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The State of EA in 2024 | Firelink Podcast
2k Plays2 months ago
This week on Firelink, Marty, Nick, and KC discuss the state of EA as a games publisher in 2024 following their recent investment day presentation.
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Transcript
Introduction and Sponsorship
00:00:01
Speaker
okay This video is brought to you by Game Maker. The free, fast, and easy to use 2D game engine that helps power modern classics like Undertale, Hotline Miami, and Hyper Light Drifter. Starter templates, official asset bundles, and a wealth of tutorials are available to help bring your ideas to life. And you can export and share your game for free on all non-console platforms. But you don't have to take my word for it, I'm just some jerk. We have an actual bonafide Game Maker-er on hand. Oh shit, that's me. Yes, I've been using GameMaker for a long time. It's probably the most powerful and easiest to use engine for making 2D games out there, suitable for both amateurs and hardcore coders, and with all the Steam and console integration stuff for when you're ready to start monetizing your hobbies. I used it to make my recently released game, Starstruck Vagabond, which has already delighted thousands of sci-fi cozy game aficionados, thanks to GameMaker being so bloody great. Head on over to the GameMaker link in the description to begin your game development journey today.
Meet the Hosts of Firelink Podcast Ep 37
00:01:07
Speaker
Hello, everyone, and welcome back to Firelink podcast episode number 37 for Wednesday, September 18th, 2024. My name is Marty Sliva, as always, joined by Casey Wosu, Nick Calandra, producer, Eric. yeah ah We got a banger of a show for you today ah provided by our friends at GameMaker Studio. Thank you so much for powering games like Hotline Miami and Undertale and Yahtzee's games. Thank you, GameMaker. Whatever Yahtzee's game is called. start vega bos
00:01:37
Speaker
How rude. Yahtzee's game, if I just, I feel like saying Yahtzee's game means more to our audience than Starstruck Vagabond, right? It's like saying George Lucas's next movie, I don't know, what's he's not to George's. We got a great show for you today.
Nintendo Switch 2 Rumors and Leaks
00:01:52
Speaker
We're gonna be talking about...
00:01:54
Speaker
That's a topic I just never want to talk about anymore, which is a switch to rumors and leaks and rap reports, which we just need to like, this is a fucking Jesse and Breaking Bad screaming. He can't keep getting away with this. Like they just need to announce this thing. It just had to come out like shadow dropping at this point. I could move out of my life. ah We're also going to chat a little bit about a flappy bird.
00:02:18
Speaker
the hit video game from 2014, it's back. ah ah But in very, very sad ways.
Flappy Bird's NFT Revival Controversy
00:02:25
Speaker
That is ah ah kind of a gross indicator for where a lot of the industry is going. And then our main topic is just that sort of a big overall chat on EA.
00:02:34
Speaker
ah the developer, the publisher, um a little bit ah related to an investor call that they had yesterday, um where where they detailed a bunch of upcoming projects, which is sort of like, what do we think is the current state of EA? Because I feel like a couple of years ago, they were sort of the the punching bag of like, EA equals, you know, everything wrong with the industry. ah They've released a lot of cool games. in the last few years, in my opinion, and done a lot of good things. Also, a lot of bad things. And so just chatting about what their future kind of
Categorizing Games: AAA to Quadruple A
00:03:03
Speaker
looks like. And then, of course, a bunch of stuff we've been ah playing a bunch of a bunch of rad games around triple A, double A, single A, lowercase A, negative A, all those things. Negative. age I don't think there's any quadruple A games out right now. Are there a couple of games in top of the titular quintuple? ah How are you guys doing? Too many A's doing OK.
00:03:25
Speaker
That's too many A's. That's where you draw the line. it's like so so is five Five's a lot of A's. Yeah. Can't be done. Yeah, exactly. um um You guys are doing well. Everything's good.
Casey's Mysterious Work Trip
00:03:40
Speaker
Yeah.
00:03:41
Speaker
I had a really eventful weekend, but I don't think I'm allowed to talk about it until tomorrow. So that sucks for the scheduling of this podcast. Oh yeah. You had a work trip. Yeah. We can't quite talk about it. We'll probably hear more about that at some point in the future. But yeah, outside of that, you sound like being very vague. You sent a video of a place you were at on Saturday night and I was like, where is he?
00:04:08
Speaker
What is Casey up to? Uh, and then I put two and two together and I was like, Oh, that's cool. Um, yeah, it was was a real fun trip. Uh, some people in chatter as if I have a green screen. No, I am an Airbnb in Omaha.
00:04:22
Speaker
I was that be a green screen to have that background though of just like a random ass home with dogs. Yeah. It's funny because now that they've said that I, I see it, I could see why kind of looked there that's a green screen. Yeah. Yeah. You look very much in focus and like the background is very kind of like soft and fake, like just super static. Yeah. Uh, yeah. No, it was at my parents' house last episode and Airbnb. This episode I'm moving around every week. Actually I should be, I should be, I should be here next week.
00:04:52
Speaker
The same spot. This exact same spot in this chair. I was not moved since the last episode. You should probably move. You're going to get some weird warts if you don't. ah And of course, of course, say thank you. everyone Who's watching live right now on YouTube, watching the VOD, listening on your podcast service of choice. We we appreciate y'all. We appreciate everyone who supports us on places like Patreon, on YouTube, on Twitch. I mean, you're not on Twitch right now. because we we don't Do these podcasts on Twitch. ah But we we just appreciate y'all, including folks like Jewel Rao with a five-year-old dono. Thank you so much. A tip, because you provide hours of entertainment and something, something. Take the money already, uwu.
00:05:36
Speaker
I do little sneaky woo at the end. Yeah, yeah. That's one of those Internet slang that I've never I've never asked about. It's like not. It's like just like a it's general cuteness. They're sending your way. Like they're being like kind of shy and
EA's Evolution and Challenges
00:05:50
Speaker
coy and cute. Yeah. Little anime ooh. You do anime oohs all the time. Don't even don't even. Yeah, you be oo we like crazy. and You're ooh and all the time. Yeah, you win.
00:05:58
Speaker
Thanks. Thank you so much for being in the Green Gang for eight months. EA is trying to behave post anti-trust revival. Listen, if I was involved in anti-trust revival, I would also try to behave. Also, EA is not like, in terms of anti to the anti-trust sniper red dot, that's all all over Microsoft right now. That's not out for EA. I feel like EA could just sit back and be like, at least the ISR isn't on us right now.
00:06:24
Speaker
There are several companies in front of the hand waving them because they were that they were the start of the season pass. ah That's fine. Just don't buy it. Have some self control. Yeah, animals have Marvel Snap. Get away from me. Are you still buying Marvel snaps? No, no, no. I think the last one I bought was like three seasons ago.
00:06:45
Speaker
Don't they do a season every month? Wasn't that just a few months ago? Yeah, that's not that long ago. They do like three week seasons. But not on social media. I got to have another vice. It's Marvel snap. Drugs. You should do drugs instead. They're cheaper than Marvel snap. Just do drugs. Hard drugs. Sovereign with a 10 euro dono. Thank you so much, Sovereign. Damn. Can't watch this live, but we'll have to catch the vibe later. Here's some monies for you fine gents before I split. Cheers. Thank you so much, Sovereign. Thank you. And SVS guru.
00:07:12
Speaker
with a five-year-old owner as well. Let's prank Nick and tell him that there's a burglar at the door behind him. I've got two dogs behind me. would you attack that might be a paris yeah yeah that might be and might be ab bridge too far i've got two doors but i there theres There's nobody getting in here.
00:07:29
Speaker
They bark at everything. like Your dogs are fucking cop killers that are going to look at him. He's going to protect me. Right. Yeah, you can see it. That killer instinct in his eye. burie yeah And then before we move on to our first topic, ah thank you so much, Fatcock. It is always great to have you in in and around us. Yeah, everyone knows Fatcock.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, $20, no, no. Thank you so much, Fat Cock. All right, boys, now that you gave me your attention, I need to know Xbox PS5 or PS5 Pro. I only asked because GTA 6 won't launch on PC at first, so I have to get a console unless I want to wait a year for the PC port. It's my pro then.
00:08:15
Speaker
How long did it spend? $700? Yeah. like that's I didn't say it was a lot. It might not come out for like a year and a half. ah i i think that that game was a twenty twenty five game They didn't say what their budget was. So always go for the most expensive thing. If you don't know what their budget is.
00:08:29
Speaker
I
GTA 6 Release Concerns
00:08:30
Speaker
disagree with that line. deeply I deeply disagree. I cannot in good conscience recommend the PS5 Pro to anyone because there's just nothing that exists that would take advantage of it at that at that price point. Well, I can't um I can't recommend it because the way it's shown off like I just can't. I just don't know what you don't want to see the freckles on people's faces and funnel fantasy seven remake, but you can do that now. No, I think you're like I just need to see them side by side like me squinting at my phone at eight in the morning and being like look at the difference in Aaron's dimples like I don't that's not I'm not spending seven dollars on that. um Tough sell. I I do think.
00:09:20
Speaker
that GTA 6 coming to consoles first is going to be across the board system sellers. I think it'll probably be the biggest mover of consoles since the launch of them in 2020. That being said, i also do I do think that game will slip to 26. Yeah, it's a good chance. Yeah, without it with that's no like secret info or anything. It's just Rockstar never makes their deadlines because it's ah hard making generational games. So there you go.
00:09:50
Speaker
ah Speaking of new hardware deadlines and jumping into things, I just want to touch a little bit on this switch thing and I just want to move on and I want to never talk about the switch again, which is a lie because I love the switch and I will always talk
Nintendo's Next Console Speculations
00:10:02
Speaker
about it. um But it feels... It feels like we're close to the reveal or the announcement or the something of the next switch to the point where ah ah some some images and some reports were going around this morning, VGC, who have ah very very good reports, very good sources in the industry.
00:10:24
Speaker
ah covered ah the fact that here are some possible ah shots or or or recreations of what the hardware itself, the handheld the hardware, looks like coming from manufacturing factories in China, where where supposedly the console is currently being, ah ah you know, currently being ah public manufactured, manufactured. Yeah. um And so ah it it just looks like a switch.
00:10:54
Speaker
Apparently, it's a little bit bigger, which is nice because they after playing the Steam Deck, I think that the Switch screen could definitely use ah a little ah little size jump. But um if this is accurate, it just means the Super Switch is going to be just a more powerful regular switch. So assuming if it's going to be accurate, are you guys fine with that or would you want to see Nintendo do another curve ball where it's like go back to two screens or do something else with this? No, no, no, no. It's just fine as is just don't fix what isn't broken. Let people trade in their switches that they have upgraded the new switch. Bang. Boom. Done. I knew. And then and then and then Nintendo will resell your games for 60 dollars forever. It's fine.
00:11:38
Speaker
Like everything had better MF and be backwards compatible on this thing. I swear to God, I better be able to play every single game that I own. ah But like, yeah, I agree. Like I think that's all anyone really wanted was just for the switch, its form factor, its functionality to just be able to do more, like just get more of the current game stuff on that. So.
00:12:02
Speaker
I'm a little skeptical that Nintendo was seemingly doing exactly that with the way this looks and is designed. Like this might be totally false because, like you said, Marty, they might want to be like, no, get get get all the whimsy out. Let's go go back to square one. We got a clam shell. Boy, we need two screens. because There's just no way to really predict what they'll do. They tried to make cardboard VR. We're sticking this with nothing else is sold. Even Max agrees. You know what? It was the labo. The labo was fun.
00:12:28
Speaker
um Yeah, and there's there's more with this. um There was like a bunch of indie and smaller developers who all had some sort of trip slash pilgrimage over to Nintendo headquarters in Redmond, Washington the other day. And some people are like, ooh, maybe this is when they're showing it off to developers. And then some game, I should have written it down, but I did not. Just was announced like yesterday or the day before. And it said it's coming to PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox series, and the next Nintendo console.
00:12:58
Speaker
new time The New My Time Game. The New My Time Game, that was it. um Which feels like that was like a bit of like a yeah was like a sneaky little marketing ploy of like people are going to cover this because of this. It's kind of fast. Yeah, but it it works because we're assuming this if this thing is is is out in Q1, Q2 next year, then I mean, indie games are obviously, uh, uh, finding a lot of success on the, uh, regular switch. So I imagine they will be coming to the next one as well. I know Nintendo's petty enough to just revoke whatever agreement they had. You're like, Oh, you got to leak our shit. Now you can't, you can't come out on this. Sorry. My time. You got no more time left. Um,
00:13:39
Speaker
react motor noise Yeah, it always seems like when everything kind of starts leaking, that's ah close to the time that, you know, people started to see this thing and people are starting to share little details and then things, little things leak out and blah, blah, blah. Like you montage of us saying this in the past four years. This switch is coming, new switch is coming and Xbox is finally turning the corner. I think we're I think we're at least getting like more concrete leaks than just, you know, a detailed sheet of specs.
00:14:12
Speaker
But I'm not going to put a date on it because I don't want Jesse to go in and have to come in and yell at me again. Jesse was right. jessie je Jesse didn't make a prediction. You can't be right. No, he predicted that everything you predicted would be wrong. So that we were a poor shit that turns out we were full of shit. So, um, yeah, what were were you, what were you going to say about the switch itself? No, that just that this form, like this slightly bigger form factor, like it really is starting to just resemble a steam deck. Good.
EA's Gaming Legacy
00:14:41
Speaker
And like yeah, like that that kind of goes to show you that Valve was maybe in the right direction with their iteration on this, if Nintendo was yeah maybe you know sticking with this form factor. I'm skeptical. I think Nintendo will sort of ah ah Goldilocks and the Three Bears, that if like the Switch is the base of it and the Steam Deck is like, ooh, maybe you went a little too far into computer. ah Maybe this is going to be like a lighter, thinner, um you know, take on that. And still the the reports are that the power is somewhere between a PS4 Pro and an Xbox Series S, which for Nintendo and indie games and relatively simple third-party ports seems pretty fun to me. Especially if it's got that DLSSR on dock. It's got some fancy, some fancy uprising thing. Might have been too many S's.
00:15:37
Speaker
Or, I don't know if this is, there's really no way to know, really no way to know. um So yeah, we'll have more on that moving forward. And then the the other news story ah we just wanted to chat about was, well, I guess I wanted to chat about it. I don't know if anyone else wanted to chat about this.
00:15:56
Speaker
Flappy Bird is a game that I like hold in a lot of, not regard, but like it like a very if I had to like you come up with a list of the the from the past decade, the 10 most um interesting games with stories around them, Flappy Bird might be one of them in the fact that it just absolutely took over the mobile market about 10 years ago.
00:16:17
Speaker
And then after assuming making a lot of money, it's creator Dong Nguyen just posted that he like regretted making this thing. It's caused him nothing nothing but suffering and he's pulling it down and he is never going to make a game again. And it was true, which was wonderful. And we've just not heard from him since.
00:16:35
Speaker
And I absolutely loved. Until ah just a few days ago, um a company that is now known as the Flappy Bird Foundation, ah led by a guy named Michael Roberts, suddenly came out and said, Flappy Bird's coming back and oh my God, it's going to be better than ever and it's coming everywhere and you should all be very excited.
00:16:55
Speaker
And people dug a little bit into this. And it turns out that Michael Roberts is a big old NFT crypto guy. And there's a lot of NFT crypto stuff like it went like in this announcement and then sort of like when people were digging down into the website and everything. And it turned out that this foundation, the Flappy Bird Foundation, acquired the license from a company called Game Tech Holdings, which they somehow gobbled up the trademark because it had lapsed and become abandoned.
00:17:24
Speaker
And so this is not, this is pretty much just like the creator was like, I don't want anything to do with this anymore. The trademark eventually, you know, uh, was abandoned and this company kind of scooped it in and is trying to shove in all of the worst things in the world. kind of Waiting for this.
00:17:42
Speaker
a little bit or saw the opportunity or, you know, um and and ah folks like ah Patrick Kleppig, a video game reporter, has been like trying to cover this and like constantly badgering this company and being like, what does the original creator say? What does the original creator say? And he finally came out and was like, I have nothing to do with this game. I did not know this existed. I think crypto is bad. And so it is. Yeah, it's just it's just really interesting to see ah
00:18:12
Speaker
I don't know. That's like peak corporate cynical capitalism of America. Yeah. Yeah. there That is like,
Corporate Cynicism in Gaming: The Flappy Bird Saga
00:18:20
Speaker
if you're going to put like a a bumper on that current age of video games, this is it. but Yeah. The most cynical garbage I can think of that would come out of all this like a ah Nice story of a guy made a game. Oh, I guess not it's entirely nice for him, but nice story of a guy made a game made a pun bunch of money that I'm done. I had my time with it. And now it's like reanimating a corpse yet again. Yeah, this money grubbing nonsense. I mean, the original story wasn't necessarily like all like cupcakes and rainbows, right? Like he was he was constantly being badgered about like supposedly stealing the assets because the pipes look like Mario pipes.
00:19:02
Speaker
So I think that like, you're like, that sort of stuff was like a lot of his headache was that people were like badgering him about him essentially being like like yeah for fraud flipping and making a shit ton of money off it. right Yeah. it was I mean, yeah, is it's a very cheap cynical mobile game as it is. and I mean, yeah, like it the the fact that it grew to such notoriety is in and of itself sort of just.
00:19:26
Speaker
insane. But the thing is, if no one has owned Flappy Bird for the last 10 years, why is it in all of these Dave and Busters and stuff? Because you see that thing everywhere still. It's in Dave and Busters? Yeah. There's a big, arcade version of it. Yeah. Isn't that like Dave and David Busters does those like so many of the games there now are like big old mobile games. Yeah. Where's my water? They just make big arcade versions of it. Busters? So like, who gets paid for that? And like, how does that relate to this now that this crypto company has snatched up? It's a very confusing thing that I don't know. It's still interesting. I'll say that much. Who do you think is going to be more upset, Dave or Buster?
00:20:14
Speaker
Buster he's hes he's known to have a temper. Yeah this is why i rap so fast Yeah, that's gonna be interesting trademark battle I guess um Yeah, it's I'd be fine if I never heard about why people again for the rest of my life um it's just an interesting like I Don't know it's it's We talk about like wanting games to come back and wanting things to be preserved and wanting to revisit moments in the past. And like sometimes it works well. like Sometimes ah like Sony just added Sky Gunners and Mr. Mosquito to PlayStation Plus, two games I never thought would be there. Mr. Mosquito especially, which is like a little pervert game where you're a mosquito and you're just flying around a family's home trying to suck them dry while they're in the tub. And Sony added it to PlayStation Plus, which is great. All right, part of their history.
00:21:09
Speaker
it's part of their history. It's an astrobot. Yeah, it's a little mosquito. He's trying to suck them dry. um And so I'm always pro that or Nintendo just adding a bunch of weird shit to switch online or I don't know anything like that. But then you have something like this, you're like, Ooh, this is not the way to um I guess preserve gaming history or great game is company probably paid Jack shit for that trademark and I was going to make it because he ended it. Yeah. No, probably paid 10 bucks from the trademark shit. We should have bought it. Is this a little bit his fault? Should he, even though he abandoned it, have a little more due diligence so that no one else could use it for evil.
00:21:47
Speaker
I mean, he completely washed his hands of it. So yeah, that's my, the cynical part of me says like, yeah, you completely wash your hands of it. Like this, what can happen? You know, it's like, it's a lesson learned. Like what do you go in a wood open, not open source, but a public domain. And now people get to make all those crappy, weird horror movies.
00:22:08
Speaker
Yeah, they always got a victim. boyss say the pooh yeah what what oh The people that make those movies are fucked up. It's just like, I've been waiting years to make this slasher movie. She's like a podcast, like Peter Pan movie coming out to in there.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, that's kind of dark though. What do you think about it? He's just like, I guess he's just like wandering into kids. Yeah. Yeah. That's fucked up. That's just, that's, that's kind of wild. Yeah, exactly.
00:22:39
Speaker
um So, there you go. We're going to be following the Flappy Bird news very, very close. No, we're not. We're going to wonder about Flappy Bird ever again. So, but there you go. There was a little Flappy flappy update. um let's Let's move on to our our main topic.
00:22:57
Speaker
which is EA. I'm putting a little link to a Kotaku article that just summed up a lot of the stuff in there during their investor day presentation. But they just went over a bunch of stuff that they have upcoming in the pipeline. And we wanted to just take that and kind of extrapolate it out to other games EA is making. And just what we've thought of EA over the past couple of years, because it feels like we've done this with Sony recently, and we've done this with Microsoft recently. It's interesting to look at where where EA is kind of outside there. Well, every year we're going to get a Madden and we're going to get a, you know, we or we'll get the FC. Yeah. i've seen Yeah. Yeah. But a couple of the big highlights from their ah presentation were that unsurprisingly, a third and ah quote final Star Wars Jedi game from Respawn is in development to wrap up Cal's trilogy. That's that's not surprising. Those games have have sold and performed very well.
00:23:55
Speaker
and Respawn's obviously great at making them. There was also updates on ah Skate, the Skate reboot or sequel that is, they've said is coming to Early Access in early 2025 and that is a game that's got, they had a bunch of play tests over the last couple of years so it's not, um Super exciting that that's hopefully coming relatively soon. We then got a bunch of Battlefield news, which I know I know is exciting for you, Nick. And Battlefield is now sort of under the umbrella of Vincent Pella, the founder of Respawn, one of the um
00:24:28
Speaker
uh one of the sort of architects of of modern warfare one and two who went on to found respawn and titanfall and apex and everything now moving to kind of oversee uh the battlefield franchise as it's lost its luster and ea is clearly like oh we can bring this back somehow uh and how are we going to do that and they said it is sort of a return to form they want the next battlefield game to feel more like battlefields three and four which arguably were probably the most uh maybe like at the at the series ah most popular Zenith, and that they have ah separate studios working on the single player ah portion of the game, the multiplayer portion of the game, and then a brand new new mode, which I assume will be Battle Royale of some sorts, a free to play Battle Royale thing. And then other small things like that, they are not
00:25:15
Speaker
making The Sims Part 5 however they're going to continue on The Sims 4 with expansions and DLC and everything and also they did again clarify that Margot Robbie is producing a Sims movie?
00:25:29
Speaker
Yeah, which the hell is a Sims movie? What the hell is a Barbie movie? And that made a billion dollars. a calie prosper so I feel like it's it's very obvious with Margot Robbie attached as well that the Sims movie is going to be this kind of meta commentary where like you just watch a family live their life for like the first 30 minutes and then they slowly realize that someone else is in control of all their decisions.
00:25:50
Speaker
so took your waterder out of the swimming pool Yeah. I mean, that's got to be in there. how do I don't get out the part. The part I want to see is if they actually use dialogue or if they just use weird like we should know English and then it's all it's all subtitle. Yeah. There you go. And then get real avant-garde with it. I support this.
00:26:11
Speaker
And then a few other things that they didn't they didn't touch on, but stuff we know is that, obviously, Dragon Age the Veilguard from BioWare is coming out on Halloween, so that's only you know a month and a half away. Mass Effect, the sequel slash reboot, is in development. ah They have a handful of Marvel projects, and including EA Motive, the Dead Space developers doing an Iron Man game, and Cliff Hanger, a new Seattle-based studio doing a Black Panther game, which is separate from the Captain America Black Panther World War II game.
00:26:40
Speaker
which Amy Hennig's team is doing and we saw a little bit of last year. And ah the the other note I had was just, it seems like EA originals are kind of slowing down, or at least there's none that have been announced so far after Stuff Like Tales of Kinzerazao and Morals of Avium. I'm a little worried they might be And then they had stuff like wild hearts. Like it it seems like since it takes two, they haven't had a like EA originals hit. But I'm a little worried that they're going to um sunset that. ah But I have no info on that, but it just judging by the last couple of games. it't mean out we'volvinging as well but It takes two definitely was like a big one for them. But I'm trying to think prior to that, like what was like the the previous originals that was like a hit.
00:27:29
Speaker
I mean, they were all very small, relatively small. It was like unravelled. And that got a sequel. faye It was It was like ah lost in random. It was these small games that were
00:27:43
Speaker
I think the fact that like ah wild hearts and immortals of avium were like ah essentially felt like triple A games. yeah So those seemed pretty expensive in comparison to some of the other ones. Yeah. Yeah. They started going downhill with the rocket arena. they They kept trying to do live service games. Yeah. Yeah. So they yeah, they kind of started just. Yeah.
00:28:06
Speaker
publishing outside games using your E originals with a lot more money involved and then they did not sell. Gotcha. And so, yeah, between Wild Hearts, Immortals of Avium, The Rocket Arena. I didn't know I forgot Knockout City was EA. That that was sad because that game was really. Yeah, i would yeah that one. Yeah, that one failed too. So any any original life service or those big AAA kind of things didn't did not sell well. Yeah, which what even urban Wild Hearts was supposed to have like they They did like a year's worth of content, I think, updates, but it's already they already stopped.
00:28:42
Speaker
Yeah, like why and I don't get it because that that game is on par like that is as fun a monster hunter clone as you can get without just being monster hunter and like it it just didn't move needle and it especially landed like at a perfect time like smack dab in the middle of major monster hunter releases, right? It was like yeah, like like way before wilds came out. So like it felt like that that could have been the one that got people and for some reason or another just didn't That seems to be an audience that just does not want to leave Monster Hunter because Dauntless is free to play too and they've been working on that for years and Phoenix Labs, the developers of that had to lay off a bunch of people recently and cancel projects because like Dauntless isn't doing great. ah So I don't know. i't I don't think they're like a real competitor to Monster Hunter yet. Yeah.
00:29:30
Speaker
uh yeah now ea ea's had uh interesting like nobody's been mad at them for a while you know maybe outside of the sports games but there are people are always mad about the sports games uh but as far as their like upcoming lineup goes it seems like they've really like stop trying to make everything a life service. ah I mean, they're really going back to the single player pool of things with, you know, Jedi and the upcoming Jedi game now, Dragon Age. ah I think Battlefield didn't have single player again is what they've been saying. Skate going to early access is interesting.
00:30:08
Speaker
Is that a good call? It's probably a good call. I'm trying to, is it like that? Is that like the first like major triple A publisher game to just say, we're going straight into early access and not try to play this bullshit of we're going to be a live service game and launch, you know, two years from now and really.
00:30:24
Speaker
I mean, having plenty of Microsoft games launch and relaxes game, game preview, I guess. Yeah. But even those were, yeah, but even those were like smaller projects, like grounded and stuff like that. Yeah. I mean, imagine skates, not a big project. I can't imagine it's teams. Yes. But skate would probably be at the same level as something like a grounded. Yeah. But to me, to me, it seems like skate would be a big life service project for them. They're going to keep adding to it.
00:30:55
Speaker
imagine they will. I just don't think it's like, uh, it's not like the, the team behind like skull and bones or something, you so down know, so yeah and i don't know eric Eric brought up a good point to that. The EA brought back the college football game earlier this year and it is one of the best selling games of the year. Um, yeah. yeah people wait on that. Yeah. Yeah. I get why people were excited for it. It just seems like a reskin of Madden to me. And I can't understand, like, I used to be able to, I used to buy those games every year. And now, like, because EA has pissed me off so many times with NHL, I'm like, I wait three years till I buy the next one. I mean, that's the thing is that they haven't had it so long. So the fans dead did wait. And even if it was a reskin of Madden, it was
00:31:42
Speaker
every skin of a Madden that they haven't had in, you know, a decade plus. So, um, I kind of, I get why that one was so bad. No, I get why it sold. Well, I was just like, my logic brain is like, yeah, at least at least the college players get money for their likeness now. So that's cool.
00:31:58
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. So yeah so but ah the battlefield stuff is what really excited me. One, I trust in Zampella. Like, I don't think he's put out a game that I haven't liked. And then basically in the investor calls and all that, he was saying all the right things, going back to modern combat, going back to 64 player maps, getting rid of specialists or sticking with classes again. And just getting back to the roots of what made battlefield good, which is just that fun sandbox gameplay and not this like ultra trying to go down the the classes route and hero, shooter, junk and all that. Just let Battlefield be Battlefield and I fully trust Vincent Pella to do that. Now. It needs a lunch in a technically polished state, because that's the problem with every battlefield game in the past decade. They don't watch polished. But again, Vincent Pella in charge.
00:32:51
Speaker
as I don't think he's ever launched a game that wasn't polished. Like Call of Duty has always been polished or Titan falls were polished. Yes. I heally just came out of the gate. I was. Yeah. Like he knows how to launch a game like. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And it's one of those like it's it's sort of it feels like it's been if you've only paid attention to the games over the last couple of years like battlefields and seem like that big of a thing. It's almost like when Halo came out and it was like if you've only talked about Halo post four, you don't realize how big Halo was. And so it is always curious how long of a span can go by before something can capture its former glory. And I feel like the things are set up here, but I'll be curious to see if it happens just because the multiplayer shooter landscape is way different than it was 10 years ago when Battlefield was near the top of the hill.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah, there's still nothing really like Battlefield out because what was the what was the pixel art one or the the voxel one the battle bit? that came out and like took the world a little bit. Yeah. And like that was just basic battlefield back to the basics in voxel form. And that thing took over the internet for a while. yeah So I'm like, so there's like a hunger. Yeah, there's absolutely a hunger for it. Cause even like, even in the indie market with stuff like hella loose and all that, none of it really hits that kind of arcade feel.
00:34:19
Speaker
that Battlefield hits. and They're all, you know, Milsim or arcade sim is what I would call it. But nothing, you know, nothing on the scale of a Battlefield and all that. When Battlefield hits, Battlefield fucking hits. ah Casey, what's your what's your sort of temperature check on EA at the moment?
00:34:37
Speaker
um Yeah, like I always thought it was kind of ridiculous how much black EA got, like being voted worst company in the world, like how are the two years in a row? Like they made some very questionable business decisions, but they were never like that bad in my mind. And to that note, it seemed like they did at the very least take that beating to heart because they kind of slowed down on a lot of that just
00:35:02
Speaker
openly anti consumer behavior. And then it kind of got back to just trying to make games good. But they kind of were failing at that. So like they were still kind of getting beat up. So it's been a rough go for EA as of late but like Slowly but surely, they've been trying to win that favor back and they've been kind of doing all the right things. Like they're putting money behind ah indie games, they're taking chances on um you know third parties and publishing stuff that you know are quality games, but you know they're brand new IPs, like Wild Hearts, for example.
00:35:35
Speaker
And the stuff just isn't hitting. So like it's ah it's really discouraging to be to kind of look at the state that they're in now and be like, dang, like I am rooting for EA to make this comeback, but it seems like nothing they're trying to do is working out for them. So now the stuff kind of the only stuff they have left now are a couple other big hitters like we know the Dragon Age is supposed to be a big deal so that absolutely needs to hit hard. Mass Effect has been a big fumble on their end as well and we know that that's something that's in the periphery down the road as well that they've talked about in the past. I don't know if it's over for that like it might might be too little too late for Mass Effect series. It would need to come out and be like amazing I think to like recapture people at this point. um But yeah like they don't
00:36:17
Speaker
they don't have anything new. They're going back to basic, which is what the rhetoric of all the big companies has been in terms of like, Hey, let's shore up. Let's ah circle our wagons or whatever, and then let's just put the most money and energy behind the stuff that we we know has worked before. But for EA, all of those things have now worked like the last time. So like it's it's it's a little worrying. um part and their Part of that was them just chasing the live service trend on all those games that they shouldn't have been chasing. I go and i put Bioware on Anthem, live service. Battlefield 2042 was built around live service before a Battlefield game didn't work. So, uh,
00:36:55
Speaker
back to back to base exactly where they need to go. And yeah, and it's it's also scary because a lot of their studios are their eggs are in IP baskets where it's Star Wars games or Marvel games. And those aren't guaranteed. It's like the Jedi games obviously have been critically and I think successful, but um we've definitely seen Marvel games come and go. And so who knows if... Outlaws hasn't sold that well either from the sound of it. Outlaws is really good. I don't know why people aren't buying fucking buy outlaws. What are you doing? Just hang out, lean against the bar and just look at people. We don't have enough games where you can lean against the bar and look at people. um really why did yeah So we're six weeks, tomorrow is six weeks away from Dragon Age coming out. And I didn't realize Dragon Age Inquisition is the best selling BioWare game ever.
00:37:45
Speaker
Ooh, sold 15 million copies. Like everyone forgets about that game of the years, 10 years ago. Yeah, I don't really like that sold more than Mass Effect. It's crazy, right? I don't know. I don't, I don't know what's going on. Maybe it was just like, it came out in 2014 when everyone was like all horned up for game of thrones and sort of like, ah, this is game of thrones. Also a little bit after, like it was around that like Witcher orbit. So maybe it got some of that Witcher zest to it. Yeah. I mean, they literally marketed like the side quest, like being inspired by the Witcher three. Yeah. I remember that. But yeah, I mean, after it really was before the Witcher three though, it came out in 2014 and Witcher three was 2015. Well, I don't know what happened then.
00:38:20
Speaker
um let's So and yeah, no anthem anthem just like really screwed that company up. Yeah. Yeah. So again, that's one of those other things like battlefields like y'all remember when like Bioware was like King of the Hill for a while? Like they were um not King of the Hill. Like, oh, though a Bioware King of the Hill game. Write that down.
00:38:38
Speaker
Maybe if they can get the license for King of the Hill. Like Hank Hill. Everyone's favorite Fox animated piece of Kai. Then they could try that out. I mean, we don't know what Mike Judd is doing right now. It's possible. Probably working on King Bioware's King of the Hill. Yeah. And so like, yeah, I don't know. It is. I do hope they're still taking shots at weird unknown things because even though some of them haven't hit like that.
00:39:08
Speaker
gave us, it takes two. Uh, and I want more of that, but, um, I don't, I don't, he's like even needs stuff, but we'll share for their next game. No, no, I don't mean the silly. He's like, I just mean like, yeah, in general, yeah, funding and things like that. but and But then after, like we said, wild hearts and, uh, and, uh,
00:39:28
Speaker
Immortals vadium like those just don't seem like those are the kind of games that they should be good news for you My pack script talks a little about this a little bit there for next week Did you guys yeah already read it? yeah i no speak to the audience but yeah Like Casey said it earlier they're like the the big triple-a publishers are definitely falling back to the stuff that has worked And like all these life service games have gotten and for the most part, ah you know, even Ubisoft with Assassin's Creed shadows, like really getting back to basics. Also keeping what people have liked about the new Assassin's Creed games in there. You know, they've got the Splinter Cell remake coming. They've got Prince of Persia remake coming. ah Yeah, like. I'm really, I'm really, I'm really excited for AC shadows. Yeah, I am. doing It looks really good. i yeah
00:40:19
Speaker
Especially all the stealth stuff that they've re-added back in and all the... I talked about it on a podcast a few podcasts ago, but like all the little gameplay details they've really added into that game. So, I don't know. i suppose that There's weather everywhere. I just want to go to everywhere with different seasons. That's what I want to do. Yeah. just I just want like to play publishers to be consistent again. um And i I really do feel like Concord was the Def Nel for like live service stuff from EA, Ubisoft, Sony, Microsoft in that realm. Because there's NetEase and stuff like that that are like built, their entire models are built around live service games. But even those companies are getting back into single player stuff too. Like we've they've got their cash cows through their live service things. And now they're going back to the... and
00:41:07
Speaker
And then smaller projects that they can actually make their money back on because uh, it's funny say that though ah pearl breast with black desert, like crimson desert. They took all that money from black desert or putting it in a crimson desert and it's a single player RPG.
00:41:23
Speaker
Should we put it in Dokevy, whatever the hell that is? Absolutely. Should we put it in Dokevy? But it's funny you say that about everyone kind of getting out of the live service game because they somebody, I don't remember who just announced an anime girl, gotcha, battle royale.
00:41:41
Speaker
a yamoto who is yuyamoto I'm just, I mean, if that's, if it's coming from the East, I feel like the East handles live servers games much better than the West. It's weirdly enough. Maybe. Yeah. Because, because they love their gacha mechanics. They love, like people buy that. We'll have that stuff up there. Or the West just doesn't as much.
00:42:02
Speaker
ah So maybe this is a good a good way to to walk into this story that literally just broke um ah while we were talking about EA stuff, but Wire64 famed Twitter user.
00:42:18
Speaker
I did really literally the only person worth following on Twitter. Uh, just posted a new story from Nintendo's Japanese corporate website saying that, uh, Nintendo with the Pokemon company have filed a patent infringement lawsuit in the Tokyo district court against pocket pair ink pocket pair of the developed developers of power world, which came out earlier this year.
00:42:39
Speaker
ah The lawsuit seeks an injunction against infringement and compensation for damages on the grounds that PAL World, a game developed and released by the defendant, infringes multiple patent rights. ah Nintendo will continue to take necessary actions against any infringement of its intellectual property rights, including the Nintendo brand itself, to protect the intellectual properties it has worked hard to establish over the years.
00:43:02
Speaker
Um, so hi yeah that's interesting but I kept expecting this to drop because when everyone was like, Oh, Nintendo's going to sue them. And then they didn't it like February rolled around. They're like, Oh, Nintendo's not going to sue them. And I'm like, no, Nintendo's just going to dot all the eyes and cross out. It's going to be like, oh, you in in Fargo, North Dakota are holding a smash melee tournament using slightly modified versions of the games where we can't allow that to happen. If Nintendo is that petty, Nintendo is this petty. I am curious of what. Oh, sorry, God. Well, that's what I was going to say. Like it's some patterns that they didn't mention, like creature designs or anything. So unless are they patenting their creature designs?
00:43:48
Speaker
I mean, I would assume so. What would you patent out of that? Ah, little critters. Can you patent? You can't patent an art style. Interesting. That's a and very interesting one I want to follow because like I'm curious. Must be mechanic or something.
00:44:07
Speaker
I mean, they don't really share the mechanics. The thing that comes to mind right away is the the pokeball because you do throw balls in every other. There are tons of games that have had, you know, a version of that, like a cube or a cassette. It's the ball. You think the ball is the issue? Well, yeah, because I think that's possible. Think about it. Temtem is cards. Cassette Beast is cassettes. Uh-huh.
00:44:36
Speaker
Monster Rancher, you're just shoving CDs in another mouth. Oh man, did Pokemon patent balls? Oh no. My balls are definitely Pokemon patent. It's because he says Spheres. It's still a ball. The sphere is a ball, right? Spheres are balls, but not all balls are spheres. No, this is coming back to... Oh no, they're Opals. I mean, some of them, football's a ball, but it's not a sphere.
00:45:04
Speaker
Um, yeah, they're suing power. Uh, they're suing Paco pair though, which is fascinating. ah yeah how world's outcome to switch to Yeah. I figured at some point they would find a way to assume just not over actual creature designs. Yeah. We'll see. I mean, obviously we don't, we have no other details in the story other than the fact that it just, it just dropped. And with the exception of Lucario and that image that Eric just pulled up, I could not tell you which of the side by side are the Pokemon and not the Pokemon.
00:45:33
Speaker
Only if someone was in someone was inmash it Smash Bros, right? Well, that's not great. um Well, there you go. good Good for Nintendo. Always rooting behind the little guy. Oh, you. Pocket Pair is also not the little guy anymore. So, you know, if I could let them fight. majabi and it's It's interesting because Pocket Pair, and at least their CEO, has been pretty openly like against the idea that this is what they've been doing. And like his commentary in terms of just the state of the industry has been somewhat refreshing and like where he's saying like, Hey, don't focus so much on like player numbers. Hey, play the stuff that you want to play. You don't have to be, you know, glued to this game. You can play other games and come back later. Like it's all fine. Like a real kind of casual attitude to like this fear, which is unseal like someone who's made millions of dollars. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Have you actually read this guy's interviews?
00:46:30
Speaker
Well, yeah, like when he eventually he was ah inspired by like Nintendo and stuff, but himself, no, no, no, he's not inspired by he sort of says, I just look at what's popular and then I make games from it. They're like, mash the ideas together. Yeah. He's as corporate cynical as you get. He just masks it better.
00:46:49
Speaker
I mean, he's a pretty good bass. You got to make money. So you think of their CEO or you think of just their social media presence because they have a very. Yeah, there's social media presence, very social media presence. Is the CEO not. Oh, am I thinking of ah hell divers? No. Health average has a persona online. No, no, no. you you You are thinking the CEO. He said all those things, but also his he's like he literally comes from a finance background.
00:47:13
Speaker
And he just looks at like the market research and like, that's how we're going to make our game. He's as cynical as you get. He's just looking to make money. Yeah. He just, but he just acquired the rights to power. words knows how to talky bird I was going to make a flappy word joke.
00:47:27
Speaker
um you We're going to make floppy bird. I check out what's going on with floppy bird. Let's see what's going on over there on that corner. Um, yeah, he's used to be a crypto dude too. Yeah. Like this, this dude, this dude is out to make money. He chases a buck. Yeah. Yeah. Which is fine. You could do that, but he also plays the nice guy. Tales from the crypto. Tales from the crypto. Tales from the crypto. Yeah.
00:47:55
Speaker
as um my My beef with this is that i've my biggest gripe with Nintendo and Pokemon has been their reluctance to to do anything risky with it.
00:48:06
Speaker
And like Power, regardless of how they got there, put guns and human trafficking in a Pokemon game. And it's like, can we get some more of this, some of this energy in this in this space? So like, I do want to like applaud that because that does shake up the foundation of what, you know, what how that world works. Cause a lot of the other ah copycats stick very close to what Nintendo does and it's unappealing. They sell well.
00:48:35
Speaker
No, do they? Yeah. Like temtem and temtem sold very well. Just not well enough to keep it it going as a live service forever. that That would mean it didn't sell well though. It sold its all the well. just and It just didn't keep his player base engaged enough. No, it didn't sell well because there were no players and it shut down. It's not a real world. You can't stop arguing over what sells well means.
00:48:59
Speaker
i every player counts instead
00:49:08
Speaker
The video game news writing business, the strapline would be Pokemon snapped. And the fact that Pokemon snapped yet as a strapline. Did you search it? You searched for that? No, I didn't search it. No one could be as clever as me. They're bringing that big new trading card game to mobile though.
00:49:27
Speaker
For Pokemon. Big new trading card game. Like they're literally bringing the Pokemon trading card game to mobile soon. stop call yeah First off, you gotta stop calling it Pokemon. Because that's what it's called. fucking Pokemon.
00:49:38
Speaker
Oh, because I'm adding because I'm emphasizing Pokemon is what like news anchors and grandpas call it. Just fine. fine I heard a news anchor they pronounce it Pokemon. How did you how did you miss? They were advertising it all over PAX West. What? the po No, i I said that I saw that thing is coming. to It's just not that it's not like a new card game. It's just Pokemon TCG is coming to our game. Yeah, and they're making it vertical.
00:50:07
Speaker
I can't play other games on the on the mobile because they want you to play it horizontal and Marvel Snap is good because it's vertical. That's the only reason it's good. You're a piece of shit. Far less than too many frogs with a five dollar don't know. Thank you so much. Far less than too many frogs. What is far less than too many frogs mean? I said it twice and then I was like, what does that even mean? But thank you so much for a final. I don't know. Switch to needs backwards compatibility. ah Absolutely.
00:50:34
Speaker
ah not all the way that And it will have it. And if it doesn't, I'll burn my house down and move into the woods. There you go. Also excited for the Legend of Zelda game where you can actually play as Zelda. So am I. I'm really stoked for that. That comes out in like a week and a half. That goes. I should have called the game The Legend of Link and then you would have known right away you're playing Zelda. Yeah, but bad SEO. yeah ah and you know And then Fat Cock back with a two dollar down. Thank you so much Fat Cock. Appreciate you. Mike is working on a reboot. A King of the Hill. Mike Judge. Yeah, I did hear that. Yes.
00:51:09
Speaker
I And then, uh, we'll cooling the two pound down. Oh, thank you so much. Well, good to see you. Great to hearing y'all banter away again, gents. You so much. Well, thank you. Good to see you as well. Uh, you don't want to talk about what we've been playing, watching, eating. You call me a piece of shit. I don't want to talk to them. Did I? I'm sorry. It was like and years. want modern rural Texas. Now I'm going to say, now I'm going to say Pokemon out of spite.
00:51:45
Speaker
direction and nintendo's goingnna sub They didn't trademark Pokemon, and they traded Pokemon. All right. If you guys are going to talk about what you've been playing, I'm going to talk about what I've been playing. Let me tell you, I've finished Astrobot. Got all my little Astros. That's a game of the year contender. That's a top fiver for me. ah it's it's It's platforming. is ah it's It's joyful. It is ah is wonderful. It is continually like creatively awe inspiring. Every time I would get to a new level with a new mechanic and a new little gimmick, I would just smile. It was just like,
00:52:22
Speaker
just a ah little joy factory. And then combine that with the fact that it is this constant like dopamine rush of PlayStation nostalgia and not in a. I want to say not in a gross way, I'm still like reconciling with how I feel about it. It has the same reverence that a smash does. And I think Smash's reverence is very honest, like Smash Ultimate. Its reverence to Nintendo history is very honest and video gaming history. Yeah. Clearly from Sakurai and clearly from the developers that are so be.
00:52:52
Speaker
um It is frustrating that it's like, look at all these amazing games that ah Sony has completely left by the wayside in favor of a handful of franchises, including Horizon Zero Dawn, which is apparently getting a remaster.
00:53:07
Speaker
Yeah. what are What are we doing there? um But just running around that like central hub once I finished the game and seeing all of my ah the the little characters i'm unlock I've unlocked and like having that be a 30-year trip through PlayStation history was um was was was wonderful and one of my favorite video game experiences of the year. So um highly, deeply recommended.
00:53:32
Speaker
Yeah, I'm excited to nice get home and play it at some point down the future. Nice shorty, just a lot of fun. Yeah, highly recommended. ah Two other indie games I've been playing. I finished The Plucky Squire, which just came out. ah We'll have a bite-sized review um from Rachel up on it in the near future.
00:53:52
Speaker
um And I think Yahtzee's probably checking out for some sort of ZP adjacent thing maybe. um This is the, this is the game from a former, speaking of the Pokemon company, a former artist at the Pokemon company. This is an indie game that was ah announced at a Devolver digital direct a few summers back. That is ah a ah sort of like a whimsical top down storybook. ah Zelda light game where your character can escape the book and move around the 3d world like the desk that the book is on and jump into a cup that's near the the the desk and walk around that world and then jump into like a magic the gathering card and like the art style kind of switches to that. um
00:54:31
Speaker
It is it's it's relatively short. I was able to be like eight hours or so. The the first half, I think, is just incredibly charming and like yeah I was just smiling all the time. um I do think it it kind of waded into the shallow ends of its ideas. And the back half didn't impress me nearly as much as the front half did. And I was left a little wanting, like a little wishing that they had pushed further into this idea, because I do think it is a very cool um or conceit. um It just didn't quite land with me. The story doesn't have all that much going on, and and it kind of stops ah stop showing new ideas as it as it goes on. But I believe it's out now for almost everything, and it's part of PlayStation Plus, so um I recommend it just even if you play it for a little bit. um
00:55:23
Speaker
just for that. And then the last thing I was been playing, which just came out today is UFO 50, which is a new indie game from Mossmouth, the ah ah the developer of Splunky one and two. And this is a game that's been that was announced a few years ago, and it is 50 complete games that ah are all in sort of an 8-bit styling of completely different genres. It has platformers, it has puzzle games, it has ah dungeon crawlers, it has, like you name it, game like beat-em-ups. ah But these are all fake games. And so like the conceit is, oh, you found this console that has 50 games that were made throughout the 80s, starting in like 82 and going to 89.
00:56:08
Speaker
And ah you can play the games in any order you want. You can jump between them. You can play them chronologically. And so you're seeing this almost like fake history of a video game console from the 80s. But through the lens of of folks who've made you know some of the best modern throwback games, a i.e. Spelunky. I've only played about an hour of it this morning. I jumped into a couple of the games. ah But it is crazy that apparently just every game is like a full and NES ish game. Like this is not like bite-sized warriorware kind of things. These are literally full games. It is a full golf game, a full puzzle game, a full dungeon crawling game, a full Mega Man-esque platformer. These are like full 50 full games.
00:56:53
Speaker
But this is so intriguing that someone would bother to stick with this conceit of, hey, this is just some publisher's back catalog that we have all collectively forgotten somehow. I'm curious, though, with it actually being made by people who have experienced a lot of stuff like this, like our are any of the stuff that you've played at least reminiscent of stuff that you remember? Like, oh, this is like a spin on this game. Or are they really hi hitting on things that are like, oh, this is like,
00:57:21
Speaker
a totally new thing, just in an eight bit style. Yeah. I've only, I've only played four of the games so far, but, uh, they are, they feel like the sports games of the eighties, they feel like the, like river city, ransom, Kunio Kun beat them ups of the eighties. They feel there's one that feels like buying a commando of like how you're using sort of a rope grappling hook to, to traverse different levels. So it does feel like there was legitimate thought into.
00:57:50
Speaker
all at least the four I've played, but maybe the rest of the 46 of them. um Yeah. I mean, the one thing is going to be your mileage may vary. Like if you don't have patience for the bullshittery of games in the eighties. Right. and And with that being said, like this isn't acting as if it's like a new age collection of those old games. So like there's no like quality of life things added on, right? Like fast forwarding or. And I've seen no. Okay. And I will even say that like, I'm like a medium old to where like the 16 bit generation, the superintendent is my that's my childhood generation. And so this is going like even a little earlier.
00:58:31
Speaker
than my comfort zone. And so, as of right now, I am appreciating it ah very much for the for the effort. I don't know if I'm going to play all 50 of these games. I mean, I want to try all 50 of the games. I don't know if I can play them all to completion and speak easy easy to answer you. I don't think this has a meta, this console is haunted kind of thing going on. As far as I know, this is not like inscription or anything like this. It's not like a spook yeah spooky pasta, creepy pasta. Oh, I like spooky pasta.
00:59:00
Speaker
Spooky pasta. It's not a spooky pasta where it's like, oh, what happened, uh, what happened to this, uh, uh, forbidden console? It's just like here's 50 fake games that we've sort of created an alternate history of. Yeah. That's really cool. Yeah. And I, again, just something that exists.
00:59:21
Speaker
Yeah. Um, what have you guys been playing? Um, yeah, again, like I was away over the weekend. So, um,
00:59:34
Speaker
I can't really talk about what I've been playing other than Zealand Zone Zero because i've I've never stopped. But when the Call of Duty Black Ops 6 beta went live, we were supposed to stream it that week and just we we never did. ah But a couple of my friends were also trying to try it out. So like I jumped in some matches with them and I had a surprising amount of fun.
00:59:54
Speaker
It's like I've not really played a Call of Duty, um especially like an online Call of Duty in any real capacity for a long time. But ah the the new hook with this they're talking about is the Omni movement system. And it's as simple as just letting you shoot all 360 degrees around you from any position, like whether you're in a jump, whether you're in you're laying down prone. um And in order to To achieve this, they've done something that I feel like now that they're doing it is like, why do we take so long to do this? You can run in any direction. Yeah. Like you can sprint sideways and you can sprint backwards. And from the sprint position, you can just hit the dive button and then you're like doing like cool action hero jumps to the side, to the right, to the like out of like through doors, like over ledges. It's really.
01:00:46
Speaker
goofy but at the same time it looks cool as shit when like people are like jumping off of like rips and like shooting on the way down like it's really really fun like Call of Duty has always felt good to like run around and shoot in and this new movement mechanic like you can slide you can jump You can spin in circles, whatever. it It really kind of kicks up the chaos of of the the multiplayer matches. And like we were having a absolute blast. So I'm kind of like really hyped for this to drop now. And the fact that it's going to be, you know, including Game Pass is an even bigger reason to like actually spend time in it because I don't have to drop any extra money.
01:01:22
Speaker
yeah yeah I the beta 2 and like that's a movement system. I don't really care for all the sliding and dodging because I'm a siege player. like i you you still You drop shot and I get irrationally angry. But it is funny though, like there's like a map with like a swimming pool and people would like be diving out of the window into the pool and smacking their head on the thing. It's pretty goofy. um But the so movement, like So like I guess to visualize it a little bit when you're playing like and a first-person game, in most games you're moving this way, this way, the four directions. But now with Omni movement, like when you're going straight and you want to go to the right, and actually you can feel it in the controls now.
01:02:08
Speaker
now my character is like correctly moving his legs. He's twisting his hips and like yeah moving at full speed just in the direction you're pressing now. Like it feels super natural. And instead of like when you walk backwards, if you're trying to strafe, you can strafe and like angle strafe now instead of just walking to the sides. They're assuming it on my dog's butts. and yeah But ah yeah, no, it's like a movement system that is definitely going to be copycatted across all first person games, I think, going forward because yeah it feels right. Yeah, it feels like why haven't we been doing this? Mm hmm. Like I was I was really impressed by it. I will say, though, there was that map called this just a square.
01:02:52
Speaker
ah You know what I'm talking about. um like ah golden the The like the campaign look in place. I guess we campaign is like Aztec. aztec like ah Oh, oh yeah. I don't know what I'm talking about then. I don't know. I don't remember what it's called, but it's just a map that's a square and I hate it. I hate it so much. And if you go on the subreddit, everybody else hates it to get that map out of there. It's awful.
01:03:16
Speaker
Maybe they did get out of it. I didn't even see an Aztec map. Like there was like a cave one. There was like the one that looked like some campaign speeches were happening in it. And then there was, uh, I guess I didn't get to play the second week because I was here. Ah, okay. Uh, people are asking what's interesting outside. Uh, my Airbnb is literally out on a busy street. So there's always something out there. Yeah. They are locked in tour.
01:03:43
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know. therere They're doing their thing. I have to be very careful because like at the Airbnb, I'm at there's tenants that are living in the basement. It's kind of creepy, but there's a studio apartment down there, I guess. But there's a gate and they always leave it open. So I always have to go outside and tell the dogs like, wait, I have to go outside and check it. and Make sure the gates open closed. Also, like my dogs are very tall in the fence that is in the backyard here. Like they're taller. And what? I don't know.
01:04:10
Speaker
You're going to do their thing. Anyway, what else are you playing, Casey, if anything? ah Yeah, playing not too much else than at least I can talk about. ah But I did ah for reasons rewatch an old classic, The Last Dragon.
01:04:26
Speaker
um I'd mentioned this to Marty and Marty was like, what the hell are you talking about? I've never heard this movie. And that kind of shocked me because this is like a childhood classic of mine. Like there are there are so many quotables from this movie that are just second nature to me. Like things will happen and like my mind will finish the sentence with just shit from the last dragon and didn't realize how much of that happens.
01:04:52
Speaker
until like I was like rewatching it recently. But essentially, it's a story of um this ah young ah black kid from ah Harlem, who has basically spent his whole life idolizing like, you know, ah martial arts movies, and then I go in and training with an actual martial arts master, and it's searching for like that final level of of ah his his training, right? So his master sends him back home and says, like, hey, I have nothing left to teach you you. For your final level, you have to go out, go back out into the world and learn. And so he basically goes back home. He's like hanging out in the hood, and he finds out that his neighborhood has been taken over by this ah this jerk ah martial arts dude named Shownuff.
01:05:30
Speaker
the Shogun of Harlem. And he's just like destroying restaurants, like bullying people. And like, because he's a passive, he's passive, he doesn't want to fight him at first, but he gets into this real crazy situation. Like it's a black exploitation film. It's really over the top in terms of like its plot line. But it is so funny. And it has like, it has 80s slash 70s style kung fu when it like if you watched like a Bruce Lee movie, it very much copies that style of martial arts in it.
01:05:59
Speaker
And it's good. like The martial arts, the fight scenes are all very good. The but situations are silly, but everything is done like very earnestly. like it's It's got great music, a great cast. Everyone seems like they're having a lot of fun with their characters and their roles and stuff.
01:06:15
Speaker
If you've not seen it before, I would highly encourage it. It's still like a really fun watch ah today. um Your recommendation had me add it to my queue, and then I looked up to the director, Michael Schultz, from Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Really? Right top but to the top. there go I think it was it was like produced by like Barry Gordy. Yeah, it's it's got some weird names associated.
01:06:40
Speaker
But yes, very excited to watch this. Yeah, it's fun time. I had a lot of fun. It's called The Last Dragon. The Last Dragon. Yes. Dragon. The Last Dragon, these nuts. Well, that was the episode today. Nick didn't play anything other than going to bed. Casey, anything else? ah No, that was that was it. I don't have. No, I don't have anything else. so Oh, you know what? I didn't watch this, but I did. um I did ah learn that that most recent Ninja Turtles animated movie series, Mutant Mayhem, right? and That's what it was called? Yeah, Seth Rogen producer director. Yes, yes, yes, yes. yeah That has an animated series that has come out for it, which I think is on Paramount. Yeah, I had no idea, but I saw a clip of it recently. It looks cool as shit. Like, I need to get access to this. Like, it looks really, really good. The movie was really good.
01:07:38
Speaker
Paramount, right? Yeah, it's on Paramount. Yeah. Yeah. Paramount still exists. Paramount Plus. Is it getting merged into? Well, we'll see very soon. Watch this while you can, because who knows what's going to happen in a couple more weeks. I need to get on it. This is sort of bouncing a little bit off animation. Did you ever watch Chainsaw, man?
01:08:01
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, so I watched it for the rest of them. and I just finished it. ah It's really cool. And now I'm reading the manga like a fucking weeb. It got you so invested that you went to the manga.
01:08:14
Speaker
Because I'm like, this is going to take fucking forever for them to like, they're going to put one season out every three years. And I'm like, I just got to see where the story is going. and Like, what's going on with this gun devil? I don't even know what's going on with the gun devil. Yeah. But it's really that I don't trust and I want to make sure I don't trust them for the right reasons. So that's why. Yeah.
01:08:32
Speaker
No, it's a good time. Like this is one of those because a lot of more recent um anime is like getting really, really popular, but are being kind of shitted on in terms of like their politics and like, oh, this is just cookie cutter or whatever. And that's true for the most part. But the animation quality has been like up through the roof. Like this is one of the most beautiful um anime series that have come out in the last couple of years.
01:08:55
Speaker
So like for that alone, watch it. But like I do feel it's it's a little light on like a really compelling story. Like it's fun, but It is, I went through like a little a little ah journey on the the main character is just such a fucking dipshit. And I'm like, this guy is like, if I knew this guy in real life, he would be so unlikable. But the fact that his like core, he's got two motivations and it's, I want to eat bread with jam and I want to touch a boob.
01:09:26
Speaker
And those are his only motivations in life. He's a simple man, yes. He's a simple man and there's something about those like incredibly simple stakes of this is all I want is I want to touch a boot before I die and I want to eat bread with jam. And I just appreciate that. That's how shitty his life has been to this point. That these are his goals in life. His goals.
01:09:49
Speaker
And it's yeah, it's a lesson for all of us to just ah don't reach for the stars and reach for the the bedside table near you. just you'll probably have it ah But yeah, its in pretty cool. ah Nick, what about you?
01:10:05
Speaker
but much yeah i haven't had a whole lot of time and just ah was traveling and yeah I'm be a snob for one second here because I've been trying to play Rainbow Six Siege and I did not bring any of my monitors with me, which are 120 Hertz.
01:10:20
Speaker
And I'm currently using a 60 hertz monitor and it's just not good enough. It's just not good enough guys. I can't like it's upsettingly like so often and what is the issue? please Like please try and break this down for a pleb and like me who actively plays on 60 frames per second and pretty much everything I do when you when you go to and it's just for first person games when you go to like 120 hertz you just can't go back because like the input delay is so much lower.
01:10:47
Speaker
So when you're playing a twitch shooter like siege, 60 frames per second feels like I'm delayed all the time. So you act so you actively feel like when you press the this well, you're playing on a mouse and keyboard. Uh huh. Maybe that's what the difference is because because with because with a controller, I think there's always an inherent amount of delay, right? Is it always an inherent amount of delay? Yeah. Maybe just play with the controller. Maybe that'll solve your problem. No.
Keeping Up with Siege and New Game Discoveries
01:11:14
Speaker
ah I'm upset. A new season started on siege. I can't keep up because my heart is too low. Just hold the corners. let Stop. Stop. Stop swinging the rooms. Oh, I got to be sweaty. That's why the AC is turned down so low in here. No, but the game I have been playing and enjoying quite a lot, especially with the stuff in my life right now is a caravan sandwich, which is a very lovely strand like game is how I best describe it.
01:11:44
Speaker
That's not a real genre. Yes, it is. What are you talking about? It's absolutely a real genre. The most real genre there's ever been. Uh, but it's, it's got a beautiful, beautiful art style. Like, I just want to explore every nook and cranny of the world. And basically the, the premise of it is, uh, you get a distress, you're on but up on a spaceship and you get a distress signal from, I believe your mother and you are basically, you're going down to go find her. And apparently everybody else thinks she's dead. You don't. And so a lot of the gameplay, which, uh, three faces, there isn't a lot of gameplay in it. It's very like.
01:12:19
Speaker
Travel around, pick things up, ah talk to people, read notes. Maybe maybe like in point me. ah Yeah, just not. Yeah. Don't don't go in like expecting like full environmental puzzles like you had in the stranding kind of thing where you're like really had to figure out how to get around. This is more like this has a lot of gameplay than death stranding. You're saying he has a lot of gameplay, Casey. Do it. Yeah, I didn't say it had no I'm just I'm just trying.
01:12:48
Speaker
to differentiate. Also, I wanted to slide in when you said your mother and I wanted to slide in and say your mama because mama is the name of a character in not like your mama, but your mama, mama, mama is the name of a
01:13:08
Speaker
what's fine This is all connected. This is all connected in the last dragon. There's a hilarious scene and where the main character is fighting some goon and he kicks the knife in his hand out of his hand. And the guy responds by saying your mother.
01:13:23
Speaker
See, the strange genre lives. Hideo Kojima created the strange genre that exists throughout this podcast. Gearman Sandwich, I've had it downloaded on my
Game Backlogs and Reviewing Inatria
01:13:34
Speaker
Steam. does do you can Can I Steam Deck it, you think? Yeah, yeah. na They verified it on there. ah brother Yeah, it's like just a great, just a great vibes game so far with a really beautiful soundtrack that i ah just very relaxing game. Yeah. It was putting me to sleep less and I was so relaxed playing it.
01:13:52
Speaker
Yeah, looks it looks great. I'm very much excited for it. A lot of games coming out now. ah yeah like i mean yeah my My backlog is just... just Crank it up. Yeah, the amount of review copies we have right now, it's just insane. We can't even keep up the games. The game I want to jump into next is Inatria, the last song, because we played that during Steam Next Fest. It's that Souls like that set in Spain. And it was surprisingly good. Like it was kind of like on I wouldn't say it was like quite up to the level of Liza P, but it's close.
01:14:28
Speaker
Yeah. From what I played from it, like, especially the map design, the map design had, the map design was actually better than Liza P because Liza P doesn't really have much of that looping map design that you really like in souls likes. Um, but this one does Liza Paella.
01:14:43
Speaker
by as a Spanish dish. Would you from what you've played, would you say a notria is following more classic souls or is it branching off to like one of the more parry heavy or what they call it? It's all of
Podcast Length Debate
01:14:57
Speaker
it. OK. Yeah, it's like a rally system sort of thing like the counter countering weaponry, that sort of stuff. Mm hmm. Yeah, it's got a pair. It's got a big, big parry system in it.
01:15:10
Speaker
Still the iframes and all that stuff too, though. So very much very much worth checking out, I believe. Not a lot of games, though. And then, of course, a lot of games. I think I don't remember if I said on podcast last week, but I did finish Facebook, too. Yeah, I did talk about that last week. I don't know what happened last week. That was a long time ago.
01:15:29
Speaker
i was in i want to jump I was in a whole different house at that time. there we Yeah. Yeah. I'm, uh, yeah, I have, I have space for me downloaded. I want to, I want to just jump in and like crank through that some weekend. We've got a bunch of other games playing instead, some, some a little, little monster boy. Um,
01:15:47
Speaker
Is that it? Did we do good? Did we actually like make this a nice succinct podcast?
Recommendations and Movie Talk: Rebel Ridge
01:15:52
Speaker
We might have. The length of podcast should be. What do you mean? your The rewind was like two and a half hours yesterday. That's too long. it's now to do it about every two weeks That was the first one in four weeks. you know that was yeah You're with Darren. That's lucky you're not going four hours. That's true. I feel like Darren feels bad. And now when I ask what have you been watching, he pairs it down to like three or four things. Oh, yeah. And he's not like here's literally everything I've been watching. Go go look at my Twitter. You can see everything I've watched for every minute of my life. um You should look at Darren's Twitter if you're really good. Yeah.
01:16:27
Speaker
Darren has a great Twitter. He's really great. Also go watch the most recent backdrop that Darren and Omar put together on the life of James Earl Jones. Oh yeah, absolutely. Yeah. It's truly a voice of a generation, like a voice of a pop culture, several generations um well that goes way beyond just like Mufasa and Darth Vader. So yeah, really cool shit. Everyone took that week. I did mensel mention Rebel Ridge. I did watch that. It was pretty good.
01:16:55
Speaker
Yeah. Oh yeah. That came to Netflix. No, yeah. I i saw the trailer and was like, yup. Put it on the queue, but I've not gotten to it yet. Good shit. Really enjoyable. Yeah. We talked about it at length on the rewind, but yeah, highly recommend anyone with Netflix. Check that out. um it's ah It just feels like an all quadrants movie, like a revenge movie about someone who is incredibly wronged by corrupt police officers and what he does to try to settle that score and and um bring some peace to the town that they are lording over, which is great, great action, great dad character moments.
01:17:32
Speaker
ah couple i don't even want to go in like we described this one the moment i fell in love with the movie we talked about it on rewind i don't even want to spoil it for people but um it's it's just really fucking good so rebel where rebel ridge on netflix so miley It's a, I don't want to say, I don't want to say defied expectations. It is.
01:17:53
Speaker
altered my expectations of what I thought I was going to be. I guess. Yeah. It's sub subverted. You're subverted. Yes. I'm looking forward to it. I don't know what's going on. Yeah, it is definitely because it is very much like cut from the cloth of like a first blood Rambo kind of thing, but it is sure ultimately relatively bloodless ah in an interesting way. But yeah, good movie.
Celebrating Lost and TV Show Comparisons
01:18:18
Speaker
I either recommend it. Uh, and then King dead with a $5 don't know. Thank you so much. King dead. Darren adds at least 30 minutes to a podcast and that is not enough. It seems like it's from Darren into streaming, uh, the lost video game with me next week, because it is the 20th anniversary of the lost premiere next week. You're going to trickle me. How are you guys going to, how are you guys going to celebrate? I'm going to say we have an all hands meeting and they'd be like, if you're going to celebrate the loss correctly, you have to play just cause two.
01:18:48
Speaker
What? What does Just Cause 2 have to do with Lost? Is it just because both things have islands in them? No. You can fly to the Lost Island in Just Cause 2 as an easter egg. Incredible. I didn't actually know that. you you literally just If you fly a plane towards this island, you it literally strikes you down and you crash on the island. Yeah, that's pretty funny. That's the electromagnetism that's at the center of the island, that the Dharma Initiative swan hatch is obviously there to quell that every 108 minutes.
01:19:16
Speaker
Desmond Hume, obviously, ah you know, after he crashed on the island, trying to do his solo race around the world to impress his, ah love of his life, Penny Widmore, obviously her father Charles Widmore, did not approve of Desmond being sort of a low born Scott. So he wanted to kind of win her honor by getting on his solo race around the world, crashed on the lost island, ah was tricked into becoming a member of the Darna Initiative until flight 815 finally crashed, obviously trying to ah but bestow that onto John Locke and Mr. Echo, especially, who had crisis of faith at the end of season two, which led to the implosion of the hatch, which obviously brought some of those electromagnetic powers to Desmond, who was able to um sort of mentally go back in time at certain moments, which gave us the constant, which several people have said is the greatest episode of television of all time. Casey, where can folks find you? What should folks check out? ah What?
01:20:11
Speaker
this tv show but Let me say, greatest TV show of all time. Far and away. Far and away. The Wire. Get the fuck out of here. The Sopranos. but Like, just out of spite, I don't want to watch Lost now. Yeah. So good. It is so good. Maybe I'll do a rewatch before next week. I don't think there's enough hours to do it. Before next week? Just call me. There's plenty of time. You have a game to play before next week. You ain't doing nothing. I'm 15 hours into it. Are we ready? Yes. What's wrong with you? I have not been sleeping. I have not been sleeping. You got it. Yesterday. I'm thinking about Lost.
01:20:48
Speaker
lost what we got going on ah Yeah, you guys can find me online at Sigma Gears 9. Check out some of the recent little discussions that I've been on. Topical Punch is what we're calling the series. ah we Me, Nick, Jay, and Jesse all talked about Deadlock ah earlier in the week or earlier last week. I don't remember. Time is a ah flat circle and I can't comprehend it any longer.
Podcast Promotions and Upcoming Content
01:21:13
Speaker
um So just search the channel, see where I pop up.
01:21:16
Speaker
um I should have a review on the way for Elsie soonish oh um as well as some other bits and bobs here and there. ah Me and the fiance will be back on Friday ah for more Undertale. Marty and I should be back to try to finish Devil May Cry 5. I'm not doing something in a month. I'm not going to have any memory of that. Yeah, i we've not touched that game in quite a while. We'll be fine. So that might be rough. but ah If we play as Dante, everything will be easy anyway, so it'll be fine. That's fine, yeah. Outside of that, yeah, just follow the channel. Make sure you're following the Shorts channel as well over on ah Second Wind Shorts. Is that what that's named? Mm-hmm. Yeah, so yeah. Search that. Follow that. Subscribe to that. Check out the stuff that's over there. Those are clips. But also look at the originals. Just had a new one dropped yesterday, I think, ah looking at Duck Paradox, which is a game I did on hidden gems. And I still think about to this day because it was very fun.
01:22:14
Speaker
That's all I got. yeah yeah i be I believe some of us will be playing Helldivers 2, either tomorrow or Friday, most likely Friday.
01:22:25
Speaker
Uh, they just put out a big balance patch that made everybody very happy. And apparently they beat their previous peak player count, uh, because they stopped trying. Yeah, they, they, they've been interesting patches on that game. They keep trying to balance it and everybody's like, no, let us have fun. And the 12 words are funny. Like, yes, we'll let you have fun here. Everything's overpowered now. Go enjoy. Yes, that's what we wanted. Uh, and then next week I will have a new unpacked video up, um, the state of indie publishing that I'm pretty proud of that I finished today. I think it was a pretty good script.
01:22:56
Speaker
And a long one. People ask me for a longer video. So you get a longer video from me. Yeah. Now it's going to work up on its own voice. So and people in this square don't yell at me. Just just do like a funny voice the whole time. just Do an impression of the industry. That'd be of funny. That'd be pretty funny. Do you like your poly shore?
01:23:19
Speaker
um hello Yeah, we got a bunch of great stuff. I mentioned the backdrop earlier. Check out Darren's in Omar's most recent episode. ah Check out the most recent episode of the archive that went out on Monday. Java did an incredible job of bringing life to my script about Parasite Eve, ah which I argue that that was sort of the pinnacle of Squaresoft's creative apex.
01:23:42
Speaker
in the nineties. And then speaking of Javed, uh, check out his incredible trailer for, uh, Metal Gear Untold. speak of video and oh my god ah can't wait for that That video is going to be a beefster. You think any of our videos are beefsters? That's going to be a true beefster, uh, all about the Metal Gear series and, and Hideo Kojima's life and and how it all ties in together. Um, so, so, so excited for that. Can you say it was like 45 to 50 minutes?
01:24:05
Speaker
It's going to be lot itspe though far and away the longest script I've edited. yeah like i I didn't even look at that script. I was afraid to look at it for how it's going to have to deal with that. but And it's one of those, like as soon as I started reading, I could not put it down. ah So check out the trailer for that. um And that that will be in the near future, including and then more more original videos. If you liked some some series that we launched ah recently, maybe a second episode of that will be coming soon to you. So stay tuned for next week. um Yeah, like I mentioned, Casey and I will be back tomorrow night with Del McCry. Jack and I will actually be finishing up ah one way or another our Elden Ring journey tomorrow at noon central. ah Jack will either beat the consort Redan or we will just never play the game again.
01:24:49
Speaker
so That being said, it did get patched and he's easier now. And I'm not going to make fun of Jack, though, because I had to call in a player who was just like literally the greatest at video games ever to help fix me. So thank you. Thank you. I'm sure you do. We'll also get our our PEX West videos next week, I believe. Maybe even this week. We'll see. Oh, interesting. lot of stuff yeah Omar Omar Omar got the first one in the day and it's good. ah It's got a goof in it that literally made me almost cry laughing. It's just so dumb.
01:25:20
Speaker
yeah All sorts of all sorts of great stuff and a bunch of bite size in the works and everything. So very, very excited for all of that, for all y'all to check that all out. So for for Nick, for Casey and for Eric, of course, thank you all so much for hanging out and watching this episode of Firelink, episode number 37. Everyone have a wonderful rest of your Wednesdays and we'll see you all tomorrow. Hi, recent weeks of Firelink already. Bye.