Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
S2 Ep146: 2021 in Preview
77 Plays5 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they take a look at the games coming out this year...only a few months later than usual!
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/
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
Colt's Mission to Break the Time Loop
00:00:04
Speaker
Eight targets on my list. Every one of them with grand plans for eternal life. To break the loop, I gotta break the rules. Clock's ticking. And you just ran out of time. You keep forgetting, Colt. I'm not like those other idiots. Only got one name on my list. Yours.
Episode Introduction and Humor
00:00:36
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 tonight, Dave? It's going good. Not too much is going on.
00:00:48
Speaker
There's nothing really to report or complain about actively. So I think it's good. No. Yeah. I think in some cases, no news is good news. What did the autopsy say? Man's not dead. First thing, he's still alive. So jot that down.
00:01:14
Speaker
Yeah, as a completely random aside, I realized sort of, so I listened to the intro to the last one and I was slightly slower going through the intro spiel.
Speeding Up Content Consumption
00:01:28
Speaker
And I remembered that halfway through this one. So for the attenuated ear, maybe people noticed that I picked up the pace midway through.
00:01:40
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, now one person is going to go back and listen and be like, well, was he startled by something? Is Dave pointing at his imaginary watch on camera? That would be pretty funny. Like within the first three seconds, you're like, hey, this is not sustainable. I actually have a knob on my end where I set Jake to 1.25 speed. It's like the YouTube video thing where you're just like, OK, let's just let's speed this forward a little bit.
00:02:08
Speaker
I want to get flash imagery of what the video is. I don't want to hear anything or really understand what's going on. I'm trying to think of there are some informational videos and things like that where it just seems more productive to watch it at a quicker pace.
00:02:27
Speaker
So I could totally get that. I wonder what the what the subculture is around speeding up media, be that podcasts or videos or what have you. People are just like, I could consume this faster.
00:02:43
Speaker
I, I don't want to think that there's a subgroup of people like that. I think if the only times I have done it is if somebody has linked me something that I know is outside of my interest space, but I wanted to tell them that I watched it. So I'll just kind of go through it quickly. I'll be like, Oh, nice.
00:03:06
Speaker
Oh, gosh. It's like an older person sends you a video. Have you heard about this? Yep, 20 years ago. What's up? But you do the book report take on it. You're not like, oh, yeah, I watched that. And you just closed it immediately. Or you never clicked the link. You actually do quickly go through it at an accelerated rate. Yeah. In the off chance for like, what was your favorite thing? Or did you do the one thing?
00:03:31
Speaker
I mean, you could still lie and say, yes, that was so, so awesome. But maybe they're going to like test you with dead baby humor or something. I
Generational Views on Gaming
00:03:41
Speaker
don't know. That would be a little bit weird. Yeah. It's my instinct to just go through it quickly for like a minute. Yeah. Speaking of an out of touch thing. Okay, good. I was wondering what that's like, what I was detailing off of.
00:03:56
Speaker
I was talking to my grandmother recently, and I think at the age that she's at, and I'm not the most social family person as we've discussed, she just wants to hear what's going on in my life, what my passions are, and typically that revolves around gaming. She's like, oh, did you tell me about games or something? I was like, next time we chat, I'll find a game, and I'll try and explain it and why it's good. Right.
00:04:21
Speaker
And then she asked like, oh, do people still do D and D? And I'm like, yep, actively. No, I, I don't do it. I don't know anyone who does it. I would not, I would not relate or associate with anyone who does it. I wanted to see the audio of the, this is why I was quiet. That's funny though.
00:04:48
Speaker
I wonder what our thing will be in the future. We're like, is that thing still going? People will be like, yeah, we still play Pokemon Game Boy Advance. Or it's going to be like, do people go outside now and be like, no, no, granddad. No one goes outside. You know, puts hand on a bubble window to see the wasteland. Uh-huh.
00:05:14
Speaker
No, it is. It is kind of funny. That's actually kind of great, though, that your grandma is just like leveling up your nerd dem, though, or at least she's placed you in there and just be like Dungeons and Dragons, you know, that like that nerd crap, you're into that, right? That's just a great that's a great association.
00:05:34
Speaker
I couldn't find you a monster manual, but I found you a driver's manual. Was that the same? Right. Get your license. Get outside. Get a job now. That is pretty great.
Gaming Tales and Comparisons
00:05:50
Speaker
I like, I like that though. Like, um, uh, my father-in-law, uh, also had, he had like a crate of D and D stuff, like, uh, not a crate. It was like a, a luggage bag, like cold war aged luggage bag with like bunch of D and D notes and stuff like that. Cause he ran it, um, like over in Berlin.
00:06:11
Speaker
Yeah. I don't know why, but when you say Berlin, I think of like, oh, those times. Right. Well, yes. I don't think of like modern day Berlin. I don't think somebody wanted a vacation three years ago. I think of like, mmm, old country. I got you. I can imagine Berlin has not changed, right? The wall came down and then they just, they say, stasis it. Like we're not going to, we'll just keep this like it is.
00:06:35
Speaker
Yeah. Honestly, the biggest change post the wall coming down is, um, they can finally use link cables for game boys. Oh yeah. That was good. They still stay on their respective sides because I mean, the law is the law, but the, the, um, the company that was making, uh, 30 foot link cables, they were throwing over the wall before though, straight out of business instantly, instantly. So.
00:07:02
Speaker
Those people actually later went on to help scale certain parts of our Mexico wall. That makes sense. Also, I like how the wall that they quote unquote started to build is effectively what I would do in Minecraft if I was exploring, wanted to kind of encompass a vast domain, but ran out of resources every five minutes. Right.
00:07:26
Speaker
I was going to say it's about as far as I would get with a wall if literally no one paid me money to do it. They're just like, yeah, build a wall. I'm like, yeah, that sounds kind of interesting. That's novel. And then as soon as any motivation drop happens. See ya. We'll go somewhere else.
00:07:44
Speaker
You get progressively lazier, but you still feel the obligation. Maybe you're going to throw out some trash. I guess this could fit as a piece and you just add it on. It becomes an amalgamation of wood, trash, dirt, snow that for some reason hasn't melted.
00:08:02
Speaker
Right. That's that's on a long term wall right there. I think we are. We are still going to send an itemized list of expenses to Mexico, though. So, you know, that's good. But I mean, they're going to pay it in pesos. So right. I wish I wish they could pay in like tacos or something like that. That would be much better for me personally. Well, they're not being paid to you. Oh.
00:08:29
Speaker
Well, I have no interest in this wallet. I was on board four years ago. No longer, sir. No longer. Wait, wait. We don't get tacos? Okay, I'm out. I'm sorry. So I guess related to this episode.
Podcast Format and Themed Episodes
00:08:46
Speaker
I think this is probably the latest we've had a year in preview type episode. And I would like to blame the fact that we have a new format where it's like stuff is scheduled out well in advance. That's what I would like to blame. I was just going to blame you, but yeah, the new format as well. That's fine.
00:09:06
Speaker
I mean, we actually have had things lined up. Um, probably should have reorganized certain things. Like if we want to have a year in preview or like Halloween episode on Halloween, that would have been smart. Dave, plan out dead space next time, but. Well, that'd be too spooky actually. We got to keep it at one spooky at most. We'll actually have the Halloween episodes going forward be very cute games. Mm-hmm.
00:09:34
Speaker
Hawaii got your games. That would actually be pretty funny. Just have a completely off brand Halloween episode every single year. Be like, and now for Christmas or something like that. Uh, no, actually after working in retail, I don't think I could stand that don't accelerate the onset of Christmas delay as much as you can. Keep it at the gates.
00:10:00
Speaker
We'll just play Mariah Carey constantly, very quietly as a backing track throughout the entirety of the episode. Psychological torture. Halloween, exactly. It's just a loop of I don't want a lot for Christmas, just slowly, almost imperceptibly getting louder and louder throughout the episode.
00:10:25
Speaker
It's kind of like the gritty, you better watch out. You better watch out. You better watch out. So some of these will definitely have already come out, but.
00:10:39
Speaker
Yeah, that's actually, that's a fun, that's really the only way we have a preview review without having played the game, a retrospective preview for some of these games.
Game Releases and Reviews
00:10:52
Speaker
For more details, you can look up actual reviews of these early games or, you know, buy them. So, um,
00:11:04
Speaker
Is there anything, I guess we can jump into it, but I'd like to call out if we actually picked up one of these games that came out or have played it. Um, just looking at the timeline and the list, the short answer is no. Yeah. A lot of these things are outside of my immediate grasp or just doesn't fall into my wheelhouse. Yeah. I want that to be a thing. I want, I want to have a wheelhouse. Hmm.
00:11:35
Speaker
What's in there? My various wheels. Everything's coming up, wheelhouse. All right. Let's start off in January. Try it soon. Good spot. There's only a couple of things that I put on here. One thing is the medium. This has been getting a lot of attention on Twitch.
00:11:56
Speaker
But my comment is I don't fucking know why it looks so boring. Yeah. It seems to be perspective puzzle. It seems to be a lot more narrative driven, but it doesn't have much of a hook for me. Yeah. Did you get to see any of this?
00:12:12
Speaker
I watch trailers for it. And basically if a game is, if a game's like, all right, we have music over all of our trailers and our trailers are, I get like, if it's majority cut scene, but if it's like the first three trailers on the Steam page, we're only cut scenes with no gameplay. I'm like, I start to get like concerned because I'm like, why do you not want to show me what the game is like? Right. Um,
00:12:38
Speaker
And why do you not want me to hear just the ambience or the audio or whatever's going on? And eventually they do get to gameplay. And I get that that's always like de-emphasized as opposed to the promotional stuff. But it just didn't look special once they got to gameplay. And it explains why they were pushing the trailer so much. Yeah. Everything I've seen of it is like somebody walking around looking for a clue or trying to solve a puzzle. Yeah.
00:13:08
Speaker
It's it's just the most boring thing from what little I've seen. That's just my opinion at this point. Yeah, I think that like I'm already not really a fan of puzzle games. And if you completely like remove any of the like, if you don't have a hook, something really cool that you're like, all right, it's a puzzle game, but also.
00:13:29
Speaker
this. Like, here's something really novel about it. There's no point, for me at least, right? It's like, I've played match three games before. What are you going to do to... Oh! Oh, okay. I see. I like that. I like the level of abstraction for that joke. That's mainly an inside joke for people. But another one in here with like the exact same, I don't understand why people would give a fuck about this, is God's will fall.
00:13:57
Speaker
Right Which assuming I'm right like the trailer looked kind of very badass and stylized. I like the armors in it. Mm-hmm, but it's a Third person smash him up. But yeah, it's like I've It's not New it doesn't seem to be that unique. Mm-hmm. So like I don't know why somebody be going being gung-ho for that at full price and
00:14:22
Speaker
Yeah, it's uh, I when I was looking at the trailer this one actually did show gameplay And from that I lost interest in the game, too So you do have to be careful when you walk that line But it's like it seemed like they were going for like an action rpg style like not diablo, but diablo esque beat him up beat him up hack and slash sort of experience and um But it just didn't look
00:14:48
Speaker
energetic or interesting. And then I looked at the Steam reviews and it's like mixed. I'm like, oh, OK, yeah, that makes sense. So yeah, at least for this one, Darksiders 3 already came out, so I don't know what they're going for. Have you played generic? No, I haven't. Anything in Darksiders? I played a little bit of Darksiders 1 because it was like a dollar and it was real cheap.
00:15:11
Speaker
It might have just been how dated it was, but I had a terrible time. Everything felt very clunky and I did not enjoy it. Darksiders 2 was also a dollar. I'm like, all right, I've heard some good things about the series. Let me try Darksiders 2. I got 20 minutes into that game and I refused to touch Darksiders 3.
00:15:30
Speaker
I think it's just not for me. Their games became really cheap once THQ filed for bankruptcy. THQ did, yeah. I mean, it was a reorganizational bankruptcy as bankruptcies for corporations usually are, but... That's why I don't organize things ever. Yeah. I want to go bankrupt. Fucking kidding me?
00:15:53
Speaker
So yeah, nothing particularly interesting here. I did add this one. This one wasn't on like any initial list and it kind of doesn't qualify in a way because it's a release to other platforms, but it's got Pilgrim versus the world. Came out, I don't know when, a long time ago for like Xbox 360 probably.
00:16:15
Speaker
That sounds about right. Probably PlayStation 2, or PlayStation 3, but PlayStation as well. That should be their next one. Yeah, that would actually be hilarious. They're like, we're going to just completely break the single number thing that everyone loves and make it a pun. Don't do that. But I have seen gameplay of this, as it's been around for forever. And I remember at the time, I didn't have any consoles, and I was like, man,
00:16:43
Speaker
This kind of looks like a fun co-op beat-em-up. So having the complete edition come out for, I believe it's PC and Switch were the two. Yeah, it sounds right. I don't know, could be interesting. Hopefully it's like really cheap. I would consider this one more than anything in the list so far.
00:17:03
Speaker
Well, I think a lot of people in our group of friends would be willing to play that with you. I'm phrasing it that way because I don't personally have an interest. I like Scott Pilgrim, the universe, but outside of Turtles in Time at Market, I don't have a whole lot of experience with side-scrolling beat-em-ups. Did you grow up on any of that? I played like Golden Axe a little bit, but not like an extensive amount.
00:17:30
Speaker
those games are really like oh my gosh what was the other one the old toy story game i think donkey actually has done a video on it
00:17:37
Speaker
It was like a CD game. It was super janky. He played as Woody. Oh, sold. Yeah. Yeah. It was really bad. Part of the problem I had with those types of games, those scrolling games, and I realized these aren't platformers. Speed amounts aren't platformers, but they're usually ripped from arcades where the idea was to just consume your currency.
00:18:02
Speaker
And so I was just like, this is not a palatable difficulty for me, right? Yeah. I know they had Streets of Rage 4 recently. And I played some of that with Mike. I had a good time doing that, but it's still not my go-to type of game. That's the title that was named in the 90s, right? Streets of Rage. It's very edgy next to the X Games.
00:18:32
Speaker
Mm-hmm
00:18:34
Speaker
But yeah, I think January is fairly boring, so it's good that we're already past it in real life. We don't have to wait through any of these titles. If we've sold you on any of these, go check them out. By using our Patreon link for 20% off. Right. That would actually be hilarious. Try to use a Patreon referral link that's just your Patreon. There is no product there.
00:19:04
Speaker
But yeah, moving along, we got Little Nightmares 2 came out in February, which was this past month. Yeah. So that's cool. We're approaching the present. We're getting there. We enjoyed Little Nightmares 1, if I recall. I didn't play it, but I watched. I watched Ian play it. We're also going to watch Ian play Little Nightmares 2 at some point. He has committed to that.
00:19:29
Speaker
Does he, did he, has he picked it up yet? I bought it for him. Ah, okay. Yeah. See, see listeners, Dave does follow through on his commitments when he's like, Hey, if you, if you want this game, you know, buy it for you. It's right there. The proof is in the pudding, as they say.
00:19:49
Speaker
But I mean, that game looks good. It looked pretty similar to Little Nightmares 1, right? Yeah, the engine's the... I want to say it's the same as far as rendering or anything like that, but it's still the same type of game. They know what they're doing, and they're doing more of it. It still doesn't seem like a terribly long game, but as far as atmosphere and design, oof.
00:20:18
Speaker
I really enjoy watching a friend play this. Yeah, because spoopy It's kind of um, the this genre of game I feel like has taken off a little bit recently like we were talking about how frenetic and we're absolutely going to kill you those old Side scrolling brawlers and beat them up since I like um platformers were but like little nightmares and um
Narrative-Driven Games Discussion
00:20:48
Speaker
inside and Limbo. Limbo, thank you. I was literally trying to think of Limbo are all like much more slowly paced. They do have some puzzles you kind of have to solve, but for the most part, they're not like high octane gameplay in any aspect. It's almost, I'm going to equate this to almost a 2D walking simulator for significant portions of the game.
00:21:16
Speaker
But yes, that's very true check out the art
00:21:22
Speaker
When you phrase it that way, it doesn't sound as cool, but I can't dispute your point because there are certain things where if you just, you are going from left to right, you might have some other things. You might have some hiding or timing based stuff, but it's more so an experience going through the game versus I don't know how to beat this boss. I have to look it up or I got to keep leveling up, get my DPS up to beat the boss.
00:21:49
Speaker
Yeah, it's just really stylized and fucking cool. Mm hmm. I find that like I like gameplay in games, too, but sometimes I was going to say I'm getting old and it's like walking simulator start to look better and better as I'm just like walking. You know, that's a novel concept to me now. So this is no longer a boring thing. This is more of an exploration, right?
00:22:19
Speaker
But no, I like those kind of narrative experiences more. And you can take it easy a little bit and just appreciate the game at a pace that the developer intends you to see it. So I'm here for it, as they say.
00:22:35
Speaker
And it's got that cool storytelling design of we're not going to tell you anything, but we'll have pictures of stuff and you can kind of piece together the dots and make your own theories. Right. Don't tell, just show.
00:22:50
Speaker
Exactly. Yeah, I love games that are like that. Like that's let people theorize about what's going on. Little Nightmares one without going into spoilers was very much that kind of game. It's just like anxiety and like an ominous sense that something terrible is about to happen. And because of that, you kind of have that payoff when something terrible does happen, right? Or it may be subverted, but
00:23:19
Speaker
Yeah, just getting you emotionally invested in a game in a way that you kind of can't if it's really high paced. Sometimes it's got to go at a slow enough pace that you can be like, I'm nervous about what's about to happen. This seems, I don't like this, right? Yeah. And you can even do that, like you said, just from the pacing or maybe you just have something in the background occasionally. People are like, what is that?
00:23:48
Speaker
Like I don't know if we've ever just talked about pacing, but games like this nail it a lot more than I feel like Borderlands or something like that. Borderlands would be my example of bad pacing where it's going so fast that like the voices are literally the radio messages are cutting each other off and you're missing the content of the game entirely because they didn't match up the mechanical pace of the game with the narrative pace. So.
00:24:15
Speaker
Fucking idiots. I actually added the other one here. This is another kind of cheat one because Republic Commando is Star Wars Republic Commando is already out for PC. And this isn't even a remaster. They're just releasing it for Switch. I just wanted to say that it's a really good single player squad based shooter. And sometimes Star Wars makes good games and this is one of them.
00:24:42
Speaker
And, uh, yeah, I literally like looked at the trailer for switch and I was like, okay, this isn't even a remaster. These are still like the 2005 graphics or whatever when it came out. Um, but had you never played it, I'm not even recommending the switch version cause that's probably going to be like 20 bucks or something. Let's get it on sale on steam for like five bucks. How do you feel about rereleases of certain things?
00:25:07
Speaker
Not remasters, just re-releases. Just re-releasing it. I'm being on another platform. Yeah. Well, if it's for a platform it's never been released on, obviously.
00:25:20
Speaker
I guess that's the common case. I guess the only game that just re-releases on the same platform without Skyrim. I think it's more justifiable, but I really do like when they sweeten the deal a little bit by throwing in remaster.
00:25:38
Speaker
Hey, we made the graphics a little better. We fixed the online. We did something like that. Otherwise, it feels very cash grabby. It does. But on the other side of it, I know a lot of people have picked up certain games on the Switch because that's what they had.
Game Re-releases and Graphics
00:25:55
Speaker
Not everybody's like cool PC game or Master Race like us. Right. So things like Hades and Hollow Knight going to the Switch is really fucking cool or Celeste. True. Like it opens up stuff that doesn't
00:26:08
Speaker
force you into the specific console or PC niche. It's interesting the examples you gave though because like Hollow Knight, Hades, Celeste, none of those games have an art style that will age because they're all just artistic. Like 30 years, those games are gonna look good. So really you're just taking the same game and making it available. Technically Republic Commander is doing the same thing but it's an older game and it had like
00:26:36
Speaker
It wasn't going for an artistic art style. It was just graphics for the time. So maybe it's a double standard on my part, right? Saying like, oh, they should have remastered that game because it didn't have Okami paintbrush style or something like that, right? Yeah. Oh, no, it's hard to say.
00:27:01
Speaker
Like I would appreciate it for certain things as far as like the remaster side of it, just because I'm never going to go back and actually play through Deus Ex original. Right. I played through a good portion of it, but goddamn, even with some mods, it hurts. It physically hurts me. It is. So I'd love a more accessible version of that. Yeah. But.
00:27:28
Speaker
Also, if I can jump ahead off of that, because otherwise we'll never move out of February. That's fair. Near Replicant is getting a remaster. Right. That is a large jump though. It is. All the way down April. Wow. Jeez.
00:27:46
Speaker
How do you feel about the title? So this is actually a remaster. This is, Replicant was already released. I didn't realize it was a remaster. So near Replicant and near Gestalt, we're on PlayStation 3. Okay. But it was like the US and Japanese release. Gotcha.
00:28:06
Speaker
I was going to say, it looks, it looked very similar to Nier Automata with the, like the engine and the combat style and the animations. They're definitely going to do it more so in the, the wake of Automata, but obviously Nier Replicant is like the precursor, but I'm glad that they're updating it to be.
00:28:29
Speaker
I can't say I'm glad they're updating it. I don't know what the original is. I just heard it was old and janky on the PS3 in comparison. But I'm looking forward to finally experiencing that game and that storyline because now I'm invested in that world.
00:28:45
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's fair. I feel like a lot of, there's a lot of franchises I enjoy that never had like massive mainstream breakout. And I realized there's probably a ton like coming out of Japan too, right? Like, and then you have one big mainstream game and suddenly, hey, now it's much easier to convince investors.
00:29:10
Speaker
that, you know, a remaster or remake or something like that's gonna actually perform well in Western markets. As long as you got too anime. Hold on, Near though you said. Near is pretty good. It really is.
00:29:27
Speaker
Yeah. So now it's the question, did we jump ahead with the intent to not go back? Are we coming out in February? Okay. This is just informational. Neo one and two remastered editions are both coming out in February. I have not played the series at all, but I've looked at it and it scares me. That's fair. I've played like two hours of Neo. I got up to the first boss. There's a reason I didn't get past the first boss. Yeah.
00:29:58
Speaker
It's just more technically advanced than other FromSoft type games. Yeah. And I don't have the patience to do it. I think that's basically what I saw too, and the reason I didn't go for it. I think like Dunkey did a video on it where it was almost entirely him fighting one boss, or at least the culmination was him fighting one boss. He's like, all right, now that I've beaten this, there's like 70 more bosses to go.
00:30:26
Speaker
Dark Souls 2 had a lot of bosses. It did not have 70. It had like 20 or 30. To be fair, getting your money's worth as far as content and time spent in a game, it's just whether or not you're going to just tap out a point and say, no thanks, not for me.
00:30:46
Speaker
I feel like Sekiro is the perfect place for speed slash Dark Souls commitment that I appreciated. I wouldn't want a game that demands more of me than Sekiro does in any capacity.
00:31:04
Speaker
So yeah, even though these are going to be remastered and complete editions, which I'm a fan of that in general, I think, even though it is kind of cash grabby. Take all your DLC, package it all in a nice bundle, slap some new coat of paint on it, and be like, hey, future generations, if you ever had an interest in playing our game, here's the definitive version. I find that really convenient.
00:31:30
Speaker
Um, but I'm not going to pick this up either for other games. I find it sounds great. Not for me. Um, I believe, so moving to March, our friends would be remiss if we did not mention a monster hunter rise, uh, coming out for the switch on March 26th. Um, so there you go.
00:31:52
Speaker
All right. Next weekend. I just, I think we may have talked about this a little bit already, but I just, I feel like world has everything I want for Monster Hunter. And I haven't played that in two years. Exactly. Right. Like I literally could just jump into Iceborne and experience that content. So.
00:32:13
Speaker
Yeah, it's just like, from what I've heard, it's going back more so to older Monster Hunter style. But it just, I think I'm good. Good for a long while. But I'm looking forward to my friends having fun with this. Yeah. And they're like cool monsters. I'll be like, Oh, nice. Yeah, like the info dump. Here's a monster that's not in world. It's because it's from a different region or some Pokemon nonsense or whatever.
00:32:43
Speaker
Like I'm, I'm, I'm glad for that. It's just, I was never really a huge fan of the monster hunter, like periodic release system. They said it seemed like they moved away from for world. They're just like, Hey, we're just going to support world for a while. Content events, major expansion. Um, we're going to make it all look good. And then this came out and they're like, all right.
00:33:09
Speaker
Bring it back down to eight polygons per monster. This is just gonna be how it is. I don't know. It's called duty. It's not my overall type of series.
00:33:27
Speaker
Yeah. And you don't play these games for the story anyways, right? Because I try to not watch any of the cut scenes, but I cannot skip any of the cut scenes. I hate every single character outside of my character who doesn't talk. True, true, true. Speaking of talking characters, though. Wait, do any of these characters talk? Does Crash Bandicoot talk? I don't think he does. I think he makes noises.
00:33:56
Speaker
Yeah. I actually added this to the list and then added thoughts on it and then realized that it came out for some consoles already.
Surprising Platform Releases
00:34:06
Speaker
So that's fine. It's been around for a bit. BDG had a video on it a couple months back.
00:34:14
Speaker
I also grew up on Crash, so I can't really speak too much on it. Yeah, I played other rare games. I played Donkey Kong, GoldenEye, stuff like that. But, you know, cool that it's still around. The fact that Crash can have a release, I believe this one was for Switch and maybe one other console this month. Oh, it was, I think, PS5 was the other.
00:34:40
Speaker
It's a nice consolation prize for the fact that he probably will not have one of the last two spots for Smash. That would be interesting. He's very high up on the list of characters that certain fans wanted to smash. I realize I said certain fans in a way to make it seem weird. You're just like, oh, yeah. Different group of people. Those ones. You know the type.
00:35:10
Speaker
But yeah, I also am not super, super into the franchise. If I ever were to establish that kind of interest, I'd probably just pick up the Spyro remasters on Steam because Spyro is something that actually looks kind of cool to me.
00:35:27
Speaker
Kingdom Hearts is going to have literally all of their games come out to PC in March. Uh, this is kind of weird and big news because Kingdom Hearts three is only a year or two old. Um, they've always been PlayStation. Yeah. Like they were phone game boy and PlayStation. Yeah. And game boy. Yeah. Um, so having like the whole thing come to PC is kind of surprising. It's kind of a left field.
00:35:53
Speaker
thing. But again, I'm probably not gonna pick it up because I never even beat Kingdom Hearts 3 and I have that on PlayStation.
00:36:00
Speaker
And I will not check out Kingdom Hearts because I think it's bad. Yeah. I mean, that's, I think fans also think it's bad. So you probably won't have much competition in that contest to that opinion. Harvest Moon One World is coming out and I just put a note here that no one should care about Harvest Moon. Play Stardew Valley instead. April.
00:36:26
Speaker
So this top one you put here, something we're more recently experienced with. How do you feel about Outriders and how do you feel about it coming out in April in full? It's, it's fine.
00:36:42
Speaker
It's like, I think there was a E3 trailer in demo a while back and it looked again, just mildly interesting. And then after playing through the demo content for like two-ish hours. It's probably right. My theory was confirmed that it looks fine.
00:37:03
Speaker
But it's not, it's not the destiny replacement that I think a lot of us were hoping for. Um, not to say like it's not going to be fun. If people do pick it up, it just, it seems very.
00:37:19
Speaker
limited and generic type. I think it's something where it's very useful when evaluating co-op games and multiplayer games in general, specifically co-op, to think how much is the co-op experience enhancing the other aspects of this game. And that's not bad if co-op enhances your game. That's perfectly good. If it doesn't, what are you doing?
00:37:46
Speaker
If you think about it and you're like, all right, how are these combat arenas? Are they interesting? Is using my abilities interesting? Am I having a fun time with it? Is the loot engaging? Like all of that stuff. It all gets a little bit less without like the co-op layer, the fact that you're just there with your friends adding to the fun. And so I do think that this is a game I may see myself picking up.
00:38:15
Speaker
because it has that potential. But I mean, the story didn't seem particularly good or engaging. The graphics were fine. The performance was a little bit poor. I don't know. It's mediocre. I would play it with friends to play a game with friends. Yeah, certain games do fall into that category, but
00:38:38
Speaker
I don't know. It's like when everyone was doing Sea of Thieves, I really got the vibe, but it wasn't my thing at all. And I'm glad I didn't pick it up because I would have just been mad at everybody that they decided to play this game and I had to buy it. Right.
00:38:55
Speaker
So I'll see where I land on the, maybe I'll jump ship, so to speak, from Sea of Thieves to Outriders. Yeah, I don't know. We'll see how it is, see how reviews go. The demo's pretty short. I'll see how it reviews. That's actually like a motif, I think, for this year as a preview. I think that's a motif for this year.
Nostalgia and New Releases
00:39:22
Speaker
Uh, the last title for April was new Pokemon Snap for the Switch, April 30th. Um, I played Pokemon Snap for N64, um, in Walmart, I think. And I remember that game being like very brief, like incredibly short.
00:39:44
Speaker
Oh yeah, it's, it doesn't have a lot of content in it. It was more so just being a young kid, really enjoying Pokemon as like a card game, a series game boy, and then getting to experience Pokemon in a more.
00:40:01
Speaker
in person side of things. Yeah. Cause I got out of Pokemon stadium, 3d Pokemon weren't really a thing at the time. So it was kind of like, holy shit. So it was a lot of, a lot of that. I think people were excited about.
00:40:16
Speaker
I wonder if maybe the fact that, you mentioned 3D Pokémon, maybe the fact that there are 3D models of like a lot of Pokémon now and the games exist takes a little, it kind of eats Pokémon Snap's lunch a little bit. A lot of people will still play this game that just want to, you know, take pictures of Pokémon, I get that, but some of that was Magic Crate, seeing renders of characters you had never seen before in 3D.
00:40:43
Speaker
I think to a degree, yeah. But I think it's more so for the people who are diehard series fans in the same way, if like anything Animal Crossing comes out, certain people who like Animal Crossing would just be like, I don't give a shit. Yes. Yeah. No, I think that's fair.
00:41:02
Speaker
I might have to pick this up for my wife. I was going to comment on that as she was on the Pokemon episode. Yes. Not a specific Pokemon game. A blanket Pokemon episode. All Pokemon games.
00:41:18
Speaker
But this is really, so that's April. You know, kind of a slow start to the year. May and June is really where a lot of this picks up, I think. I guess mostly May. Very late disclaimer, but anybody should have picked up on this. We're not listing old games. I hope not. Please look at other games if none of these have interest you, but you are curious about what's coming up. These are just things that we thought were notable and wanted to mention.
00:41:45
Speaker
Yeah, and it's absolutely fine if you have a different taste in games, but anything not on this list is explicitly trash. So, kicking off May, we have Resident Evil Village, which is the Tall Vampire Lady one.
00:42:02
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, a lot of people. One of the comments on the YouTube trailer for this was this is going to be a very difficult boss fight to accomplish with one hand. I thought that was funny. So again, I didn't grow up on Resident Evil. I'm not really tied to it. I've watched seven played through on YouTube twice over the course of like three years. But
00:42:32
Speaker
I am kind of interested to possibly get this, but I would want to get it on PlayStation 5 versus taking however small it might be a graphics hit or performance hit on PlayStation 4.
00:42:49
Speaker
I think that's fair. And it's a very, very pretty game. Like seven really pretty game. Same engine for this one, I think, but they even ramped up the detail a little bit more. When I was watching the trailer for this, it doesn't look like a traditional Resident Evil game to me. Like it looks like a.
00:43:07
Speaker
I realized that the formula is still completely there. You know, you're fighting zombies and hallways and corridors and stuff, but like the medieval castle theming and vibe, I'm all for that. Like, I don't know. They've kind of shown with Resident Evil 7 that they can branch out a little bit for the franchise.
00:43:25
Speaker
Um, which I think is good for them. Oh yeah. I still think they could have, um, gone on the coattails of what they were doing previously for a long while. Cause again, diehard fans of the series are just going to get it anyway. Diehard Dan's at the series actually. Yeah. Dan, we know, we know you're going to get it. They've done some other interesting things like with, I forget that they had a rail shooter at some point.
00:43:53
Speaker
Oh, yeah. Mm hmm. I know Dead Space did too. Oh, that's it seems like an older arcadey thing, but. Mm hmm.
00:44:04
Speaker
They really seem to be bringing it more so to life with the attention to detail and then having various areas where it's not just you're in Luigi's Mansion type thing. They're one of the few series I feel like they managed to, they pivoted more toward an action game with Resident Evil 5, Chris and Sheva, and then like
00:44:28
Speaker
They actually pulled back from the action focus more for the future games, like seven. Six was still really action focused, but like seven is just like narratively. We're going to put you in some spots, run away. You don't have powers. You don't have weapons. You're in danger. I'm in danger. And I don't know, it feels like it's an improvement for the series. We'll see where they go with Village, but the Internet like this one, I think.
00:44:56
Speaker
It looked good from the first trailer. It looked great from the second and third trailer. Yeah. And then they had a playable demo of like, I think like 20 minutes.
00:45:09
Speaker
Um, that just looked gorgeous as far as detail. It's so pretty. It's ridiculously pretty. This should have been the showcase for a PS five. It might've been, if it was good job, but it should have been. Um, so I'm going to avoid mentioning the next one until we finish the rest of the month to give you some time to talk while I build up my oxygen reserves. Okay.
00:45:35
Speaker
Um, bio mutant is a thing. I remember it being mentioned a long time ago, but I remember seeing too many details about it, but it seems very much to be an open world. You're a mouse. Mm-hmm. If I focus west. Ooh, that's going to be fun. Yeah. It seems honestly like one of the more interesting ideas that was mentioned a year or two ago.
00:46:04
Speaker
Has the interest held up since the ideal, since the idea of placement? I don't know what I saw for this. I looked up like a trailer and it looked like pretty janky and a little bit slow. And I'm feeling it must've been like a beta or something. Possibly. Um, from what I've seen of the trailers, the premise looks interesting and fun as far as an open world type game. Maybe when they have like a launch trailer, I will evaluate again.
00:46:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:46:35
Speaker
I might have to give this one like a closer look then. Cause it sounds like you had a more positive impression of it initially than I did. And I'm curious what the dichotomy there is. I wonder if I missed something or I just looked at a really old trailer and just like here's some concept art. I'm like, this game is trash. Look at this. It's just like pencil drawings on a piece of paper. It could, it could just be that my memory is faulty instead. I don't know. We'll see as we get closer there. Maybe it's the game of the year. Who knows? For my note, I have furry monster hunter.
00:47:06
Speaker
Um, yeah, so that's bio, bio mutant. I realize I put the rest of these on here. So we can, I'm not going to talk a lot about it. Mass Effect. It's a good series. Uh, with the change ending three is even a good game. It was probably a good game even with the other ending to be honest, but made it better.
00:47:27
Speaker
uh legendary edition we talked about it i think in news so i don't want to go into detail but uh if you've never played it this is basically the chance to play all the way through with one character design you don't have to update as the graphics change for the next game which is pretty nice
00:47:44
Speaker
And then there's Subnautica Below Zero, which is the long-awaited expansion for Subnautica. It's the exact same game, but with Ice. Yeah. Should be very similar. It is standalone. It is a different game. It is the follow-up.
00:48:04
Speaker
I was looking at some Steam reviews and things like that, and I was like, okay, it's mostly positive, but there's a couple things I'm not really sure on. And basically what I learned from looking at the Steam reviews is I should not look at the Steam reviews. I'm gonna wait for May, probably, unless I'm completely impatient. They did release their seaworthy update, which is supposed to be their release candidate. Subnautica is a good game though. Maybe not this one. Subnautica is so good.
00:48:33
Speaker
But I feel like I got enough from the first one that I don't necessarily, I don't know what they would have to change to really draw me into going into that same type of game again. Yeah, I think it's got to be exploration. Exploration has to be the main thing, some different technology, but really Subnautica was what is just a little bit deeper.
00:48:56
Speaker
Like what is in this cave? Like what's over there? What is that signal? So as long as they maintain that feeling of exploration, I think it'll be successful. But I do suspect it'll be in the same current as a subnautica. Should be good then. The same current? Yeah, that was my joke. I saw the light go out of Dave's eyes. That was a fun thinking.
00:49:25
Speaker
And I think that was it for May. Nope. So this is my most anticipated game of the year currently.
Anticipated Future Releases
00:49:33
Speaker
More anticipated than Subnautica even. Currently. And that is Deathloop.
00:49:39
Speaker
I started off really hyped about it when we first mentioned it. I think it was at E3 or something. And then it was a little bit less hype when I was talking about it. I was like, this last trailer is not so good. And then I watched a developer talk about it and I got all of that hype back. And now I'm once more excited to play the game. And I think part of that is just because we have a better idea of what the structure is going to be.
00:50:09
Speaker
You play as a guy, drop you in the world. You have to kill eight people. Those people will run on routines across your time loop. If you die, you reset to the beginning of time of the loop, not like asteroid impact or something like that. And so going through the game is going to be getting powers like in Dishonored, getting weapons. You keep those when you go back in time. So you're still making progress.
00:50:37
Speaker
and then figuring out how you want to kill everybody and make your way through all of these high value targets to complete the game. And the caveat is one of the high value targets is also an assassin who is trying to hunt you down and kill you during your path through everybody. So is that another player or is that AI? It's AI. Yeah, it's a single player game. OK. Yeah.
00:51:06
Speaker
Um, but it's made by arcane you made dishonored and in general are really good with, um, these open world immersive sim type games. Um, and it reminds me some of prey moon crash, which was there like, like rogue, like get all of these people to escape, but helping each other out, like along the way type games. Um,
00:51:34
Speaker
And I don't know, I think just having like a limitation on the amount of time you can spend in a loop lets you pack a lot of content in there. Majora's Mask did that as well. Minute? Minute, yes. Minute's a perfect example for like the smallest amount of time you could really do and still have expensive content around. Second. It didn't sell very well. The credits just start rolling, but they stop.
00:52:03
Speaker
Yeah, it looks, I gotta say interesting and not good at this point. But from the last trailer that I watched, I did see a lot of things. I'm like, that's Dishonored, which makes sense if it's coming from the same studio. And Dishonored and Arkane Studio had a really good job of
00:52:23
Speaker
designing the levels and making the powers seem fun and impactful. Yeah. Play grats all the way. I don't give a shit. You can steal people's faces and dishonored Death of the Outsider. Oh. Just like rip their face off like in stone so it's not super bloody and gory and then just hold it in front of your face and people will see you as that person. They're cool at making powers.
00:52:50
Speaker
And I think the reason I'm excited for Deathloop is because in Dishonored, they always have like in the background, here's your, you really shouldn't be killing everybody. That's gonna cause high chaos, right? Like you should try to sneak through this, but they would give you like a nuclear arsenal of superpowers and then tell you not to use them, right?
00:53:07
Speaker
And in Deathloop, you literally play as an assassin. So go crazy. Right. I'm sure there are like ramifications for using a grenade in a crowd, but whatever your play style is, I'm sure. Yeah. So I have, I have a lot of excitement for this, especially since I looked at the trailer. Yeah. I'm looking forward to watching you stream that on discord or something. Um, might even get myself at some point.
00:53:38
Speaker
just not yet on board. Right. I am. I am the arcane fanboy. So I expect. But that's that. That's it for the month. Speaking of re-remakes, Final Fantasy 7 wants to remake that remake again. So what's this title called? Dave, I'm going to make you read it.
00:54:01
Speaker
Let me put on my specs here. Final Fantasy 7 Remake Intergrade. Cause like they added some extra content or a character or something. This is so stupid. It's not even worth explaining. Go watch it if you give a shit about Final Fantasy. I want to keep playing it.
00:54:21
Speaker
I really don't understand their release structure for this or anything that they're fucking planning. This one weird. This one's only PS5, I think is supposed to be the big thing, right? Like that's my understanding, at least.
00:54:38
Speaker
I didn't check what it was being released for specifically. Well, you complain for a second for me while I check this out. Yeah, there's already a lot. I want to call you out because you've done this before. Dave, buy me time. Anyway. The real buy-in time, it is PS5. The real buy-in time is me asking you to buy time.
00:55:05
Speaker
But I realize something else out loud. And then just, OK, my apologies. You're good, you're good. But it is PS5 exclusive. So this is basically like, hey, the game that literally just came out and get it on the newest console. And they also took Final Fantasy 7 Remake as currently free if you are a PlayStation Plus subscriber.
00:55:35
Speaker
So there's that. I don't know. Squeenix is stupid. They make, they make some really stupid decisions, but the fact that they also make Kingdom Hearts lends a lot of context for this decision.
00:55:56
Speaker
It's like, hey, why can't we have Final Fantasy characters in Kingdom Hearts anymore? They're like, we have a separate plan for those people. Yeah. Okay. Also in June, though, there is Ratchet and Clank, which I didn't really grow up in that either. But they've always had very fun action platformers.
00:56:17
Speaker
Yeah. And this looks like a very modern take on it. And they in the demo trailer, they had kind of a show off of using portals.
00:56:28
Speaker
which technologically speaking is already impressive. I know Portal did it a long time ago, but there's also like a level of graphical fidelity with it that you can actually see through the Portal versus, I don't know. Again, I know Portal did it, but this is just like one facet of Ratchet and Clank, but everything that they've had that I've seen for weapons and abilities,
00:56:54
Speaker
To quote Nakey Jakey, it appeases the goopy goblin brain part of me. Yeah. Like it just looks fun. Really fun. Yeah, I've got nothing to add to that. That's just 100% true.
00:57:10
Speaker
I'm if this is one this is on the list because I do get the ratchet and clank remaster for ps4 If I get a ps5 if when I get a ps5 This is this probably me like top five games for me to pick up. I just like ratchet and clank. It's cool Yeah first is if ps5 then it's when ps5, right? Yeah Next one is back for blood which is
00:57:38
Speaker
So it's literally named in the same way as Left4Dead, and it literally is Left4Dead. Like four people, co-op, get to say for them, it's Left4Dead. Like they're not even, they're not really trying to change the formula up. It looks like it's just, it's not necessarily a remaster, it's like a remake, it's new content. Not the same IP.
00:58:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty much Left 4 Dead. Yeah, it's made by the same people that made Left 4 Dead 1 because the separate studio was right in for 2 and Evolve. So I like both of those games. I wish Evolve was more successful, but I already have this game, so I will be playing. Yeah.
00:58:28
Speaker
But I have that coming out. I miss Left 4 Dead as like a group content thing. I know it's like a smaller party size of four. Can't play with everybody. But I miss just like hopping on public stuff and doing versus maps. I hope they have that. Yeah, because it's really fun to play as infected and kind of have it turned on its head.
00:58:53
Speaker
Also just the gunplay of shooting down hordes of zombies and asking for your team to res you because you gravely miscalculated the number of zombies. Right.
00:59:05
Speaker
No, I'm excited to see how they choose to diversify it from Left 4 Dead because there is definitely some things like they do need some gameplay advancements. This can't just be shooting melee. Yeah. Yeah. Like I was looking at the characters, none of them stood out as interesting to me, at least as the initial Left 4 Dead cast of tropes. Right.
00:59:28
Speaker
So I do want them to be successful with this. I feel like at launch, it may be, they need to go beyond Left 4 Dead though. It can't just be like better gunplay because otherwise like, how are you going to convince, you know, a group of friends to drop full retail on a game when the counter argument's just like, let's all load up Left 4 Dead, right? You know what I mean? There's got to be some progress here.
00:59:56
Speaker
I think there will be not just me being optimistic uncharacteristically, but I mean, they did well. They made the first one. So that's true. Yeah, I'm just really hoping it's good. Same, same. I actually do have some hope for this.
01:00:17
Speaker
Just really quickly to hit the remainder of the year, there's not a lot.
Anime-Inspired Games and Year Overview
01:00:21
Speaker
I think there will be more announcements for Q4 games as we get through the year, especially when we hit up E3 and things like that. But right now, we don't have that information. We'll follow up with episodes. But Skyward Sword HD coming out for Switch in July. Ian says that I should really play this game, so that puts it on the list.
01:00:47
Speaker
And then one game for August and I just passed off today. No more heroes three. It had a fucking nine minute anime trailer. Holy shit. Am I excited? No more heroes one and two were very fun. I don't think I beat either of them because the final bosses were actively bullshit, but it was just very fun on.
01:01:16
Speaker
This was Wii U. Mm-hmm. That sounds right. Motion controls were definitely a thing. Wii, Wii was the first one, right? Yeah, no, it just would've been Wii, yeah. But using your nunchaku as a sword and literally hacking, slashing through enemies with the Travis touchdown style and the Suda 51 blanket.
01:01:44
Speaker
My initial impression was like, this trailer is amazing and I wish I knew more about the gameplay. As soon as I get some more info on the gameplay, that'll probably decide whether it's an early pickup or not for me. I would bet you good money right now that it's going to use the Joy-Cons. I'm sure it will have controller support, but that's probably not how it's meant to be used. Yeah.
01:02:10
Speaker
Probably even more intuitive for Joy-Con separately. Yeah, the fact that it's coming out for Switch also makes it more accessible. I realize that's not a surprise. It's Nintendo. But it's for something I already own. I don't have to get a PlayStation 5 for this. So that actually makes it a bit easier to decide on for me. Yeah, I'm very much looking forward to that.
01:02:33
Speaker
Should be good. Yeah. And the last one I have is literally October. It's like we have two months with literally no listings currently. But again, I expect that to change. But Ghostwire Tokyo, which I think a lot of our friends or a fair group of our friends, the we be your friends, were excited about. I rewatched the trailer for this and I started to get excited for it.
01:03:00
Speaker
you know, while I was playing it, or not playing it, but watching it. PC and PS5, so I don't have to buy a new console. And I don't know, I just really like this style. So I need to see more at this point.
01:03:16
Speaker
It seemed very, at least the trailer I watched, which was probably a little bit old, it seemed very vague about what was going on. Just that you were in Downtime of the City, there were some magical powers, some anime shit. I don't want to know more. Yeah.
01:03:35
Speaker
This is an amped up matrix, Luigi's mansion, uh, anime adaptation, I think is basically the plot of the game. So, I mean, that description sounds interesting and good. We'll see how it goes. But yeah, that is, that is the preview. I believe. Is there any overall impressions you feel for this year? I mean, I realized we're coming off of the most hype game release of all time, cyberpunk 2077. So how could anything compare? But.
01:04:06
Speaker
How do you feel about this year for gaming so far? It is hard for me to have an emotional range these days.
01:04:17
Speaker
No, I'm done. That was the end of my sentence. The punctuation doesn't carry over as much these days. The emotional range would actually help that too. But yeah, I get that. Personally, I think there's a couple titles here that I'm fairly excited for. But for the most part, I'm not going to be rushing out. Well, I would never rush out to buy a game in a line anyways. But like day one pickups, I don't really see any.
01:04:46
Speaker
Um, with the exception of maybe death loop and subnautica, which technically I could pick up now. Um, maybe near near could be good. I don't know. Here's a, an immediate day one for me because I'm going to get it anyway. Mm-hmm.
01:05:05
Speaker
I don't know, it's just nice to, cause I think I've mentioned my setup before. Right here is like my desk and PC gaming and whatnot. And then over in like a Nook, I have like a bean bag set up. I have a monitor, which is on like a little AC box and that's where the PlayStation is. So I'll go out there if I'm playing through some Ghost of Tsushima or back when I was playing Bloodborne or anything like that.
01:05:32
Speaker
I miss having a game that like gives me an excuse to go over there and just hang out and not have the fear of missing out of not being near the PC and people on Discord. Yeah, I get that. That's why the switch is in the other room for me. I also have that right next to me. Yeah. Yeah. But yeah, we'll see. Maybe the year overall will look up a bit more on average once we get more releases from like E3 or something like that.
01:06:02
Speaker
Right now, it could just be cost savings measure, won't need to spend as much on hardware or video games this year, because I still haven't seen anything to make me get a PS5. I still can't get a PS5, so I haven't tried, so that's also a factor, I guess.
01:06:20
Speaker
But if there's something you feel like we really missed and you've been upset but still stuck around listening since I said that only the things on this list mattered, you could send that into us personally so that the other people on Facebook would not judge you at soapstonepodcast.gmail.com or
01:06:41
Speaker
you could invite personal attacks and criticism against your choice. Not the person, obviously, but your choice on Facebook, publicly, at facebook.com slash Slope Stone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have a good night.
01:06:59
Speaker
But don't you worry. A hero descends. What? There are no heroes in this world? Oh, but there totally are. My name is Travis Touchdown. I'm the last hero around here to save the world. I'm also just a passing assassin. Now let's do this. Start the game.