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S2 Ep88: 2020 Preview
90 Plays6 years ago
Join Dave and Jake as they give first impressions for some of this year's most hype gaming titles...and Carrion!
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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/
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Transcript
Introduction and humor
00:00:25
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? I really wish you would let me do the insurance once. Yeah. I feel kind of underappreciated. That's how it's going, Jake. No, that's fair. I mean, we did once, right? We had a back and forth for a while.
00:00:43
Speaker
i think there was like two times where i did it where like hey wouldn't it be funny if nobody cares i don't even care it's it's like um when you're like you're letting the kid like help you with chores or whatever you're like okay you can like dry off the dish and then like break the first dish and you're just like
00:01:01
Speaker
I'm going to take care of the rest of the dishes. The dishes shattered into a thousand pieces, but no moisture. Good job. Right. I think it was really just where you would open the intro and then like break off into a tangent of swears, you know, in the middle before asking me how I was doing.
Spoilers and promotions
00:01:16
Speaker
I was going to say it's a bad habit, but I don't think that it's bad. I think swearing's fun. Yeah. Everybody needs a pastime, I guess. Yeah, this is how... Dave, what are you up to tonight? Probably just swearing and cussing up a storm, you know? Oh man. G dang it. G dang it. What do you want to talk about tonight? Everything. Everything. That's a lot.
00:01:42
Speaker
Could we start somewhere? At the beginning. I would love if somebody had this on autoplay and they never read the title of the actual episode to know what the fuck we're talking about because we never introduced it correctly. It was one of my fears actually for episodes with spoilers or things like that for maybe a recent game. We usually cover older games, but say Sekiro. What if they autoplayed to Sekiro and they're just like, oh man, these are all super spoilery.
00:02:10
Speaker
I feel like you should always assume spoilers unless it says no spoilers. Yeah, we took the debt. We don't do audible disclaimers really anymore. We just put it in the description. So the people who listen with their ears instead of their eyes wouldn't pick up on that. Uh-huh. Also, we stopped doing audible. So our promotion codes no longer work. Please stop using soapstone. What would be funny is that there actually was a promotional code for audible soapstone.
Year in review and upcoming games
00:02:40
Speaker
There's not. Yeah. If they ever contact us, somebody else's is what I'm saying. Like somebody else just gets credit for it. Oh man. No, we had, we don't get credit for anything. No, but today we were going to kind of go over, since we recently did our year in review, we're going to do the inverse, which is the upcoming year in theoretical skepticism and possible promise. Question mark or preview for short.
00:03:09
Speaker
Parentheses hopeful, parentheses not clickbait. So yeah, there's been a lot of things that have been coming from like game events, such as E3, like upcoming titles, or just trailers here and there, or stuff by the way. Yeah. So we kind of constrained this a little bit, like in the, in the pre-populated list of things that don't just spring to mind. It was specifically limited to this year. Where's Ghost of Tsushima?
00:03:39
Speaker
So Diablo 4, that's not gonna come up. We're not gonna talk about Diablo 4. There's no search engine optimization. I would definitely never talk about Diablo 4. I think one of these days we'll have to find a term we can just purposefully make monotone throughout the episode just to see how many people we could trick into thinking it was copy-pasted. Oh you mean like we just consistently say monotone. Yeah, like in the exact same tone every time.
00:04:10
Speaker
I don't know. Let's do that in the future and never actually do edits. I'm already halfway there. All right. So what's the first one we got on our list here, Jake? What is upcoming in 2020?
Yakuza series discussion
00:04:23
Speaker
First one on our list. Some of you could be playing at this very moment, but are likely not because playing a video game and listening to a podcast at the same time is reserved for only strand type games.
00:04:40
Speaker
But yakuza like a dragon Yeah, so I watched the trailer for this because I was not fully caught up Also, I'm really behind on all of the yakuza series, right? Me me too. I've played a couple hours of yakuza zero. I'm gonna keep saying yakuza instead of yakuza Yeah, I'm gonna keep saying yakuza too. It's like sahiro, right? sahiro
00:05:06
Speaker
Um, but yeah, it looks promising just because, um, again, play like three hours of Yakuza zero. Yeah. But holy fuck.
00:05:18
Speaker
It's really good at putting you into the environment of the game. Uh, the dialogue between characters and storyline is very immersive and takes its time and you're in between stuff. If you're going around in the city, getting ramen, doing karaoke center Japanese stuff. Yeah. Normal things. Um, that's just like part of your day. And then maybe you have a mission to like, go hustle somebody for money or do other stuff as you progress the story. Uh, but it, it feels so good and rich.
00:05:49
Speaker
Yeah, I agree. It's kind of like I compare and contrast this to like GTA. There's a lot of, even though you're literally not like going out stealing cars, exploring an open world so much, it's going to be like a smaller space. And most of these are like Yakuza games. It's usually like a couple city blocks. Yeah.
00:06:08
Speaker
It's actually a square map. Yeah, it's a square map. Literally, literally, it's just a square. You'll have fewer activities and things like that, but from a narrative storytelling perspective, I find it's much easier to get attached to or engaged in what's going on. And the combat is dope as hell. Really good.
00:06:29
Speaker
It makes you feel good whenever you can pull off a combo or go flawless against a group of people. Doing fighting mechanics in a game like this, I feel like since it makes up so much of the game is really important and the system for being able to flow between styles in Yakuza is just super satisfying.
00:06:55
Speaker
Yeah, it is all around, uh, feel good environment, feel good game. Then if you feel, if you get like a little bit too tired, you know, just fighting people, you're like, I want some, some mellow enjoyment to want anything like that. You can go manage your hostess club. Um, and Yakuza zero, which is not this game, but it's the previous one that I'm currently going through.
00:07:16
Speaker
It seems like the plot of this upcoming game, at least from the trailer, is you're a guy who's in the Yakuza, you take the fall for somebody who done goofed. Yeah. And then you come out of prison 18 years later and you're kind of disowned by that family. And then it seems like your character gets into some other antics. Like a dragon. Yeah. But I think it's also the tie-in of, I think you end up in China and you're interacting a lot with the Chinese mob.
00:07:45
Speaker
Interesting. Again, this is just from the trailer. Right. Like you'll have to forgive us for some translation issues. Like our Japanese is spotty at best. Itadakimasu. Moshi. Moshi?
00:08:03
Speaker
Nani? Alright, I'll stop there. Anything else you want to add on to Yakuza Like a Dragon? I hope that it's really good. I could see myself picking this up after finishing Zero. I'm playing Zero on PC and Like a Dragon I believe is just out for PS4 right
Ori and the Will of the Wisps excitement
00:08:23
Speaker
now.
00:08:23
Speaker
But I have one of those so I would consider it But but yeah, I mean I've played GTA plain states row and I feel like as I've grown up I can appreciate a game that is willing to take its time and yeah, cuz it definitely is so Keeping my eye on it. It's on the list But it's a good list. It's not the bad list
00:08:48
Speaker
It's on the list. I'm imagining you have a, like a bad list. You're like, Dave, Dave paused too long before responding to you on the podcast. Next one though, coming out in February. I don't think we've ever talked about this game before. No. Is it a Ori rule of the wisps? That could be it. Yeah. February 11th. Um, how, how would you have on a scale of zero to hype, how hype would you be for another, some more Ori content?
00:09:18
Speaker
So I'm a fairly low energy guy for the most part, if you couldn't tell from my cadence and generally not caring about things, but I really did enjoy the first Ori and the Blind Forest. It was, I mean, there's the whole episode, um, but it's just super solid and gorgeous and well crafted. Um, but it seems like they're taking everything to the next level from what I've seen from the trailer. There'll be more levels. Yeah.
00:09:45
Speaker
Yeah, it's actually the same game game plus but the art style and for how much they're doing for layering because obviously you have like the
00:09:58
Speaker
What's not the interpolated background, the parallax, where you have all the things moving in the background and give it more of a three-dimensional feel. They have a lot of these models. Everything from the trailer seemed to be like a giant monster, like a giant spider. Yeah, there was a lot of shit chasing you. They went from an owl to literally everything.
00:10:17
Speaker
It seems just very Crazy, it's just really good at packing an action but making it fun. Mm-hmm So I'm really looking forward to seeing where the fuck it goes. It's it's a definite pickup for me Yeah, cuz the first one was so solid honestly, yeah the quality and the music the art style It's all just out of the park with Ori and it looks like that's still gonna be the case out of the park and into the downtown alleys
00:10:42
Speaker
The thing I'm kind of curious about coming off of the trailer is since so much of the trailer is action-based, it kind of needs to be, you know, since it's a trailer and you're trying to draw people in. It's just you talking to NPCs, right? Hey, what's up? Not much, how you doing? You say that, but like literally oblivion early showing was just like the NPCs will live their day and they'll go around and they'll like eat food and they'll go to sleep and it was a dynamic system.
00:11:10
Speaker
What a selling point. But yeah, hopefully it was interesting because in the first one, the bosses oftentimes were basically just kind of scripted sequences where you just kind of needed to find the solution. It wasn't that it was bad and some of it was intuitive, but it was designed so you could make a mistake, quickly retry, figure it out, basically. So if there are a lot of different bosses, it'll be interesting to see how they handle them.
00:11:36
Speaker
I think, in Will of the Wisps to see if they keep that variety fresh. But we can find out in February. Yeah.
00:11:47
Speaker
Um, like as far as I remember the previous game or the first game, uh, the combat seemed mostly you were left clicking or pressing whatever button on the controller, uh, to kind of have your sprite fire out just at nearby things. Yeah. But in the trailer, there's definitely a thing like where you kind of draw back and release, like you're doing a volley shot with a bow. Oh, okay. So I'm wondering if that part of the combat has changed or if it's part of the, like the upgrade tree or whatnot.
00:12:16
Speaker
It's kind of it's kind of interesting For PC you have more control over the accuracy like in while playing Ori So you can kind of angle your shots a little bit more more than just the auto-aim
Carrion gameplay mechanics
00:12:32
Speaker
But yeah, I mean I I'm always a fan of kind of like dynamic control schemes Like playing around with a controller like making things feel intuitive Give you more tactile feedback things like that. So That would be an interesting way to implement a bow. I think I'm sure like literally Bobble has done it or something like that, right? But yeah, we'll see how it develops
00:12:57
Speaker
You actually made like a perfect segue and I've been sitting here thinking like, if I wanted to use it or not to skip something in this list. And that would be jumping to carrying, which comes way later in the year. I literally organized all of this, but the reason I'm saying jump to carrying is because, uh, the tentacle monster you play as basically reaches out based off of the other control stick. Similar deal where you pull things in.
00:13:27
Speaker
Dave's looking at me like, why would you ever make this segue? I feel like I've definitely read some better segues that we don't use. I think it's just, it's an interesting control scheme where like one stick moves you around, you'll just like grab to everything in the direction that you're pulling the stick. And the other stick is like used to aggress people, like reach out and grab people, pull them into you, like grab walls and like rip pieces off, things like that.
00:13:56
Speaker
I'm curious how that works as far as I'm gonna say stickiness because obviously like you can move your body and Aggress towards let's say a breakable wall. Yeah, but I'm not sure if you have to like snap back To kind of like yank it off or how that all ties together. Yeah, it's kind of got this this weird uh, Octodadness to it right where you're just like, oh the controls are so weird now that it's a hindrance that's something to avoid in a game like this it has to be
00:14:22
Speaker
Also for the uninitiated, uh, carrion is another devolver digital title, which I think we mentioned at some week in the past, but you are like this amorphous carnage beast and you're escaping a facility and causing havoc. The trailer just looks fun.
00:14:41
Speaker
Yeah, it definitely seems to fit in that platformy level space, kind of similar to like Katana zero or other stuff like that. But if it's a cheap pickup, like 20 or under, yeah, it's of all digital makes fun games. They really do. And this one's like also related to Ori cause it's a 2d platformer. So there you go. I'm organizing it. Yeah. But I watched, um, there's like a 10 minute gameplay video or something about it.
00:15:11
Speaker
And it looks like it's got some some cool upgrades like you Gain abilities as you're going through the game by like you you break out of a containment cell at the start of it Which is just this little? Kind of like a
00:15:30
Speaker
I assume it's like the tube that you held MUTU in. Yeah, exactly. But maybe it's not at a 45 degree angle. Maybe it's vertical, one of those. It's like that, exactly. If you want to disconnect it, the tubes come off and the steam comes out. But you got to shake the stick to break against the walls of the cylinder and actually shatter it and get out. But later you can find similar cylinders and enter them to get an upgrade. And your whole body is amorphous and grows based off of how much you've consumed
00:16:00
Speaker
which is people. And, but it's still like very malleable. So even when you're gigantic, which represents like a big health pool, um, you can still fit through whatever gaps you need to. What is a Morpheus? I've never heard of Morpheus. It's like Morpheus actually. Oh, I was supposed to be a joke, but that's also literally true, which is change. Um,
00:16:30
Speaker
But yeah, the ability to fit through these little gaps. You also create what seem to be like hearts of biological material. Like you're the freaking zerg, right? You're making zerg buildings. Like you're infesting things as you go. Exactly. And it'll like corrupt the surrounding area and sometimes like tear down machinery and stuff for you to like open a path.
00:16:54
Speaker
And then later there's enemies with armor and things like that You have to deal with in other ways such as usually you could just like grab a person who's running from you Drag them towards you with your aggression tent like tendril And then you'll start calling it now, by the way, this is my aggression tendril Then you'll eat them and gain body mass But people with armored suits like Kevlar stuff like that. You can't eat them
00:17:19
Speaker
Uh, so you have to like just bash them against things to kill them, which is maybe something I shouldn't like smile when I say it. You definitely looked and sounded happy there, but it's, it's a layer of interaction instead of just like you do it, press a button and kill them. You're actually slapping the stick to like throw them into the walls.
00:17:40
Speaker
Yeah. And it doesn't, it doesn't look like it's a complete pushover as far as your difficulty. Cause the, the, the demo were actually died to like a couple of guns. Um, cause they just weren't dealing with enemies well. Um, so I'm glad there will be a challenge too. You get smaller as you lose health. So eventually you're just like, ah, maybe that's a strat. Poof. Right. Yeah. Harder to hit. You go down a cellular, cellular level. And then it's like, uh, and fast to host.
00:18:06
Speaker
I like the celery level too. Hopefully there's one of those in it, but it takes you forever to get through the, uh, the checkpoint.
2020 game releases overview
00:18:13
Speaker
You're like, Hey, I'm looking forward to that. October 25th, jumped ahead. Uh, thanks to just the best segway, the best.
00:18:23
Speaker
The best. Which one are you hitting now, because we're out of order? Yeah, we're out of order. I'm jumping back. You're out of order. That's a reference. To March 20th, there's a game you were talking about on Discord I saw very recently, and people have been posting videos. Oh? Yeah.
00:18:46
Speaker
This is true. There are two O's, there's also a D and an M, puts me in quite a mood to talk about Doom Eternal. I thought it was going to be Modo. Hello Modo. Yeah, it just, if you liked Doom 2016, it looks like in the same way with Ori, Will of the Wisps. Yeah.
00:19:10
Speaker
It looks like, hey, this is what was great about it. Let's build on everything and make a good sequel. I was, I was interested in, I was interested to see how you were going. It's similar themes. You get to know the mother character, you think the mother character died and give them a fruit. Every single trailer I've seen for it, it just makes me so hyped. Oh yeah.
00:19:40
Speaker
Cause Doom 2016 puts in the action, really makes you feel like Spider-Man. Really makes you feel like Doom guy. But just everything about it just looks so badass, whether it's like the music or the...
00:19:55
Speaker
the background art style because you're always like in space. Right now it seems like they have like ties in with like heaven and hell, which I mean hell was kind of already there. Um, but nothing about it looks bad. They recently teased a sequence where I linked you this. Did you watch it? I have not yet.
00:20:13
Speaker
I was going to, and then I literally finished a different game last night. I guess a part in the game, probably early on, I hope they wouldn't spoil anything too late, where you go up to an altar and they have a, I think they're called revenants. And it kind of goes into this iron maiden and there's some other machinery around it. And you kind of put your hands on these two pedestals and you essentially soul transfer into it and then play as a revenant for a section. Oh, nice. Huh.
00:20:42
Speaker
It was the, uh, the skeletal figure. It's like a skeletal guy. It's like a jet pack and like rockets coming out of the jet. But that's just like one piece of all the things that they've kind of teased. It's interesting to put that into the, uh, single player, like that existed definitely in multiplayer for 2016, um, in a particular game mode, but I mean, they're pretty strong. So I would, I'd have fun playing with them in single player. I think just everything about it looks so, so good and bad-ass. That's probably the best way to phrase it.
00:21:11
Speaker
Yeah. It's like, I wouldn't, I wouldn't recommend going back and listening to our other episode on Zoom because I made the intro too loud and that's going to haunt me forever. Um, Dave remembers that too. Uh, but, uh, it really just, it has a focus on being fun more than anything else.
00:21:32
Speaker
It's very fluid action. It's not like Gears of War where it's kind of third person might have to hide behind something, find your opportunity to strike. Yeah. It's very rip and tear. You're going in there. You kill a guy and killing the next guy. Yeah. It's all very deliberate. Just drive and have fun.
00:21:50
Speaker
Hmm. It's, it's like, it's like an arcade game. If you had fun with arcade games, like I don't particularly like those, but they get you into the action. Yeah. It's not about everything surrounding it. And, uh, the, uh, doom eternal, uh, looks to continue that, uh, which I'm a fan of because first person shooters could be so much better, you know? Yeah. I hope the next one's not like a first person shooter. That'd be funny. I mean, there is a person with a shooter.
00:22:22
Speaker
because he has a gun on his arm. It's Barrett 7. Final Fantasy 7, the remake.
00:22:31
Speaker
Yes, so this is actually the reason that I got a ps4 initially really well one The matter wasn't doing anything at the time that looked interesting. Yeah Xbox Hasn't done anything since Halo 2 in my opinion. Mm-hmm. It's like all gonna ps4. Oh Yeah, solid You get a neck
00:22:54
Speaker
But I was like, I liked FF7. I've still never officially beaten it because the CD-ROM always had issues at points or some other bullshit. It was like three CDs. Even the Steam version I had. Anyway. I wouldn't ask you to put in the CD, you know. That's when you're like, oh. Put in CD4, I'm like, ah, no. But it just looks super crisp as far as animation capabilities. It seems to be going through the same story of FF7.
00:23:22
Speaker
They might kind of slightly diverge from the RPG gameplay. I'm not sure right. Yeah, that's kind of debated I don't know when it'll come out and if they'll actually do it. It's supposed to be March Yeah, March 3rd. They have a day on it. It's not even the month if it's just the month, you know, it's super sus But if there's a day on it, it's less sus
00:23:43
Speaker
Well, how excited are you for that, if you are at all? Right. Because I remember when Final Fantasy 15 came out, I was excited. And it was good. But then at a point, because it went from open world to very linear, it just kind of fell off. Are you expecting something similar here, or what are your thoughts? I don't know if it's an immediate pickup for me, but it would definitely be something I'd want in the library. Some of it's going to come down to the implementation, because
00:24:13
Speaker
I'm not so much a fan of random encounters anymore. Yeah, I feel that. It's not particularly, I don't know, conducive to modern play pacing. And kind of the idea, we're talking about Doom and how it just gets out of your way unless you have fun. Random encounters are the opposite of that.
00:24:36
Speaker
They explicitly get in your way. Whether they're fun or not depends on the moment to moment, like what you're trying to do. Imagine like driving to work and then like a cow just kind of starts crossing the road slowly like, what? Come on. Yeah. And then you drive like another 30 feet and there's another cow. That's the problem with random encounters. Really, I did not realize I lived in pastoral, rural, you know, insert state here that has that.
00:25:03
Speaker
And then the cow gets to go first. You've lost initiative. But that aside, the gameplay, just the combat, how it looks, the action-packageness of it, it's definitely a word. It looks really good.
00:25:21
Speaker
I'm hoping that that can kind of carry I'll probably wait for reviews I'll check reviews on it to help inform me about how early I want to pick it up Yeah, if it's if it's a remotely mixed I might not mm-hmm Because like I picked up death stranding Haven't beaten it yet. I don't know if I'll get back to it just because I
00:25:43
Speaker
Like, it's obviously a fun game and very creative and yada, yada, yada. But at the same time, if it feels grindy and I'm not enjoying the process of the grind, it's just going to end up sitting on my shelf and I really like to try and avoid those if I can. As Reggie says, if it's not fun, what's the point?
00:26:03
Speaker
I'll see you other players on the battle line. I like the merging of them though. Hopefully it's good. We've seen a lot of decent remakes recently especially in the Resident Evil franchise.
00:26:27
Speaker
I think that there's a space for this. There's a lot of good games that could be reimagined and kind of reawakened. Did you guys like that edit? I actually thought about that as I made the sound. I was like, I wonder how artificial that sounded since it was pretty quick. We'll modulate it later. Yeah, I'm not gonna. There's no way I'm gonna remember.
00:26:52
Speaker
But yeah, for people who are never able to play it, you know, we're old men now and is, if you're like a young kid, you know, where are you going? And you're looking at final fantasy seven, the original, like, how are you, how are you really going to get into that? You have to be a very specific, this is turning into a high IQ meme. You have to have 200 IQ to really appreciate old final fantasy. I mean, I understand what you're saying. Yeah.
VR and Half-Life: Alyx
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah.
00:27:20
Speaker
Just like it's hard to go back to like Davis X or something. Right. Without maybe mods because of just how it feels and look me a bit clunky compared to what you're used to for current day. Yeah. So I walked up to a guy and I crouched and I waited 20 seconds for my reticule to stop shrinking before I shot him. Great game. Speaking of shooting and crouching, half-life Alex. Right. But you have to actually crouch for this one.
00:27:49
Speaker
Yeah. So it's a VR Half-Life title.
00:27:55
Speaker
which is coming out for Windows in March, no shit. Yeah, I know, right? Really early. They are quick turnaround on this. I think they really just wanted to get ahead of any fan-made Half-Life Alex VR experiences. Well, I mean, to be fair, like they have, like Black Mesa, I think was a, not maybe fan-made, but like a third party. Yeah, it was basically fan-made for Half-Life 1. Yeah.
00:28:26
Speaker
Uh, no, it was just supposed to be a, uh, a VR for other purposes joke. Yeah. That's all right. Sex stuff. So what are your thoughts on this being VR? So also being another actual Half-Life title, by the way, for the can, the, the implications to the canon, uh, kind of doesn't matter. Cause this takes place before Half-Life two. Um, so from a certain perspective, I don't care.
00:28:55
Speaker
Like for plot reasons, filling out what happens in the past is safe, but also because of that a little bit less interesting to me. It's not trading new ground. It's like, Hey, how can we link these up? And you're like, Oh my God, those things are connected.
00:29:15
Speaker
Yeah, it's like if you if you if you're reading a book series Yeah, and you're just like oh man can't wait for the next one and then it's like Pretty cool. I feel like this is it's gonna sound like a personal attack against like someone specific author, but I don't intend that Kingdom Hearts what? No, I get what you mean you want to know what happens at that cliffhanger at the end of half-life too So the next half-life game not being
00:29:39
Speaker
Literally not addressing that in any capacity is Somewhat underwhelming But what about the actual VR piece of it? I mean it's probably so for a certain market It's gonna motivate a lot of people by VR sets whether that's literally the $1,000 valve index
00:30:02
Speaker
I've heard good things about it, but obviously VR in general is a very high price point compared to, hey, I'm going to get a console and a game and a controller for a couple hundred bucks, no matter where you look. Yeah. You're looking at several hundred, 300, 400, depending on what you're going for, just for your entry point. I mean, $1,000 is a lot, a lot for a game, right?
00:30:26
Speaker
Remember the last time you dropped the grant on something that wasn't car expenses or rent? Yeah, me neither Even the height of like PlayStation like new playstations and people were a scalping them and stuff like that. They were They were selling them off for like 600 bucks. Maybe a little bit more maybe like up to eight but that's
00:30:44
Speaker
I don't know. There's other ways to play this game. You obviously don't need VR at all, I believe, to play through it. At the very least, you could use a very cheap set. I feel like the intention is to drive sales for VR and Index specifically. So I hope that works out for them. And it's not just, nobody picks it up because it's VR based.
00:31:09
Speaker
So my question would be, so anytime valve has come out with something and they're like, this is, this is the launch. Like, uh, they've tried to coincide with pushing hardware or pushing the artifact.
00:31:26
Speaker
Well, yeah, what was artifact? That's a great question. And we don't have time for episodes. But for like half-life, it's like, boom, FPSs can be more than just like Doom clones.
00:31:42
Speaker
Half-Life 2 gravity gun. That's the subtitle of the game. I'm pretty sure. Right. But it's like, here's, here's more stuff you can do with FPS. Also don't touch the sand. Yeah. Don't touch the sand. Just in general. Um, so is Half-Life Alex get supposed to be that for VR? You know, is this supposed to actually make VR mainstream in ways that the power glove never could?
Cyberpunk 2077 anticipation
00:32:07
Speaker
I just like that reference. It's the coolest. I don't know. It's just something that I will follow up on as far as like keeping tabs, but I have no intention to remotely get into this unless everyone's like, Dave, you gotta. Right, this is a life changing experience. This is it. I mean, Valve is, they're willing to put Half-Life in the title.
00:32:33
Speaker
Which is something some people thought would never happen. So Who knows? We'll see see how and if it changes the industry In March, but as I just said for the previous one, it's just March. It doesn't have a day on it
00:32:48
Speaker
That means this could get pushed back decades. What already has been pushed back, but thankfully not decades is a cyberpunk 2077, which was meant to come out in April and has been pushed back all the way to September.
00:33:10
Speaker
So do me good though. Yeah, I think they are going to put like the love and care into it. Um, because they have to for sure. Um, it looks, have you heard of, have you heard of cyberpunk? Have we used cyberpunk music for like an intro or an outro for a year or an E3 episode perhaps?
00:33:30
Speaker
It just, it looks like a very good, immersive first person RPG. I really hope they don't fuck it up. I'm expecting like any game on launch is going to have some technical issues and some other things. I like that word.
00:33:46
Speaker
But it's a very anticipated title for sure. I've honestly not delved into any of the Cyberpunk series. Right. But this looks solid and has Keanu Reeves. Like the pen and paper games that preceded this one. I don't write things anymore. I think it was the like I'm pretty sure it was based off Cyberpunk 2022. It was like the pen and paper game.
00:34:09
Speaker
Now if you released a game dated 2022 now Either soon as a Madden game. Right? That's fair. Two years. What's the world gonna look like? Maybe a little less fantasy at that point. Well, we're hitting the I'm forgetting the terms for these theories not the super confluence, but I couldn't tell you
00:34:34
Speaker
What is it when AI becomes over singularity or singularity? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Maybe that'll happen. And then there'd be like, we gotta make better video games. Like you're right. Robots. Good call. Get on that. Yeah. Now cyberpunk is obviously super hype. We've already talked about it a bit. I was planning on taking time off for it in April, but instead I guess we'll go to some guy's wedding. Um, so I'll skip somebody's wedding in September.
00:35:03
Speaker
and take time off for it then. This is, I mean, I'm very hyped for this. If there is a meter, this would be like off the end of the meter. Yeah, if Jake takes off, like he uses his vacation for a video game. To be fair, he always uses it for a video game. Right, what else do I use it for again? Like those are games that he actually is really hyped for. I think you did it for Red Dead 2 as well.
00:35:25
Speaker
Uh, yeah, I think so. I think you're right. It took like a couple of days for that. The last big one was fall out for, which is like a single, I think two weeks, something like that, but, or a full week more likely. Um, but.
00:35:40
Speaker
Yeah, thankfully didn't for 76 and I'm hoping for more, uh, from, from cyberpunk. So, uh, CD project red obviously makes great games, you know, better TV shows. Obviously they haven't seen it. They didn't make it. I didn't think they did. No, but I knew that you were talking about the Witcher series. Yeah. Um, but, uh, we'll see how, uh, which is looking about a thousand years into the future. Yeah.
00:36:09
Speaker
with Keanu Reeves, um, a game that doesn't have Keanu Reeves as I scroll down to see what it would be. Yeah, but it's the thing at this point.
Last of Us Part II storytelling
00:36:20
Speaker
Um, I dunno, is there, is there a Last of Us part two? There's a room for that in your heart. Oh my God. So it's probably right up there with Doom Eternal for me.
00:36:34
Speaker
To be fair, they're very different games. That's not a, that's not too much of us to obviously not as a action and demon slaying based. I would be surprised. There are very few games where I have played and then afterwards had a bit of a sense of on we and just like, yeah, I was just very like, holy shit. So some of those were the initial Bioshock, Bioshock infinite, um, Dave sex human revolution.
00:37:04
Speaker
Whereas like this is a fucking step up in quality of game. Yeah. And then I've actually like thought about things afterwards. You're like, holy fuck. The whole thing was great. Yeah. It's like Last of Us is one of those because I was so invested in the story. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Every single thing about it is great. And then it doesn't have like this super simple clean cut ending. Yeah. Where a lot of games are like, all right, we're in the end game. It's kind of trying to wrap it up in some yada yada. Yeah. Afterwards is like, that's fucked up.
00:37:33
Speaker
But I love it. Yeah, we haven't done an episode on the first one yet. It's a very long game. But it's actually not even like that long. I think how long do we- I could do it from memory probably. It has like, I think it's like 16 hours.
00:37:48
Speaker
It's like doable maybe maybe like 20, but I would expect that we will probably have an episode on it Like maybe after the second one and the episode on the second It wouldn't wouldn't surprise me at all. It's a lot of people's favorite game
00:38:05
Speaker
It's just so insanely good. It also strikes a balance between all of its mechanics, which is really impressive. The storytelling, the character development, the actual moment-to-moment gameplay, the combat, all of that looks like it's still going to be present in the second one. Yeah.
00:38:24
Speaker
It's kind of like a tech demo, the trailers for the second one, where it's like, oh, if you get like pierced with an arrow, there's dynamic animations, depending on like where you actually get shot and all of this and we'll just like... They're definitely gonna add some cool stuff. Right. But I think the only thing we know right now is you at least start out as playing our favorite young lesbian, Ellie. Right, I was gonna say, and Ellie kisses a girl and then you said hello.
00:38:48
Speaker
There's theories as to whether or not Joel is alive. I hope so, because their relationship was a huge factor in the first game. But holy shit, this is something that I'm gonna, when I get it, I will play only that and maybe have like half hour breaks for like food, Minecraft, Discord, be like, all right guys, I'm going back in. It looks nuts. It's like The Walking Dead, but if it was good.
Dying Light 2 gameplay hopes
00:39:15
Speaker
Take that, Rick Grimes. Speaking of zombies, that's how you do a transition. Oh, man. Well, I'm conveniently put Dynlight 2 afterwards. Thank you. So yeah, last but not least, Dynlight 2 is in spring. This is even more generic than a month, which means this game may not come out. Maybe? It's like it's not a gear or like a coil. So technically, it could come out in a year.
00:39:44
Speaker
within the year, I mean. Oh, I keep making spring fights. I actually do appreciate it. But yeah, Dying Light 2, we did an episode on one. Usually, I think a game like this would be a little more under the radar for us. I don't know if we would bring it up in a preview, so to speak. But we did play the first one and we covered it as an episode. Yeah.
00:40:06
Speaker
it's a solid game i was gonna say for some reason and you said it's a solid game at the same time it is a solid game it is um but it's not anything that i would
00:40:17
Speaker
tell people like, Hey, you get to check this out. Yeah. My God. I played a zombie game and it changed my life. Yeah. Because it has a co-op as an option. It's definitely like a good pickup on sale. Oh yeah. But not a, you have to get this as soon as it comes out. As a, as a co-op action zombie game with like some skill trees, survival stuff, it's actually really hard to beat it for the experience it provides. It's just action specifically.
00:40:43
Speaker
Yeah. Cause you kill a lot of zombies and you're doing parkour stuff and Jake was drop kicking zombies into spikes. We spent too long just camping zombies. It has a lot of fun pieces of it. And it seems like the sequel again, like most equals is trying to build off of.
00:41:00
Speaker
that. Yeah. Um, definitely a lot more cinematic, better graphics. I assume they're adding more other things, but one of my issues with this game series now is when it goes to the cinematic portions, it feels like you're just kind of along for a movie sequence or it's like a God of war. Hey, here's your quick time event or something. Yeah. I'm not as keen on that as just giving me a nice cinematic.
00:41:30
Speaker
Or give me gameplay. Yeah, it just seems like a weird balance in my eyes and the first one like even Sabotages themselves a little bit. I remembered if one person was like gonna trigger a cinematic or something It would pull the other person to them. They had like a tether system. Yeah, so
00:41:47
Speaker
I mean, that's that's kind of anti-fun. Hopefully they resolve that my hopes for this one Agreeing with all of your points regarding Kind of pushing people into cinematic experiences. I hope they just improved the moment-to-moment gameplay. They reduced those instances of jarring transitions yeah, and they just like the core of what this game could offer is
00:42:12
Speaker
Like actually really good As far as like an action gameplay experience with skill trees and things like that all they need to do is grind off some of the edges that the first one had and Improve those systems a bit and I think this would be a really good game.
Psychonauts 2 and Double Fine
00:42:30
Speaker
I'd recommend to people So hopefully they attain it in spring 2020
00:42:37
Speaker
This should just be like, hopefully 2020. Hopefully 2020. That's a baseline. We'll see E3. Yeah. Um, next is carrying. Wait a second. Just kidding. Uh, there's another game. There's a lot of sequels this year. Yeah. This is the year of the two. Psychonauts two. And then two zeros, which, uh, which is also two.
00:43:04
Speaker
200. There's twos in the 2020, but then there's also two zeros. So take that conspiracy theorists run with that. That's the convergence that's coming. Psychonauts to, um, crazy, crazy astronauts. We haven't done psychonauts one yet. We might at some point. Yeah. It's probably pretty long. I feel like psychonauts one took life forever to beat, but I don't know how much of that's bad action, like bad like adventure game on my part. It's been a while.
00:43:34
Speaker
But it's a double fun game, Tim Schaeffer's baby, and it has a lot of great content in it because of that. Oh yeah. He has a great, unique sense of humor and everything about it is just like quirky or really fun gameplay. All of the levels were kind of vastly diverse. It was like, hey, here's this new thing. Yeah. We're going to throw some random bullshit at you, go. Yeah.
00:43:58
Speaker
It's like the novelty just didn't wear off through the entire game. That's the crazy thing. Usually games have to rely on a core gameplay loop that's really fun and stuff. Psychonauts just ran off of writing and novelty through the entire thing. Hey, wouldn't this be fun? Yeah, throw it in. Yeah, Milkman. I'm the Milkman. My milk is delicious.
00:44:17
Speaker
Or the one time where you were going around as Goggleor. Mm-hmm. Oh, then the the city. Yeah. Uh-huh And like they just do really cool stuff like that. Um, so the fact that they have a sequel is partially funded by me from being a backer of But also we have to just claim that you got shares and this is an investment product but also, um
00:44:41
Speaker
I think that this was rumored many years ago when I think Tim Schafer made a post on Twitter or something and Notch back and said like, hey, I will throw money at this to make it happen. So it's cool to see that this is actually becoming a sequel.
00:44:59
Speaker
It's just going to be so hard to top the first one. Yeah. I don't even know if I would aim for topping it. If they could match it, that would be pretty well amazing. Um, cause it was a solid game, but it's fairly dated now. It is. Yeah. Gameplay wise, uh, like controls. It was one of those kinds of games where like, all right, toggle to first person and you're a 3d.
00:45:22
Speaker
Legitimately, the first time I played through, I got stuck in the meat circus for like two hours. Right. Cause there's a part where like water's rising, you have to climb this grate and then turn and jump off of something. Yeah. And I forget if I was using master keyboard or a controller, but it was just not, not working. Meat circus is more than just a euphemism folks.
00:45:45
Speaker
But feel free to visit any time, no tickets required. Yeah, no, I really hope Double Fine pulls this off. I think they need Psychonauts too. As you mentioned, it was crowdfunded. So usually Dave offers to buy listeners games, but in this case, if you buy the game, Dave gets money, I think. Pretty sure that's how crowdfunding works. No, I really hope that they can pull it off because Double Fine needs a big win to keep a lot of their momentum going.
00:46:15
Speaker
Yeah, some things that they've had come out of been kind of Underwhelming or like I don't really hear too much about or they're good, but they're like really short or something like I think they didn't do a hat in time But the um, no, no, no the babushka dolls Stacking stacking. Yeah, was that them? No, no, it was double fine game. Yeah, that's a reason why I picked it up many years ago. Mm-hmm. I'm like double fine Yeah, I'm pretty sure babushka is also rushing for grandma. So I
00:46:43
Speaker
There's a word for those dolls. I just don't know what it is. Russian nesting dolls? Yeah, there's a word for it. But yeah, yeah, I don't know what it is. So there's a word for it, Dave. I believe you. Yeah. Psychonauts, too, though. So a lot of people really looking forward to this. A lot of people literally just track Double Fine because of Psychonauts and how great a game the first one was.
00:47:08
Speaker
So, one thing I appreciated, pressure, from playing, I'll talk about this every time, in the beginning cutscene of Brutal Legend, there's the main character, forget his name. Yeah, Brut. Yes, Jack Black.
00:47:24
Speaker
Jack Black's character, he's a roadie for this band and this, the band is kind of like new age and kind of snobby kids. Yeah. But the one guitarist like goes up on, climbs up on top of this aperture and is doing like this dance on top before he ends up falling. Yeah. The dance he does is a dance that Raz does in Psychonauts. That's great. It's like the
00:47:48
Speaker
I'm not going to describe the dance. Dave moved his right hand horizontally left and right. Kind of like the Egyptian. Yeah, it's kind of like this. It's a stupid kid dance, but I just appreciated the reference there.
System Shock remake concerns
00:48:05
Speaker
I'm going to keep describing this like a turntable slash record swipe a little bit, but heightened elevation.
00:48:13
Speaker
The thing is like the only person who's going to appreciate me talking about this is probably Ian. Yeah, that's fine. We did this all for you. The whole podcast. It's for you, buddy. Yeah, but Psychonauts. Hopefully good. As many things again, the trend for this year. I hope it sucks. Hopefully good. Oh boy. Oh geez. Oh boy. So is this supposed to be a sequel or a remake?
00:48:43
Speaker
And I don't know I feel like it's supposed to be a remake Probably but maybe a sequel so system shock Psychonauts also doesn't have even a season. It's just 2020 So there's that but system shock also is just 2020 and I'm more concerned about this one than psychonauts. I
00:49:05
Speaker
Out of everything in this list, it has the worst trailer or gameplay demo. It's like listed as pre-alpha.
00:49:14
Speaker
Yeah. But System Shock, if correct me if I'm wrong, is supposed to be the progenitor for a lot of games like Bioshock, Prey, any type of like first person RPG that kind of set the baseline like, Hey, here's what we're doing. Yeah. Even like, even a game like Dead Space actually has a lot it owes to System Shock.
00:49:40
Speaker
like exploring a relatively either mutant or technology haunted space in an RPG with character choices and development and mutations and things like that. That's all system shock. They blazed that path.
00:49:59
Speaker
Um, and I actually played system track two and beat it with some changes. The control scheme is actually playable and it's not bad. It's like, it's, it's a solid adventure game. Immersive Sims have developed since then, but this probably launched the genre in my mind. Uh, don't go to Wikipedia and prove me wrong. I thought immersive sim as if you played the Sims in first person.
00:50:23
Speaker
You show up to the house as a contractor, you're like, we're going to put a pool here. They're like, this is our home. I removed the ladder. I just listened to the voice in the sky. God told me to put a pool in the middle of your house. What temperature do you like your baby cooked at? It just walks in. Everybody needs to pee. They're like, I can't go. He won't let me.
00:50:47
Speaker
So yeah, it's like that, but, um, pretty, uh, pretty iconic, uh, character show Dan is the, the AI. He kind of struggle against here. Um, and like, just great, great, great lines. The traditional one is a look at you hacker. And she calls you like a rioting pile of filth and me or something like that. It's great. It's great. Um, but super derisive, a great antagonist. Um,
00:51:15
Speaker
Man, I wonder if that's ever been done by anybody. Oh, poor it all. Yeah, actually, yeah. There's a lot of similarities you can make there. But looking back on System Shock, it's well in the past. How long ago? It's like 99, 98, something like that. Oh my God, I wasn't even born.
00:51:40
Speaker
I know I'm short, but damn Jake. The thing is though, you could literally have been born in 2000. You'd still be 20 years old.
00:51:51
Speaker
Dude, don't do that to me. Don't tell me the nineties weren't 10 years ago. Yeah, it's been a really long time. Um, I believe that some of the people, maybe from the original project are on this, but for the most part it's divergent. And, uh, I think that, um, there's a lot of hesitancy for, uh, for
00:52:15
Speaker
I have a lot of reservations about this. There's so many ways they can screw it up. The demo didn't look, or the trailer kind of looked more rendered. It looked very, like, early unity type stuff. Yeah. And it's not to say, like, I wouldn't check it out later if they have other things. Yes. But early doors not looking
00:52:35
Speaker
Super enticing and I don't think it's gonna come out this year. Technically. It's 2020 but a lot of what they've showed shows like it's to drum up investor interest to actually like get it finished get some time in it. Yeah, I Really want it to be good like like high up there for a lot of potential as a series
00:52:57
Speaker
Obviously, we like these kinds of games, you know, Bioshock, Prey, things like that. Nothing like a good emergency. Yeah. Like new Deus Ex even like, um, but it has to be in the right hands and it's really easy to mess up those games to just be like, what am I doing? I'm going to play something else. So we'll see, but that's definitely a wait for reviews when it comes out in 2030 by a different company.
Vampire: The Masquerade sequel worries
00:53:25
Speaker
Speaking of waiting for reviews, the next one on the list is Vampire the Masquerade, which I put on the list again for Ian. We did it all for you. Bloodlines 2, which is just this year also, not specific to a month or a release date.
00:53:45
Speaker
But we haven't seen a lot of it. There's a trailer. Didn't look very good. It actually has a lot of down votes, down votes, down thumbs. Thumbs down? Probably a thumbs down. Let's go thumbs down.
00:53:59
Speaker
Oh, we gotta watch over those down thumbs. There's a finger and it's pointing down. It's the primary, the largest finger, but yeah. Um, it, uh, doesn't look super great and I wanted it to be so much better because the base game was hecka fun and.
00:54:17
Speaker
Uh, there's not that many good vampire games. No, it's kind of a niche space where they want to be edgy and need to be edgy, but I don't know how you do it. I, again, I can't speak too much to it. I don't follow, uh, the masquerade games or I can't think of any vampire games I really played. Yeah. There's not that many outside of Skyrim question mark. Right. I guess the technical accounts.
00:54:42
Speaker
Sims also. Hey. We're back to the Sims. Um, I don't know. I have higher hopes for the series. I do this particular game. It's been tortured. CCP picked it up at one point, the creators of Eve, they literally had world of darkness licensing and they're like, Hey, let's make a world of darkness. MMO. Ian and I collectively lost our minds. Um, but as vampires themselves, uh, the products in the series never see the light of day.
No More Heroes 3 excitement
00:55:10
Speaker
That was your best one. Holy shit. That was an awesome joke. So anyways, someday maybe, but much more likely to come out ending on a high note. No more heroes three. Yeah, girl, for the switch.
00:55:31
Speaker
So for those who remember, No More Heroes first came out on the Wii. Because you have the nunchuck. And that was kind of like the huge draw of you are actually using the nunchuck to swing your light sword. And then to recharge his battery power, you jerk off the air. But it's just so, it has a very anime feel for being over the top as Travis touched down. And you're just a mercenary because you want money. Yeah.
00:56:01
Speaker
just play video games and stuff and you're like that wise-cracking dumb cool guy trying to be cool guy but you the game is just a series of boss fights kind of like fury in that way but each one is very unique and fun but the series is difficult for me at least but it's always really fucking cool and the trailer for three is probably the best trailer I've seen
00:56:30
Speaker
It beats Doom Eternal's trailer. It's the best in this list. As far as like, well made. Yeah. Cause it's this whole fucking anime storyline. I'm like, what the fuck am I watching? You're watching anime. And then you don't know it's No More Heroes 3 until like the last 10 seconds. You're like, fucking what?
00:56:49
Speaker
But for any of these games, I would say if you're interested check out the trailer Yeah, form your own feedback And thoughts have your own opinion stand up for yourself. God damn it. Yeah, don't do that. Listen to us Fucking sheeple But it it really does look good. And it's just I had a lot of enjoyment as far as Playing the game just like swinging around like a fucking madman. Yeah, so I like with the
00:57:17
Speaker
the Switch, you're going to have like the little attachments to use in the same way. Right. The Joy-Cons have motion controls as well. Yeah. Yeah. And this will be like the first game that I would have used motion controls for outside of Ring Fit Trainer and Fit Adventure. You know what's going to be funny though, is they'll have motion controls for the Joy-Cons, but they'll have to explicitly disable them when they're plugged in to the Switch itself. Oh my god. Just shake the whole thing.
00:57:43
Speaker
Imagine like you're trying to like see the screen but I was trying to like attack somebody. Game sucks, not intuitive gameplay. So I shake the left side of the switch up and down as fast as possible. Oh man, I'm actually really excited for this. I like basically didn't care about the series prior to this because I didn't have Nintendo consoles after N64.
Animal Crossing's broad appeal
00:58:04
Speaker
And then I saw the freaking anime opening and Travis Touchdown's, uh, like lines at the end of the trailer when he's just like, uh, 2020 release. Good luck. And there's like ends the trailer. I'm like, I love this already. I want to buy this immediately. And they themselves are making fun of the fact that they are trying to release it this year. The self-awareness is just so refreshing, uh, for this. I don't know.
00:58:35
Speaker
It is appreciated. It was actually a game that we did not put on this list, but I heard that, uh, Animal Crossing is first to come out. Yeah, no. Yeah, that's, I'm glad you reminded, uh, me and also our listeners.
00:58:55
Speaker
the Animal Crossing's come out because I would have never lived that down had we not mentioned it. Animal Crossing has always been amazing as a series for a nice feel good game and working your town, building your house, paying off your debts, doing random stuff, catching fish.
00:59:18
Speaker
Oh, K.K. Slider, come on. Yeah. And a bunch of other stuff that I've missed since the first game. So I played on GameCube and then just never got a handheld device. Or as I called them, hand-holding devices. Right. The computer is holding my hand. Anytime we can mention K.K. Slider, I appreciate it, because then I can use any of his tracks as interrupt our music. That is how Worcestershire works, yeah. Man, I wish.
00:59:45
Speaker
But, uh, I had no idea what Animal Crossing was for the longest time. I was just like, do you mean like animals cross a road? It's like Harvest Moon, but with furries. Right. I was like, you know, some people just call it Frogger. Like it's the same thing. It's the expansion of that. You can now be a goat or a bull or a chicken.
Conclusion and 2020 releases
01:00:09
Speaker
Harvest Moon was so good until Stardew Valley. Hmm.
01:00:14
Speaker
It's tough, but yeah, Animal Crossing, I'm probably gonna have to buy this one for my wife. Cause, uh, she's gonna make me. So that's life. Or she may buy it herself, you know, with money, but any other way, it'll end up on this page. You'll get a chance to play with it. Yeah. I mean, I probably won't, but she will.
01:00:33
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of good stuff coming out. Obviously, not everything's on the list. Because we like starting controversy for all those arguments on our discussion board on Facebook. There's a lot. Just check it out one time. You have to post a comment first, then you'll see the full thread. It saves you some clicks instead of googling tumbleweed, which is pretty cool.
01:00:59
Speaker
Yeah, so we'll see how it looks. A lot of bright shining stars this year and then some games that probably will never come out or will take a long time to come out. Or they'll come out and they'll be real bad. Poopy stars.
01:01:15
Speaker
But the least, the thing you want to get least in kindergarten. I think I made one of those in Katamari Damashi. Ah, the poopy stuff. What have you done? I should never have had kids, says the king. But yeah, good year. Good year.
01:01:35
Speaker
Hasn't happened yet. As always, you can contact us on the Facebook at facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. Or if you don't like joining the discussion, because you also dislike direct contact with other human beings, you can send us an electronic email at gmail, which is soapstone podcast at gmail.com.
01:02:02
Speaker
If I wasn't staring at Dave's silent judgment, I maybe could get through it. You said electronic email. It's like saying ATM machine. I'm just here to make people uncomfortable. You're doing a great job. As always, we'll see you in the next one.