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S3 Ep272: Talkcast September 2023
83 Plays2 years ago
Too tired after LAN party for description. I think we talked about how Dave doesn't drink water, Armored Core 6, and early Starfield impressions. Tune in to find out if I'm right!
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- No More Heroes - Heat in your Hand
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Transcript
Introductions and Mood Boosts
00:00:43
Speaker
How's it going, everyone? Welcome to another episode of Soapstone. My name is Jake, and I'm joined by my co-host is always Dave. How's it going tonight, Dave? It's going so good. So good. So good. Nice. Glad to hear it. Any particular reason or just ambient good?
00:01:01
Speaker
Ambien, it's okay, it's not my favorite. But no, it's- Ambien's so good. Friend of the show, Ambien. Yo, Ambien, shout out. No, it's just shout out and then shut down.
00:01:20
Speaker
No, it's just like I had a productive meeting at work for the first time because I was talking to a competent individual and I'm like I love this feeling. So I got some stuff done at work. I was still able to do some other things. It wasn't like balls to the wall crazy by any means. We got some rain today, which is good. I got caught in it on the way back from the gym.
00:01:43
Speaker
Which was, I mean, I was going to shower anyway, so thanks for the head start, God. Thanks, God. God, shout out. Pour one out on my homies. Kiss the homies. Tuck them in.
00:02:01
Speaker
I don't know. It's just like I've been in a decent enough mood today. Things have been all right. I don't want to attribute it to the increase of Lexapro dosage as it's only been a day, and that's not how drugs work. But maybe I can run the placebo into the moon.
Gaming Adventures on PTO
00:02:20
Speaker
I will say I unfortunately had a very boring dinner. Can you guess how sad it was?
00:02:26
Speaker
Um, hmm. Did you go to sheets? No. Okay. That was lunch. Very close. Well, that was, that's my rough sadness. I'm not sure. I assume reheated, something reheated.
00:02:43
Speaker
It's kind of in that family, but not quite in the reheated family. So like the last of the ingredients, basically. This is the dried macaroni and no sauce. Maybe not that set. It's the middle ground of I made two instant oatmeal packets. And then I had a big handful of almonds. And then I had a big glass of water.
00:03:12
Speaker
Yeah. We need to go grocery shopping. If this doesn't sound bad, understand that Dave never just drinks water. If he's drinking water, it's because there's nothing else he could possibly drink in that. The sauce is too chunky. The other things in my fridge have probably been there for too long, and I'm afraid to open them. That's fair. Yeah. I will say to the oatmeal thing,
00:03:40
Speaker
I purchased a lot of it a while back and I don't hate oatmeal, but I forget that I have it in the mornings. And oftentimes like I don't really eat until it's like around lunchtime anyways. And then like, do you want to start your day with oatmeal at noontime? That seems pessimistic. I don't eat it that much.
00:04:00
Speaker
I just, it's pretty filling and warm and like that and like some hot coffee. I mean, if you load up GTA 3 and all that, it's just, I don't always do it, but it's a nice way to start the day. Your coworkers are like, why are you playing Grand Theft Auto? It's like it's breakfast time. Launches game, closes it three minutes later, always suspicious. Got what I came for.
00:04:30
Speaker
Oh my gosh. How was your Thursday? Thursday was good. I am in the midst of my PTO. I am slightly half over. I'm good through Tuesday. And, uh, yeah, I got a lot of my productivity stuff done pretty early.
00:04:50
Speaker
And so I didn't really have to worry about it. As I'm saying that, it sounds a little bit like I actually did something though. I didn't do that much beyond just daily things I would need to take care of anyways, kind of got those out of the way. So I could just play Starfield for a billion hours. Oh, and we did the new raid in Destiny on Tuesday, Tuesday night. Nice, how was that?
00:05:17
Speaker
It was pretty good. I watched some of the impressions from more hardcore Destiny players, and apparently they liked it a lot more when it released too. It was harder than the previous raid, and they're like, finally.
00:05:36
Speaker
But it was kinda, it was a little bit buggy. It's a reprisal raid, so it's one of the ones that existed in Destiny 1. And there was definitely a couple times where enemies would teleport a little bit when we were hitting them with swords. And the final boss, we basically, someone had basically, we were in the last DPS phase, I'm not gonna spoil anything. We were in the last DPS phase, we're DPSing the boss, and someone's like, oh my gosh, we did it.
00:06:03
Speaker
because we have plenty of time left on this clock before we wipe, before we all die. And then the boss, as though he just hears us, instant transmissions, like 20 feet away, and we're all up here with swords.
00:06:18
Speaker
And we're like, ah, so people switched to whatever ranged options they had. I tried to like run at the boss. And then we beat the we finished the boss two seconds before the wipe timer clutch. We got our loot. It all showed up on the sidebar.
00:06:38
Speaker
And then we all died anyways because it was actually so close that the wife actually took us out. But it counted the raid complete because we beat the boss. So we all got revived by the raid completion, actually, which was very funny. It was it was good. It was a fun time, though. It took us like four hours, though. It was a little bit of a slog.
00:07:00
Speaker
only four uh-huh was this blind or no this was blind but we had one person who gave us some tips and there was probably like three hard tips of well i shouldn't say that that way anyways there's probably like three very specific tips provided to the night um where it was like we don't really have any idea what the next thing is what are we missing here um
Exploring New Game Content
00:07:26
Speaker
but overall it was pretty good nice
00:07:31
Speaker
Glad to hear the dusty things you're still going. All right. Yeah. I'm probably going to, I'm going to finish out with my season and then take a break. Um, cause I'm most of the way through the season pass. I just need to basically track the story a little bit and there's plenty of other stuff to do right now as you're aware. Right. Yep. Lots of games came over that horizon and then they kind of like backed up. They're all trying to like fit their way through a small hallway, elbows and stuff.
00:08:03
Speaker
That's life. Yeah. Thankfully, I don't play too many games. So it's like, I'll play my single player game or multiplayer or something else. And then someone sent me a dough to invite a bit. Oh, maybe. Right. But there have been times where I've been like, I'm currently doing Baldur's Gate three. Do not talk to me until when today's book. Now you've had your chance.
00:08:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we had a couple longer sessions of Baldur's Gate. I think we mentioned on here that we're going through a campaign. Maybe we didn't. Maybe not.
00:08:36
Speaker
Well, we are. Let me put a stop to the rumors. We are. And it's great. As I've said many times, I enjoyed Divinity Original Sin 2 so, so much. And this is very much the same game in my eyes. Certain things are obviously different as far as setting, characters, mechanics, and whatnot. But it still plays like a layering game that I'm familiar with.
00:09:02
Speaker
So I'm enjoying checking things out and exploring. And finally, Jake and I are at a point where I don't know what's going to happen around the corner. Right. Because I was playing with another play group and everything that I was doing with Jake is like, well, you decide what to do. You decide where we go. And I had seen most of it already. So it's nice to be able to do purely fresh stuff where
00:09:25
Speaker
I don't know. I'm always assuming that like shit's going to go down and I'm always worried about it. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I want our happy family to be happy and succeed.
00:09:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, in a Larian game, stuff can go sideways at any time. I was actually, I was, Dave is subjected to this because he chose to play through this with me, but I'm like, I'm like the freaking Amazon Prime x-ray thing, or just like talking about Faerun facts on the side while there's important NPCs saying important things. I'm just like, oh,
00:10:03
Speaker
this person just named lofander and lofander is you know the god of dawn and the sun that's been informational and good i've only been mildly perturbed about like the like that's like hey do you want to hop on start playing at nine yeah it sounds good you're like hey do you care if i respect no that's fine and then it'd be like 9 40 and like i've been in the game i'm like 40 minutes
00:10:26
Speaker
Hey, do you want to play the game now? Or that'd be cool. No, I am. I am. You're free to respect it. I'm just talking to the same merchant. They're like, how's it going? I'm like, it's going. I do think that
00:10:43
Speaker
I actually specifically told my wife this. I was like, this is basically what tabletop D&D is missing is the ability to respect like once per session while everyone else is playing the game. You just change your character to a completely different class. Yes, it absolutely would. But it actually gets at the heart of one of the issues I have with traditional tabletop gaming sometimes, which is like you're really locked into it for a long time.
00:11:12
Speaker
Like my current campaign that I'm running, I'm not gonna go into depth, is just Cyberpunk Red. And it was around when Cyberpunk 2077 came out, and everyone was disappointed in that, so I had him in, basically. I didn't intend this to be a super long campaign, but it's been like a couple years.
00:11:31
Speaker
and i want to get it wrapped out like in the next six months or so if i could that would be excellent um but i don't want things to freaking run forever and other people like i also i feel like can be in a spot where like if you played one character for a year or two years or god forbid three years um stuff better be mixing up a little bit or you might stop finding the novelty in that
00:12:01
Speaker
Right. Yeah. Like I use, I mean, I don't know the cyberpunk equivalent, but I use magic missile or like you find that thing that works. Everyone uses that approach each situation. Yeah. But yeah, I think, I mean, obviously like playing that same character throughout the campaign makes you more invested to like have that progression and like see them overcome stuff. But at the end of the day, like if you feel like you're doing the same thing every time, you're kind of like,
00:12:30
Speaker
yeah good yeah or you'd want to try something else of like maybe if i tried rolling this character exactly like for me it's mechanics right like because the cyberpunk this may be a bad example because you can actually just as you continue to get points you can take points in pretty much as many classes as you want as long as your previous class got to like a minimum level
00:12:53
Speaker
So you could be everything and that's fine. But like in D&D, progression gets slow, right? Like you're on nitrous from like levels one to five, pretty much. And then the game actually specifically, this is your D&D trivia actually, the level up chart that shows how much experience per level.
00:13:19
Speaker
actually dips at one point and then it starts going up again. And you might be asking, why in the world would you ever do that? Why would you make it so it takes like less levels to level up in like the mid levels? And it's because it's specifically ushering you into some of the most fun
00:13:41
Speaker
like balanced gameplay and then they want to slow it down a lot, right? Then they just pump the brakes as much as they can. Cause as soon as you start to get to the upper teens, um, life gets crazy in the end and it's no longer super fun to manage. And you might just be wishing away entire encounters. Right.
00:14:04
Speaker
I wish I wasn't here. Literally. That's a very bad wish. That's a very bad wish to say though. For the listeners, the wish spell is pretty much monkey's paw and it is the GM's job to interpret whatever you said as though monkey's paw.
00:14:24
Speaker
unless you're really, really underselling it. You're not asking for much. I wish I was alone. Everybody else in the planet is now dead. Well, this was a very powerful spell. I don't know who fulfilled this wish, but it was pretty big. One chimp salutes, makes a monkey noise, and clambers off.
00:14:45
Speaker
But yeah, just to finish that thought real quick because I was on here a little bit in D&D There's a bunch of different classes and they play differently right like you're playing a rogue you're playing a barbarian you're playing a wizard If you're spending three years on the same class when there's all this other stuff to try you're gonna start to ask yourself Like am I too far away from ledges? Like when combat breaks out right maybe maybe maybe I should like risk it a little bit more So I can try something new out
00:15:15
Speaker
Yeah. Shadow to Tony, who in our other play session has it just been like a naked monk and he's just been shoving people. We just based off of like, do we need to loot that body? Fuck it. Let them go.
00:15:32
Speaker
Yeah, it really is nice to have the diversity option because like in that play session with that group, I started off as a wizard and I even bought a hat for it in real life to kind of cosplay as the character. Big hat, bees using my name. Don't look me up.
00:15:48
Speaker
And I was like, oh, this is kind of fun. And then when I was playing with Jake, I was like, oh, let me roll T-Fling Warlock like I did back in the first time I played D&D before I quit. And I was like, oh, this is actually OK. I'm enjoying this. I'm enjoying just doing Eldritch Blast Shotgun. And now that's who I wanted to be. So I rerolled my other character. I'm like, Warlock, fuck wizards.
00:16:12
Speaker
So yeah, it's cool to have that flexibility and not be penalized for it. I think for all things in games, when the ocean is so vast and you might only do a single playthrough, like Elden Ring had it too, here's the Elden Ring tie-in, but the fact that you can respec into something else, maybe what you're trying isn't working, or you don't like having to be forced into that narrow corridor of like, you have to play this way.
00:16:39
Speaker
I want some other options to try, oh, maybe this will be fun. And then you get to try, you're like, oh, maybe I like that more. Or maybe that wasn't for me. But yeah, it's the ability to dip your toe in the waters without being penalized for it. Feels good in any game. Yeah. Like, I'm glad that Destiny 2 finally got loadouts. So it's easier to switch around for stuff.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, I really hate being shoehorned into one specific thing if that one specific thing is not designed for it. Yeah. Like for Sekiro, everybody has one play style, but that's fine. The game was designed around that, right? And it even had like in the defense of Sekiro since I sense you're on the attack here.
00:17:24
Speaker
There was still a lot of variety in the approaches you could take. Yes, you were probably still using a sword, right? But your prosthetic choices and consumables and stuff like that could really vary up some of those fights, which was cool.
00:17:41
Speaker
Yeah, I like having options in games. Yeah. I just wanted to highlight that like Sekiro was designed around. Everybody has this one weapon. Yes, it's very easy to balance for that. And Baldur's Gate does not necessarily share that. There's the world of D&D is very wide. Your party might have
00:18:05
Speaker
four paladins and Maybe if your boss fight is a big guy needs to die and four paladins walk into the neighborhood and they all smite him at once That's the end of a boss. That's okay. And that's the way Larian makes their game. So I Mean, this is not the review Baldi's Gate, but it's a fun game
00:18:29
Speaker
There you go. That's your view. The writing is amazing. Ever so briefly, I mean, you just said the writing was really good. Are there other things where you feel like it is very much divinity original sin too? Are there things you like more about it? We're not going into too much detail because we will have an episode eventually.
00:18:49
Speaker
that's fair i mean the writing i'm not going to go into details there but like you can just you the same thing was hitting me in this game where like while i'm playing a different game i'm playing starfield right now and it doesn't surprise me with the writing that often um sometimes larian's writing just hits me
00:19:08
Speaker
like i start to you start to get into your theater seat a little bit of just ingesting the media in front of you and then they're like they hit you with a line that's like absurdly profound like they just ripped it from the dying mouth of like a 130 year old man in the desert and i was just like
00:19:29
Speaker
Why does that hit so hard? I don't know. There's been multiple times that Dave and I were listening to someone talk and I had a question in real life. I was like, why are they talking about it this way? Or why did this NPC mention this?
00:19:50
Speaker
Then that's literally a question. You can just ask right afterwards. I'm like, oh my gosh, they're freaking they got me again. Um, I Have not played star field. I probably will not play star field. Yeah, I wouldn't recommend it for you Thank you. That means that Jake knows me He knows that I'm into and what games like to play so there's not a lot of
00:20:18
Speaker
But at least from what little I've seen of other people play on Discord or just little YouTube snippets, Bethesda has had this tradition of for dialogue stuff, it's usually pretty A, B, or C, I think, for some of the options.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yes. No. Maybe. Maybe. And like it doesn't go into that much of a different space. But in like Baldur's Gate or Divinity from Larian's design, it's like kind of normal, a little bit out of pocket. This would be specific to this character's class and race or something else or something. It's like way out of left field. And you're like, this one sounds funny. I want to see what happens. And then like it's very branched in comparison. Yeah.
00:21:04
Speaker
They're going for, in Starfield and Bethesda's games in general, they tend to go for like quantity more than like quality. So they have like a bunch of interactions, a bunch of quests, a bunch of NPCs. That's the thing that would be on the 10.
00:21:20
Speaker
But they're not gonna have an NPC that where like while you're interacting with them There's an option to try to persuade them of something and your character is really skilled in persuasion but you paid like a little bit of extra attention and you realize that the thing that you're trying to persuade them of is actually a bad idea and Even though it's like your advantage to make the check you shouldn't do it because this is bad for this person or something, right? And it's just like anything like that
00:21:48
Speaker
I freaking love it when Larian does it. That's not why you play Bethesda games. No. But how are you liking Starfield? Because I know you've got that and that just came out very recently.
00:22:00
Speaker
Yeah, so for the people who spent a hundred bucks, they've been playing since last Friday. But I started on Wednesday, actually, because we rated on Tuesday and then it was like 11. We know it was like 1 a.m. or something. And I like almost started the game. It was decrypted and everything. I was like, I'm going to sleep.
00:22:19
Speaker
Adult executive action. Time to go to sleep. Um, so I was playing yesterday and today, I guess two days, um, a lot. Uh, I'm having a good time with it. I would recommend it if you like games like no man's sky because they ripped a lot from no man's sky.
Starfield's Unique Elements
00:22:42
Speaker
Like a lot mechanic wise and progression wise. And some of this stuff was.
00:22:49
Speaker
Clearly also built on top of Fallout 4. Um, but yeah, there's, there's a lot there. That's just like, no man's guide did this exactly the same almost. Um, and it's very, uh, it's slower, I think than like Skyrim was not that Skyrim was a super fast game, but starfield is like.
00:23:15
Speaker
It feels much more paced. Like if you explore your ship, you'll see like warning labels on everything or like here's a pressurized container. It very much feels like it's the most realistic depiction of space. I've probably seen, um, it kind of fits in with like a 2001, a space Odyssey in my head.
00:23:38
Speaker
It's kind of like slow plotting. Something's probably going on magic at some point. I don't know. But like none of that is the focus. It's mostly just humans spread out a lot over hundreds of thousands of years or whatever hundreds of years in this case. So fall out in space. Yes. Largely fall out in space.
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah, pretty much that. But with more stuff kind of built on top of it, stolen from No Man's Sky, which doesn't sound like it would be a resounding approval, but so far it's been pretty good. I mean, if you like both of those things, the mash of them together does that sound awful? Yeah.
00:24:24
Speaker
And I will say I was, I was trash talking their storytelling, but there have been some instances outside of the main story where it got interesting. And I was like, Oh snap. Uh, like you get sidelined by a side quest or something. I'm going to spoil one thing because it's not a plot related thing.
00:24:43
Speaker
I had just flown into a system and a guy hailed me and he started trying to sell an extended warranty on my ship. And if you can either tell him basically to F off, outright attack him.
00:25:02
Speaker
or just say like please continue and if you say please continue he's got like walls of dialogue he goes through explaining the differences between plans and stuff like that and I was just like this is hilarious this is actually really really funny how come nothing like this is in the main story but that's that's kind of the nature of Bethesda it's like it's hit or miss and I don't know if I've ever really loved their main story
00:25:32
Speaker
I think it's, it's nice to have it as inside content. Cause if you discover it, you feel like you've, you found a little gem. Uh-huh. Yeah. I think that's true. I would agree with that. Um, yeah, it would be weird if like you played through just the main story in any game. If there is optional content, you're like, that's not for me. I'm just doing the MSQ and that's it. Um, and then if you found that to be lacking.
00:26:01
Speaker
Mm hmm. That would be kind of weird. Yeah, if you like just main story in Oblivion or Skyrim, like those games would have been points worse than they otherwise would be if you did all the like some of the side content stuff.
00:26:16
Speaker
Yeah, like you wouldn't touch Dark Brotherhood at all. Right. So no. Side content is has always been pretty big for their games. One thing, again, to tout Larian and Baldur's Gate three, like you do have like here's your main plot, but there's so many things that are weaving into it that are the side content. You're like, oh, this connects to something else. Yeah. So it feels good to do all of the quote unquote side content that you're not
00:26:44
Speaker
specifically mandated to, but it will continue on for later on in the game. Or it's just like, hey, this is a possibility that this is a mass MSQ, I'm not sure. And then you just find out it's like some other branching path. But everything kind of loops back and weaves in, which is a nice way to do it.
00:27:05
Speaker
I think weaving is the correct term there because they're basically intertwining these threads in such a way that they are connected and related or you can't always tell how connected and related things are until you reach the end of the thread. Not the case generally in Bethesda games. If someone shows up and they start telling you and trying to sell you insurance, that's very obviously not main story related.
00:27:30
Speaker
but also none of the other more plausibly grounded things that you get distracted with in the game are necessarily main story related either. Though I will give them credit, this is one of the few games I've played recently where they don't seem to have some like time impetus.
00:27:47
Speaker
forgetting the main story done it's not like oh we're against the clock we're saving the world whatever it's like we're kind of just figuring stuff out when you have time look into that okay well i'm gonna go i'm gonna go colonize then i'm gonna go start extracting aluminum and copper from these planets and yeah all that stuff um but uh also
00:28:09
Speaker
much easier to play when you have tons of hours to throw at it. Uh, I would kind of hate to play this game and like a little bit of a block at the end of the day before like putting the kids to bed and falling asleep and all that other stuff that one to two hours doesn't feel like enough of a, absolutely not. It feels like you'd get nothing done in this game in that. And that's, I mean, that's not uncommon for space games, but that's another reason to kind of like warn people off of it. You know,
00:28:40
Speaker
Yeah, I like if I'm playing a game to be able to have a milestone to some degree or like close on something like when we do Baldur's Gate 3, we'd be like, oh, we'll try and wrap up this mission and then we'll call it here for the day. Or if I'm doing armored core and like, let me finish this mission or do an arena battle and then I'm good. But it'd be weird to be like, oh, I did part of something and then I had to stop.
00:29:07
Speaker
Yeah. I got 20 minutes into a 50 minute Dota game and then I had to DC because I had to make the kids Cheerios? Hot chocolate and then give them a piece of licorice and they fall asleep or something. I don't know exactly how kids work.
00:29:26
Speaker
The game I'd most compare it to, and then I'm done talking about it until I talk about it later in a different episode, is pacing wise, it kind of reminds me of like death stranding for that. Oh, I got it. That is slow, but I did enjoy that. Yes, very slow with periods of things being faster.
00:29:46
Speaker
Like the combat feels pretty good. I don't actually think it's necessarily better than Fallout 4 and it's not as good as like a shooter like Destiny or Call of Duty or whatever. The space combat feels pretty good. Boarding people and stealing their stuff from their ship or stealing their ship feels pretty good. But between that, it's death stranding pacing where it's like kind of whatever you want to do.
00:30:13
Speaker
And it's kind of funny, cause Death Stranding had like very, very minimal fast travel. And I think you lost all your stuff. Like it all went to that local storage if you used it at that point in the game. And this game is just like, for the first time in an Elder Scrolls game, you could be inside a bunker, like towards the middle of a planet and warp to the other side of the galaxy to a star state, like to a space station.
00:30:41
Speaker
and then just be like standing right outside instantly basically like fast travel it takes like four seconds because it loads faster than Skyrim did for me too and it's absurd how much they could cut out in the middle there but I'm a fan because I jump around a lot yeah I like having stuff like fast travel as a mechanic because
00:31:07
Speaker
Like, I've played Spider-Man, which I still need to beat at some point. Jake let me borrow it three years ago and we're now in a hostage negotiation situation where I have hostages as well. Exactly. I have one paper Mario. Maybe a Katamari, I think, or some other stuff.
00:31:30
Speaker
I really got to get on you more about this. But I enjoy the traversal in Spider-Man. The web-sling is very fun. But if I have to go all the way to the other side of town, I kind of just want to fast travel for some of it. And they kind of do it a cute universe way where you literally have to go to a train station, and then you have this little brief cutscene of Spider-Man on the train, which is really cute.
00:31:59
Speaker
I don't love that there is an animation for it, but it's not, it doesn't take way too long where you're like, oh my God, it's taking forever. And it's still quicker than you kind of like web slinging over there. But again, it's a nice option to have when you're like, I've already traversed. I'm good now. I just want to go do the thing. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
00:32:21
Speaker
I think this one takes the cake. This is actually the last mention. I'm cutting myself off. I'm not talking about Starfield anymore. I don't believe I played another game where I fast traveled more than this game. So much so, it's like, oh, the ship's like 300 feet away.
00:32:38
Speaker
Well, if I fast travel the ship to space, I'll actually instantly be in the ship. So let me just do that. Right. So it's just absurd stuff like that that has no real realism to it. And I don't care because it lets you do more things in a game where it would be slowed down even more. Yes. If you couldn't instant transmit yourself to the other side of the galaxy.
00:32:59
Speaker
Again, Elder Ring's a great example. Beautiful fucking game. I love running around on the horse. I love just walking around appreciating the landscape. But sometimes daddy's got to go to point B and he doesn't want to fuck around about it. Let me go to the other side of the map, please, because I've already unlocked it. Thank you. Yeah. Just bing, bang, boom, done. Yeah.
00:33:20
Speaker
There was a Dark Souls 1 didn't give you fast travel until like the midpoint in the game. And everything got better past that point. There's reasons for it. I get it, right? Like sometimes making people tread those same paths builds a sense of connectiveness and that was missing in two because they gave you fast travel right off the jump. Also because they weren't as connected in two. But like as adults, after a while,
00:33:49
Speaker
There's only so many hours in the day. You got like two hours. You got to put Timmy and Jimmy and, uh, Lisa to bed and give them their Twizzlers or whatever. Um, Jake's parenting showed you, give them sugar. I don't know. Get them out of my hair. Yeah. If it's not sugar and pass out, that's all that works, right? I think so. It depends on, it depends on the kid. I think I do not have kids for the concerned people out there.
00:34:19
Speaker
I don't either. If you're looking for any, they're not here. They're not here. These are not the kids you're looking for. Which kids are these? Never, never you might. Well, they're not mine. Tell you that much. That makes it worse. So I gotta, I gotta talk about something. Yeah. I've been,
00:34:47
Speaker
I've been back on FromSoft a little bit, back on the FromSoft grind in the flavor of Armored Core 6. I've heard things about it. I didn't know what to expect outside of the trailers and all the YouTubers I like talking about it. Going into detail, breaking down the HUD, analyzing every pixel. I still make shitty pills.
00:35:12
Speaker
But it's been really fun. I've really been enjoying it for never having played an armor core game before. I definitely project. A lot of Dark Souls are from soft tie ins for things. I have a little
00:35:27
Speaker
Theory notepad over here. Yeah But it's been very fun. I really enjoyed customizing mechs I Spent a little bit of time actually caring about the design of it Downloaded an Elden Ring logo that somebody uploaded I made it all like black and gold and red and it just looks so badass cool It's just it's fun trying out stuff. I like the level design like the characters and
00:35:56
Speaker
There isn't really a point of it where I'm like, this kind of is a miss for me. I don't have anything like that yet. But I think I'm at, I think, near the very end of the game. But currently, this combat encounter, I am struggling. So I will have to come back to it at a later time. And I still want to verse Jake in Nest. Try some PvP out. Not going to be good for me.
00:36:26
Speaker
Yeah, no, I mean, I've, I've been playing it as well as though, although, um, it's out of the top spot for now while I play some other games doing the raid and, and star field and stuff, but I plan to go back on it, back on it, go back to it, um, and, and make more progress. I didn't realize it was as long as it actually is. Um, but I guess there's, there's multiple cycles through it or something. They do some sort of near shenanigans. I don't know. We'll, we'll find out. Um,
00:36:56
Speaker
But yeah, it's really good. And I think I remarked earlier off the podcast about this. I kind of appreciate how it's not overloaded with a bunch of features and complexity and integration and all of that stuff. For the most part, it's build a mech, build a mech, put it in a mission.
00:37:15
Speaker
Try to be the boss, maybe. And they don't try to like overcomplicate that. The textures don't look super great. A lot of them look pretty mediocre or even bad, but I don't care because the mechs look cool, right? So. I don't know, it's just a really good example of them not spending a bunch of time on useless stuff, I think, for the game.
00:37:40
Speaker
Yeah, it's pretty straightforward. Like you load into a mission and just go. And if you replay missions to either try and get some cash to buy something or you're hunting for combat logs.
00:37:53
Speaker
Like from the first time I approached the mission to where I'm like tentatively like clonking around every corner or trying to balance how much stamina I have so I don't fall off something. Now I just load him like and I just I'd be lying for stuff. My movements gotten so much better. My boost usage, which guns I use and how efficient they are like.
00:38:16
Speaker
It just feels really good to play and just go around it in a mech. And I'm not even playing a faster mech. I'm sure I could be doing some very crazy stuff, zipping around. But yeah, it's just been really fun. It feels good to overcome a boss or explore a level or try and figure out what the hell is going on with the plot.
00:38:40
Speaker
It
Game Purchases and Performance Issues
00:38:40
Speaker
just has a very specific, we were talking about this right before the podcast of like all of the characters are very distinct. Again, something I've liked from FromSoft and their writing where there's no two people where I get like, Oh, they sound like somebody else. And that's confusing. Yeah. Like everyone's very much their own entity.
00:39:00
Speaker
And yeah, it's just, it's just been a blast. I'm very much, I want more people to play as much as I have so I can talk about more things. Um, it's tough because there's, it's a very, a lot came out at once. Just too much. Honestly, a couple, a couple months between a couple of these games would be great. I don't think there's anything else this year is there? Like they're fucking better not be. I'm going to be spending the next two years in Baldur's Gate three at this rate. Yeah.
00:39:28
Speaker
And I'm already thinking, man, there's some other stuff I want to try for subsequent playthroughs and crap like that. But I'm saying that while also playing other games that just came out.
00:39:41
Speaker
So, yeah, I mean, there's not a shortage. It'd be funny to go back and listen to our year in preview episode. There's nothing coming out. Yeah, we probably mentioned nothing. I think we mentioned some tentative interest for, I mean, we figured that Baldur's Gate 3 would be good because we're looking forward to another Larian title.
00:40:04
Speaker
And Armored Core 6, we were curious to see how it was going to turn out because we enjoyed FromSoft stuff, but again, we didn't really have any background in Armored Core.
00:40:14
Speaker
Yeah, we also, I'm looking back through the list now, and we definitely mentioned Lightfall, like Destiny major expansion came out early in the year. It feels like it's been a long time. But then there was other things that were like disappointing enough that we didn't really even cover them at all, like Redfall.
00:40:36
Speaker
Which oof, right? We talked about it a little bit, I guess, but oof. And then System Shock came out and I forgot about it until I literally just saw it again on this list, which is not a good sign for the splash it made. So I think some of that was just. Like, it seems interesting, but then you're like, as a full price game and then you kind of get distracted by something else that you are excited to pay full price for. Yeah. Yeah. There's a lot of that stuff this year.
00:41:08
Speaker
I don't want to say second rate, but just not at the very forefront of what you're looking for. It's really easy to sweep under the rug and then forget about entirely. I will say I was thankful today in that productive work call I had. We also talked about Armacore a little bit because they're also from Soft Nerd.
00:41:28
Speaker
He's like, I think I'm going to pick up an armored core on your recommendation. I was like, yes. So FromSoft will now owe me a $1 commission. That's how it works. Oh, my gosh.
00:41:58
Speaker
Payday three is still this month, which is a little bit scary. Guess who's not getting that at release? Yeah, that's that's where I'm at as well. I'm curious about both of those games, as we said before, definitely interest expressed, but it's not a day one. I need to pick it up thing.
00:42:08
Speaker
I'm looking through the rest of the list.
00:42:19
Speaker
Yeah. Just don't spoil me on the plot of Alan Wake 2. I'll check it out at some point. And then Payday 3 will probably play some with friends if there's enough of a groundswell. Yeah, and then if you manage to survive September, we have, well, Alan Wake 2, obviously, in October. But then Ghost Runner 2, also in October.
00:42:42
Speaker
Yo, so hype for that. And then it looks like nothing else that I want to call out for the rest of the year. Sorry if you're an indie developer who has a game coming out in the rest of the year. I overlooked it. It wasn't on the list. I don't know.
00:43:01
Speaker
Yeah, I started to get a little bit concerned, because games are expensive now. Full retail price game is what, like 70 bucks? Is the new normal? Summer's still in 60. Like I think Baldur's Gate was still 60, Armor Corps was 60. Yeah. Diablo had the audacity to be 70. And again, like I'm not talking about it after playing it.
00:43:29
Speaker
Whereas Armored Core, I went to bed thinking about boss strategies, or Baldur's Gate 3, I'm like, what if I romance Carlock again? There was a, I will say, I believe this is correct. We can fact check it later. Well, we have a team for that. But Payday 3, I believe the normal package is $40 at launch, which is nice.
00:43:55
Speaker
That is unprecedented at this day and age. Maybe they actually just don't have any faith in the game. Here's the thing. I think that they do. I think that they do. But I think that they want to specifically make an effort to be like, hey, this is cheaper than other stuff to get a foot in the door. And again, because it is payday, there will be lots of DLC. It's true. I bet you, I mean,
00:44:23
Speaker
$4 you can buy one of the DLC's but like they were pouring it out so much and paid it to and I don't think it's a bad thing But I can't see them abandoning that model entirely. Yeah
00:44:36
Speaker
It's going to be, if you get just the base game, because I know there are other packages, you can get the higher tier releases as everyone has now. But if you just buy the base game for 40 bucks, you can play it as either John or Marcus. You want to play, you want to play Hoxton or chains or any other ones? No, that's your $50 price.
00:44:59
Speaker
Not actually, but that's kind of what I expect because I agree they had so much content attached to other stuff.
00:45:09
Speaker
I was like, John Wick? Mark is Phoenix? I was trying to come up with just generic names. I mean, my brain, anytime I hear something, it goes to like, it passes through a video game filter. And I'm like, is this something I can relate to my video game life? No? OK. And then I'm like, oh, that's cool. And I just have nothing to talk about now because my brain is so wired one way.
00:45:38
Speaker
That's fair. That's fair Yeah, I'm probably also gonna wait on payday at least to see what the reviews are They have not always had great launches for their games and for their non payday games. They haven't always had great games. So We'll see we'll see how it lands Yeah, I'm definitely letting that go through a round of reviews at least I
00:46:03
Speaker
Yeah. I'm hoping the performance is also better than Starfield. I didn't call that out at all, but the performance kind of sucks, even on good hardware. And I upgraded my CPU. They specifically were like, Hey, we've made optimizations for PC, but you know, we're trying to push the boundaries of blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And I'm like, your game doesn't look that good. It looks better than anything in the past. It does not look that good. Right. Um, that this is acceptable really.
00:46:33
Speaker
So hopefully payday at least runs on decent hardware. Cause I would really hope so because it is definitely a more fast paced game. Like the gun play actually matters a lot. Yeah. When you're dealing with cops, you can teleport. You could probably play payday too on like integrated hardware at this point and just like shove a toaster in your computer case and it'll work. You can, you can use the little touchpad mouse and you'll be fine. Yeah. People do.
00:47:04
Speaker
I can't remember. I'm not going to call a personnel exactly, but I remember there was someone who raided with us in Destiny that actually used a touch pad. Yeah. You should burn them at the stake. That is a terrible thing to do to anybody else.
00:47:21
Speaker
They did way better than I thought they would, but not as good as anyone else. I will, I will spend $5, get you a rinky dink USB mouse, but like, holy shit, touchpad is so bad. It's very bad. Yeah.
00:47:39
Speaker
The only thing worse is using, to borrow the colloquial term, the clip mouse. If you remember, like in like little Lenovo, like the red dot at like the center, like kind of near the touch pad, at the top of the touch pad, if you will. Yeah, but like it moved the slightest touch and it was impossible to draw anything with it because it was either actively moving at light speed or it wasn't moving at all. And trying to use that for anything where you have to aim makes no sense.
00:48:10
Speaker
Yeah, no, that's very fair. Don't use any of that by the $5 mouse or we'll do it out of charity. Like just go to a yard sale. There will be a USB mouse there. It does require going outside though, and that's dangerous. True.
Tech Hygiene and Safety Concerns
00:48:28
Speaker
It's been hot past couple of days.
00:48:30
Speaker
Yeah, I also don't know if I would trust just a random mouse. I guess you could disinfect it. You'd be fine. You'd be fine. How do you make sure the mouse doesn't drown while you're disinfecting it? Turn it upside down normally. Also, as I think about it, the last mouse that I took apart and cleaned was literally a ball mouse in probably the late 90s, early 2000s. So my experience here might be dated. I don't know how you clean a modern mouse. Outside of just taking the top.
00:49:03
Speaker
I wish I was more mature as an individual. I really did enjoy not the initial ball mice for like e-machines that era weird like the middle mouse button was actually the middle mouse button was terrible. I did like the top ball though. I used that a lot for FPS games at the time for like the thumb or a different one.
00:49:26
Speaker
So like, you know how, like in traditional old mice, the balls at the bottom. So when you push around at the ball rotates, um, this was the ball was on the top. So like where your, your middle fingers would be. Gotcha. Interesting. So like thumb would be your left click your pinky or, uh, index finger would be the other one. Gotcha.
00:49:54
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of mice I never really used because, you know, I just found a good one and called it a day. I haven't seen the ergonomic ones that are like vertical. They have some absolutely crazy stuff.
00:50:06
Speaker
Now, you got me thinking about ergonomic parts and some of it I just I literally do not understand. But then I see the way that people sit with like just a normal keyboard and I kind of get it. Like for me, it's it's so foreign. I want to say it's like hippy dippy, but like it's it's foreign enough to me to where I'm skeptical of it. Mm hmm.
00:50:29
Speaker
But I do wonder at times, like maybe I could have perfect posture and my body would just be in pristine condition if I just got one or two of these ergonomic features in my life. Because they have like the split keyboards where it like curves in on itself. So your hands are just like resting on the desk basically kind of like forming a, not a triangle. What would be the shape? The shape of diamond with the bottom cut off.
00:51:01
Speaker
I guess I'm trying to, it's some sort of trapezoid. You know what I'm trying to describe. If you steeple your hands and then you put them on the desk in front of you. Ah, you're praying. Yes, yes. Yes. Then that's the shape. It's like, I'm sure it's good. I'm sure you can get used to it.
00:51:18
Speaker
I mean, you could get used to anything. Like I've seen people who just use the numpad for stuff. God bless them. But I have more space in two hands. So I'm going to go crazy with that while I can. I had to take notes real quick here. Notably, so you mentioned the numpad. I have a 60. I think this is a 60% keyboard here. I'll hold it up so the audience can see that. Ah, it's a smaller than normal keyboard. It's a smaller than normal keyboard.
00:51:48
Speaker
And it does not have arrow keys. So it's just anything. So it'd be like your F12 to control. Yes. Like the function keys are the same keys as the number keys. You have to hold a button to send F1. You have to hold the same button and use WASD to send the arrow keys. Like there's almost nothing here. But it does look really cool and it's so freaking portable.
00:52:19
Speaker
I kind of want one. This one's not mine. Is that for the children to use? Yeah. Yeah. Um, I was, I was going to, uh, follow that up and be like, no, it's actually for my wife. And I was like, let's put it enough distance between it's for the children. Yeah. But now we'll be using that for land party.
00:52:50
Speaker
which happened in the past by the time you find folk listen to this. Yes. So how was land party? I mean, it was weird, not, it was weird being sober through the entirety of land party. Yeah. Um, that's the prediction this time.
00:53:09
Speaker
I mean, I'm not really planning to drink. I might have a beer, but I'm really just trying to cut out a bunch of stuff that is not, I don't say overtly healthy, but like if I can take some free free stat boosts, that's what I'm trying to opt for. That's fair. Yeah.
00:53:31
Speaker
And if I find like nothing works near, I'm just going to go back to being a druggie alcoholic who makes occasional decent quips. Yeah, it probably won't be necessary. I don't think people have been reasonably well composed for the last couple of lands. And as somebody who does not drink, I haven't felt that I was missing out on much. Usually people were pretty composed when talking to me too.
00:53:55
Speaker
No one was wasted like they used to be. This is a very entertaining conversation for me because of the state that you are currently in. I haven't had anything like that recently, so I doubt you'll miss out much.
00:54:12
Speaker
For my part, I'm glad we got people together to play some of the games we did. I tried a little bit more this year, but didn't all land. Some people said that they were gonna play some games and they didn't actually play those games.
00:54:30
Speaker
I was actually surprised that that happened because that has never happened before in years past. It boggles the mind. But I think there was a little bit of a resurgence. We got a couple more people playing games this year. So we will see. But ultimately, as long as there's two people in one corner,
00:54:49
Speaker
playing some sort of co-op game over IP. It's a LAN party. It qualifies. We met the technical criteria. Well, out of curiosity, how did you feel you did on Smash this time around? I feel like I did better early this time, but then you kind of dug deep because last time.
00:55:09
Speaker
Last time is not super great for Dave. Any time that we play and I'm like hanging out and drinking like it's it's not there. Like alcohol made is not is not competitive. I think you can I think you can do pretty well under the influence while playing. Oh my God. Yes. But if you add other variables to the mix
00:55:33
Speaker
it's a little bit harder, like more people swapping in or different, you know, TV or something like that. It seems to get a little bit harder. Whereas I have no such limitations. I am consistently mid. But I think I started out pretty well this year and obviously took it back at the end, but that was all right.
00:55:58
Speaker
Yeah, I was definitely glad to see as many people that I like at once. And was disappointed to see as many people as I truly loathe with the core of my being. Uh-huh, same time. It's really inconvenient that they're basically the same group now. It's really tough. I'm not neutral with anybody. It's love or hate. It's one or the other.
00:56:24
Speaker
And then I'm really looking forward to a lot fewer positive COVID tests after this one. That's good. A few people, it was a little suspicious. I saw a cough or two, but I just quickly put a giant styrofoam cup over those people as soon as they started to exhale. And I think that covered us, so we're good. Did you cut a hole in Dave's cup? Nope. All right, let's get out of here. That's how the COVID gets out.
00:56:55
Speaker
Yeah. Food was good. I wish we could have fully agreed on catering from a place ahead of time. And we just, that didn't happen. Yeah. But in the future I would like it to limit how many people are going out and about just because we don't know how it got transmitted last time.
00:57:19
Speaker
And then it definitely, if anybody did get COVID, I hope they don't because it puts people on their ass. Yeah. We kind of have to break the bit for a second and be like, we actually, I hope no one really gets COVID. That would really say, um, I think, uh, also to maintain the broken bit. I don't want to dox anyone, but, uh, cause I don't think we mentioned your name, so I won't, but one of the hosts, uh, for this year's land party, um,
00:57:45
Speaker
is preparing a lot of food for folks. That might help. That might, you know, keeping us inside. Yeah. It seemed like a lot of people are going to growl the nerds buying into pitching in for some food that she was going to make, which I think is a good idea. But on the other end of that, I did not at least at the time, I was not in the mood for what was suggested. So I'm going to bring a bunch of snacks or
00:58:12
Speaker
Well, to be fair, I think it was pulled pork, right? And you're Jewish, so you got to weigh your options. It's not going to be pork. It's pushed or shaken but nuppled. Nuppled. Push pork. Get out of here. My brain just went to James Bond ordering pork. He was like, shaken, not pulled. I was like, what are you talking about?
00:58:39
Speaker
Don't don't care at the meet you put in the cup and kind of go Here's the styrofoam cup
00:58:46
Speaker
This one's laced with COVID. Yeah, we'll see. I might end up grabbing a snack because some of the local stuff there is pretty good too. Or I'll brag someone that braves the streets. We'll see. Also, this will be another year where I get to sleep in my own bed and that is always a plus. I'll have to pay a little bit more in parking fees, but my back will thank me for it.
00:59:11
Speaker
Yeah, that's fair. I mean, the parking is not generally too bad there over the weekend. It's just more if you have to come back.
00:59:21
Speaker
We got a mattress topper, actually. I told you about this already, but I didn't tell you, listener. But we got a mattress topper, because in the past, we usually sleep there and I use an air mattress. But the issue is the lifespan of the air mattress is always one land party. It doesn't really matter how much it seems we spent on it. It always gets like a hole in it or something.
00:59:47
Speaker
Um, but this one seems pretty nice. I, I splayed it out in the kitchen floor, laid down on top of it. I was like, this is pretty nice. It was very comfortable. Um, I just, it's kind of bulky. It's just a giant freaking suitcase, basically.
01:00:04
Speaker
As long as it actually has like a resistance cuz I don't think you're the only one who's had that happen Like anytime I would see people on their air mattresses there go good night and you see them in the morning and they're on the ground Like the one time they had like three people on an air mattress. You're like, this will be fine It's supported and then we woke up and it's like ah the floor death. Yeah. Yeah, that's pretty miserable. I
01:00:31
Speaker
The only thing between you and the floor is like very like a single layer of plastic now. Yes I.
01:00:39
Speaker
I don't even want to say that I could do that more when I was younger. It always sucked. It just sucks a lot now.
Age and Physical Resilience
01:00:45
Speaker
I think as you get older, we're going to transition into grandpa mode for the podcast for a second. The trick is the aches take longer to go away. So you spend the night laying on the concrete and you're going to feel it for a bit, you know, just bounce back up.
01:01:03
Speaker
Yeah. And my fear is I just harder to rally. Get up, Jake. That's a good reference. Anyways, any closing thoughts on this illustrious top cast episode? Getting back in the flow. Solid September.
01:01:30
Speaker
Um, more people should play armor course six and ballers gate three. Do not talk to me about Baldur's gate three. I will stab you. If you get removed close to spoiling something for me, we can talk about act one. He's done nothing else. I will remove myself from situation. So I don't need to physically remove you as a person. Um, that's adulthood.
01:01:54
Speaker
Yes. You learned that the murders were wrong and we moved past it. How do you control your emotions? I walk away from everything, apparently. I mean, in some cases it's fair. I think it's a fair take.
01:02:10
Speaker
But if you guys have fair takes that you would like to walk away from, you can leave them on our doorstep at soapstonepodcast.com or you could join the discussion on Facebook, which is entirely comprised of bad takes, facebook.com slash soapstone podcast. And as always, we'll see you in the next one. Have good breakfast.
01:03:19
Speaker
you