so vapor soul. Interesting. Yeah. I listened to a bunch of like indie pop and like weird vapor nonsense. So I guess that makes sense.
00:03:34
Speaker
I'm personally seeing like some Aesop rock. Uh, Darren Korb. Those are good. Ed Harrison. Oof. Infected mushroom. Some idols in there. A lot of Oliver tree and poppy and priest. Yeah. That's quite a spread. I think you'd have more music diversity and like what you listen to than I do.
00:04:03
Speaker
Maybe. To me, just like if it sounds technically good or like aesthetically pleasing, I'm like, you go on the list, my friend. Right. It's like everything that's Oliver Tree is like very easy listening, but kind of cool like, oh, I'd put this on at a party. Right.
00:04:21
Speaker
And I'd also put priests on a party because every party I throw will now be Halloween themed. No, that's fair. I mean, that is, that is the recurring one. Um, this is definitely the year for, uh, listening to music. I was, uh,
00:04:37
Speaker
listening to like New York Times stuff and they were talking about, you know, how talk shows or like things where listeners would call in and like talk about their problems and things have been like exploding and over the year just a lot of people in need of support like that which makes sense. I still think it's weird to call into a thing. I don't think I've ever done it. I once considered it for a radio thing because their question was
00:05:03
Speaker
All right, Colin, for the next lyric for Chance at $100, what is the following lyric for who lives in a pineapple under the sea, SpongeBob SquarePants? And then I actually knew absorbent and yellow and porous is he, but I was like 13. And we were out at like Kmart with my mom. I was like, I'm not going to call the fucking radio station. And that was the only time it's ever occurred to me. That was your moment to slip through the fingers.
00:05:32
Speaker
Like how many years later still regretting 17 years later, but that would have been huge because uh, my allowance was small. I was 13. So yeah. Wasn't getting income outside of like, I can afford a slushy here and there. Man. I remember that was like those early teenage days of like,
00:05:56
Speaker
McDonald's, Monopoly or like Taco Bell and 64 giveaway things. And I'm like, this could be it. This is this is my only in. And how can I justify fast food? But there's prizes. Hear me out. Hear me out. Right. Is your mom like makes a like delicious lasagna spread and has all this stuff and like broccoli and like just tons of delicious food ready for dinner and you're like Taco Bell, that sounds pretty good.
00:06:26
Speaker
I know you didn't have this exact experience because you went to school far away from where your parents lived. Mm-hmm. But when I would like come back on breaks, I mean obviously like parents would cook something for dinner, but you're now an adult doing your own cool shit. So sometimes like you would go out with friends and like grab talk about and come back in the basement. Mom's like, oh, do you want any shepherd's pie? And you're like, no, I'm good. And you're like, quesoritos, and you kind of just like shuffle down stairs.
00:06:57
Speaker
Like now having actually cooked good food here and there, not always. What a, what a fucking kick in the teeth. Yes. Yeah. Home cooked meals are honestly like, I think the older I get, the more I appreciate just how ridiculously like satisfying it is compared to ordering food in or something like that.
00:07:23
Speaker
One, somebody's cooking for me, so they're subservient to me, which is a great feeling in and of itself. But no, there's definitely a lot of love and care that has to go into a home-cooked meal, even if it's a simple one. They're taking the time to do prep and whatever to make a thing happen. Yeah.
00:07:40
Speaker
Also, it's usually savory in my experience. Yes. Yeah.
Podcasting During the Pandemic
00:07:45
Speaker
It's more comfortable, I think, is a way to put it. I don't even know if it has to be necessarily comfort food, but I don't know. I don't know. It is more satisfying, I think, to me than any other food I could order in. And there's some pretty good places around here.
00:08:01
Speaker
Just saying Wawa now has what they're calling brisket for the sandwiches. You're saying tastes pretty good. I believe it. Doesn't taste like brisket, but it tastes pretty good. I mean, Wawa does have some good stuff though. I can't, I can't turn around and disparage Wawa. Um, but yeah, I don't know. That's, uh, that's the year, you know, disparage Wawa listening to music. That's the year.
00:08:28
Speaker
That is the year. That's, you know, two things of the year that really stood out to me. Right. Well, when I started offering brisket, we listened to music. You know, it's, it's been, it's been quite a year. Um, obviously, uh,
00:08:46
Speaker
I think that there's been a lot more serious stuff going on this year than we usually talk about in our episodes, but we had some exceptions to that. We had the episode where we talked about Black Lives Matter. We even had our donation link up there for people looking for places to do that. We've had multiple times we talked about coronavirus.
00:09:08
Speaker
Like it's impossible to completely. What we're saying is we're doing our part. All right. Yeah. We've gone above and beyond, you know, it took two minutes to. Yeah. It's like.
00:09:21
Speaker
It's definitely not like this podcast is not the place for it per se. Because there's like a wealth of actual resources out there. But it's one of those things that we felt was actually so big to like you can't ignore it entirely. It's like for those who do have a platform, however small and cute and on Spotify, like it deserves a fucking mention.
00:09:46
Speaker
Obviously, everyone's aware of everything going on with COVID still. But as of this recording, it's nice to say like there are vaccines going out now. Does everyone who's getting them deserve them? No. There are a lot of people at hospitals, like some people who I play Dota with. Now they have family members who work in the healthcare industry. So it is definitely heartwarming.
00:10:15
Speaker
almost optimistic to hear about that. Yeah, I didn't think it was going to be this quick. I thought that people weren't going to be vaccinated until midway through next year, maybe early next year at the best, but it seems like things are kicking off soon. Yeah. Here's how optimistic I am. I actually had a discussion with my direct boss saying,
00:10:39
Speaker
So you think we'll have to like come back into the office or can we keep working remote? Maybe. Yeah, no. I was like, I just want to lock that in before, you know, they forced me to come back. I did a last week, head into the office and pick up my work PC and set it up here. So I am full on remote at this point.
00:11:05
Speaker
It's a major life shift, but it was a major life shift that was made back in March, so it seems less impactful now. Is that something you think you're going to want going forward?
00:11:16
Speaker
Probably. I think so. I think like for career wise, if there was like a big incentive to like go into the office and there was a lot of justification for it, like, I mean, like for consistent work, that might be something I would pivot towards, but, um, in general equivalent work, doing what I do now somewhere else, whatever here. Um, I think work from home actually is pretty nice.
00:11:44
Speaker
And it cuts out a lot of the nonsense, I guess. Good and bad nonsense.
00:11:54
Speaker
I gotta say slightly graphic, but there have been times I've been doing some work stuff. Maybe I had to go poop or something. Afterwards, I'm like, you know what? We actually have the time to shower and just feel a lot better about everything. So poop, shower, come back to work. It's been like 10 minutes and I couldn't do that if I was in the office. Yeah.
00:12:19
Speaker
Because after that first time, they don't let you into the office to poop again. Where's Dave? He's showering. What? No, it's a pretty big, it's a pretty big change. But one side effect of the everything going on. I mean, most of our friends, I think, are pretty, pretty fortunate and both similar to us, not
00:12:44
Speaker
if they're impacted, not massively so, to the point of full-on unemployment or something like that, some exceptions.
Gaming as an Escape
00:12:51
Speaker
But with everybody being home so long and not going out to do things, we've played a lot of video games this year.
00:12:59
Speaker
What Jake's trying to say is, listen guys, we know this year has been rough, but look on the bright side. You living in a tent outside of the city limits. Me, still in my apartment playing video games. Count my blessings.
00:13:19
Speaker
I was just trying to meme on every fucking commercial they have now. Oh, yeah. It's like, hey, COVID, we get it. It's been hard on you, right? But don't you want to come to Subway or buy this car? I think COVID, we get it, is like the worst possible slogan you could have.
00:13:40
Speaker
No, I got it. I got it. You got it. Sorry, I derailed you. No, that's fair. Let's talk about some of the games that we have been playing, maybe touch on like some past episodes, games that we covered. Look at some of the highlights, lowlights.
00:14:03
Speaker
Because that's what this episode is. This is our year in review episode if the title didn't give it away. We do these roughly once a year for the purpose of review. And yeah, like I said, we covered a lot of stuff here this year. So if people have been listening full year, some of these titles should sound familiar.
00:14:27
Speaker
Um, one of the, uh, one of the highlights, I think this year for, for me was we committed to, um, play through and prep play through at least partially and prep a last of us part one episode. Um, and then immediately the following week, the subsequent week cover last of us part two.
00:14:52
Speaker
Which I didn't think we would have like the ambition to do. That's a lot of gameplay actually. It is. But for how anticipated it was, I think I got it like Thursday or Friday. I'm just like this weekend.
Game Reflections: 'The Last of Us Part 2' and More
00:15:06
Speaker
Like I'll stop by this court and say hello for like meals and then I'm going back in. But yeah, that was an aggressive timeline. Did I? I'm kind of curious because this is one of those games. It's since been overshadowed by other games controversies. But like there was a lot of a lot of ruffled feathers about The Last of Us 2 release and like
00:15:31
Speaker
A lot of video game critics online and people are just in general, they're like, this is the worst story ever. We hate this structure. Like we hate these characters. This was abysmal. I have no initiative. This doesn't make any sense. Do you feel like any of that's settled out now that some time has passed? And do you look back on the game as like a net? This is an excellent experience. Or do you think that changed it this many months on?
00:16:01
Speaker
So in general, I think people are stupid as a whole. I can never emphasize that enough. Agreed. So a lot of the criticism that I saw, I agreed with. And it's for how the stories kind of paced out and where they kind of folks you with certain characters. Personally, for me, I didn't really need a lot of that.
00:16:22
Speaker
Overall, did I enjoy the experience? Yes, it was a good time. And it built onto an existing story that I liked. So I like to follow that through and see where it went. But on the other side, I don't think it was a fucking masterpiece either. It definitely falls somewhere in the middle. I enjoyed it, but I understand where the criticism is coming from. And I agree with some of them. I think it's best way.
00:16:50
Speaker
It's like if you have a friend who's like kind of shitty, you're like, yeah, they're kind of an asshole. That's kind of their thing. It's like, I like them. Everyone else like that. Right. Yeah. No, I get that. I think this might be the year for tempering expectations in some ways, but even with different expectations. Also, that cough was its own. Kind of a nod.
00:17:16
Speaker
Um, um, I think I'd agree, uh, that, uh, ultimately I'm just gonna see it as like a really fun game that I remember the story for. So that was good. Um, as always, we covered plenty of games that didn't come out this year, but we hit a lot of like.
00:17:37
Speaker
I would say like hotly anticipated games or games that I really enjoyed. One of those was Prey. I'm pretty sure I bought this for you at least a while back. Yeah, it's probably like two or three years.
00:17:55
Speaker
Sometimes people buy me games, I'm like, oh, this is something that's like a meme and I have to put up with it. Other times people are like, hey, here's this thing that I really liked and I think you'll like. And I didn't know how much Jake liked it and why. I mean, he described it to me, but I apparently ignored him. As soon as I played him, like, yeah, this is entirely up my alley. But that was a solid one. It gave me Bioshock vibes without having to go back and play dated Bioshock.
00:18:22
Speaker
That's fair, actually. It's got a lot of that vibe. I think as far as the list of games we covered this year, it's got to be one of my top, if not the top, from the things that we covered. Top as in most enjoyed game or most enjoyed episode on?
00:18:40
Speaker
Probably like most enjoyed game. It was a good episode too, for sure. I just really freaking love praying. As a matter of fact, it's the thing I chose to bring up almost immediately. Is there something this year that is on this list we covered that you think is you had the most fun with or would be a contender for the most fun with?
00:19:04
Speaker
Again, I'm going to ask you to clarify playing or recording. Let's say playing. Going to recording might be more Halo.
00:19:16
Speaker
Honestly, out of this, it took forever to play through, but I will always enjoy Divinity Original Sin 2. Oh, yeah. It was constantly a meme throughout podcast history of like, eventually I'm playing through it, but just a super long RPG. Yeah. And I was talking with Rachel recently.
00:19:36
Speaker
Justin was the guest on the episode. Yes. And he would keep saying to Rachel like, oh, we should be probably done this week. This is the last one. And then we'd find like, oh, we have to do it like another 10 times. And it just kept going. But when it was finally done, it felt really good to have achieved, to have surmounted
00:19:56
Speaker
The experience of divinity original sin 2 and I want to play it again with a different group Because I don't think I can pull you guys back in
00:20:07
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, I'm a sucker for efficient builds and things like that. I don't know if I would do all of the side stuff in a subsequent playthrough, but it's just it's such a dedication to the classic isometric, like RPG style. And it feels even though in a lot of ways it's significantly better than those old games, like mechanically, whatever, then like Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, things like that, it really expands.
00:20:37
Speaker
and a lot of ways that I didn't fully appreciate until I actually put the time into playing the game. It was super solid. Yes. I hope we talked about it on the episode. Have you excited for Baldur's Gate 3 when it's fully out? Right, with the qualifier, yes.
00:21:00
Speaker
Since, since, uh, it's come out, like we finished our D and D campaign. So, you know, obviously I'm distancing myself from D and D a bit, but, uh, I mean, yeah, I'm excited for when it's completely done, when they're ready to slap the seal of approval on it. Um, but, uh, yeah, I don't, I don't want to, it's the same thing as like subnautica below zero. I think it's probably awesome now. And there's a lot of stuff I would enjoy now.
00:21:30
Speaker
but I'm going to love when they can say like, hey, we're done with it. Yeah, like Iceborne.
00:21:39
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Now they said they were done with Iceborne when it came out to be there. That didn't really start the access. But yeah, but like, I definitely slept on that for like a year. Yeah. And just recently started playing with people again. Um, I'm still kind of sleeping on it, even though I picked up on that. It's tough. There's a lot of, um, I played a lot of stuff this year, a lot of stuff in the list. Um,
00:22:08
Speaker
What's been your mainstay throughout the year? I guess this was probably overall the year of returning to Final Fantasy. We're going to talk about time spent because just a stupid amount of time spent in Final Fantasy 14 with the squad, the crew. And I don't know, that's kind of fun. I think there's pros and cons to having an active MMO and that
00:22:34
Speaker
Like it eats up a significant amount of your gaming time. There's things you're obligated to do, right? Dailies and stuff, weeklies and like group events and things like that. And that's the expectation, right? And that's completely fine. You sign in on the contract when you are like, yeah, I'm going to be there for Tuesday raid. It's nice to have something consistent though. Yeah.
00:22:59
Speaker
Like I'm a part of like the dota boys group chat. We'll be like, Oh, Hey, who wants to play tonight? We don't necessarily have set days. Some days typically work out better than others, but it's nice to, Hey, we're all going to spend a couple of hours sharing this experience. And that's something that we can always like fall back on. Like people might like, Oh, I'm running errands. Oh, I'm visiting family. Oh, I, I'm not playing games and just staring at YouTube. I always come back and do the group stuff together.
00:23:28
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's probably why it's my answer for that. Even though I played a lot of nice novel new games, um, or in, in a cubed, um, uh, Final Fantasy is where a bunch of friends are playing. And this was really the year for playing games with friends, I think.
00:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, I feel like less and less we're playing single player games. It just feels especially in 2020. It feels really weird to kind of like be apart from everything. So like even if people were just on in Discord, we're playing separate games. It's nice to have that communal aspect, but it's way better for actually playing together.
00:24:12
Speaker
Yeah. And you, you spearheaded to give you credit, you spearheaded the communal aspect of it. Uh, to some extent on discord, trying, uh, getting people in for like fall guys and among us, like, I don't feel like those games would have exploded as much as they did. If people weren't locked in, you know, needing to have some community interaction.
00:24:36
Speaker
Yeah, that was all me. Dave, social guy. Well, you sound like you're downplaying it, but it literally was you throwing out the tags. You and Lando were the two. They would throw out tags for like Among Us. You were spirit heading. Like Fall Guys, I think, is literally just your face. I think it's a discord reaction. Oh, yeah. Yeah.
00:24:58
Speaker
I will say though, as something that was in the list for 2020, they did add more content. They're on like season three now. Season one is like base stuff. Season two was kind of like Knights and Magic, where they added some different game modes. And now it's like winter games.
00:25:17
Speaker
But I got to say, one, they're hard as shit. When I first played, I didn't pass, like four times, like the first round. I'm like, what's going on? But I definitely need to play more. It's consistently just stupid, simple platformy fun. You can play when people jump into you, you throw your controller down and glee when you actually win. It feels good. It's just a nice, fun pickup game.
00:25:47
Speaker
Yeah. No, I didn't get on Fall Guys, but I did play Among Us. And it's stressful for me to play because I'm not good at world games. So like any time I was actually in posture, I was like, I'm going to have a bad time. Even if I win, I'm going to have a bad time. The one time I was successful due to deceit, it was like against my wife.
00:26:09
Speaker
I like threw her under the bus or whatever. And I just legitimately felt bad in real life. So like weigh the cost, I guess. Yeah, it's it's definitely weird, but it is fun in a way of like revealing who's shitty at lying. Like I enjoy when we did hit and roll board games back in the day, like that of winter.
00:26:34
Speaker
Cause certain people who were just like, shit at lying, like had tells. Right. Or somebody just changes their manners. I'm like, you don't normally ever speak like this. What's going on? I think like coup is the classical example for me. I can't play coup. Everyone's the Duke. Everyone's a liar. Everyone's assassination immune. I can't keep up. But yeah, no, it was, it was fun playing games with people.
00:27:04
Speaker
this year having engagement there.
Engaging Guests and Collaborative Episodes
00:27:09
Speaker
Did you enjoy playing any guest type episodes co-op wise? Yeah. So we had by far, I think more guest episodes this year than any previous. And then eventually we kind of solidified that as part of our new rotational format, right? Guest a month.
00:27:31
Speaker
One guest a month. Even if it's like a slight voice alteration, we will have a guest a month. We have Dave and friend of the show, Davey. Hey guys, it's Davey. I don't know Davey.
00:27:49
Speaker
Do you think people get Dave and Goliath references? No, I mean, I got it, but it's it's fairly old. Yeah, that's fair. No, I think it was really fun. There's been several times in the past where like playing a game or like, you know, prepping for an episode or something. We're like, man, I wish we could get this third person in, you know, or this like this squad, if it's a survival game or something like that.
00:28:19
Speaker
And sometimes like we even did play the game with other people and then be like, and now we're going to go off in our corner and record an episode about that. It feels weird to like almost be exclusionary in that way.
00:28:32
Speaker
And it feels good to kind of like break that barrier down and be like, Hey, you guys want to talk about games? Cool. You want to take this conversation we're going to have on discord and just record it? Cool. Yeah. There's a flashing red light next to your name. What does that mean? I mean, did anything stand out for you as far as like multiplayer? Like I had a really good experience playing whatever.
00:28:56
Speaker
So multiplayer stuff to this year beyond like the party games and things like that that we mentioned.
00:29:06
Speaker
probably be like gunfire reborn with Justin and green hell with Ian. Those are, those are the two standouts. I think for me, I really enjoyed those divinity also, obviously. But I think we had like a weekly get together for that or like, all right, it's Friday night divinity. Let's go. Which is fun. I enjoyed that.
00:29:27
Speaker
Saving any listener the trouble of looking it up. Jake did mention every single guest episode that we had that had multiplayer. Yeah,
Impactful Games: Hollow Knight and Hades
00:29:38
Speaker
no, that's basically true. If I were to pick one between all of those, I mean, Divinity is really good. I mean, Divinity is definitely like a long haul story approach. It's essentially like a D&D RPG session. It goes for a bit.
00:29:55
Speaker
What's funny here though is I almost have to pick gunfire just because each of the other games I was playing single player at the same time. Like I had a single player save for green hell. I had a single player save for divinity. Gunfire was just like, let's all load in, go through this rug. Like, and it's probably, it's patched a lot. I don't know what's been added, but I mean, they added a bunch of stuff since we actually played it. I mean, I'd be fine to go back and play some of that. It was just,
00:30:23
Speaker
Genuinely entertaining. Like, hey, here's a little FPS for you. You can upgrade your guns and abilities as you go. I'm like, oh, that seems kind of cool. Yeah. I felt good to be like, oh, I throw poison daggers and they destroy people, especially if I crit.
00:30:40
Speaker
Kuna with chain No, it's fun But there's there is a there is a large We covered some like a really good games this year You finally got me convinced you convinced me at last to play Hollow Knight. I was about midway through the year to my chagrin cuz like holy crap, how did I not play that I
00:31:07
Speaker
Yeah, anytime at any point. One of the best games I've ever played. And I also slept on it for a very long time. It's so good. The platforming is perfect in every single way. Yeah, it's probably the way to put it. Man, it's really hard to play at least once a year, probably. Yeah.
00:31:32
Speaker
It's very hard for me to find anything I disagree with, like in Hollow Knight. The aesthetic, the sound design, even deep nest, which I like. Even deep nest. Even deep nest nose. I literally took the the bug crawling sounds like from deep nest and I reused them for D&D because there was a pit that was like full of like baby purple worms and they were like crawling over each other and stuff.
00:31:56
Speaker
And I had a radial sound like placed above the pit. So as people got closer to the pit, the sound of these insects crawling gets louder and louder and louder. It was great. It was freaking great. So you're a sick man. How would I got me a lot of value this year?
00:32:15
Speaker
And it was absolutely legit, even the jumping puzzle sections. Yeah, it falls under like it feels good to beat it. But in the moment, like, fuck, fuck. Oh, I was I was so close. Mm hmm. And as I said before, like I'm not hugely a fan of platformers. I think looking back on Hollow Knight at the end of the year, I can like confidently say it's completely skewed.
00:32:40
Speaker
my expectations of platformers and like, good luck, everybody. You're competing against Hollow Knight now. You have to wait for Hollow Knight 2 and hope it matches up. Yeah. But I mean, that wasn't the only genre groundbreaker for you. Yeah. I know somebody's not typically a fan of roguelikes. That's true.
00:33:04
Speaker
And Jake's looking so true. 80s, my dude. Yeah. So Hey No finally came out. It did come out. It's the one thing we haven't had an episode on that we've been talking about or considering for a while. The redo, obviously. We had the original one, but that was when it was still under development. How do you feel about stuff now? Or do you want to try and say that stuff for an episode?
00:33:30
Speaker
I think that I would just give my overall impression. Let me just pour coffee all over the place. I'll just give my overall impression that it's probably a game of the year contender. Like it's ridiculously good.
00:33:48
Speaker
Yeah, every time you see it on Steam, it's on sale, which just buy it. Give them all the money, please. But then show is like, hey, here all of these ratings and they're all nine or above.
00:34:02
Speaker
It's like 9.5, 5 out of 5, 5 out of 5, 10 out of 10. Because they fucking crushed it, as we said. Sound design's amazing. Character design's great. Art asset's good. Game feels good. Progression system's amazing. I even played some today. It's so easy to go back to and enjoyable. And there are times I can just appreciate watching somebody else play as well. Yeah. I feel like a good game.
00:34:32
Speaker
I can play through, but then also just watch somebody else play it. How long it's in that same category for me? I think the other thing it has in common with Hollow Knight is it's also in that space of genre warping. When I look at roguelikes now, I'm like, hey, is your meta progression and your plot and stuff like that developing in such a way that these subsequent runs actually keep me invested in the game?
00:35:02
Speaker
Um, cause Hades did that for me, right? Like, how do you feel about binding of Isaac? Binding of Isaac actually was probably the one I put the second most amount of time into and it wasn't a ton. Well, that was just the, I want to say the initial one for a lot of people.
00:35:21
Speaker
I feel like everyone has Binding of Isaac and has played some Binding of Isaac. Obviously it doesn't have as deep or rich of a story that you unlock as you go. It's more like interesting items into broken combos. Yeah. And I think like the big difference for me is like Binding of Isaac has some meta progression in the form of like unlocking
00:35:45
Speaker
different items, unlocking different characters. But like Hades, it just exploded the idea of meta progression all over the place. You're like, you're getting new dialogue, you're getting new weapons, you're getting new accessories, you're getting further, right? Like I was excited to jump into my new run when I was making my way through Hades and it took me like 70 hours and then I finished the epilogue. Like it was a crazy amount of gameplay that I was all in for.
00:36:16
Speaker
Like it was a freaking JRPG, basically. Whoa, hold up. For the amount of time spent on it. Oh, yeah. It was a level of JRPG investment. So I realized I said I was going to be in short.
00:36:29
Speaker
Play Hades. Supergiant continues to do it. I keep joking with Jake that their next game is going to be an FPS. That's where I see it going. I mean, they very well could. They'd pull it off too. Freaking geniuses.
Dark Souls Trilogy Journey
00:36:46
Speaker
Yeah, I believe it. Yeah, I guess we also, to mention, we finally capped off the Dark Souls trilogy.
00:36:58
Speaker
Um, I believe that when we started this podcast, all of them were out. I think that's true. I'd have to look up the release date, but. Okay. Yeah. We have been slowly pacing at one Dark Souls game a year. I looked it up. We're both correct. They were all out before we started recording. So how does it, how does it feel to kind of like cap off that series?
00:37:28
Speaker
Because clearly it's a big motivating factor for our general aesthetic with the podcast.
00:37:38
Speaker
It felt good. I feel like I can never do Dark Souls enough justice. But I did spend like a good half hour to an hour on the intro edit. Because like the Dark Souls 3 opening theme for the main menu, you're just like, oh shit. It's got like these resounding sounds in the background. It has like these
00:38:01
Speaker
Coral, no, it's a good very aggressive and like it gets you fueled up for it. So I mashed that with a metal cover by rich on EB. It's rich on that's right. Um, and it just, it sounded so cool, but it felt like I needed to do something. I think I, I did a specific edit for the outro as well, where I mashed some stuff together. It just felt really cool. I actually might go listen to it after this episode. All right.
00:38:30
Speaker
I mean, it's it's it's good to appreciate your creations at the end of the day. And yeah, kids. Oh, yeah, where are the kids? Make yourself dinner. I'm working on the podcast at it. No, I, I think it's kind of
00:38:51
Speaker
I don't know. It's it seems somewhat arbitrary to call it like a milestone, but it really is. Right. We're three years and we've covered three mainline Dark Souls games, as well as a smattering of other FromSoft games between everything else. And it's cool. I mean, like. We didn't give up. We didn't surrender like that Japanese guy said. And I don't know.
00:39:22
Speaker
Basically what I'm saying is we've got nothing next year. There's no Dark Souls. Well, I mean, there's going to be no more Dark Souls canonically, but there are other titles that we have not covered yet. Namely in 2020, Demon Souls.
00:39:40
Speaker
The financial investment for the podcast accelerates greatly. That is the main thing. Also, like I've been drunk and online. I probably would have bought one, but, um, not available still, as far as I know. Yeah, it's, it can be hard to get one. Um, I'm not really looking to go to the scalp route. It's just, I do want to play demon souls because it, it looks fucking gorgeous and I never got to play the original. Yeah.
00:40:10
Speaker
I'm probably going to trade it similarly to how I traded PS4 and that like, I let some titles prep there. Then I buy the console and it's like, bam, five games, like AAA anticipated titles. Go for it. Just keep playing Spider-Man. Spider-Man. It's apparently pretty good. I haven't kept up with the series, but every new entry looks good, actually.
00:40:37
Speaker
Yeah, I like the one for PS4. That was fun.
Doom Eternal Fun and DLC Discussions
00:40:42
Speaker
Not in like a Hollow Knight way. Not in like a Doom Eternal way.
00:40:52
Speaker
So I think this year had a fair amount of maybe a bit of disappointment for some major releases, other ones where it's like Muddied Waters at the very least. Doom Eternal, I think, was the one release where I was the sequel that came out this year, where I was really freaking having fun with it.
00:41:22
Speaker
The only negative thing I can mention was like the kind of sound mixing controversy where they didn't get a lot of the tracks mixed the way they wanted to for the release. And that kind of impacted the overall OST quality if you look at it. But gameplay wise, I was happy to go back to Doom.
00:41:41
Speaker
No, it was super clean. Again, it's like something's good. We just want more content out of a sequel. I would like to add some stuff to make it more like they gave you like the clawing into stuff with like your meaty fucking gloves and you're just like, I'm on a ledge now. But they gave you more verticality to it just felt like very fun gunplay. That's like the whole thing you want to go through and murder and kind of rip and tear and call it a day.
00:42:11
Speaker
I gotta say, I wasn't keen on the mid-boss guy. Who's got the battle axe? Do you remember his name? Are you talking about the Marauders? The Marauders.
00:42:22
Speaker
stupid thing that had to work around. Solid. As an aside, it was very recent. It's kind of coincidental. I saw a GIF basically or like a WebM of an execution against a Marauder and they use the chain gun with the shield in front of it to like block the Marauder's first attack and then just like switch, quick switch to shotgun, unloaded a bunch of damage and instantly executed him.
00:42:51
Speaker
And they killed him in like three seconds from the point the fight started. I was like, I'm playing the game. Yeah. It felt like when I got kills on him, it was more accidental than like, oh, yes, this is how the mechanic works. Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan of him either. We go into I'm pretty sure we rant about it in the episode, actually. Yeah, yeah, I believe that.
00:43:17
Speaker
talk about more than once it stuck with me. So I will say I picked up the DLC for Doom Eternal but I haven't played it yet. Okay. Do you have any what's your what's your interest in DLCs for things like this because I think it's just more content like more story expansion and stuff like that.
00:43:38
Speaker
If it was gifted to me or if I can just watch somebody play it, that's my interest. I'm not necessarily interested to buy in to check it out. I wouldn't go out of my way at this point. I think it would be good. I'd probably spend four hours kind of playing around and then with BioShock Infinite, I'm like, BioShock Infinite is the best game ever. I got to play more of that. So it was cool to see more pieces of the story come out that I got the experience.
00:44:09
Speaker
So because Doom's kind of like more core gameplay and BioShock is, was much more, you were invested in the story. Yeah. Do you think that's a necessary part to really, uh, incentivize you picking up DLC? In general, you want the next chapter of the book kind of.
00:44:29
Speaker
Yeah. Overall blanket. Yes. Caveon. Monster Hunter. The story is shit. I'm there for the new monsters and playing with new gear. That's it. Yeah. Man, I skip all the cut scenes.
Anticipation for Elden Ring and Future Releases
00:44:46
Speaker
Can't skip cut scenes in Monster Hunter. I was like, somebody has like a pirate game cube to be able to do that shit.
00:44:52
Speaker
A Cheat Engine attached to process. Speed hack. See ya, cut scene. The dream. I'd pay money for that for any game. Even if they did it maliciously, like, hey, as a little bonus charge, you don't want cut scenes. $2. Done. Yeah. That's the most Konami-style practice. We'll cut out the intro title cards for $1.
00:45:22
Speaker
Oh my gosh. It's like renting bowling shoes. Like, oh, did you also want to rent the bowling shoe laces? I'm like, yeah, I want to fucking fall off my feet. What about a Dr. Scholz insert? Okay. He is a doctor.
00:45:36
Speaker
Yeah, I gotta say I am looking forward most obviously will always be a from soft whore until I die. But Elden Ring is still lurking off in the distance. Yeah, haven't talked about it for like a year, because there hasn't been anything. But
00:45:57
Speaker
I've liked everything else that Fromesauce has done up until this point. I'm still going to kind of parenthesis count. Demon souls in that from what I've seen. Yeah, I mean, it's my viewpoint. It looks like it's really good. I feel like I don't have to play it. There's been enough reviews and critical things on Twitch of people playing it that I want to feel really bad when I die to a boss that I know how to cheese. Yeah, right.
00:46:27
Speaker
Yeah, it's kind of funny watching the body video, like watching them pick back up, obviously, because he actually has content and he's like five things you missed in Demon's Souls. And I'm like, no, I didn't. I would have to own the console that this game is an exclusive for in order to miss this. As a brief aside, talking about body, you remember Zero Lenny? Yeah. Did you see his Demon's Souls video? I don't think I have yet.
00:46:58
Speaker
I'm not, I don't want to spoil it for you now, but there's a lot of good references in there. Also his stuff's just choice. I literally just stopped by the stream yesterday cause he's doing something in Dark Souls series modded. I was just on there for five minutes. Didn't even say anything. Somebody gifted me like a month subscription. I'm like,
00:47:17
Speaker
What's happening? But it's always cool to see that community in action for Dark Souls because they care about the game. They care about people who play about the game, whether you're doing speed run or specific type of run. People are so supportive like, hey, here's how you can do this. They have videos and guides on how to switch out rings on an elevator. I'm just like, I have trouble doing basic things. This is fun to watch. It's cool.
00:47:44
Speaker
I'd have to check out one of those guides, because people who do quick inventory management, they're like, smash, smash, smash, smash. I have no idea what you're doing. Is he pressing pause three times? Go on. I open my inventory and die if that's the second step of the process. But no, that's great. I would say that's in contrast to one of the other things that happened this year, which was Nintendo continued to poop all over the Smash community.
00:48:12
Speaker
Like, pretty consistently. They're a good chunk of it. Counterpoint, Sephiroth. All sins forgiven, baby. As I play Sephiroth and you. I'm gonna play Sephiroth tonight and you are going to be like, I gotta stop playing Sephiroth.
00:48:28
Speaker
Snapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnapsnaps
00:48:57
Speaker
We've been playing for about as long as we've been recording this podcast.
00:49:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's how we relieve the tension because Jake's wife tells me that sexually is not an option. So like, oh, aggressively through video games. There we go. Video games. Yeah. It reminds me of there's a line somewhere. It's like in a Western or something like that. I can't even remember where I heard this from, but it's like one cowboy is talking to another and it's like, so your wife tells me you've been shooting blanks. That was it. That was the full line.
00:49:31
Speaker
I was like, oh man. I think it was, I think I might've heard it in like a radio show or something as one of those like lines they would clip out into and just have like a button for. I don't know. It was definitely a reference. Um, such a weird turn of phrase that's coming to the ecosystem. It has layers for sure. Um,
00:49:56
Speaker
Yeah. Did anything come out for you in 2020, even if we haven't gotten to it or had a chance to play? I have to take like a look at the at a list, honestly. The list that I made here at the bottom.
00:50:11
Speaker
I mean, those aren't things. Oh, they came out 2020. So I heard 2021 like next year. I was like, I have no idea what's going on next year. I mean, obviously Half Life Alex. I don't think a lot of people saw that coming.
00:50:30
Speaker
Valve managed to simultaneously create another Half-Life game, which I don't think, again, anybody would expect, but then also they managed to not continue the story of Half-Life beyond where it ended Half-Life 2 Episode 2. So they subsequently like disappointed and excited on the masses. Yeah.
00:50:56
Speaker
I still think a lot of people did appreciate it. Like it is half-life in a VR thing. And I heard it was pretty good. Yeah. Valve index looked pretty good if you could get one, but like if you bought one right now, I think you'd be waiting three months before they shipped it and he'd be out a grant. Yes. Also also a grant with the accessories, which I mean, the government's not going to give you that much. So no.
00:51:25
Speaker
No, I think that's why they're showing the belt. Do you want them to have valve indexes? Do you want every American to have? No, we don't. That's a terrible idea. That despite how ridiculous that is, that could just, it seems as plausible as whatever reason they probably picked for it. But, but yeah, no, it is cool to see that Del still makes games, right? Like, um,
00:51:53
Speaker
It'll be, I feel like as long as they continue to do this, right? Like one of the things I liked about this was they dropped it. Like here's the announcement and the game's just going to come out. Right. So even going back to like Elden Ring, um, part of me wishes they'd never even did the original teaser.
00:52:13
Speaker
Cause I just think back eight years to when another game was referenced in an initial teaser and they're like, Hey, get hyped for this. And everybody was like, we are at a hundred percent hype captain. We cannot withstand the pressure. And then eight years pass and disappointment. Um, I don't want to see that for Elden ring.
00:52:35
Speaker
I agree. I definitely agree because I want it to be good and awesome and to love it as if it were my own child. But at the same time when they teased Sekiro and they just kind of gave you the prosthetic arm, everyone's like,
00:52:52
Speaker
Yeah. So it was really, it's fun to theory craft. So I liked easing in that aspect because it builds anticipation. What are we talking about? I was completely and I was completely. It was mainly if it wasn't for the facial reaction on cam, you wouldn't have gotten the joke. That's how bad it was. No, it's fair.
00:53:15
Speaker
But yeah, I like the theory crafting aspects of more content coming out or be like, hey, what do you think is going to happen next if we're talking about anime or something that I'm following with people? I guess it gives you something to latch on to, right? You're just like, you're not at risk of thinking that like from software just stopped coming into the office and their computers are gathering dust.
00:53:41
Speaker
You know, like it's just cobwebs covering everything. You know, something's going on in the background. Maybe it's worth it for that. Yeah. Um, and it's just, I want a, a teaser from Kojima productions at some point. Yes. Cause I don't think that's their only project for their sake. Hopefully they're not stranded to death. Give me credit on now. Yeah.
00:54:12
Speaker
No, I'm sure it'll be good though. They've, they've really, I'm not sure that it'll be good. I can't say that anymore. People who thought, I thought that I was sure it'd be good.
00:54:23
Speaker
I'm still recovering. Basically what I'm talking about. People who don't follow video games are like, what's wrong with this Jake? Why won't he tell us what he's talking about? Why won't he tell us what he's talking about? So I think, are you optimistic for anything in 2021? Game wise? No. No. No, I mean, I'm not actually sure what L is on the, what's slated to come out. So I'm going to need to do some research to see what my, my hot pickups are, but
00:54:53
Speaker
A lot of it was concentrated in this year. So I don't know. I guess we'll have to see. Do you have anything, anything there? I basically have a backlog, like I'm about to buy four or five games on Steam. I mean, I have some things that are in the works, so to speak. But in the works, I mean, with Amazon delivery services currently. Right. I picked up some games for PS4.
00:55:22
Speaker
You'll find out what they are later from Dan's recommendation. And our previous episode, I did pick up your cues. It like a dragon is on sale. And I was like, Oh, excuse you. It's the PS4 again. So we will be checking that out. But I think a lot of the things that are on my games radar do not have set release dates. Yes. That again, the Elden ring and motherfucking tunic Microsoft, please. It looks adorable. Just let me play it.
00:55:55
Speaker
Yeah, no, it's, uh, I really just want, uh, people to take as much time as possible for their games now. Yeah. No reason to play another low poly game so close to each other. Yeah.
00:56:16
Speaker
Actually, you know what I'm looking forward to. Yeah, that was fine. That was a, that qualified as a joke. I was looking through the, the list here, two things, three things, top death loop, which I already mentioned previously. I'm excited. I like arcane. They made dishonored. It seemed pretty good. I wasn't super hot on the last cut scene, but they were able to fix it. Psychonauts two is still slated for next year. Oh, really? They did email me the other day saying,
00:56:46
Speaker
Hey, here's an update for our backers. I'm like, what? Oh, okay. Technically, uh, vampire, the masquerade bloodlines too might come out and that could be a game and near replicant. Oh, what are they doing that on?
00:57:07
Speaker
So I don't actually even know what platforms it's coming out on, but it's release date's April 23rd of next year. So we shall see.
00:57:18
Speaker
I mean, it's probably not going to be for PS3. So I will probably pick it up. Again, this being with the Demon's Souls remake, I'm looking forward to playing something that I never got to play that will hopefully be remastered in a way. New Replicant obviously being the predecessor to Nier Automata. Automata Pia. But a PS4, Xbox One, and Steam are the release consoles for it. Nice.
00:57:49
Speaker
But yeah, getting a PS3 to go back and experience that just for lore reasons, it seems like a lot. Also from what I heard from some friends, it was a little more grindy back in the day. So hopefully they can polish that, but still be true to the story. He's just made good stuff in general, Yoko Taro, at least from what little I've experienced.
Reflecting on 2020's Challenges and Gaming's Role
00:58:15
Speaker
So that was not even on my radar. Thank you for sharing that.
00:58:18
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, we'll definitely we'll definitely have to take a look and see what's what's coming up. It seems like there's a couple of big ones and I don't know what's in the slightly fewer A's than AAA space, but.
00:58:32
Speaker
Hey, we'll keep an eye on it at least. I don't know any words of wisdom for the year now that we're, we're capping it off at the end, played games with friends, anybody who's listening to this at the very minimum stayed alive this long. So that's on that. Hmm.
00:58:58
Speaker
I really do not plan for these. So being on the spot in general, I'm not going to keep saying 2020 is a year for everybody, but it was, everyone knows that. Um, all I can really hope for is that.
00:59:15
Speaker
If you're listening to this, you're only if you're listening to this, that you are doing well. We take care of our own. Are you a listener? Here's some soup, but otherwise you get a slap. Yeah, we hope that you've had a chance to kind of game and relax with friends amidst all this bullshit. Yeah.
00:59:40
Speaker
And hopefully as you've listened to an episode, maybe you've heard about a game you didn't know about before and maybe you check it out. Again, we do this just because we like games. Um, and we need a hobby about talking about them once a week. So this gives our lives structure. Hopefully you get something out of it as well. Yeah.
01:00:00
Speaker
It really is for the community. People listening to this need to reach out over this holiday season, Christmas, New Year's, whatever, talk about games, talk about whatever, talk about what you're going through. Happy to hear. Glad to talk. We'll get through it together. Stay positive, but not that positive.
Holiday Greetings and Community Support
01:00:25
Speaker
I like the other Death Stranding reference you made there. Yep. Well, as always, happy holidays, Merry Christmas. Happy Chanukah. And the other one, Kwanzaa, right? Yeah. I remember what Kwanzaa is. I think Chanukah is over now. I should know, but happy holidays, everybody. Yeah. Be well, get fat, and we'll talk to you soon. As always, see you in the next one.
01:00:57
Speaker
Thank you.